He laughed. “Yeah, pretty much. And video games. So it’s a day I’m happy to upgrade to chilli and a fire, let’s put it that way.”
“Same here, to be honest.” She stretched her legs out. “My favourite holidays have been spent in the Caribbean. That was an annual tradition for a while, but I haven’t been able to do that since I moved up here. Junior librarian on the totem pole doesn’t get the sweet week off between Christmas and New Years—until this year, ironically.”
“When did you start travelling for Christmas?”
“College. When you’re willing to fly last-minute and you aren’t picky about what kind of resort serves you rum, you can get some sweet deals. And I got pretty good at figuring out which textbooks I could sell back mid-semester to find the money.”
He frowned. So that meant she hadn’t spent a holiday with family in almost a decade. He knew she wasn’t close to her family—hadn’t gone back to visit them in Toronto in the year they’d been hooking up—but this was a new layer of distance.
She dug into the chilli, ending the conversation about Christmas traditions or lack thereof, and he joined her. It was simple food, and not really heavy, but he’d managed to make it taste good and she finished her whole mug.
“Delicious,” she said as she pushed it away. “I’ll clean up, Gordon.”
“I’ll add some wood to the fire and think of some turn-of-the-last-century entertainment options for our evening.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I brought a dozen books. Do you want to read one of them?” She pointed to the stack she’d set on the mantle, then picked up their dishes and cleared them to the kitchen.
While he waited for her to come back, he perused the collection, finally choosing an erotic thriller. But he didn’t crack the cover, even after she returned and started reading herself. Curling up on the couch and reading sounded lovely—for a different night. Tonight he didn’t want to hide with pages in between them. Minutes ticking by with so much left unsaid. Book in hand, he paced around the room, trying to figure out how to put that in a way that didn’t come off as pressure.
Then he saw, high on an otherwise empty bookshelf, a deck of cards. He snagged it and spun around, holding them out.
Chloe scrunched up her face.
He shrugged and put them down. Fine.
She sighed. “I guess I retreated into a book without discussing anything, didn’t I?”
“Little bit.”
“I honestly wasn’t avoiding talking. I was a pretty solitary kid growing up.” She gestured to the stack of books. “I come by my profession legitimately. I spent a lot of time in the library when I was little. And then not-so-little, too.”
The way she said it, he got the impression she was sharing this information with a purpose. He sat down. He was eager for any glimpse behind the Chloe curtain. “What was the first book you remember reading?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember not reading, honestly. But I think I remember the first book I signed out from the library.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Gordon Korman’s No Coins, Please. Did you ever read him?”
“Bruno and Boots?”
“Yep, exactly. So I’d already read the MacDonald Hall books, or a couple of them, anyway. I wanted to read Live at Nickaninny, and my mother wouldn’t buy it for me. She thought it was too old for me. So I went to the library, and asked about his books, and the librarian encouraged me to read No Coins, Please.”
“Aw, that was nice of her. She got you a new book and stuck to your mom’s rules.”
Chloe snorted. “Hardly. Live at Nickaninny was signed out by someone else. As soon as they returned it, she set it aside from me.” She leaned over and poked Tom in the chest. “Never underestimate the subversive nature of a librarian, Mr. Law and Order.”
He caught her finger for a second and smiled. “Noted.” He let her go, and she flopped back.
Looking up at the ceiling, she took a deep breath. “Did I ever tell you my parents are divorced?”
“I think so.”
“They weren’t married long. A year.”
“That’s pretty short.”
“They got married because my mother got pregnant—with me.”
Ah, for fuck’s sake. His chest ached for little Chloe, and big Chloe, too. “You grew up knowing that?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded slowly. “So that’s how you see it going for us?”
She kept her level gaze on his face, but she didn’t answer the question directly. “How do you see it going for us? Based on actual evidence in our...relationship. Not some rose-coloured glasses hope for what might be.”
“If we’re—if I’m—bound by past actions, then I guess I don’t know what to think.” He took a deep breath. “Is this why you’re leaving? Why you need to get away? Because you think people will think we’re just together because of the pregnancy?”
“Yeah.”
“It doesn’t need to be like that. Nobody knows, and it’s nobody’s business—”
She groaned. “Everyone knows about us. And those that don’t, will soon enough. And yeah, that’s a big factor—the biggest—in why I’m getting the hell out of Dodge.” She rolled up to sit, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her next words spilled out fast and furious, but not angry. Resigned, and he hated that for her. “Don’t pretend you don’t know how this goes down. You’re the stud, and I’m the slut. I was good for a fuck, until I got knocked up, and now you’re doing ‘the right thing.’ You said as much yourself, and I don’t want that.”
They were hard words. Course words. Brittle. Meant to hurt, meant to protect herself. He could see the wall she was building again, but it didn’t matter. He could build ladders even taller. He took a deep breath. “I didn’t say it like that. I wouldn’t. What we have between us is private and nobody’s business, but if anyone were to ask me, if I were to hear anyone talk about you, I’d be clear that your company was always the best part of my day, and I’m a lucky man to have any part of you. Always will be.”
She didn’t say anything. No more harsh words.
So he built the ladder a bit taller. “Tell me more.”
“About what?”
“About any of it.”
Her eyelids fluttered shut, and she sighed. “I don’t know where to start. Jenna knows about the baby. I needed to tell someone. And Olivia knows I’m moving, so I’m sure it won’t take long for her to figure out the rest.”
He gentled his voice as much as he could. “And the world is still standing. Look at that.”
“Don’t make light of my fears.” Her face turned white, and his heart did a free fall. Not gentle enough. Maybe never gentle enough for little Chloe.
“I’m not. I’m sorry.”
Her shoulders lifted and fell in a helpless shrug. “We can’t re-write history. We were what we were, and that’s not something I want to bring a kid into.”
“We were what we were?” She had no idea what she meant to him. His mouth ran dry, and he rubbed his hand over his face. But this wasn’t the time to correct her. “Maybe we can use this time to figure out what we’re going to be.”
Her lips twisted in a sad grimace, but she didn’t say no.
He leaned into the couch, relaxing next to her. Showing her he had all the time in the world for her to sort out her feelings. He could give her space, too, if that’s what she wanted. “Should I go chop more wood?”
She laughed quietly. “It’s dark out.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m a pretty good orienteer and the stump is like fifteen feet from the door.”
She sighed. “You know what you can do?” She turned and looked at him. “You made dinner, and that was lovely. I napped the day away. The least I can do is play some cards. You can deal, mister.”
“Uh...” He hadn’t been expecting that. “Yes. Absolutely. What do you want to play?”
“How about Slap? Or War. Something simple.”
They sat acr
oss from each other at the coffee table, and after he shuffled, he admitted he didn’t know how to play Slap. Chloe held out her hand for the deck of cards. As soon as she was holding them, she squared her shoulders, cleared her throat, and launched into a precise set of instructions on how to play a card game.
So precise it would make a military instructor cheer.
He’d never fully appreciated her skills as a teacher before, but that was probably a big part of her role at the library.
Again, not the moment to be asking about that.
Tom was realizing he’d missed a lot of moments over the last year. To ask about her job, her family, her thoughts on major holidays.
So when they finished their third round, her winning the last round to take the best two of three, and she stood up to say good night, he didn’t argue. He wasn’t in a place to argue. He’d come here to convince a woman to give him a shot at something bigger than he probably understood—and the more he thought about it, the more he realized he’d never really gotten to know her.
Not beyond how much he enjoyed their time together, which had been primarily physical.
Christmas night was a weird time to realize you’d been a bit of a dog toward the woman carrying your child.
“Night,” he said as gently as he could. “Sleep tight.”
“I will.” She glanced at the couch. “Uh...”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I only brought the one blanket...”
“I don’t need a blanket.”
She smiled. “Good, because I wasn’t offering to share it.”
“Good, because I wasn’t asking.” He grinned back.
“Great.”
He stepped towards her, herding her to the stairs. “Great.”
She took one step, then another. Slowly.
An old feeling tugged hard in his gut—a pulse of awareness that she was reluctant to leave, that he didn’t want her to go upstairs alone. He’d spent a year chasing magic at the end of that rainbow with her. Now look where they were.
But it didn’t stop him from turning his body, opening his arms up for a hug. If she wanted, he’d wrap her in his arms. It would kill him to let her go, but it would feel so good, it would be worth it.
“Night,” she whispered.
“Chloe...”
She reached for him. Not a hug, just her hand. She wrapped her fingers around his forearm and squeezed. That was enough for his entire body to react as if she’d used a defibrillator to hard reset his heartbeat.
Could she feel the jolt? Her eyes flicked up to his face and she held his gaze long enough he wondered if she’d felt it the same way.
“See you in the morning, Tom.”
And then she was gone. Climbing the stairs, carrying that feeling away with her. He was left standing in the quiet living room with literally nothing. No blanket. No woman, no clue, no plan.
He’d see her in the morning. He’d really see her. He’d watch and listen and pay fucking attention, because something needed to change in a big way.
Turning away from the stairs, he took a step, his toe colliding with a box. The entire room was empty, and he was normally light on his feet. How the fuck had he missed something big enough to trip on?
Cursing under his breath quietly, he stepped back and looked down.
Sticking out from beside the newel post was the box of presents he’d brought in, the gifts that had gone untouched and fallen by the wayside in the tension.
The bottom of his stomach dropped out, and he was tempted to kick the box across the room. Instead, he threw himself on the couch and stretched out, ignoring the chill of the air on his skin. He’d slept in trenches and outside. He had a sleeping bag in the car, but he wasn’t going to get it.
Maybe this was the penance he needed to pay. Maybe he should go upstairs and stretch out on the hardwood floor outside the master bedroom. Show Chloe that he would suffer for her.
That doesn’t make any sense.
Did any kind of grovelling gesture ever make sense, really?
Tom rolled over, trying to get comfortable on the couch as he listened to the silent house, on a silent night. What a strange Christmas this had been. A truly spectacular disaster of a holiday, but he didn’t miss any of the other options for today—a friend’s house, a sibling’s home. He didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Except for upstairs.
Right now, he really wanted to be upstairs, curled around Chloe.
He should have asked her which book she recommended from the stack she’d brought.
That’s what he wanted to right now. He wanted to listen to her voice as she talked about something she knew inside and out.
He wanted to fall asleep being told what was what by Chloe Davis. Instead, he fell asleep feeling like a lonely fool.
Chapter Six
CHLOE WOKE UP TO THE smell of bacon, and she hurried downstairs, her nauseous tummy wanting some of that right now.
“Morning,” she said breathlessly. “You’re cooking again.”
Tom looked up from buttering toast and gave her a quick nod before resuming his task. “Hey. How’d you sleep?”
She’d had better nights. She’d tossed and turned and thought about him a million times, and at least once, she woke up to hear him lightly snoring from the couch, and it had hurt her to be so close and yet so far. “Okay,” she said, proving herself a total liar. “You?”
“Same.” Another quick glance up. “Okay.”
Maybe he was lying, too.
Of course he’s lying, you ninny. He didn’t have a blanket and you made him sleep on a couch made for a normal-sized man, and he’s built like a lumberjack. “You could, uh, take the bed tonight, if you—”
His head jerked up again, this time his gaze holding on her. Sharp. Piercing. “No. The bed is yours.”
She swallowed and reached for a cracker to nibble on. “I’ll make coffee, then?”
That got a smile. “Sounds good.”
Oh, it was going to be an awkward morning.
Chloe grabbed the milk from the fridge and was shocked to find three more packs of bacon waiting there.
“Did you bring...” She counted on her fingers. “Five pounds of bacon with you yesterday?”
“I guess. I grabbed what I had in the freezer. It’s easy to cook anywhere, nutritionally dense—”
“You make it sound like you have bacon emergencies regularly.”
That made him laugh.
She closed the fridge and leaned against it, watching him cook. “You always order sausage at the diner.”
He shot her a quick look over his shoulder. “Do I?”
“You do. I didn’t even know you liked bacon.”
“But you knew I liked sausage,” he said quietly, and there was something about how he said it—like he liked that she knew that—that made her stomach flip-flop in a new, non-pregnancy related way.
“I know things about you,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was feeding that feeling, but the flip-flops got stronger, and they were better than feeling queasy. “I know you don’t put sugar in your coffee.”
“You can put sugar in my coffee if you want.”
She smiled, remembering yesterday’s Thermos of double-double sweetness. Today they were having instant coffee, from a canister he’d already set out. “I won’t do that to you.”
As if right on cue, the kettle started to boil.
She mixed cups up for both of them, then added milk to both. After putting sugar in her own coffee, she brought his cup to him, setting it on the counter beside his hip.
“Thank you,” he said, turning, and she stepped back, bumping into the counter.
He was suddenly right in front of her.
“The thanks should be all mine,” she whispered. “You’re stuck here with me, feeding me and making sure I’ve got all the things I wouldn’t have thought about. This isn’t the greatest way to spend a holiday break.”
He braced his arms on either side
of her body and leaned in, pressing his forehead against hers. His eyes bored right into her. “Don’t think for a second I want to be anywhere else. Okay?”
She nodded, a tiny little wiggle up and down. She got it. She didn’t know if she could trust it, but she believed him.
Every muscle in his face tensed as he searched her expression, then he roughly stepped back. “Good.”
A lump formed in her throat as the space in front of her suddenly went cold.
He took a long, ragged breath. “You know what we should do?”
She couldn’t think straight. Kiss? Fight? Kiss and fight at the same time? “What?”
“Go for a walk.”
Spinning around, she looked out the window. “It’s storming out there. It’s so bad you can’t drive across the two-hundred-foot-long causeway and leave me alone. We’re not going for a walk.”
He closed the gap between them, and there was that delicious warmth again. Right up against her back. He lowered his voice, his breath warm against her ear. “We’ll just walk around the house. We’ll go slow, but it’ll be good to move and get some fresh air.”
“That would take an hour in this weather.”
“So it takes an hour. It’ll feel good to move. You can push me into a snowbank.”
“Damn straight I will.” She straightened up and looked at the oven. “Your bacon is burning.”
He got the tray out of the oven, and it wasn’t burnt, just extra-crispy. It was perfect, actually, and Chloe ate more than she thought she would.
After breakfast, they got bundled up and headed outside. The wind immediately got under her coat, cooling her down, but with Tom in the lead, making a little trail for her to follow, it wasn’t that hard to make it around the house.
And he was right—when they collapsed on the porch again, she was warmed up and it had felt good to move her legs.
“Now it feels good to not move,” she panted. “That had to have been like five hundred knee-ups, don’t you think?”
He nudged his leg against hers. “Your knees had to lift higher than mine did.”
“Good point. Is it too soon for me to invoke the whole exercising-for-two excuse, too?”
He chuckled. “Nope. That’s a get out of jail free card you get to use for nine months. Milk it.”
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