The Christmas Letters: A Magnolia Bay Romantic Comedy Read online

  Chapter 2

  Connor

  Connor McKay stopped the ambulance in front of Vera’s coffee shop and shifted into park.

  “Is she stuck in the bathroom? Or just stuck in a bathroom stall?” his partner, Ben, asked.

  “I guess we’re about to find out,” Connor said as he climbed out of the front seat. He paused just long enough to see a Station Two firetruck pull up behind him, lights flashing.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Ben. He led the way into Vera’s, Ben and several firemen only steps behind. An older, Black woman wearing a bright red dress and a black apron stood at the back of the restaurant, a worried look on her face. The nametag she wore said “Vera.”

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Vera said as Connor approached. “The poor thing is starting to break down.”

  “How long has she been stranded?” Connor asked, following Vera into the narrow hallway behind her.

  “We only found her a few minutes ago—y’all made good time—but it seems like she’d been trapped a while.”

  “Inside a stall?”

  Vera nodded, pausing outside the bathroom door. She glanced over Connor’s shoulder, a frown creasing her brow.

  Connor followed her gaze to a fireman a few paces behind him holding an axe. He looked back to Vera, an eyebrow raised.

  “The stall doors,” she explained. “They’re two hundred years old. From the original building. I’d hate to see them destroyed.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Connor said.

  Vera nodded, then stepped out of the way, making room for Connor and one of the firemen to step into the small bathroom. Everyone else stood in the hallway, the door propped open so they could at least see in.

  Connor stopped outside the stall door and knocked. “Hello? How are you doing in there?”

  A woman sniffled. “Oh, thank goodness. Please get me out of here.”

  “That’s what we’re here to do. I’m a paramedic with Station Two and I’m going to stay with you, okay?” Connor stepped to the side while AJ, the fireman beside him, inspected the hinges on the door, fiddling with the locking mechanism.

  “We tried everything,” Vera said. “The hinges are iron and as old as the hills. And it looks like the lock broke off on the inside. I can’t make sense of it.”

  “I’m willing to back all the way up if you want to just break the door down,” the woman said from inside the stall, trepidation filling her voice.

  Vera shook her head. “Surely it won’t come to that.”

  AJ leaned in, looking at the bolts. “I think I know what we can do. If we can get a saw in here with a diamond blade, we can cut through these bolts without harming the door. We’ll lose the original bolts, but otherwise, she might be in there forever.”

  “Oh, geez,” the woman said. “Please don’t say that.”

  “It’s going to be a minute before we can do anything,” a voice sounded from the hallway. Ben stuck his head in the door, making eye contact with Connor. “King Street is flooding. None of us are going anywhere unless we’re swimming.”

  Connor stifled a groan while the woman inside the stall whimpered.

  “I hate small spaces,” she said softly, repeating the words over and over again. “I hate small spaces. I hate small spaces.”

  Connor looked up, momentarily wondering if he’d be able to climb up and fit through the space above the stall door, but he thought better of it. If the woman hated small spaces, two people trapped inside the stall would only make the space seem smaller.

  He motioned his head toward the door, asking AJ and everyone else to give him some space. “Find us a saw to cut through the bolts. In the meantime, I’m going to try and keep her calm.” Flooding in downtown Charleston wasn’t rare, though it was unusual for late October. Usually it was the fast-moving summer storms that dumped enough rain to overwhelm the storm drains and fill the streets with water. Still, the flooding never lasted long; it usually receded as quickly as it came. Surely it wouldn’t hinder their progress for more than an hour or so.

  AJ nodded, disappearing out the door.

  Connor leaned against the stall. “You okay in there?”

  A deep breath. A sniffle. “Seriously? Would you be okay in here? It’s taking every ounce of my focus not to completely freak out.”

  “What’s your name?” Connor asked. Maybe if he could help her focus on something else, she might relax a little.

  “Dahlia,” the woman said.

  “Like the flower? That’s a nice name. Are you from Charleston?”

  “I know what you’re trying to do,” Dahlia said. “And it isn’t going to work. You can’t small talk me out of a panic attack.”

  Alarm bells sounded in Connor’s brain. The last thing he needed was a woman he couldn’t help panicking herself into passing out. “Got it. No small talk. Can you take a couple of deep breaths for me? I want you to close your eyes and breathe in for four seconds, then we’re going to hold it for seven, then breath out for eight. I’ll do it with you, okay?”

  “Right. Breathing. I can breathe,” Dahlia said. “Four, seven, eight. I know this.”

  “Ready?” Connor said. “I’ll count us off. Breathing in, one, two, three, four . . .”

  He continued the breathing exercises for a few minutes, willing calm through the heavy stall door to the woman on the other side. “How are you feeling?” he finally asked.

  “Better, I think,” she said.

  “Good. I used to have panic attacks when I was a kid,” Connor said. “My grandma used to tell me oxygen was my best friend and I’d best not shut it out when it wanted to help me.”

  Dahlia chuckled. “Seems like it would be hard to forget something so simple and yet . . . normal breathing really is the first thing to go, isn’t it?”

  “How’s your pulse?” Connor asked. “Does it feel like it’s racing?”

  “No,” Dahlia said, her voice sounding calmer and calmer. “I mean, it isn’t normal, but it’s getting better. Talking to you is helping.”

  “Just keep breathing,” Connor said. “It shouldn’t be too much longer.”

  “Why did you have panic attacks as a kid?” Dahlia asked.

  It was a personal question. Too personal. And yet, if talking is what it took to keep Dahlia safe, so be it. That was his job. Connor glanced at the door. Only Ben was close enough to hear their conversation and he already knew everything there was to know about Connor.

  “I lost my parents when I was a kid,” he said. “A sailing accident. For three years after, I had a panic attack every time I was near the water.”

  “That’s . . .” Dahlia paused. “I’m sorry. That makes freaking out because I’m locked in a bathroom stall feel really stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid,” Connor said. “You’ve been in there a pretty long time.”

  “It feels like it’s been days instead of hours,” Dahlia said. “But I know that’s just me being dramatic. How did you stop them?” she asked. “The panic attacks?”

  “Lots of controlled breathing and some good therapy,” Connor said. “And then, eventually, I just grew out of them. But you’ll never find me on a sailboat. Even today.”

  “What about surfing?” she asked. “Do you surf?”

  “A little,” Connor said. “But I’m not very good. I’m more of a land sports kind of guy.”

  “I learned to surf in Bali,” Dahlia said. “Just last year. Isn’t that funny? I grew up in Charleston and never touched a surfboard. I had to travel halfway across the world to realize it was something I love to do.”

  “Bali, huh? That sounds nice. They probably have better waves anyway.”

  She harrumphed in a way that made Connor think there was more to the Bali story than she was letting on. “Tell me something else about you,” Dahlia said, changing the subject. “I like the sound of your voice. It’s helping.”

  Her words sparked something in Connor’s gut; it had been a long time since he’d felt a flare of attractio
n and it didn’t make sense that he was feeling one now. Dahlia could be eighty for all he knew. Or worse, seventeen. Though, a surfing trip in Bali made him think she was probably neither.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Are you from Charleston too?”

  “Born and raised,” Connor said.

  “How long have you been a paramedic?”

  “Almost five years.”

  “Any siblings? Spouses? Kids?”

  “You want to know about pets and girlfriends too?”

  Connor caught movement in his periphery and looked over to see Ben staring at him, a ridiculous expression on his face. He gave Connor a knowing look and rolled his eyes. They both knew better than to try and meet women on the job, but a little harmless flirting never hurt anybody.

  “You can tell me about the flowers growing in your grandma’s flower beds if you want to. Anything is better than what I have to entertain me in here.”

  “You don’t have your phone?”

  Dahlia scoffed. “Nope. The one time I go somewhere without it, this is what happens. I mean, it’s not like it would have helped me get out, but a little Candy Crush might have been nice.”

  “I bet. I have one sibling,” Connor said. “A sister. She lives up in Columbia. She’s married, and I’ve got one little nephew who’s six months old, but no spouses or kids for me.” He nearly added that he didn’t have a girlfriend either, but Ben would never let him live down volunteering that piece of information when Dahlia hadn’t asked for it.

  “Oh, fun. My cousin is expecting a baby in a couple of months. A little girl. What about pets and girlfriends?”

  Connor tried to hide his smile. He shouldn’t care so much, shouldn’t want the mystery woman to know that he was unattached. Not when all he had to go on was her voice. But weirdly enough, he did want her to know. “No pets.” He paused, an image of Peyton, his last girlfriend, flitting through his mind. She was married now, to a man she’d claimed would only ever be her friend. Connor had correctly predicted that the two of them were meant for each other.

  Breaking up had felt like the right call at the time, and he didn’t fault Peyton the happiness she’d found, but now, over a year later, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. A year of bad first dates would do that to a guy.

  “No girlfriend,” he finally said.

  “You hesitated,” Dahlia said. “Been through a bad breakup recently?”

  “Just a breakup,” Connor said. “And not recently.”

  “But it still left you feeling unraveled. I can tell by the way your voice changed.”

  “That’s an apt diagnosis for someone locked inside a bathroom stall.”

  “Your voice is very transparent. You’re not making it very hard.”

  Connor grinned despite the uncomfortable subject of their conversation. “It isn’t really a big deal. She’s married now,” Connor said. “And I’m happy for her.”

  “But?”

  Was he really going to get into this now? With a stranger?

  “Please?” Dahlia said. “I know it’s weird to tell me such personal stuff but focusing on your life is making it so much easier for me to ignore how much the air around me smells like a toilet. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  Connor looked back to the door, hoping Ben was out of earshot. Admitting his feelings to a stranger he couldn’t see felt oddly safer than baring his soul to his partner. “When we broke up, I told Peyton that I thought we both deserved to feel the world tilt on its axis when we fell in love. It was my idea to break up; she didn’t think we needed to, though I’m sure she’s happy about it now. I’m just wondering if I was wrong, you know? If I gave up on something that could have been good. Does love like that really exist?”

  “The world-tilting kind of love?” Dahlia was silent for a long moment. “I think so. What is it like for Peyton and the guy she married? Did they find that kind of love?”

  Maybe they had. But also, maybe Peyton just liked that the new guy was titled and British and loaded. He fit in her world a lot better than Connor ever would have.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they did. Whatever she felt, it was more than she ever felt for me.”

  “Then it’s a good thing she married him,” Dahlia said.

  “Sure. But I think that kind of love is . . . I don’t know. One in a million, you know? Maybe it doesn’t happen for everybody.”

  “I’m not sure it happens for everyone,” Dahlia said. “I’m not sure everyone is looking for it. But I do think it happens more than once in a million.”

  “Have you ever experienced it?” Connor asked, immediately wondering if he’d pushed the conversation too far. But then, she was the one that had brought it up.

  “If you knew my history, my answer might surprise you, but no. I don’t think I have.”

  “If I knew your history?”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Dahlia said. “Tell me about your work.”

  Connor wasn’t about to make a woman trapped in a bathroom stall dig into her past, so he let her direct the conversation, answering her questions about the ins and outs of his job, covering everything from the funniest call he’d ever answered to the reason he became a paramedic in the first place—because he liked the challenge and thought he had the stamina and the fortitude to do the job well.

  Eventually, the conversation drifted to other things. Hobbies, favorites, childhood memories. Connor was pretty sure it had never been so easy to talk to someone before. In any other setting, he would have long since asked the woman out for drinks, or even dinner. Assuming she was close to his age. And didn’t look like the Loch Ness Monster.

  When AJ came bustling back into the small space, an electric saw in his hands, Connor felt an unexpected surge of disappointment course through him.

  “What’s going on?” Dahlia asked from inside the stall. “Are you getting me out?”

  “We’ve got a saw. We’re going to try and cut the bolts, all right?” Connor said. “Can you back away from the door? As far away as you can.”

  The closer they came to freeing Dahlia, the more nervous Connor felt. Not for the process—AJ seemed like he had the task well in hand—but for seeing her. Making eye contact. Their conversation had felt strangely intimate. Would seeing her face-to-face intensify the feeling? Or wipe it clean away?

  Ben hefted Connor’s bag of supplies and handed it to him. “You’ll need to check her vitals once she’s free,” he said. “Just to make sure. I moved a chair into the hallway so she can sit.”

  Connor nodded, gripping the bag.

  When Dahlia emerged from the stall, she looked past AJ, who she must have known wasn’t Connor based on the saw in his hands and his fireman garb, and made eye contact with Connor. “It was you?” she asked.

  Connor nodded his confirmation. She walked toward him, pausing briefly in front of him before wrapping her arms around his waist.

  He wrapped one arm loosely around her shoulder and returned the hug, knowing AJ and Ben and a number of his colleagues were all watching.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “That would have been so much worse without you talking to me.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Connor said gently. “I was just doing my job.”

  Dahlia dropped her arms and leaned back, studying his face with her lip held lightly between her bottom teeth. “Was that really all it was?”

  Connor raised his eyebrows. The woman was beautiful. Stunning, even. So much so that if he’d first seen her out somewhere, he probably would have been too intimidated to ask her out. And there was an air about her—something he couldn’t quite name—that reminded him of Peyton. That made him nervous. Still, the gleam in Dahlia’s eyes said if he did ask her out, she’d absolutely be saying yes.

  Ben cleared his throat behind them, motioning to the chair just outside the bathroom door. Connor immediately took a step backward and offered Dahlia a half-smile. “I need to check your vitals before I can let you go. Would y
ou like to sit down for me?”

  Dahlia raised her eyebrows and looked down her front as if assessing herself for imaginary damages.

  “It’s just protocol,” Connor said.

  She nodded, following Connor to the hallway where she sank into the chair Ben had provided. She kept her eyes on him the entire time he listened to her heart and took her blood pressure, making him more nervous than he’d been his first day on the job.

  There was something about this woman that was driving him mad.

  “Are you . . . trembling?” Dahlia asked, a smile in her voice.

  Connor stood up and cleared his throat, shoving the blood pressure cuff into his bag. “Everything looks great so you’re good to go.” He glanced down the long hallway to a door that led back onto the street. “It even looks like the rain has let up.”

  “Hopefully it didn’t wash my car away before it did,” Dahlia said, following his gaze. She cocked her head as if considering her next words. “Do you have your phone on you?”

  Connor swallowed. “Yeah.”

  She held out her hand, a look of expectation clear in her eyes. “Can I see?”

  Connor pulled out his phone and handed it over, watching as she programmed her number into his contacts. She handed it back before taking a few backward steps toward the door, a wide smile on her face.

  “You should call me.”

  He couldn’t help but return her smile. “Yeah? Why is that?”

  She nodded, her face suddenly turning more serious than flirty. “Cause my world just tilted.”

  Chapter 3

  Dahlia

  Dahlia sat in her car, her hands gripping her steering wheel. She’d never done anything quite so bold. Which was saying a lot because Dahlia’s life was all about being bold. Sure, she’d hit on guys before. Given out her number. Been the one to make the first move.

  But this felt different. He felt different.

  She let out a little laugh. My world just tilted? Had she really admitted to such a thing? She caught sight of the paramedics leaving the coffee shop and she quickly pulled forward, not wanting them to see her sitting there, staring into space. She wanted to feel embarrassment for what she’d said. And maybe when the thrill of meeting . . . wait. She didn’t know his name. All that talking and he’d never told her his name. He’d been wearing a nametag though, hadn’t he? She searched her memory, trying to pull up an image that might help, but there wasn’t a name buried anywhere in her mind. She remembered the intense blue of his eyes, and the way his hair was brushed to the side, and the slight dimple that had made an appearance when he’d smiled at her. But no name.