Finding Your Heart I, A Contemporary Romance Happily Ever After

Paul Duncan wanted to shout for joy. The only person he’d ever wanted to spend a holiday with stood before him like a fantasy plucked from the most private portion of his mind. It had been years since he’d bothered with any of the trappings of Christmas. When he had the chance to be with his daughter for the holiday, he just took her to his parents’ house and let them do the whole spoil the granddaughter on Christmas thing. He bought presents. He even wrapped them himself, but he did it out of a sense of obligation really. It was something he was expected to do, not something he really wanted to do. He’d never been much on buying presents because he had to. He much preferred gifts to be spontaneous and from the heart.

As for New Year’s Eve and day, they had just been another day ever since he’d given up partying and drinking. He never did anything special. Never went out with friends or a date. Friends asked too many questions if he showed up without a date. And a date would be a total disaster because they tended to have expectations if he asked them out for a holiday as special as New Year’s Eve. Expectations of another date. Expectations of sex or more.

Having sex would be okay, but afterward he’d want to leave and return to his own bed – he’d never take a date to his home – and women tended to become offended by a man who fucked and fled. Sometimes they became violent. He rubbed a faint scar on his biceps where flying glass from a shattered lamp had nicked him years before. Yeah, New Year’s Eve dates weren’t a good idea for him.

Yet, here he stood on New Year’s Eve in front of the house he’d bought for no other reason than that he had some vague notion of wanting to feel connected to the woman who had once lived there.

Since his life was filled with disconnects, the expense of the house seemed like a monumental aberration in his life path. And it was, but the manual labor of renovating it made him feel good and made him feel closer to someone he’d lost so long ago that she’d become nothing but a fantasy.

Until now.

He stared at her, seeing the white streaks in her once night dark hair and the faint lines at the corners of her eyes, mouth and between her brows. She didn’t look happy. She looked beaten and lost with her arms wrapped around herself, her dark eyes bleak and weary.

His stomach clenched and his heart thumped painfully. This wasn’t the woman he remembered. That woman had spilled over with warmth and delight. The one before him seemed shrunken and curled in on herself, cool and distant.

Anger began to rise within him. Who the fuck had done this to her? Who had sucked the joy out of her and left behind nothing but a shell? Not for a moment did he believe she’d become this dark creature on her own, by her own choice. He’d once known her heart and that heart would never have gone dark unless someone had deliberately extinguished the light inside her.

Without thinking, he reached for the chain that no longer encircled his neck. The chain with half a heart hanging from it. The chain that lay buried in a small precious wooden chest with the other mementoes he had of her. He wondered what had become of her half of the heart.

Then Paul realized that her throat worked as if she wanted to speak but couldn’t. Her eyes held a nameless sentiment, a strong emotion that set her body to trembling visibly. His body responded with a surge of desire and an ache that burned behind his breastbone.

“Casey?” he spoke her name softly, her silence making him wonder if he’d just imagined her there.

She drew a shuddering breath and his name emerged from her mouth on a faint sigh. “Paul.”

The sound of her voice sent a frisson down his spine, like a ghost finger caressing his skin. The way she used to caress him. “You’re here,” he said, feeling stupid with shock that she actually stood before him.

She stared up at him, shaking, her eyes wide. “I – I…oh, God. Yes, I’m here and you’re here and…” Her hoarse whisper broke off and tears flooded her eyes, trickling down her cheeks. “Dammit! I promised myself I wouldn’t cry!”

Her angry rasp made him smile and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to set the big flashlight down and close the two steps between them to take her in his arms. She trembled violently and he pressed her tightly against his body, burying his face in her mint scented hair. A huge sigh escaped him and for the first time in many years, he felt alive. He’d never acknowledged that part of his soul had gone missing when she’d left his life, but he knew with unequivocal truth that it had because now he felt whole.