Excerpt of The Christmas Gift by Darlene Gardner

"So while we're being outspoken and clearing the air, let's hear why you dumped me," Krista said.

Alex swung his gaze from the road to Krista, not able to determine from her expression if she were joking. "I didn't dump you! You moved to the Czech Republic."

"Two weeks after you dropped me like a hot potato." 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," she said.

"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 said. "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 a 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 said. "But if I had it to do over again, I'd wait a lot longer until I told 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 like she was teasing but Alex couldn't risk a glance at her to find out.

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

"Yeah," Krista said, "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 shop 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, remembered sensations assailed him. 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."