One Winter's Night: The Twelve Dates of Christmas / Frozen Heart, Melting Kiss / A Cadence Creek Christmas. SUSAN MEIER

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      Confused again, Eloise sucked in a breath. “Well, he’s also on the hospital board, so maybe he was just looking around, checking on things.” She thought of the nurse who’d talked to him and grimaced. “No. That’s not it either. A nurse came up to him. She acted as if she knows him.”

      “If he’s on the board, of course she knows him.”

      She shook her head. “No. This was more like she knew him personally.”

      Laura Beth winced. “Was she young and pretty?”

      “Middle-aged but very pretty. Still, it wasn’t that. The way she reacted to him was more like she was accustomed to seeing him.” She tried to remember their conversation. “She said stay as long as you like...as if he’d been in the ward before, staring into that ICU room.”

      Picking up her empty cup, Laura Beth rose from the table. “I think you’re making more out of this than you should because you’re trying to figure out the ‘tragedy’ those dinner party wives told you about.” She shook her head. “Think it through. His friend’s wife was in the hospital, maybe in early labor. That about stopped my heart. So I’m sure it scared him too. He might have simply gone to the children’s ICU not remembering there’d be a NICU.”

      She frowned. “Maybe.” Her brain could accept that, but her heart disagreed. There was something about the way he stood in front of that window, staring inside.

      Her disappointment rattled through her. He’d called her his friend the night before. Yet, here she sat, trying to guess what had happened in his life because he didn’t trust her enough to tell her.

      “Bruce is taking me skating at Rockefeller Center today.”

      Not wanting to be thought of as that sad girl anymore, Eloise pasted a smile on her face for her roommate. “Cool.”

      “I might need to borrow that big navy blue parka of yours.”

      “Sure.”

      “You won’t be using it?”

      “No.” She sighed. “We’re going to another formal party tonight.”

      Laura Beth laughed. “Hey, I’d kill to go to even one of those parties. You’ve been to six or seven.”

      “Bruce hasn’t asked you to one?”

      Laura Beth’s face reddened and she busied herself with tidying the area around the sink. “No.”

      Realizing her mistake, Eloise quickly said, “Well, be glad. They sort of get boring after a while. Repetitive.” Plus, when they danced, she wanted to melt in Ricky’s arms, but he held her two feet away.

      She wouldn’t tell Laura Beth that, though. She wouldn’t be a “sad girl” with the puppy dog eyes anymore. “Usually, I’d spend the weekends before Christmas window shopping.” With her subway pass, she could get anywhere in the city and see all the decorations. But what she liked best was Central Park. She’d go there to watch the white horses pulling gilded carriages and dream about someday taking a carriage ride. But that was another one of those silly things she didn’t confide to her friends.

      “This year, I’m so busy with Ricky and parties and making new gowns out of old ones that I haven’t done any of the things I like to do.”

      And, today, the need to do something normal, to be herself, swelled in her like a tidal wave. She was losing herself in a man who didn’t want her. When he was gone, and he would be, she’d be even more alone than she felt now.

      Laura Beth shook her head. “Everybody in New York can do what you want to do. This year you get to go to parties. Enjoy it.”

      As Laura Beth left the room, Eloise squeezed her eyes shut as the truth bombarded her. The tidal wave that filled her with longing wasn’t to do something normal alone. It was to do something normal with Ricky. To go window shopping with him. To go on that carriage ride with him. To see the tree at Rockefeller Center with him. She wanted to do something normal with him because she wanted him to be normal with her. At the big formal balls, he could dodge her questions. Hell, he could dodge actually spending time with her just by talking to his friends or dancing.

      And she was tired of having dinner with people she didn’t really know. Tired of not being allowed to let herself go when they danced. Tired of pretending to be happy.

      But, most of all, she was tired of pretending it was okay that the whole world knew his past, his secrets, but she couldn’t know because he didn’t want it to affect how she treated him.

      Didn’t he know her well enough yet to understand that she’d always treat him with respect?

      Why didn’t he trust her?

      That night when he arrived to pick her up, the insult of being the only one in his social circle who didn’t know his tragedy stiffened her muscles and put an icy tone in her voice.

      He slid her cape on her shoulders, covering her silver dress. “You look great.”

      She faced him and smiled, but her cheeks rebelled at the attempt to lift her mouth, and her smile was barely a curve of her lips. “Thank you.”

      He opened the door. She led him into the hall and to the stairway. She said nothing as they walked down the steps, through the lobby and to the car. But she couldn’t very well walk past Norman without a greeting.

      “Good evening, Norman.”

      He touched the rim of his hat. “Evening, ma’am.”

      She slid into the car. Ricky slid in behind her. Neither said a word.

      He cleared his throat. “So...difficult day today?”

      She continued to look out the window. “No. It was a normal day. A little house cleaning. A little sewing.”

      “That’s right. You work on your clothes the day of a party.”

      “Yes.”

      “Well, that silver thing you’re wearing is really pretty.”

      She wanted to tell him that she’d struggled not to make it a dress with a low back. She loved that style. But in the end, she’d decided to give it a full back for him. She knew he didn’t like having to touch her so much.

      Her nerve endings caught fire. Two parties ago, he’d held her hand and brought her close, like somebody who liked her. They’d drunk tequila like silly friends, and he’d almost kissed her. Now they were back to being polite strangers.

      Every time they took one step forward, he took two steps back. Tonight it cut through her like a knife, shredding her heart, bruising her soul. Even if he didn’t want to love her, he should like her. She’d been nothing but nice to him.

      The car stopped at another posh condo building. She faced him. “This is a private residence?”

      “Yes. Binnie and Dennis are hosting a small gathering.”

      “I’m in a gown.”

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