Chapter 19
Nineteen
DECLAN
Morning After Awkwardness
The morning after you kiss someone in front of three hundred people apparently comes with its own special brand of awkwardness, especially when that someone is now treating you with the kind of polite professionalism usually reserved for customer service interactions.
“Good morning, Declan,” Holly said when I arrived at the coffee shop for our latest festival planning meeting, her smile bright and completely impersonal. “I’ve already ordered you a coffee—black, no sugar, right?”
Right. Except the fact that she’d remembered my coffee order exactly while delivering it with the emotional warmth of a hotel concierge suggested that last night’s mistletoe kiss had somehow moved us backward rather than forward.
“Thanks,” I said, settling into the seat across from her and trying to read her body language.
She was wearing a cream-colored sweater that looked soft and expensive, her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, and she was consulting her color-coded festival checklist with the kind of focused attention that suggested personal conversation was not on today’s agenda.
“So,” Holly said briskly, “we have six days left, and I’ve identified several areas that need immediate attention. The vendor confirmations are complete, but we still need to finalize the volunteer scheduling and coordinate the setup timeline.”
Vendor confirmations. Volunteer scheduling. She was discussing festival logistics like we were business associates who’d never kissed under strategic mistletoe, like I hadn’t spent most of last night replaying the way she’d looked at me in the snow.
“Holly,” I said carefully, “about last night—”
“Last night was lovely,” she interrupted with the kind of bright efficiency that shut down personal conversation before it could start. “The tree lighting went perfectly, and I think the community really enjoyed the ceremony. Mrs. Peterson said the turnout was the best they’ve had in years.”
The tree lighting. Not the kiss. Not the way we’d ended up tangled together in the snow while the entire town cheered. Just the tree lighting, as if the most significant moment of my recent romantic history was a minor detail in the evening’s community programming.
My phone buzzed with an incoming call, and I glanced at the screen to see the name of the managing partner from my law firm. Perfect timing, as always.
“I need to take this,” I said slowly, my heartbeat reacting badly to the caller ID. “It’s work.”
“Of course,” Holly said, returning to her checklist with obvious relief.
I stepped outside into the crisp morning air, where fresh snow was falling in beautiful flakes that made the whole town look like a Christmas card.
“Declan,” Richard’s voice was brisk and impatient in the way that made my chest tight with anxiety. “We need to discuss your return timeline. The Morrison acquisition is moving faster than expected, and we could use your expertise on the environmental compliance issues.”
The Morrison acquisition. A massive corporate deal that would require eighty-hour weeks, endless document review, and the kind of high-pressure deadline management that had led to my panic attacks in the first place.
Six months ago, being asked to lead environmental compliance on a major acquisition would have felt like professional validation. Now it just sounded exhausting.
“I’m still on sabbatical until after the new year,” I reminded him, watching Holly through the coffee shop window as she made notes with her perfectly organized system.
“I understand that, but this is a significant opportunity,” Richard continued. “Partnership track, high-visibility client work, substantial bonus potential. We’re talking about fast-tracking your career in ways that don’t come along often.”
Partnership track. The golden carrot that was supposed to make all the stress and anxiety and sleepless nights worthwhile. The career goal I’d been working toward for years, the reason I’d justified the panic attacks and the complete absence of work-life balance.
“When would you need an answer?” I asked, though what I was really thinking was that six months ago, I would have jumped at this opportunity without hesitation.
“Soon,” Richard said with the kind of vague urgency that meant ‘immediately, but I’m trying to sound reasonable.’ “The client wants to move quickly, and staffing decisions need to be made by the end of the week.”
The end of the week. The week before Christmas. Was this really the life I wanted to lead? But if it wasn’t, what was? The timing felt like a test of my priorities, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to figure out what those priorities actually were.
“I’ll get back to you,” I said finally.
“Don’t wait too long,” Richard advised. “Opportunities like this don’t stay on the table indefinitely.”
After I hung up, I stood in the snow for several minutes, trying to process the conversation.
The white flakes settled on my shoulders like tiny weights, each one adding to the burden.
My chest constricted as if wrapped in invisible bands that tightened with every heartbeat.
The crisp winter air turned to cement in my lungs, impossible to pull in or push out.
My fingertips tingled, then went numb—not from the cold, but from the familiar cascade of panic flooding my system. I recognized the signals immediately.
I was having a panic attack in the middle of town, outside the coffee shop, while Holly waited inside for me.
The quaint storefronts of Main Street blurred at the edges of my vision, their red and green Christmas decorations smearing into a nauseating holiday watercolor.
I leaned back against the rough brick wall, feeling each jagged edge press through my wool coat, its cold solidity the only thing keeping me upright as I tried to suck in deep breaths that wouldn’t come.
My lungs burned as if I’d inhaled fire instead of the pine-scented December air.
An elderly couple in matching plaid scarves slowed their pace to stare, their concerned whispers barely audible over the thundering of my pulse in my ears.
I gave them a smile that probably looked more like a grimace and stumbled back into the coffee shop, the bell above the door jangling accusingly as I entered, aiming mindlessly for the restrooms through a haze of cinnamon-scented steam and concerned glances.
“Declan?” Holly called out, the concern in her voice adding to the anxiety, her cream sweater now just another blurry shape in my tunneling vision.
“Be... right... back...” I wheezed, each word scraping my throat raw as I shoved open the door to the men’s room and practically fell into a stall, my trembling fingers fumbling with the lock.
I sat down on the toilet lid, my hands splayed out on the cubicle walls.
Eighty-hour weeks.
Law firm partnership.
New York’s rat race.
High pressure situations.
The demand of it all crashed down on me.
I pressed my forehead against the cool stall wall, which—bonus—had charming doodles of dicks wearing Santa hats that swam before my blurry vision. Perfect. Even bathroom vandals were feeling festive while they were having a shit, adding to my existential crisis in a coffee shop toilet.
Breathe, Hayes. Just fucking breathe.
Richard’s words bounced around my skull like a Christmas jingle you can’t escape. Partnership track! High-visibility! Bonus potential! The corporate equivalent of “fa-la-la-la-la,” except instead of holiday cheer, it filled me with holiday dread.
And then there was Holly, probably wondering why I’d sprinted to the bathroom like I’d chugged ten peppermint mochas.
Holly with her color-coded lists and that smile that made my knees wobble more than a poorly constructed gingerbread house.
What would she think if she knew the guy who’d kissed her under the mistletoe was currently having a meltdown between the urinal and the hand dryer, surrounded by festive dicks?
Lunging out of the stall, I bent over the basin and splashed water on my face before staring at my reflection. “You’ve got this,” I told myself, the same line I’d said a hundred times. The mirror-me looked unconvinced.
With disgust at my lack of conviction in just upping sticks and moving back here after I quit New York in a spectacular fashion that would be worthy of a Hallmark movie, I returned to Holly with that same grimace-y grin that made my face ache.
“You okay?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“The shits,” I blurted out.
Her eyes went wide.
Mine were like saucers, and my breath practically shot out of my ass as the words hung in the air between us like a foul stink.
Of all the possible excuses I could have conjured from the depths of my panicked mind, I had chosen the most graphically un-romantic one imaginable.
I could practically see the mistletoe from last night shriveling up and dying in protest.
Holly’s wide-eyed stare lasted for another beat before her lips twitched.
She tried to fight it, pressing them together in a firm line, but a small snort escaped.
“Oh,” she finally managed, her voice tight with suppressed laughter.
“Well. That’s… a lot of information for nine a.m. I’m sorry you’re feeling unwell. Do you want to reschedule?”
My face burned with a heat that had nothing to do with the coffee shop’s heating system. “Sorry,” I mumbled, wishing a sinkhole would open up right under my chair and swallow me whole. “I’m good now.”
I sat down to prove I was staying. She moved back slightly; an action I don’t blame her for. She probably thought I had a raging stomach flu bug. “What were you saying about volunteer scheduling?”
“Right,” Holly said, returning to her checklist. “We need to make sure we have adequate coverage for all the activity stations, and Sandra is concerned about the hot chocolate demand exceeding supply.”
As Holly walked me through the volunteer coordination, I found myself watching her lips move instead of hearing a damn word.
She tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing her neck, which would look better with a bite mark from me on it.
When she mentioned community engagement, my brain short-circuited into imagining very different kinds of engagement involving considerably fewer clothes and considerably more heavy breathing.
She was a Christmas miracle in human form.
The way she commanded that color-coded spreadsheet made my heart race faster than when I’d caught her checking out my ass at the tree lighting.
My body temperature rose three degrees when she leaned forward to point at something on her list, her vanilla scent hitting me like a seasonal aphrodisiac.
“Declan?” Holly’s voice snapped me back to reality. “Did you hear anything I just said about the setup timeline?”
“Sorry,” I said, forcing my eyes up from where they’d drifted to the soft cashmere covering her collarbone. “I was distracted by... logistics. Very important logistics. What about the setup timeline?”
“We need to start at six AM on festival day to have everything ready by ten,” Holly said, studying my face with the kind of careful attention that suggested she was trying to figure out if my distraction was personal or professional.
“That means volunteers need to arrive in shifts, and we need to coordinate equipment delivery with vendor arrival times.”
The day Richard needed my answer about the partnership opportunity. The same day I’d either be committing to a high-pressure legal career in New York or admitting that I wanted something different entirely.
“That works,” I said, though what I was thinking was that in a few days I might be preparing to leave Everdale Falls for New York City, and the thought made something twist uncomfortably in my chest.
But then her phone rang, and she answered it with the kind of relief that suggested she was grateful for any interruption that kept her from talking to me.
“Holly Winters,” she said. “Yes, Mrs. Hall, we can absolutely discuss the final decorating details. No, I don’t think we need additional mistletoe—the current placement should be sufficient.”
Additional mistletoe. Mrs. Hall was apparently not content with the romantic chaos she’d already created through strategic hedge trimmings placement.
As Holly coordinated final decorating details with Mrs. Hall, I sat in the coffee shop surrounded by the warm sounds of community life and tried to figure out why a partnership opportunity that should have been exciting felt like a threat to something I wasn’t ready to lose.
Sitting here, watching Holly manage festival logistics with quiet competence while carefully maintaining emotional distance, I realized I was falling for her in ways that had nothing to do with teenage nostalgia and everything to do with the woman she’d become.
Smart, resilient, genuinely caring, and apparently committed to keeping me at arm’s length, even after our kiss.
The question was whether I was brave enough to risk everything I’d worked for professionally to find out if she felt the same way. And whether she was brave enough to trust someone new when the last person she’d trusted had betrayed her so completely.
The snow was still falling outside, and Everdale Falls looked like a perfect Christmas paradise. But perfection, I was learning, was a lot more complicated than it appeared on the surface.