The Christmas Gift. Darlene Gardner

rearview mirror, Alex noticed a black SUV that was following too closely. The driver had a cell phone to his ear. “But I heard your mom at dinner. She doesn’t need me to speak for her. She does a pretty good job herself.”

      Krista laughed, the last thing he expected.

      “I guess my mother and I have something in common, after all,” Krista said. “So while we’re being outspoken and clearing the air, let’s hear why you dumped me.”

      Alex abruptly turned to Krista, not able to determine from her expression if she were joking. “I didn’t dump you! You moved to the Czech Republic.”

      “You dropped me like a hot potato two weeks before that.” She gasped and pointed at the road. “Red light!”

      They were approaching a traffic light that was turning from yellow to red, but Alex only had one choice because of the SUV on his bumper. He kept his foot steady on the gas and went through the intersection. Behind them, the SUV came to a screeching stop.

      “You ran that red light!” Krista said.

      “It was safer than stopping.” Alex counted himself lucky he didn’t hear a police siren. How could he explain missing the red light when he’d driven this route thousands of times?

      “Am I distracting you?” she asked.

      “Ya think?” He vowed to keep his eyes on the road, but his mind was mired in the past. “To set the record straight, I didn’t break things off until after you accepted the job.”

      “You had to realize I would have liked to keep seeing you in those two weeks before I moved,” Krista said.

      “What would have been the point?” he asked.

      “We were having a good time together.”

      “The good times had to end, sooner or later.”

      “It would have been nice if it was later,” she said.

      Were they really having this conversation? Alex didn’t know any other woman who talked so bluntly. Was that one of the reasons he’d been attracted to her?

      “More time together would have changed nothing,” he stated. “You still would have moved to Europe and I still would have stayed here.”

      “I suppose,” she said, a sigh in her voice. “But it’s not like we had a commitment.”

      The few weeks they’d known each other had been enough time for Alex to suspect he wanted more from Krista than sex. Her surprise announcement that she was leaving had forced him to conclude he hadn’t known her at all.

      “Why didn’t you mention you were considering moving to Europe?” Alex posed the question he should have asked back then.

      “I wasn’t,” Krista said. “The job offer came from out of the blue, and I accepted on the spot.”

      Alex hadn’t seen it coming. One day, he was dating a woman with a semester left at a college less than three hours away in Philadelphia. The next, she was moving across the Atlantic Ocean.

      Looking back on it, Alex had envisioned the same future for Krista that her mother had. She was a business major at the University of Pennsylvania and her parents owned a nursery. It seemed a given that she’d eventually join the family business, perhaps because that was the choice Alex made.

      No, he hadn’t known Krista well at all.

      “You sound like you have no regrets,” he said.

      “Not about moving,” Krista replied. “But if I had it to do over again, I’d wait a lot longer before telling you I was taking the job.”

      The last mile before they reached the nursery was on a fairly steep road with a narrow shoulder. Krista didn’t sound as if she were teasing, but Alex couldn’t risk a glance at her to find out.

      “We still would have had an expiration date,” he said.

      Krista agreed. “But think of the fun we could have had in the meantime.”

      Alex would rather not. “What’s over is over.”

      The paved parking lot that served both Novaks’ Nursery and the adjoining Christmas Shoppe came into view, half-filled with cars even though it was barely past ten o’clock. Alex switched on his turn signal and slowed down.

      “What if it’s not over? What would you say if I propositioned you now?” Krista asked in the same low voice she once used when they were in bed together. Just like that, sensations assailed him. He could recall the smooth texture of her skin. The fresh smell of her hair. The sweet taste of her kiss.

      Alex focused on another memory as he pulled the truck into the parking lot, found a space and shut off the ignition—the disappointment that Krista was leaving when things between them had barely begun.

      “You won’t proposition me,” he said in an equally soft voice. “You won’t be here long enough.”

      KRISTA COULDN’T IMAGINE what had possessed her to say those suggestive things to Alex.

      Sure, the abrupt way he’d cut things off with her eight years ago had stung. And, yes, he’d crept into her thoughts over the years. He remained the one and only man who’d ended a relationship before she had.

      Maybe that was why whatever was between them didn’t feel as though it were over.

      She pulled on the fur-lined black leather gloves she’d taken off during the drive and prepared to be gracious. With only a few days remaining before she left Jarrell, Krista wouldn’t be spending much time—if any—with Alex.

      “Thank you for the ride,” she said.

      He dipped his dark head in a formal little bow. “Like I said, it was my pleasure.”

      No wonder she’d fallen for him, Krista thought. She’d always been a sucker for guys with good manners.

      “See you around,” she said and got out of the pickup.

      Almost immediately she heard the driver’s door open and shut. Alex strode around the pickup, joining her on the path leading to the nursery.

      “You don’t need to walk me to the door,” Krista said.

      “I’m not.” Alex’s breath was visible in the frosty air. “I’m working at the shop today, too.”

      She noticed that he was carrying a black athletic bag over his shoulder. “Doing what?”

      “You’ll see soon enough,” he said.

      “A mystery,” Krista said. “You know how much I love them.”

      Years ago they’d discovered they shared a passion for true-crime books and classic whodunits. They both considered Alfred Hitchcock to be a genius.

      Up ahead, the blooms that added color to the nursery yard in the spring and summer were gone. A few empty crates and leafless trees in burlap bags added to the barren feel. A few steps farther, however, the atmosphere underwent a dramatic change.

      A charming wood sign hung suspended from a post. It was painted red and featured a winking elf and white lettering that spelled out Novaks’ Christmas Shoppe.

      Past the sign was a covered entranceway lined with poinsettias that transported Krista back to her first sighting of Alex. He hadn’t been the only one who was gobsmacked. If Alex hadn’t overturned the cart, she would have found another reason to talk to him.

      He looked even better now than he had then. With his height and broad shoulders, he still cut an impressive figure. But he’d let the black hair that went so well with his olive complexion and dark-as-night eyes grow a little longer. His hair curled at the ends, a soft touch that made his lean face appear even more masculine.

      Alex placed his hand at the small of her back. She nearly jumped, even though there was a coat and a sweater between