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I’m in Henderson? I didn’t even know where Henderson was.
Interesting. I needed to go get my stuff from the hotel and get to the airport for my 6 a.m. flight back to Denver. And time was getting tighter. I crept over to her side of the bed.
Dixie? That seemed better than Pixie but still wasn’t right.
She had a sleep mask over her eyes that had big eyelashes embroidered on it. God, she was…silly. And that wasn’t a word I even liked using. But it fit her so well and not in a bad way. She was effervescent. I remembered that. Even without remembering her name. The kind of woman you couldn’t look away from.
I didn’t want to wake her because she had to be feeling rough, too, and I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t remember her name. And…I looked down at my phone. My Uber was almost here and I didn’t have time for a big goodbye scene.
I could cancel my flight. Take off these wet pants and crawl back into bed with her, wake her up slowly, and relive the night I’d forgotten.
I had my belt undone before my better sense kicked in.
My town was in trouble and I’d secured the solution to the problems. I needed to go home and get to work. But still I didn’t do my belt back up.
She doesn’t want her one-night stand lingering around. We’d had fun. It was over. And I had a flight to catch.
I did my belt up but I didn’t feel good about it.
Asshole, I heard my sister’s voice in my head. And as usual she wasn’t wrong.
I pulled the cream duvet up higher on her shoulder and pushed a blond curl off her forehead. God, she was beautiful. Something in the chest pocket of my shirt poked me and I fished out a red plastic ring. The kind that was left after you ate the candy diamond on top of it.
No memory of candy remained in the desert of my hungover brain. I tucked that back in my pocket too.
On the makeup table I found a pen and a pad of paper—pink, of course. I pulled off a piece of paper and wrote her a note.
Hey, I’m doing the extremely rude and ungentlemanly thing and sneaking out without waking you up but I have an early morning flight home and you’re sleeping so peacefully. I had a great time with you—thank you for showing me your side of Vegas. If you’re ever in my neck of the wood—call me. I’d love to return the favor.
I tried to imagine her in my life. In Salt Springs with its work boots and thick winter sweaters. Its soft suburban comforts and down-home sensibility. Salt Springs was the Hallmark Channel and this girl was HBO.
Call me, I wrote at the bottom of the note and scrawled my number.
I wonder if she’ll remember my name?
I opened the door to the bedroom and walked down a hallway to a living room with blue velvet couches and a glass-and-gold coffee table. There was a fake silver Christmas tree hung with red and green ornaments. Sitting in front of the sliding glass door that lead out to a balcony with views of the desert was a gigantic turquoise dog bed. A dog bed for a Great Dane or two.
From deep in its cushion popped a fluffy white head and a bright pink ribbon. And teeth. Lots of teeth. My arm tingled in recognition.
The little dog growled at me, the pink ribbon trembling.
“Hey,” I said to the dog in a voice that worked on small children and obstructive city council members. “No reason to get upset. We can work this out.”
The dog did not think so. It got up on tiny legs and produced a growl much bigger than its body.
“All right,” I said. I set the paper down on the coffee table, the dog eyeing my every movement. “Don’t get excited. I’m leaving.”
I stepped out the door just as my car pulled up to the curb outside. We were in the middle of a neighborhood filled with stucco bungalows. And I looked back over my shoulder at the house and thought about the woman inside.
I was not a one-night-stand kind of guy. I’d dated my high school sweetheart into college and my college sweetheart into law school. And I wished I could remember more about last night because I had the feeling it might have been the best night of my life.
The driver honked once and I turned away from the house and headed for the Uber and my real life.
2
This Christmas
“Dad!” I shouted, looking down at my phone as I stepped into the Kringle Inn. It was the day after Thanksgiving and this was the day that Christmas arrived at the inn. Exploded, actually. Dad and staff usually worked deep into the night to make this day as magical as possible.
