The Christmas Violin Read Online Free

newspaper and scanned the other sections. She’d read the rest later when she had more time. She had an OB-GYN appointment across town. She hated going to the doctors, especially this doctor. It reminded her of what she no longer had and of the night that changed her life forever.
    The affair had taken Willow by surprise. She didn’t plan on it; neither did Dan. But when it happened, they weren’t strong enough to overcome their attraction and aching need for one another.
    He was older than her by twenty years, stuck in a marriage that had gone south almost before it began. He was lonely. She was lonely. Until they found each other one night at a hotel bar in Boston where she was performing.
    He was a neurosurgeon, in town for a convention. He was drinking a Scotch on the rocks with a twist and she sipped a gin and tonic. They just started talking. Small talk at first. What he did. What she did. The sort of talk that usually fades into a handshake and a “Nice to meet you.”
    Then they met the next night. Same two padded, mahogany stools at the end of the bar. Truth was, she enjoyed talking to him and had decided on a whim to have a drink before she retired to her room for the night. If she were lucky, maybe he’d stop by. She didn’t want to sleep with him. She wasn’t that kind of woman. But conversation with him came easy, like hitting eighty on the highway. You never feel the pedal depress until a siren shrieks behind you and you see a swirl of flashing lights in your rear-view mirror.
    Willow sniffed. She never imagined that a chance meeting in a hotel bar would change her life in such a monumental way. She closed her eyes and the memories came into focus with such clarity and sharpness it startled her.
    Willow smelled his woodsy cologne before she saw the stool move beside her. He slid onto the stool as though he were sidling up to an old friend.
    “Hi, Willow,” Dan said.
    She greeted him with a smile that seemed to swallow her creamy face.
    “How was the concert?”
    She took a sip of her gin and tonic. “Good. Full house. I could feel the crowd. How about you? How was your day?”
    The bartender sat a Scotch on the rocks with a twist in front of him. Dan took a sip and licked his upper lip. “It was an interesting day. Spent a great deal of time discussing neurodegenerative disease with some of my colleagues. I head home tomorrow. Where are you headed?”
    “West Coast for a few weeks, then home for a break.”
    They talked for hours. He told her about his kids, all grown, and his dog, Rodeo. He told her stories from his childhood that he hadn’t thought about in years. He smiled and ran his hand through his thick salt and pepper hair.
    “What are you smiling at?” asked Willow, taking another sip of her drink.
    Dan shook his head. “It’s just that I don’t remember the last time I’ve shared such personal things with someone.”
    “What about your wife?”
    Dan chuckled. “Denise? Denise stopped talking long ago. And she stopped listening before that. After she got what she wanted – a big house and a fat wallet – she pretty much ignored me.”
    “You don’t talk? At all?
    Dan shook his head. “Not really. And, to be honest, I wouldn’t know what to say to her. We’ve grown so far apart that I’m not sure either of us knows how to close the gap or has the energy to try. So we go on pretending that everything’s fine even though it hasn’t been fine for a long time.”
    Dan laid a fifty on the bar and walked Willow to her room. Maybe it was the alcohol or that Willow felt he needed her as much as she needed him. He bled loneliness, a feeling Willow was intimate with. Whatever the reason, Willow invited him into her room and they ended up in each other’s arms. It was one of the most tender, loving nights in Willow’s life. And in the morning, she found a note where he had lain thanking her for giving him something he’d lost long ago.
    Willow dabbed her eyes with a tissue and took