Dark hair clung to her forehead and right cheek and her heart seemed as if it were racing with the horses at the Kentucky Derby. She jumped from the bed as if getting out of bed would save her from the memory of her terror. Of course jumping out of bed after a nightmare that had her rolling wildly around the bed was always a bad idea. Falling in the bundle of red covers that had pooled on the floor did not make for a soft landing, but she didn’t have time to worry about soft landings; she had to figure out what the date was. Grabbing her day planner she looked at the cute butterfly nestled in the top right corner of the page before running her fingers down the square boxes to today’s date. “Three weeks until Christmas,” she leaned back against the wall. It was a dumb idea, but they had both been kids. They were young and stupid and not really thinking about the future because that’s what kids did. “If you’re not in love and I’m not in love by our thirty-second Christmas then we’ll marry each other on New Year’s Day,”
