Once Upon a December: A Holiday Short Story Collection Read Online Free PDF Page A

costs more than most people make in four years. And I don’t care. I never cared about any of that. All I want is my wife back.”
    During the conversation, their bodies had drifted just a little closer. The man’s proximity was making Melanie’s pulse race.
    “What makes you stay?” Ethan asked gently. “Why not leave him? He deserves it.”
    “I love my husband. That has never changed.”
    “ Something changed.”
    A tear slipped down her cheek as they gazed into each other’s eyes. She hated him for making her talk about this. Why now? Why tonight? While they were trapped in an elevator on Christmas Eve? She had spent so many months trying to forget. To block the images and sounds and emotions from that one night that had changed their lives forever.
    “I lost our baby,” she whispered through her tears. “How could he ever forgive me for that?”
    An anguished Ethan closed his eyes. “And you think he blames you?”
    “I know he blames me. Why wouldn’t he? And now he’s stuck in a marriage with a woman who can never give him a biological child.”
    “Maybe he blames himself,” Ethan said, his voice shaking with emotion. “Maybe he thinks he should have taken better care of you. If he’d worked a little less and loved you a little more. Maybe if he’d read the stupid baby books . . .”
    Quiet sobs wracked her body as she recalled that night. The cramps. The blood. The mad rush to the emergency room. The confirmation from the doctor that their baby was gone, and there was no chance for another.
    Melanie wept uncontrollably as Ethan pulled her into his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him.
    “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured against her hair. “I love you. I never stopped loving you. Not for a minute.”
    She melted against him as he held her tight. She’d missed the warmth of his arms. How long had it been since he’d held her this way? How long since he’d touched her at all?
    Ethan trailed his hand soothingly along her spine. He’d missed her sweet smell and the way her body fit perfectly in his arms.
    He had missed his wife.
    After the miscarriage, he’d had no idea how to comfort her. No idea how to deal with the mood swings and bitterness and the absolute refusal to talk about whatever she was feeling. Anything he said had been wrong, and every suggestion he made was met with resistance. It had taken Melanie’s mother to convince her to see a grief counselor, and that had helped some, but the damage to their marriage was done. Because his home was in shambles, he had devoted his life to his father’s company, neglecting his wife for far too long. Ethan knew that Melanie had felt responsible for the miscarriage—despite Dr. Lange’s explanation that she wasn’t to blame—but it never occurred to Ethan that she needed the real reassurance to come from her husband.
    Ethan placed both hands along her cheeks and gently tilted her face toward his.
    “It wasn’t your fault,” he said softly.
    Melanie’s eyes filled with fresh tears.
    “It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart. I never blamed you. Not once. I love you, and it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.”
    She sniffled as he tenderly placed kisses along her wet cheeks, whispering over and over again that he loved her, and that she wasn’t to blame. There were plenty of kids in the world who needed a good home, and they would adopt a dozen if she wanted them. He told her they would sell the house that neither of them loved, and he would build her a new one.
    “In the country?”
    Ethan smiled through his own tears. She had always wanted to live in the mountains, but the daily commute to his dad’s firm had made the idea impossible.
    Impossible, until now.
    “Anywhere you want,” he promised her.
    With the emergency lights of the elevator shining overhead, the two of them stared into each other’s eyes. They hugged tightly, wiped away each other’s tears, and whispered sweetly. There was so