29
D illon felt like a nine-year-old on a sugar high. His actual childhood home had held few such moments of carefree laughter. Even at that age, he had known things were not the way they should be. Escape through work, was how his grandmother put it. Starting the motel job had been one of the happiest days of his young life. Already taking aim at the exit.
And look at him now.
It was crazy, totally off the wall, being this happy in this town. Wearing a peaked red-velvet cap topped with a white pom-pom, riding on top of a worn-out truck, singing snatches of carols blaring from the makeshift speakers. Tossing handfuls of candy. Laughing with all the crew as kids shrieked and raced and were lifted on board. Being part of offering Miramar a reason to smile. Yelling Merry Christmas! to one and all.
Their parade served as a Pied Piper for so many locals. By the time they passed the town hall and approached the fire station, pedestrians and barking dogs filled the lane.
And then Dillon spotted her.
Bailey stood on the town hall’s top step, so happy she did a little two-step, swinging her daughter’s arm. Elena kept trying to pull away, playing the cross teenager even while she laughed. When Bailey spotted Dillon, she released her daughter and waved both hands over her head.
What happened next was the most natural thing in the world. Dillon clambered down, dropped to the street, raced up the stairs, and gave the mayor of Miramar what felt like the finest kiss of his entire life.
It seemed to him that the entire town cheered. He stepped back far enough to look at Bailey and her daughter. Both of them smiling at him. And something more. There was a shared light to their gazes. Dillon had the sense that they both held the same secret thought. One that left them smiling and secretly weeping at the same time.
Bailey said, “I want you to come inside.” But when he started back up, she raised her free hand, palm out. “Not now. Everybody is watching. Later, okay? My office.”
“Sure thing.” He raced back through a grinning crowd. Many hands reached out, patting his shoulders and back as he passed. It almost felt like they were welcoming him home.
Crazy.
* * *
For Olivia, this proved to be a transcendent hour.
She stood on the sidewalk surrounded by what felt like half of Miramar’s total population. This was a locals-only sort of hour, friends calling to friends, children racing from one family group to the next, adults chatting and laughing as her family’s old cottage was settled onto temporary foundations.
In the light of day, the storms’ damage to her former home was laid bare.
The town’s emergency vehicles used their sirens to crawl down the lane and park. The vacant lot alongside the fire station was filled with Berto’s construction crew. They worked in noisy cheer, positioning her former home onto temporary foundations. At the lot’s far end, the power company set up a pair of emergency generators. Berto surveyed the work from the safety of the station’s drive. When his wife joined him, the builder pulled an elf’s cap from his back pocket, planted it on Emilia’s head, ignored her protests, bent her back in a Latin’s mocking ardor, and kissed her soundly. The laughing throngs considered it fine entertainment.
Olivia watched as Dillon bounded back through the crowd, jostled and applauded as he made his way toward her. He moved in close enough to be heard over the music still blasting down the lane and asked, “Are you okay with this?”
Olivia had no idea whether he meant her former home’s new status, or the kiss he had just landed on Bailey. And decided it really didn’t matter. “Better than okay.”
“Really and truly?”
Suddenly she faced the old Dillon. The man she had once been madly in love with. The guy she was meant to spend her life with. Or so she’d thought. During the good times. And there were so many of those.
Dillon was happy and excited and full of the fire that seemed to ignite everyone within reach. Especially her.
He also carried a sorrow that rendered him timeless, at least in Olivia’s eyes. Restless and full of passion. The draw was simply magnetic.
Just the same, she felt her mind and heart take a giant step back. There was no need for her body to move. Her life was already on a different course.
She said, “Without the slightest shred of doubt.”
He must have found what he sought in her gaze. Dillon hugged her, a tight and fleeting embrace, then said, “I need to go help out.”
She smiled him away. Feeling eyes on her. Knowing Bailey and her daughter were watching. Which was totally okay.
Friends.