“You’re talking to the king of two left feet, remember?”
“I suppose you must’ve gotten more nimble.” Her smile was faint, but there was a searching concern in her pretty green eyes.
“I suppose.”
Yeah, he’d done some dancing in Iraq. Considering it seemed the entire country was mined, any soldier who wasn’t quick on his feet risked losing them.
He thrust off those thoughts. He only had the length of one song to build up a lifetime of memories with the woman he’d never been able to forget. And what he’d feel in those moments seemed worth any lingering regrets later.
He drew her close, resting one hand on her hip, the other twining with hers at their sides. They began to sway, and he found it easier than he’d figured. Maybe because he wasn’t concentrating on his feet or even on the music. Only on how it felt to finally be pressed against her soft body, remembering the first time he’d made love to her, in his crappy old apartment. They’d been insatiable, locked together, naked, hot and hungry...for hours. He’d buried himself inside her body, sure he’d never felt anything as good as being wrapped tightly in all that heat. He’d lost himself in her, and hadn’t ever wanted to find his way back out.
Now, looking down into those eyes, into that sweet, heart-shaped face, he lost himself again in those moments, as if the past four ugly years hadn’t even happened.
“I’m glad to see you, Ellie,” he murmured, meaning it. He couldn’t regret finding her, even if it meant coming face-to-face with the reality that he’d never be with her, that she really had moved on and fallen in love with another man. That she would wear someone else’s ring and have someone else’s babies.
Rings and babies hadn’t been on his mind when he’d left Chicago four years ago. War had. Fighting and adventure and adrenaline and patriotism. Living up to some standard of manhood that Hollywood and boasting friends said every guy should.
Tonight...holding her in his arms, knowing she’d never be there again—he didn’t think he would ever stop wondering if he’d made the wrong decision.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” she finally replied, her voice soft, hesitating, as if she was unsure what to say. Maybe she figured admitting she was glad to see him, too, would have been disloyal to her fiancé.
Her fiancé. His stomach churned at the word and every muscle in his body tensed.
He was envious of a man he’d never met, and would never meet. Envious of the years that man would have with Ellie, of the future they’d build. Jealous as hell of the nights they’d sleep side by side and the mornings they’d wake up bathed in sunlight as they listened for the little footsteps of their children.
Around them, the voices of the crowd began to swell. The announcer was saying something, the band had segued from smooth jazz into a raucous celebration. He faintly heard someone calling off the numbers, counting down from ten. The revelers were ticking off another year, consigning to the past everything that had come before this particular minute in time.
He and Ellie stopped dancing, remaining very still in the middle of the floor, staring at each other. He saw so much in those aquamarine eyes—from love to anger to fear to longing—that part of him wished he’d left her alone, just walked away when she’d told him there was someone else.
“Happy New Year!”
Voices rang out, happy shouts, and the band began to play “Auld Lang Syne.” All around them, couples stopped to kiss in the New Year, expressing hope for a wonderful, happy future.
This was the end of all he and Ellie had ever been and all they would ever be. He’d never see her again after tonight.
He had to say goodbye forever.
So without asking, without warning, he bent and brushed his lips across hers in a kiss as tender as it was fleeting. Then, his face close to hers, he whispered, “Happy New Year, Ellie. I wish you nothing but happiness.”
Watching her through eyes that might have held the tiniest hint of moisture—though he’d deny it with his dying breath—he began to back away, melting into the throng. She watched him go, step by step, not lifting a hand to stop him, even though her tears said a part of her wanted to.
But it was too late. Far too late. You couldn’t go back to the past. Couldn’t recapture something that you’d intentionally let slip away.
All that was left for both of them to do was move on.
Without each other.
2
Present Day
“ARE YOU TELLING ME there is not one single flight leaving from this city today?”
Ellie Blake stared at the clerk behind the airline counter, who appeared as exhausted and frazzled as the streams of irritated travelers swarming around her. People yelled from farther back in the line, angry travelers vented their frustrations on their cell phones, babies cried in strollers and fights seemed ready to break out at other stations.
Acknowledging this wasn’t the woman’s fault, Ellie tempered her disappointment and added, “I’m sorry, I realize you don’t control the weather. But isn’t it possible some airline is still getting out of here? Send me south, send me anywhere. I’ll fly to Florida and change planes to get to Chicago by tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Christmas Eve.
She had to be home. Damn it, she just had to. She couldn’t bear to miss the baby’s first Christmas.
Plus Denny would be all smug because he’d warned her she shouldn’t risk traveling so close to the holiday.
“I’m terribly sorry, ma’am. Every person here feels exactly the same way,” the woman said. “But the winds are just too severe, and with blizzard conditions expected later tonight, all the airlines are canceling flights.”
Why on earth did this have to happen now? Why did a major winter storm have to hit New York City the very day she was supposed to fly home to Chicago?
She should never have come here for the conference on new surgical trends for canines. She shouldn’t have risked traveling right before the holidays with, not only Denny and Jessie, but also her sister, her parents and her friends also waiting for her back home. She’d never missed a Christmas in Chicago, not even when she’d left the country to volunteer at a wild animal preserve in Africa two years ago. She’d been gone almost an entire year, yet she’d still managed to be there with her family, drinking eggnog at midnight on Christmas Eve and waking up the next morning to an orgy of presents and goodwill.
“I wonder if I could catch a train?” she mused, speaking more to herself than to the airline clerk.
“The lines are already shut down. The tracks are freezing up; it’s much too dangerous.”
Ellie swiped a frustrated hand through her hair, knocking loose the ponytail that had begun to give her a headache. Actually, the whole afternoon had given her a headache. She’d arrived at the airport early this morning, having watched the weather reports and gotten the warnings that travel would be difficult today. Only to be told her flight
