One Winter's Night: The Twelve Dates of Christmas / Frozen Heart, Melting Kiss / A Cadence Creek Christmas

His respect for her grew. He’d told her he didn’t want her to know his past, his pain, because he didn’t want her to treat him any differently—or, worse, to pity him. And if the casual way she behaved around him was anything to go by, she hadn’t looked him up on the internet and hadn’t asked his friends for information.

It boggled his mind that she hadn’t investigated him. If the tables were turned, he would have been driven crazy until he gave in to his curiosity, but he would have given in. She’d been a rock. She was probably the most trustworthy person on the planet.

“Good evening, Mr. Langley.” Regina walked up to them, giving Eloise a quick once-over. “And who is this?”

He looked from Regina to Eloise, who met his gaze with as much curiosity about how he’d answer as Regina had.

Their gazes locked. She’d gone to all his parties with him, always kept up the charade and always looked pretty for him, even though it probably meant working like a Christmas elf to get that party’s dress altered. He’d refused to tell her his secrets and she’d accepted it.

He couldn’t think of her as nothing but a fake date anymore. He might not be her real boyfriend, but she was more than a partner in a charade.

He caught her hand and squeezed it. “She’s a friend.”

Eloise smiled.

Regina said, “Well, it’s quiet up here tonight. Stay as long as you like.”

It didn’t seem right to stand with Eloise at the window to the room where his son had died. He didn’t want her to see his grief. Plus, with Olivia fine and the baby out of danger, there was no reason to stay.

“Actually, we were just on our way out.”

“Good night then.”

“Good night, Regina.” He directed Eloise to the elevator. “I sent Norman home. We’re going to have to get a taxi.”

“A taxi! Do you know how expensive taxis are?”

He laughed, then realized that’s exactly what she’d intended for him to do. But the sights and the sounds of the hospital kept him grounded in reality, and he suddenly felt guilty for those three seconds of happiness.

No matter how much Eloise lifted his spirits, in his heart he knew he didn’t deserve to be whole.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#u32f314d5-fc9b-5636-bafa-b7fd612d9492)

ELOISE ROLLED OVER in bed the next morning, not able to get herself to crawl out and face the day.

She wasn’t the kind to overthink things, but why would someone choose to wait in the intensive care unit of the children’s ward instead of the maternity waiting room?

She let the obvious reasons flit through her brain. Maybe Ricky had spent time there himself as a child. Or maybe one of his siblings had. Or maybe he’d had a child who’d been there. Maybe a child born prematurely, as Tucker and Olivia’s child had almost been the night before.

The last one made so much sense that new scenarios began rolling through her head. Scary scenarios. Things his friends’ wives would call a tragedy. Things she had no basis to believe. Things that had no grounding in reality.

With a growl, she shoved off the covers, climbed out of bed and shuffled to the kitchen. Laura Beth already sat at the little round table, drinking tea.

“Hey.”

“Hey. You’re up early for someone who was at a party last night.”

She walked to the counter and started making a pot of coffee. “We took Olivia to the hospital.”

Laura Beth gasped. “Last night? Is she okay?”

“False labor. She’s fine. Baby’s fine.”

“But...”

She faced Laura Beth. “But what?”

“There’s but in your voice. Like there’s a catch. She’s fine but she’s on bed rest or something. What’s the catch?”

“There is none. It was just false labor. She’s really fine.” She bit her lower lip. “But my fake date did something that puzzled me.”

“What?”

“He waited in the children’s ICU instead of the maternity waiting room.”

“Maybe he thought something would be wrong with the baby, so he waited there.”

She gasped and closed her eyes. Of course. That made so much more sense. His choice of waiting place wasn’t about him but Olivia’s baby.

Unfortunately, by the time she walked to the table and sat, she’d poked a hole in that theory. “Isn’t there a neonatal ICU? One just for newborns?”

Laura Beth shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know much about hospitals, but there may be a special ICU for newborns.”

Confused again, Eloise sucked in a breath. “Well, he’s also on the hospital board, so maybe he was just looking around, checking on things.” She thought of the nurse who’d talked to him and grimaced. “No. That’s not it either. A nurse came up to him. She acted as if she knows him.”

“If he’s on the board, of course she knows him.”

She shook her head. “No. This was more like she knew him personally.”

Laura Beth winced. “Was she young and pretty?”

“Middle-aged but very pretty. Still, it wasn’t that. The way she reacted to him was more like she was accustomed to seeing him.” She tried to remember their conversation. “She said stay as long as you like...as if he’d been in the ward before, staring into that ICU room.”

Picking up her empty cup, Laura Beth rose from the table. “I think you’re making more out of this than you should because you’re trying to figure out the ‘tragedy’ those dinner party wives told you about.” She shook her head. “Think it through. His friend’s wife was in the hospital, maybe in early labor. That about stopped my heart. So I’m sure it scared him too. He might have simply gone to the children’s ICU not remembering there’d be a NICU.”

She frowned. “Maybe.” Her brain could accept that, but her heart disagreed. There was something about the way he stood in front of that window, staring inside.

Her disappointment rattled through her. He’d called her his friend the night before. Yet, here she sat, trying to guess what had happened in his life because he didn’t trust her enough to tell her.

“Bruce is taking me skating at Rockefeller Center today.”

Not wanting to be thought of as that sad girl anymore, Eloise pasted a smile on her face for her roommate. “Cool.”

“I might need to borrow that big navy blue parka of yours.”

“Sure.”

“You won’t be using it?”