A Christmas to Remember (2 page)

Ian raced down the stairs with Melissa in his arms, his gaze on her ashen face.

You came for me
, she’d murmured, the surprise in her voice slicing through him. She had no idea what he’d do for her—and that was their biggest problem.

He’d grown up in a big, boisterous, loving family, but not Melissa. She’d never had someone at her back like he had. She’d never experienced unconditional love, and as a result, she didn’t trust it. “I’ve got you,” he told her as he ran out of the burning building. “Always will.”

He was met just outside the burning building by Cindy, pushing a gurney toward them. The paramedic took over, but Ian kept a firm hold of Melissa’s hand. She was out cold, bleeding from various cuts, including a deep one on her temple. “She was conscious,” he said.

“How long has she been out?”

“Two minutes.”

Cindy, a longtime friend, put her hand over his and squeezed gently. “We’ll take good care of her.”

He knew that, but damn it was hard to let go. Leaning over Melissa, he whispered, “
Always
.”

Cindy flashed him a sympathetic smile as she and her partner pushed the gurney toward the ambulance, and Ian was forced to put thoughts of Melissa aside and turn back to the scene. They pulled ten more people from the building with various degrees of injuries, ranging from first- and second-degree burns to broken bones to smoke inhalation. Not good, but it could have been much worse.

He’d heard nothing about Melissa’s condition, and it was two interminably long hours before he could get to the hospital to check for himself. “Melissa Mann,” he said at the front desk, “brought in from—”

“Tonight’s fire.” The woman nodded. “She’s here.”

“Where?”

“Last I heard she was in x-ray but—”

He strode down the hall and rounded the corner to the x-ray department.

It was empty.

His heart stopped, and he whirled around, nearly plowing over the receptionist, who’d followed him. “But,” the unflappable woman went on, as if he hadn’t walked away from her in the middle of a sentence, “if she’s done there, she’s been brought upstairs. Room two-ten.”

He took the stairs instead of waiting for an elevator and stopped at the nurse’s desk. He knew Dottie. They’d gone to school together and had dated in their freshman year. And their junior year. And then about three years back for a few months, until they remembered that they didn’t like each other for more than a week at a time.

Dottie smiled at him. “Hey, Hot Stuff. You look like you fought the good fight tonight. You were on that apartment building fire?”

“Yeah. You’ve got Melissa Mann in room two-ten. How is she?”

She grimaced sympathetically. “Honey, you know I can’t divulge information except to next of kin.”

Yeah, he knew. And if he’d been successful at convincing Melissa to move in with him, he might’ve convinced her to marry him next, and then they would be next of kin. “We’re seeing each other.”

Dottie expressed surprise with a lifted brow. “I didn’t know that.”

Few had. They’d kept it quiet—Ian because he liked having something to himself in a town that loved gossip more than just about anything, and Mel because… well, because what they’d had scared her. “How about her parents? Have they been notified?” To say that Melissa wasn’t close to her judgmental parents was an understatement, but they should be told.

“We’re here.”

Ian whipped around to face them. That they’d already made it from Seattle told him they’d sped here, which wasn’t helping his impending heart attack any.

“How is she?” her father asked.

Dottie stood up. “Dr. Josh Scott’s in with her now. I’ll get him for you.”

Five minutes later, Ian stood next to her parents as Dr. Scott gave the news. Minor concussion accompanied by some swelling. The plan—watch and wait—was something he should be good at by now but had never mastered.

* * *

Three hours later it was nearly dawn, and Ian was alone in Melissa’s hospital room. Her parents had gone to the B&B for the night to get some rest. The lights were still dimmed, and the monitors beeped and hissed softly.

Melissa was still out.

The doctor had assured both him and her parents that this was okay, that her brain was taking the rest it needed, and that her last scan looked clear. She was young and strong and vital. They’d know more by morning.

But Ian knew better than most that a clear scan didn’t always mean jack-shit. A little over a year ago, he’d lost his sister Ella to a head trauma after a skiing accident. The doctors had stood at her bedside, where Ella lay in a coma, and said the prognosis was tentatively “looking good.”

Confident in their word, Ian had gone back to work for the rest of his shift, leaving Ella with the rest of the family to stand vigil.

Ella had died before dawn. She hadn’t died alone, but she’d died without Ian.

He wasn’t going back to work this time. Nope, he was sitting right here, his hand gripping Melissa’s, and he was going to keep holding it for as long as it took.

A nurse came in to check her vitals. “Talk to her,” she suggested. “I think it helps them find their way back to us.”

When the nurse was gone, Ian looked into Melissa’s still face. So unlike her. Awake, Melissa was the life of the party, more alive than anyone he knew. “Mel.” He stroked the hair from her face, carefully avoiding the large bandage on her temple where she’d been stitched up. “I was about sixty seconds too late getting to you. Bad timing.” He blew out a breath. Just like their relationship. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “I miss you, babe.”

Her fingers tightened on his, just a reflexive gesture he knew, but his gaze flew to her face. “Mel? Can you hear me?”

Nothing, but he took heart anyway. “I’m right here,” he promised, leaning closer. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

The beeps and hisses of the machine were his only answer.
Talk to her
, the nurse had said. Ian wasn’t, and never had been, a big talker. That was one of Melissa’s biggest complaints, actually. “I dreamed about us last night,” he said, and let out a breath. What the hell. No one was listening. “I dreamed we’d worked things out. We were doing up Christmas like I haven’t since…” He broke off.

Melissa had known he hadn’t celebrated Christmas last year, that he hadn’t celebrated anything since Ella had died. Hell, he hadn’t even managed to go back to his parents’ house, only a two-hour drive away. He’d tried a few times but found he couldn’t do it, forcing his family to come to Lucky Harbor when they wanted to see him. “There’s more,” he said softly. “You brought a tree for my place.
Our
place,” he corrected. “You got me over the hump on that, Mel.” He had to smile at the memory. “And you were dressed up as an elf.” A sexy-as-hell elf whose little green outfit—emphasis on little—had shown off her gorgeous curves to perfection. “You’d made cookies to leave out for Santa,” he went on, “and the house was lit up like… well, like Christmas.” He smiled again because generally he was the only one who cooked. “We had…” He broke off to drop his forehead to their linked hands and let out a low laugh because he couldn’t believe he was saying this. “We had a kid. A little girl who had your beautiful eyes and smile. You named her Molly.” His throat tightened. “We were married, which means that I must have eventually worn you down, right?”

Melissa still didn’t answer, didn’t move, and he let out a long, shaky exhale. “Just wake up, Mel. I know we’re not together, and that none of what I dreamed matters anymore, but just wake up. I can handle you not in my life if I have to, but I can’t handle you not
having
a life.”

Melissa shuddered out a sigh as her dream began. It was Christmas, and she was dressed in a… sexy elf costume? Huh. Interesting since she’d given up the crazy partying a few years back. But it got more interesting. The dream was being narrated by Ian. She could hear his voice, and God how she loved the timbre of it, low and slightly husky, talking about how she’d made cookies for Santa and decorated the house.

Okay, so she wasn’t at a party. Or at least if she was, it was a party for two. Then the vision panned out like a wide-angle camera, and she realized she was in Ian’s house, standing by a huge Christmas tree, and she was holding the sweetest little baby she’d ever seen. Theirs. Ian was looking at them, “his women” as he called them, “Mel and Molly”. Wanting to memorize this, wanting to memorize everything, she took a wild look around. Ian’s mouth was still moving but suddenly she couldn’t hear him. All she could hear was an annoying
beep, beep, beep
…

* * *

Melissa opened her eyes to an antiseptic smell and the beeping of monitors. Oh, crap. A hospital. Her first thought was
don’t make me wake up, I love this dream!
Her second thought was that she had a huge insurance deductible, and—

“How do you feel?”

Turning her head, she found Ian sitting in the chair next to her bed. Six months, and her heart still clutched every single time she saw him. She kept waiting for that to go away, wondering when her pulse would stop leaping from just being near him. Hell, she didn’t even have to be near him to feel it. She could simply
think
of him and it would happen.

She’d been so certain that would fade after she’d slept with him. Their first night had been a crazy, wild, sex-on-the-beach thing that still revved her engines when she thought about it. Not a thing had faded. Instead, it’d gotten better and better.

She hadn’t been the same since she’d broken things off, and that baffled her to the core. She’d never been the type of woman to need a man. Enjoy, yes. Need? She knew how to get the most out of life without one. But with Ian, everything had been different. He’d never tried to control her, tell her what to do, or who to be. He’d accepted her as she was, flaws and all.

And she’d still pushed him away. She’d regretted it instantly, but hadn’t had any idea how to fix it.

But that had been before her dream.

Now, she still didn’t know how to get him back, but she knew she had to try because she wanted the life she’d envisioned.
Desperately
. “I saw you,” she whispered. Or tried to. Barely recognizing her own raw, scratchy voice, she tried to sit up and gasped as her head swam.

Ian was there in a blink, hands on her, lowering her back to the bed. “Easy,” he said. “You don’t have your sea legs yet.”

“What happened?”

His eyes met hers. “You don’t remember?”

“I remember the fire,” she said. And the horror. The bone-numbing fear. The unbearable heat. She made a sound of duress, and he wrapped her hand in his much bigger, work-roughened one. “I couldn’t get out the door,” she told him softly. “And the window was jammed, or I’d have probably tried to jump even though it was too far.”

Speaking of jumping, a muscle in Ian’s jaw was doing just that. “It
was
too far down,” he said. “What else?”

She thought about it. “I remember crawling into the tub. And just as my life started flashing before my eyes, you showed up.”

He gently stroked his thumb over her IV line. “Not soon enough, though.”

Something in his voice had her meeting his gaze. His hair looked finger-combed at best. He was in his cargos and long-sleeved firefighter polo that both looked as if maybe he’d slept in them.

But it was his eyes that caught and held her attention. In her dream, they’d softened when they’d landed on her, broadcasting his emotions in a way that he’d been extremely careful not to do since they’d stopped seeing each other.

His eyes were hard to read now, but there was no mistaking the strain in them. Usually he was the epitome of cool, calm, and collected, but not today. “I’m okay,” she said softly, and then paused. “Right?”

An almost-smile tugged at his mouth, and he brushed his lips against her temple. “Yes,” he said in that voice that always meant business.

She relaxed. If he said she was okay, well then, she was okay, but she knew there was a reason he looked so tense.

“You had some brain swelling,” he said, “but your body repaired itself before surgery was required. You were out for a while.”

Ah. The reason. “A while? How long is a while?”

“Eighteen hours.”

“
What
?” She sat up again, more slowly this time and with his help. “But I just got here.”

He gave a slow shake of his head and gently stroked the hair back from her face. “It’s been almost two days, Mel.”

Two days… “I dreamed…”

“Of?”

She didn’t answer.

“I talked to you,” he said. “Did you hear me?”

“No,” she said with real regret. She’d have loved to hear what he’d said to her. Her eyes drifted shut, and she turned her cheek into his big, warm, callused palm. She remembered him whispering to her,
I’ve got you
. Dream? Or real? “Thank you,” she whispered. “For saving my life.”

“You scared the hell out of me.”

She opened her eyes and met his. “I scared me, too,” she admitted. “I thought I was cashing in.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Not on my watch.”

Unbearably touched, she leaned on him, setting her head on his broad shoulder. Maybe before the fire she’d been too afraid to go for what she wanted, but now she knew how ridiculous that was. She’d huddled in that tub, sure she was going to die alone with her regrets, but she’d been given a second chance. She wouldn’t blow it. Life was short,
too
short. “Ian…” She paused. “I need to talk to you.”

He looked down at her. “Talking’s never been our strong suit.”

She knew that but she had to try.

Unfortunately, it seemed like the whole world suddenly realized she was awake. A nurse bustled in, and then another. They nudged Ian aside to check her vitals, and then her doctor was there, too, asking her all sorts of annoying questions.

Melissa never got to tell Ian a thing. It was okay, she decided. She’d just show him. But it was another two long days before she was released: two long days of doctors, nurses, friends, and… this had been the hard part… her parents.

It was awkward since they’d not had much of a relationship in the past years, but they were mature enough not to bring up her past, and she was mature enough not to poke the bears.

When she finally left the hospital, she joined her parents, who’d gotten two rooms at the local B&B. They all stayed there a few days, made a few trips to Target to replace some essentials, had a few meals. The subject of Melissa’s immediate future was broached, and her parents hadn’t quite hidden their relief that she wouldn’t be going home with them.

Her building hadn’t been cleared for her to return to, but she knew she wasn’t going back there, either. She was on a mission to fix her life. To get a life.

To get Ian back.

He just didn’t know it yet.