Even the Valicielos had gotten into the spirit of things; their plastic deer had been turned into reindeer, and Santa and his sleigh were atop their house. The best news of all, of course, was that the tree was gone. Rachel had managed to scrape together the five hundred dollars she needed to have the tree cut and removed, and another seventy-five dollars to have the chain-link fence repaired. As a result, Mr. Valicielo had stopped stalking her and had dropped his small claims case.
In fact, everyone seemed to be caught up in the spirit of peace. Life, as they knew it on Slater Avenue, had returned to normal. All the houses on her street were decorated— except hers, of course. Rachel didn’t feel much like celebrating. She had promised Dad she’d come to New York for Christmas. His surgery had been scheduled for mid-January, and she wanted to spend some time with him. Apparently, everyone did—Robin and Jake and the kids were coming, too, as were Rebecca and her family. Even Grandma and Grandpa were thinking of making the trip.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, Rachel parked in the drive, fished her bag and a sack of groceries out of the car, and paused to admire the lights on her street. With a hint of a smile, she trudged up the steps to the kitchen door . . . but she stopped midway up, because lying in front of the door was a single red rose.
How weird. Probably one of Dagne’s latest spells to bring her out of the doldrums. She’d have to call Dagne on her newly reconnected phone and tell her to stop; she was coming out of the doldrums alone. She shook her head, continued up the steps, stepped over the rose and went inside, put her things down, then came back to retrieve it. She glanced around as she picked it up, and noticed there was a card with the rose.
She opened it. My favorite flower: Rose. The color of Rachel’s lips.
Her heart skipped a beat or two. “What?” she asked out loud, and suddenly clutched the rose to her chest, peered down the drive. There was no one—no cars, no sounds, nothing. So Rachel slowly backed into her house, looked at the flower again, brought it to her nose and inhaled the scent of it, then read the note once more.
A smile crossed her lips.
She carried the rose around with her the rest of the evening, half expecting him to knock on the door. At midnight, having worked on her dissertation for several hours, she crawled into bed, the rose with her, and slept soundly.
That night, she dreamed she was walking in snow. Each step was harder than the last, and she kept sinking, until she was sinking with each step up to her thigh. But ahead of her was a single red rose, and in her dream, she was struggling to reach the rose before it blew away.
The next day, Rachel put the rose in a vase and went to the gym.
“Hey,” Lori said as she walked in. “I didn’t think we were going to see you again!”
“Did you think I’d died or something?” Rachel asked wryly.
Lori laughed. “You know how it is. People gain weight, they come to the gym, then they feel pretty good and stop coming, then they gain weight again and here they come.” She smiled, popped a bubble.
Rachel rolled her eyes, went on back to the machines. She could only make it five miles that day before her legs gave out and she began to see her life flash before her eyes. As she wobbled out the door, she was furious with herself for having wallowed in pity so long. She warned Lori she’d be back the next day.
The rest of the day she was at the university library, working diligently. When she left there, she picked up some Chinese and drove home, and once again, the cheerful Christmas lights greeted her as she drove down the street and turned into the one dark house on the entire block.
She walked to the steps leading to her kitchen door and caught her breath. There was a package there, wrapped in silver paper, tied with a red ribbon. With a grin, Rachel scooped it up and quickly went inside.
At her breakfast bar, she untied the red bow, took the paper from the box, and opened the lid. “Oh God,” she murmured as she withdrew a crystal pendant made of blue topaz hanging on a long silver chain. “Ohmigod,” she said again, lifting the pendant from the box and holding it up to the light. It was gorgeous; exquisite. She fastened it around her neck, eagerly took the card from the box.
My favorite gem: Blue topaz. The exact color of Rachel’s eyes.
“Oh Jesus, Flynn,” she whispered, and still grinning, held the pendant in her palm, admiring it, then let it drop against her body and ran to the front windows. She peered out into the night, wondering if he was out there somewhere, watching her. But she couldn’t see very well, and bounced to the front door, and walked out onto the porch with her arms folded tightly against her as she looked up the street one way, then the other.
Nothing.
The cold forced her back inside.