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Roni’s lips twisted into a frown as tears burned the back of her eyes. “Yes. Him. I’d rather focus on my dying business than on that man.”
Melanie grinned and waved her finger in a circle in front of her. “Fine. Abracadabra, Jimmy no longer exists.”
Roni loved her friend. “Thank you!”
CHAPTER6
Jimmy walked the Riverwalk all afternoon, trying to regroup, to think about where he went wrong with Roni, and how he was going to fix it. But the weight of fixing his career before he lost everything weighed heavily on him. Could he fix one without sacrificing the other?
He snapped pictures of the Riverwalk’s decorations, the people, the Santa booth. He was trying to find his passion, find something that spoke to him and tugged on his creativity. Soon, he found himself down by the river in the park, taking pictures of the snow on the banks, the barren trees, the swirls of blues and grays of the sky.
He loved the peacefulness of the water rushing over the rocks, the look of the evergreen branches weighed down by fresh falling snow, the squirrel searching for food. But his shots, though they were terrific, didn’t say Christmas. They were landscapes. More of what he loved. More of what he wanted to paint, but to keep his job, he needed to become more commercial.
At least for now.
A few Christmas paintings would open up his options. He could do this, he told himself. He just had to refocus his perspective and have faith in his abilities and his future. If Gerald wanted Christmas, he would get Christmas, and Jimmy knew just the place to find it.
He drove downtown and parked the truck in the park across the street from Roni’s coffee shop. His chest tightened as he looked at her place. She was right. For a solid year, he led her to believe he was coming back. For good.
When he hadn’t even been sure himself.
He liked the idea of coming home. Of being with her again. Ever since that first call last Christmas, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. He still wasn’t sure why he’d reached out and called her out of the blue last year. It was an impulse he’d ignored in the past, but last Christmas, he couldn’t stop thinking of her.
She’d been so happy to hear from him, so warm and genuine, and so much like the girl he once loved that he called her again and again. And when she asked him if he’d be coming back, he said yes.
Even though he wasn’t sure.
All he did know was that he wanted to see her again.
Once upon a time, she’d been the love of his life, and he’d wanted to marry her. After high school, she was supposed to join him in Denver where they both would attend college. She wanted to work for the State Department and travel the world, and he wanted to paint the world—the River Thames, the Sistine Chapel, Notre Dame.
They had their perfect futures planned, but then her grandmother died, and her mom needed help with the coffee shop and taking care of her younger sister, Jenni. She stayed behind to help, promising to follow him to Denver the next semester. She never came.
He returned during Christmas break to surprise her and tell her he would drop out of school and come back. He’d missed her too much. With an engagement ring in his pocket, he stood in this very park and watched her through the window of her mother’s coffee shop run into the arms of another man.
She’d already moved on.
Heartbroken, he left without letting her know he was there, went back to school and Denver, and never looked back. Never let her, or their dreams of the future they’d planned, enter his mind again.
Until last night.
Standing in her coffee shop, hearing the Christmas music, seeing the decorations in the park, it all came rushing back so fast it made his head spin.
She made his head spin.
He still loved her. Loved her laugh. Her smile. Her enthusiasm. Her absolute joy for life. He’d never found anyone else like her. Somehow, he had to let her know what she meant to him and how sorry he was that he hadn’t been honest with her about when he was coming home and for how long he would be staying.
Because right now, he still just didn’t know.
He walked toward her coffee shop and got halfway across the street when he saw her through the window, talking to her cat.
He paused.
Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe he should do as she asked and leave well enough alone. Leave her alone. His plans were still so up in the air. Would it be fair to either of them to start something back up only to leave again? He was about to turn around and head back to his truck when someone calling his name stopped him.
“Jimmy!”
He turned and saw Owen hurrying up the street toward him. “I thought that was you,” his old friend said. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”
