Page 2 of Cooped Up for Christmas

Okay. Maybe it would be fun to walk down memory lane again.

And at Christmas. How lovely.

Maybe this unexpected disaster was a gift in disguise. Maybe I might owe Darcy a debt of thanks for jetting off after her lover, even though she knew damn well an extremely important client—who had paid an extraordinary amount of money to command the Eden’s Mistletoe Lodge at Shannon Lake, and its accompanying and bookable amenities for the entire week of Christmas—was about to check in.

It was always a good idea to at least try to see the bright side. Right?

Yes, I would have to miss a scintillating and romantic winter vacation in Switzerland with Dirk, but, if I was being honest, Dirk had been kind of pingin’ on my nerves lately. Nothing bad, though. Just that, well… He wasn’t—

Okay. No.

Had to stop that thought dead in its tracks.

Nope. No comparing Dirk to Coop.

They were two different men from two different times in my life. I had been a different woman with both of them, for pity’s sake.

Which, of course, led to the uncomfortable question, who am I now? Now that Dirk was—let’s admit it—starting to pall? Gorgeous, smart, funny, great in bed, shies away from commitment. He should be a perfect match for me.

He was.

We just needed a little…break.

He’d gone off happily alone—just called “seeyabye” as he sprinted off to catch the plane, which said a lot.

But I hadn’t cared that he hadn’t cared.

That said even more.

Whatever. I had a week to think things over. A week to wallow in nostalgia. A week to revisit the girl I’d been here, and take a look at the woman she’d become. I anticipated the calm and quiet week such deep thoughts required. It would be nice to be away from the pressures of my usual rat race for a while and, even though it was hardly a chalet in the Alps, this wouldn’t be a bad place to be for the holidays.

I parked the car by the staff lodge, which was hidden from the main lodge by shrubbery. It had always kind of amused me to be one of the people behind the shrubbery. You know, where the servants live.

Some people don’t cater to the idea of serving others. Don’t want to live behind the shrubbery, invisible and mute until, God-forbid, someone has a sudden craving for a blackberry almond milk smoothie at 3:42 am.

I, however, disagree.

I believe there is great nobility in serving others.

And in this business, great rewards.

The way I saw it, I was sacrificing my youth for my very comfortable middle and elder years. And it wasn’t a total sacrifice, was it? I lived a fabulous life hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Taking their castoffs. Welcoming their tips. I respected them and they—for the most part—respected me.

I really had loved it down here in the trenches. But it’s always easier to see it that way, isn’t it? In hindsight? Not that I didn’t love my current job with its cushy executive office—and private bathroom, thank you very much—a voice at the corporate table, and use of the company jet. But you never forget the place where you fell in love for the first time.

And I’m not talking about falling in love with a potential career when you’re eighteen—even though that happened too. I’m talking about that first, deep romantic love. The one you almost always screw up somehow.

God, I’d loved him.

It flooded me then, that memory, that feeling. The ache that sliced deep. Being in love. I shuddered involuntarily. It was hard to believe this emotion was running through me. And even the memory of it was intense—as though coming to this place had somehow cracked the protective shell I’d created around my gooey emotions, and I was in dire peril of having them ooze out all over the rental car.

Fact is, doctors haven’t been able to detect a romantic one bone in my body since…

Well, yeah.

Since here.

Because, yes, romance and this kind of life simply don’t mix.