Page 54 of The Loophole
Wow. I really needed my brain to shut up.
When I went into the bedroom, Embry was just Embry—sweet and cute and upbeat, like always. He said, “Merry Christmas, Bry,” and gave me a hug.
“Merry Christmas.”
He’d already gotten dressed, and he said, “I want to take Dusty for a walk before brunch. Will you come with me?”
“Definitely.” He spent a couple of minutes in the bathroom, and then we bundled up and headed outside with the dog.
Embry linked his arm with mine, and Dusty trotted along happily in his little, red doggie sweater. It was cold enough to see our breath. Fog hung in the air, and a thin layer of frost covered everything. Embry said, “It looks like the whole world was dipped in sugar.”
“You’re right.”
As we made our way down a dirt path between rows of dormant vines, he asked, “Will you please bring me back here in the spring, and summer, and fall? I want to see the grapes when they’re tiny and green, and later when they’re big and purple. Then I want to come back and see them get turned into wine.”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. That’ll be fun.” After a minute, he glanced at my profile and asked, “Did you bring Christmas presents for your family?”
“I sent the gifts to their home addresses. They got them last week.”
“What did you send?”
“Everyone always gets a gourmet gift basket from a company I’ve used for years. I also send imported cigars to Uncle Charles, and a very nice cognac to Granddad.”
“You do the same thing, year after year?”
“Yeah. It’s all set up on auto-delivery.”
“And what do they give you in return?”
“Wine, mostly.” When I glanced at him, he was frowning. “You don’t approve?”
“I didn’t say that. It all sounds very nice.”
“But?”
“It’s a little impersonal, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I suppose it is.”
“Let me help you next year,” he said. “I’m sure we can come up with some fun ideas.”
I tried to imagine my life a year from now. Assuming everything continued to go well, I would have just received my inheritance. The plans for my new restaurant should all be mapped out by then, so the first thing I’d do when I got the money would be to secure a location.
From that point forward, my life was going to become totally consumed with getting the restaurant up and running. I couldn’t let this one fail. I just couldn’t. I’d have to put everything I had into it—all my time, all my focus…
Where would that leave Embry and me?
I hoped we’d be a real couple by then. But what would happen to us once I opened my restaurant and was working a million hours a week to make it a success?
I was getting ahead of myself. I knew that. Whatever was happening between us was brand new. It was too soon to predict what it was going to turn into.
Instead, I made a conscious decision to shift my focus to the here and now. I was in a beautiful setting on Christmas with awonderful person and his cute dog. This was a moment to be savored.
We returned to the house a few minutes later, and when we went to our room to drop off our coats, I saw the little stockings were filled. I grinned at Embry and said, “Look, Santa was here while we were out for a walk.”
He grinned, too. “That’s definitely what happened. It’s not that you didn’t notice them before we left.”