Wrapped Up In Christmas

ir booth had been.

She glanced at her watch. “Oh, sorry, Maybelle. It’s later than I’d thought. I’ve got to run. Love you and see you in a few.”

She hung up the phone, then rushed to finish getting ready. When she was, it surprised her that Bodie wasn’t there. He must have gotten hung up at Lou’s. Or maybe he was making arrangements for help to move the furniture back into the suites.

No problem. He knew where the spare key was hidden to let himself in.

Only when she stepped outside onto the porch, she froze, almost falling to her knees.

Not because of the cold December air or a chilly gust of wind.

There, draped over the porch railing, was Bodie’s quilt.

The quilt she’d made while dreaming of him before she’d ever even known him.

She walked over to the railing and, hands shaking, she touched the soft cotton material she hadn’t seen since donating it to the Quilts of Valor Foundation.

The material that had once dried her grieving tears, that had wrapped around Bodie’s broken body and soothed his wounded warrior’s soul. Her quilt, this quilt, had given him comfort, had been a light in his world full of darkness.

But not anymore. He’d let it go. Let her go.

Eyes watering, the red, white, and blue blurred and she gave in to the sorrow sweeping through her as she accepted what stared her in the face.

What she’d known all along and why she hadn’t asked him to stay.

Bodie had done what he’d always been going to do.

He’d left.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Maybelle asked as they filled disposable trays with today’s lunch offering in the church kitchen.

“Did he tell you he was leaving?” Claudia pushed, dipping a large serving of green beans into a cup then putting a plastic lid over it.

Sarah resisted the temptation to brush back a stray hair from her ponytail with her gloved hands, then shrugged. She’d teared up this morning on her porch as she’d carried the quilt inside, placing it in the rocking chair across from their Christmas tree. But she’d refused to let herself cry. Instead, she’d draped the quilt across the chair, given it one last look, then headed to church.

As much as she didn’t want to talk about Bodie with the Butterflies, there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Actually, she was surprised that they hadn’t called to tell her he was gone long before she’d found the quilt.

“He didn’t have to tell me in words.”

“Then how do you know?” Rosie insisted.

“He didn’t show at Hamilton House this morning,” she admitted, not wanting to mention the quilt. Silly as it was, the quilt felt private, something intimate between the two of them. “I called his hotel. He checked out during the night.”

That he’d left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye stung.

“He’s gone.” She couldn’t put it much more simply than that.

“He didn’t say a word? He just left?” Maybelle’s brows arched high.

“That sums it up.” She understood Maybelle’s surprise. Sarah had never imagined him leaving without her having a chance to tell him thank you.

Or to pay him for the last week of work he’d done.

She hadn’t thought him a coward, the type to steal off in the night instead of saying goodbye. But what did it matter? They’d had no future together. Why draw out the goodbyes? Maybe it was just as well he’d left as he had.

Had he thought she’d try to convince him to stay?

“Did something happen? You didn’t fight, did you?”