tool to use to, uh, remove something. And she obviously thought it would be fun to bring you into my fantasies.” She gasped, staring him in the eye. “I mean, I wasn’t…it’s not that I was fantasizing about you!”
“Aww, I’m crushed.”
“If you knew the fantasy, you wouldn’t be,” she said, her tone droll.
“So why don’t you tell me?” he asked, only half-teasing. What did a beautiful young woman fantasize about? More importantly, who?
“Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
“Oh, trust me on this, I definitely do.”
She studied him for a moment, eyeing him intently as if to see if he was serious. Then, apparently realizing he was, she came right out and told him.
3
Now
Chicago, December 23, 2011
JUST BECAUSE ROSS MARSHALL hadn’t seen Lucy Fleming for six years did not mean he didn’t instantly recognize her. It did, however, mean his heart literally thudded in his chest and his brain seemed to flatline. The huge, open reception area of his office—decorated with lights and greenery—seemed to darken. It also appeared to shrink, squeezing in tight, crushing his ribs, making his head throb, sending him off-kilter. He couldn’t form a single coherent thought.
Well, maybe one. You cut your hair? He had the presence of mind to notice that the long, riotous curls that had once fallen well down her back had been tamed and shortened. Then everything just went blank.
She couldn’t be here, right? Could not possibly be here. This had to be a dream—he was still sleeping and she was visiting his nighttime fantasies, as she so often had over the years.
He couldn’t resist, needing to grab the moment before he woke up. He lifted a hand, put it on her shoulder, felt the solid, real person beneath the elf costume. She didn’t immediately pull away, and he leaned a little bit closer, breathing deeply, recognizing the scent that was uniquely Lucy. Not a perfume or a lotion or her shampoo. Just something distinctive and evocative that called to his memories, reminding him that she had been the one.
And he’d let her get away.
“You’re not dreaming,” she told him, her tone dry.
He dropped his hand and stepped back, needing to get his head back in the game. “Guess that means you’re not, either.”
“That thought did cross my mind,” she said, her big brown eyes inquisitive. “I certainly never expected to run into you, today of all days.”
He knew the day. Knew it well. Which just made the meeting all the more surreal. “Same here,” he mumbled.
They both fell silent. Lucy appeared as stunned as he was.
Well, why wouldn’t she be? They hadn’t laid eyes on each other in years. Despite what had happened between them, what they’d shared over that one amazing holiday season, not one word had been exchanged between them since mid-January, nearly six years ago. Not a card, not a phone call. No chance of bumping into each other since, the last he’d known, she had been bound for Europe.
But here she was. Not just in Chicago, but in his office.
His freaking office!
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his brain not catching up yet. It should be obvious. Lucy had been studying photography when they’d met. Besides which, she was carrying a camera bag. And was dressed as an elf.
A smile tried to tug at his lips. He remembered that elf costume. Remembered it so well.
Suddenly he was remembering everything so well.
Some things too well.
“I’m working,” she said, her head going up, that pretty mouth tightening. “Did you happen to notice the picture-with-Santa session that’s been going on for the past couple of hours?”
He’d barely noticed anything that was going on, being too busy working to socialize. The employee Christmas party had been a long-standing tradition with Elite Construction, the company his grandfather had founded, and he now ran. That didn’t mean the boss ever had much time to participate in it. He’d made the rounds, thanked his employees, greeted their kids and wives, then retreated back into his office for the last two hours, only coming out to say goodbye now that things were winding down.
“I noticed,” he finally replied.
“Well, that was me behind the camera.”
“I know that, I heard you did a great job and was coming over to meet you,” he said, still knocked off-kilter by her mere presence.
“Sorry, Santa’s gone. No more pictures. Though, if you want to sit on the chair, I guess I could snap a shot of you holding a candy cane and a teddy bear.”
Still sassy. God, he’d always liked that about her.
“I meant, I was coming to thank you for agreeing to do the party on such short notice.”
“You didn’t know I was the elf until just now?” she asked, sounding slightly suspicious. As if wondering if he’d set up this little reunion.
Huh. If he’d known she was nearby, he might have considered doing just that—even though Lucy probably wouldn’t have been thrilled about it, judging by the look on her face.
“I swear, I had no idea.” He was suddenly very interested in talking to his assistant, wondering how she’d found Lucy. He also wondered if the motherly, slightly nosy woman had been doing a little matchmaking. He wouldn’t put it past her. She was nothing if not a closet romantic.
“My real question was,” he continued, “what are you doing here in Chicago? You swore you’d never live here. Hell, I figured you’d be in Europe.”
That had been her dream, living overseas, being a world-traveling photographer. So what had happened? She had seemed utterly determined that she would never stay near home and take…Santa pictures of little kids.
He glanced at the velvet-covered chair, the fluffy fake snow, the tripod, and her, back in that elf suit.
How on earth had her life gotten so derailed?
“I was for a while, did my semester abroad and went back right after graduation,” she said.
Just as she’d planned. Which was one reason he’d stayed out of touch, knowing an entire ocean was going to separate them, so why bother trying to make something work when geography said it couldn’t?
“And?”
“And I wasn’t happy, so I ended up back in New York a few years ago.”
Years. She’d been on the same continent for years. A short plane ride away. The thought made him slightly sick to his stomach, especially considering the number of times he’d thought about her during that same time span. The curiosity about whether she’d kept the same cell phone number and whether it would work in Paris.
Maybe not. But it probably would have in New York. Damn.
“How did Chicago enter the equation?”
“You remember, I grew up in this area?”
He remembered, but she’d seemed adamant about never coming back here, associating it with her tragic loss. “I remember.”
“Well, I moved back here ten months ago to be closer my brother.”
Even as another wave of shocked pleasure washed over him—she’d moved here, to the very same city—the brother’s name immediately popped into his mind.
“Sam?”
“Right. He went through a pretty bad divorce and I thought he could use some family nearby.”
“That’s