Page 3 of Enduring Christmas
"Never tell a man his kiss was a mistake. It makes us try harder. After all, its Christmas," he winked. "Miracles can happen."
All of a sudden, her warm brown skin grayed, her expression closed off. Where she had been relaxed and playful, she stood ridged. Luke crowded her space, his instinct to protect on alert.
"X, are you okay?"
"Yeah," she shook her head as if warding off the ghost of Christmas past. "I gave up on Christmas miracles a long time ago."
With that, she threw her skates over her shoulder and walked towards the frozen ice. Luke stood there watching as she laced up the ice skates. Her first step onto the ice was shaky, but he saw the look of determination in her eyes. He watched a smiling Xenobia twirling around on the ice like a kid, her face turned up to the clouds, her tongue darting out to catch the wispy snowflakes flurries. For a moment, he imagined himself beside her, swinging the spirited beauty in his arms. Feeling the joy reflected on her face. Sharing in her smile as it lit up the night.
It happened so fast. The sound of ice cracking shattered the night, like fireworks. Xenobia disappeared beneath a curtain of ice like a graceful dancer taking a deadly final bow. The night stilled around Luke.
"Xenobia," he bellowed, his feet already in motion barely touching the ice. Luke had grown from a boy to a man in Endurance. He knew this lake like the back of his hand. There shouldn't have been any thin areas in ice this late in December.
When he reached the gaping hole, he dropped to his belly. Plunging his bare hands into the below-freezing water up to his elbows. Searching the blackness, when his fingers, stiff with cold, hit a large object, he used all his strength, to edge his prone body backward, a human pulley. His muscles burned, but he kept at it until Xenobia's now loose tresses appeared. Sprawled on her stomach, the muddy water soaking her clothes, her face was buried in dark waves. Biting pain shot through his arms, the icy cold seeping bone-deep.
Carefully, he gripped her shoulder, rolling her onto her back while cradling her head in his large palm.
She remained still, eyes closed, a robin's egg-sized knot forming above her right eye.
She mumbled something, barely coherent.
Lowering his head, Luke angled it trying to hear. "What is it, Sweets?"
"Did-would you..." Whatever she asked, he’d make it happen, "kiss me?"
"No, X," he reassured.
"I wanted you to," she breathed, and promptly lost consciousness.
Talk about a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. How hard had she hit her head? Luke scooped Xenobia up in his arms. There would be plenty of time for unwrapping her confession. Right now, the lady needed him and medical attention.
CHAPTER TWO
Smallunfamiliar hands touching her chest pulled Xenobia from her slumber. Her freshman year at teaching, she grew accustomed to hands being on her legs on her hips sometimes even misplaced on her butt, never her chest, and now her face. For some reason, a sense of happiness bounced around as her dulled senses came back online.
She didn't trust happy. Not for herself. The wild, uninhibited, out all night Xenobia no longer existed. Her life was a model of control, structure, and defensive maneuvers.
