Leon smiled and stepped closer to her, nudging Adam out of the way. “You brought me a gift? Now that’s what I call friendly. Let me get you another drink, lovely lady, and tell you all about where I come from.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dakota looked at the laden shelf of glass angels she’d spent the last three weeks making. Was it going to be enough for the tree? Would her tree look full and perfect once they were all hung? After what Adam had said about needing so many lights, garlands and ornaments per foot, she worried she was going to run short. Because the trees hadn’t been delivered yet, nor had they been allocated.
And neither had her lights arrived.
A feather drifted down from the top shelf and she reached for it, tripped over the corner of the rug and stumbled and fell. She cried out, lifted her hands to cover her face and fell into the wall of glass.
She screamed as it rained down around her, the beautiful hand-made angels now seemingly vicious creatures cutting into her flesh and covering the floor in needle like shards that dug into her knees. A shadow hovered over her and Dakota put up her hand to stop the heavy shelf hitting her head as it fell.
Hands battling the weight above her, Dakota pushed with all her might, forcing herself to stay calm. A yip sounded in her ear and a wet tongue licked across her face. “Tiny, be careful.” The last thing she needed was her little poodle shredded by the glass. “Go away!”
Tiny set about barking, scratching at her with tiny claws. Heart pounding, Dakota opened her eyes, blinked and stared at the ceiling above her. Her bedroom ceiling. She tried to calm her thumping heart, slow her breathing. She wasn’t in the workroom. There were no broken angels. She hadn’t been cut to shreds. It’d been a nightmare, something that hadn’t happened in months. Strange that her anxiety was coming back to haunt her now. It’d been ages since she’d had a panic attack that left her with a pounding heart and dry mouth. Her own fault for taking on so much. It was playing on her nerves, making her anxious. Stupid, stupid for thinking she could do it all.
Frustrated she kicked out, flailed under her blankets, thankful it had only been a dream but knowing it was her own fault for working so intensely hard. She never should have taken yesterday and last night off.
Tiny dashed down the bed and pounced on Dakota’s feet. With a chortle of relief, she moved her toes around under the blankets and her dog darted after them, breaking the tension and letting her come back to earth.
Her own fault indeed. For taking on so much that she had to work ridiculous hours, doing double plus the normal workload she would have done in her previous life. All because she had to prove to herself she was normal and her accident hadn’t impacted her life and she was good with uprooting herself and starting over somewhere new. Sure, her body had healed for the most part. The cold weather played havoc on her circulation but that wasn’t enough to derail her. It was the ending of her relationship that had wounded her the most. She was now admitting it to herself and only because of Adam.
Being dumped because she was no longer capable of maintaining the high-end product she was known for had hit her hard. A year on and there were days when her confidence still took a dive and she questioned herself, wondered why anyone would bother with her. The only thing that had made her put that to the back of her mind was Adam and the light she saw in his eyes when he was around. And how crazy of her to fall for someone that made it quite clear he didn’t really want to get involved. The fact that he was attracted to her was enough. For now, anyway.
A wet tongue on her nose made her stop day dreaming. It was time to get up, she’d slept in for the first time in weeks. “Let’s go, little girl.” She threw back the blankets, stepped into slippers and grabbed her robe from the end of the bed. Tiny skipped around her feet as they headed out to the kitchen. A quick glance in her workroom reinforced the dream. Her angels were all stacked up in boxes, each magnificent creation wrapped in tissue to keep it safe until the day she hung them on the tree and revealed her new line to the public.
She opened the back door and let Tiny out before turning on the coffee machine, then walked outside. She was standing in the morning sun in a dry patch of the garden when her phone rang. Dakota ran inside, picked up the phone. “Hello.”
“Dakota, Adam. How are you this morning?”
“I’m well. I can’t believe I slept in for the first time in, like forever.” She watched Tiny get up and wander out of sight. She was probably going down to say good morning to Cory and Woodsie. It seemed to be a regular thing of late and she was done trying to change her mind.
“That’s great. I have news. The trees will be here this afternoon. I thought you might like to be there to help me position them and set up the privacy screens.”
Another chance to spend some time with him. She could stand that. “I’d love to. Meet you there then? I really need to put in some serious hours this morning though.”
“Sure. I said I’d meet Bill at the back of the hotel at about two o’clock.”
“Brilliant. Thanks, Adam.” She hung up and walked outside. “Tiny, where are you?”
*
When Adam drove to the back of the hotel that afternoon, the first
