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“My point is that Duke Trenton is a good man.”
“So is Han…Henry.”
“He’s a man who knows you and what you like and dislike, what your childhood dreams were, and what you adored. That man wanted to marry you.”
“You’re wrong.” Gooey emotions stuck to her insides, but she’d take a Clorox wipe to her heart if necessary to escape false hope.
“Am I? Ask him about this.” Aunt Laura pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to Scarlet.
She opened the note and read one line. “Meet me at our tree at midnight.” Scarlet blinked at her, trying to decipher the one sentence as if it were a secret code. “Yeah, and we used to leave notes like that all the time.”
“This one he brought on Christmas Eve ten years ago.” Aunt Laura gripped her shoulders. “I didn’t see him leave it, but I saw him retrieve it from under the pot on the front porch and throw it away in our outside garbage. When I saw a broken man leave, curiosity won, and I retrieved what he’d tossed in there.”
Scarlet shook her head. A tingle danced up the nape of her neck. “It means nothing. He was supposed to be over at eight and never showed.”
“You and I both know it means everything.”
“Why? What do you know?”
“I know he asked you to meet him that night for an important reason.”
“What reason?”
“That’s not for me to tell you.” Aunt Laura curled Scarlet’s fingers around the note. “Ask him. If you dare to face the truth. The truth you’ve always run from. A truth that he knew, and that’s why he let you go even though he loved you.”
Scarlet shoved the note in her pocket and turned to face the window in the café, to look out at the mountains where she always found peace in a storm. “More manipulations.”
“Believe what you want. I won’t force you to stay. He’s not going to abandon you, Scarlet. You deserve real happiness no matter what your mother’s parting words were. She was a sick and selfish lady, and you deserve better.”
Conviction hugged Scarlet’s resentment away and she reached behind her; Aunt Laura took her hand soothing her emotions. “I got better.”
The old diesel truck backfired its announcement of Duke coming down Main Street, shattering the early morning quiet with a pulse-jumping bang.
“Ask him. If you dare. But you better be ready to hear the truth because that boy deserves a happily ever after, too. And between the both of us, he doesn’t believe in miracles. And you, hon, are his only desired miracle.”
ChapterFive
Christmas.
It had been a long time since he had any warm feelings toward that holiday. He patted the old, worn book on the passenger seat.
Last night, he tried to explain his feelings, but conversation had never been the strongest tool in his relationship belt. Not that Scarlet and he had ever been in a relationship.
Fat snowflakes stuck to the trees and dotted his windshield just like the night he’d come to tell her he’d chosen to take the scholarship at University of Georgia instead of Stanford so they could be together. The night he’d planned on telling her how much he loved her.
He twisted his hands around the steering wheel and eyed his wrists. The ones that had handcuffs slapped around them before he could knock on her door.
Puffs of air escaped his tight lungs. He smacked the dashboard hoping to jostle the heat into working or pound out his frustration. Either way, it felt good to let out some nervous energy.
Duke pulled around back and parked his truck. The produce could freeze out here, but he found himself caring less about his business plan and a little more about the woman who promised to help him.
Was Laura right? Could he believe in Christmas miracles?
No. But he could believe in telling the truth. If he even had a shot at saving her from a horrible marriage, even if she didn’t want him, he’d embarrass himself to take that chance.
All night, he’d tossed and turned thinking about the way Scarlet’s hair framed her angelic face. Her perfect curves and perfect lips and perfect heart. And he knew one thing—she deserved more than a text proposal.
He grabbed the folder with his business plan, his laptop, and the small, worn copy of their favorite book he’d kept all these years. The one that had remained on his nightstand ever since he watched her board that bus out of town.
