“You named your dog Fluffy?” Grace asked, trying hard not to laugh. She was here on serious business after all.
“Well, obviously. Look at him.”
Grace had no idea what breed the dog was, but it was definitely fluffy. So, she held out the cash to Sam and changed the topic. “Here’s the money for my groceries. You’ll have to tell me if it was more than this.
Sam glanced down at her hand but made no move to take it from her. Instead, he turned and walked over to his kitchen.
His apartment was exactly like hers, just reversed. It also smelled better. Like chocolate.
“Want some cocoa?” he asked, pulling mugs down from the cabinet.
“I only came over here to pay you back,” Grace said, holding her ground. “And because you out-maneuvered me with Bella.”
“I’m devious like that. Do you want marshmallows?”
Grace felt like an idiot holding the cash, and it was clear Sam wasn’t going to take it. She’d just have to pull something equally sneaky on him. But since she was here anyway, instead of avoiding him like she planned, she might as well get some cocoa out of it.
“Just a few,” she said, walking over to the kitchen. When his attention was focused on his task, she tucked the money between a salt shaker and a bottle of hot sauce on the counter
Sam looked up and handed her a mug. Carrying his own, he said, “Let’s move to the couch so we can be comfortable. It’s time we had a talk.”
“You make it sound like I’ve been avoiding you, but I saw you again for the first time in four years yesterday.”
Sinking down on his couch, Sam nodded. “See what I mean?”
Grace put her mug down on the coffee table, eying the steam and melting marshmallow foam on top. “You’re being so nice to me, Sam. Why?”
“Why am I being nice?”
“Yes.”
Sam took a long drink. “I wasn’t the one who walked away from our friendship, Grace.”
Grace sighed. This Sam was different than the one she used to know. He was blunt and assured. There was no hiding behind excuses with this kind of man. “I know. That’s why I don’t get it. Don’t you hate me?”
“I did for a while, but I was a teenage boy with more pride than sense. This might surprise you, Gracie, but I’ve done a lot of growing up in the last five years.”
Her eyes flashed over his mature, manly angles. Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed. “I’m very well aware of that. So, what did you want to talk about?”
Sam nodded at Bella, who was watching Sports Center on his TV even though it was muted, petting Fluffy. “It’s pretty clear you’re tight on cash. Since it’s almost Christmas, I wanted to let you know that if you need any help, I’d be happy to loan you whatever you need.”
Grace’s mind stumbled over what to think. And worse—how to answer. “I appreciate it, Sam, but I couldn’t.”
Sam shrugged and leaned forward to put his mug down. “I figured you’d say that, but it’s okay. I’m not opposed to doing things the hard way.”
Standing up, Grace put her hands on her hips. “I thought you just wanted to talk, not threaten to… to…”
“Help you? Fine. Let’s talk. I have a ton of questions.”
“No way. I’m not going to stay here just so you can satisfy curiosity about me. Why don’t we just talk about you?”
Sam smiled. “I thought you’d never ask. But you might want to sit down. I can be a real chatter-box when I get going.”
Grace had no idea why she was so irritated. She just was. “Bella, let’s go.”
Bella frowned. “But I want to stay here.”
Sighing, Grace tried to calm down. “I know, baby. But it’s bedtime, and I have to go to work tomorrow.”
Bella folded her arms and glared up at Grace with lowered brows. “No.”
Oh no. Bella was not going to make her look like a weak parent right now. Not in front of Sam. She bent over and pulled Bella to her feet. She instantly turned into a limp noodle in order to slip back to the floor, but Grace knew all her tricks. In a flash, she bent forward and picked her up and swung her around till she could carry her horizontally under her arm. She opened the door and maneuvered Bella through but realized that she’d forgotten something vital. Turning back around, she tried the doorknob and found it locked. She rapped her knuckles on the door with sharp, staccato strokes. Only a few seconds later, Sam opened the door. He looked puzzled. And cute. Grace refused to get distracted.
“Excuse me. I forgot something.” Heading straight for the coffee table, she picked up her mug of cocoa. Careful not to hit Bella’s head on anything, Grace turned around slowly and hurried back to the door. “I’ll get the mug back to you soon.”
“No hurry,” Sam said, sounding overly amused. “And for the record, you were easier to talk to as a kid.”
Grace let Bella down so she could open her own door, but paused to glare back across the landing at him. “Things weren’t as complicated back then.”
Sam leaned against his door frame. “They don’t have to be complicated now. You’re all riled up for some reason, but I really would like to be here for you?”
While Bella ran inside, Grace stood in her own doorway and studied him. “I don’t know if I’m ready to face the past, Sam—face what I did to you. I just don’t know how to deal with you wanting to be friends.”
“To be honest, Gracie, I don’t quite know what’s going on either. I used to fantasize about the future when you’d realized what a loser Derek was. Yeah, being nice to you wasn’t part of that fantasy. But there was one part I wasn’t counting on.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “That I’d see you again and realize I still cared.” He shrugged. “So, here we both are. There’s nothing else for me to know. Let me know what you decide.”
Sam went inside then, closing the door softly behind him. Even with her cocoa rapidly cooling in the December chill, Grace’s insides felt a warm rush inside. But feelings like that were dangerous, so she brushed them off and went inside to put up Christmas decorations with Bella.
Chapter 5
The last thing Grace should have done was think how well the morning was going. Because that’s precisely when things started to go wrong.
First, she couldn’t find her keys when she wanted to go down and turn the car on to get it warming up. She finally found them on the bathroom counter. Then Bella cried when she tried to run downstairs really quickly so she ended up having to get her dressed first. When Bella was dressed for the day and ready to go, Grace held her hand down the steps, thinking they might as well just head out early. While Bella climbed in the backseat, Grace sat in the front seat to turn the car on and get it warming up. But when she turned the key, all she got was a series of ominous clicks.
“No, no, no.” A stream of worries flooded her mind—not getting to work, losing her job, the cost of getting the car towed and fixed. She turned the key again, but the clicks were just fainter now. She dropped her head down on the steering wheel. Something like this could break her. She’d be back living at her mom’s house in no time, ashamed and broke once again.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?”
Grace turned her head and saw her daughter’s worried eyes. “The car is sick, honey. But it’s okay.” She got out of the car and shut the car door. The metal hinges creaked and groaned in the cold air. She took Bella’s mittened hand and head back toward the stairs. She relaxed a little as she realized she could call a taxi. But that didn’t fix the problem of getting the car fixed. And taxi rides would drain her account fast.
When they were part way up, Grace heard a door open and close. She clenched her teeth and prayed it wasn’t Sam. But lately, heaven hadn’t been paying much attention to her.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked when he saw them.
“What makes you think something is wrong?” Grace asked, brushing past him.
“Your face.”
“That’s a really sweet thing to say.” Grace fumbled f
or the key to her front door.
“Our car is sick,” Bella said, staring solemnly up at Sam.
He immediately turned to Grace with his hand out. “Keys.”
“It’s okay. I’m going to…”
“Grace, I’m a mechanic. At least let me see what you have going on.”
Grace opened her door and handed the keys to him. “Fine. But…don’t make yourself late to work or anything.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry about me.”
She watched the easy, athletic way he jogged down the stairs then ushered Bella inside the warm apartment. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you inside where it’s warm.”
A few minutes later, as Bella played with her dolls, Grace went to the window to see what Sam was doing. He’d pulled his big truck up next to her car and both hoods were open. A cloud of hot exhaust billowed up from his tailpipe into the cold air, proving how well his vehicle ran while hers sat lifelessly beside it. His black blocked what he was doing under her hood, but within a few minutes, he hooked up jumper cables.
“Oh, please let it just be the battery,” she said. Inches away from the window, her breath fogged up the glass, so she had to rub it away to see what he was doing. But he just stood leaning against the side of his truck, doing something on his phone.
“Bella, do you want to go down and see if Sam can fix the car?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Bella dropped her dolls and jumped up. “Yeah.”
Grace grabbed her purse and lunch, turned off all the lights, and locked the door behind them. When they got down to the parking lot, she was disappointed that her car still wasn’t running. “So, it’s the battery, huh?”
Sam put his phone away and raised an eyebrow at her. “I’d say so. How old is that thing?”
“I don’t know. I just bought the car a few months ago.”
“I see. Well, the terminals were really corroded. I cleaned them off for you, but you really need a new battery.”
Grace bit her lip. “Okay.” But she’d just have to cross her fingers she could get by for a couple more weeks.
Sam’s eyes were steady on her. “I mean it, Gracie. It won’t be dependable in the cold.”
Compelled by the force of his expression, she nodded. Her agreement relaxed him and he moved around her to get in the car. A moment later, with only a little reluctant chugging, the engine finally turned over.
“Thank goodness,” Grace said, closing her eyes in relief.
Bella jumped up and down and clapped. “Yay. Good job, Sam!”
He grinned down at her and disconnected the jumper cables. “I wish you could be my cheerleader at work all day.”
Bella turned to Grace. “Mom, can I be a cheerleader?”
“Not today, baby. Go get in your seat.”
After her daughter climbed in through the front seat, Grace turned to Sam. She couldn’t help but admire how calm and competent he looked, disconnecting the cables from his truck. “Thanks for the help. I wish there was some way I could pay you back.”
He glanced sideways at her while he coiled the cables up and put them in the toolbox in the back of his truck. “Don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t accept anything anyway.”
Grace hesitated as a thought came to her. She plunged into speech before she could over-think it. “Not even dinner?”
Sam straightened at that and tilted his head as his eyes swept over her face. “That’s different.”
“Tonight?”
“Does the invitation include Fluffy?” He grinned, as if he was teasing her.
Grace chuckled. “Bella would be very disappointed if you didn’t bring Fluffy.”
Sam sauntered towards her, closing the gap between them. “It’s a date then.”
“I didn’t say…”
Taking out his wallet, he pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “Call me if you have trouble with your battery later, okay? There’s no telling if it will start up for you again.”
Grace looked down at the card in her hand and studied the logo in the left-hand corner. “Since when do mechanics have business cards?”
“Since they bought their own shop. I mean it. Call me if you need me.”
He got in his truck while she gaped at him. He smiled and waved as he backed out of the parking lot. After a minute of staring stupidly after him, she jumped in her car. She’d be late for work if she didn’t hurry. But what on earth was she going to cook for dinner?
Chapter 6
Grace wasn’t completely sure how she’d gotten into her current predicament. Somehow between the spaghetti and brownies, she and Sam had started talking about their favorite Christmas movies. And now she was next to him on his couch in his dark living room with his arm behind her on the cushions and Bella and Fluffy asleep on her lap. As the credits rolled at the end of Elf, she felt so drowsy and relaxed she had no idea how she was going to get up and move her and Bella to their apartment.
Sam shifted so that he faced her. “If that movie doesn’t put you in the mood for Christmas, you’re dead inside.”
Grace attempted to smile, but she was too tired to put up much of an effort. “Yeah. But when you’re a parent, it also reminds you of all the work you have to do. Luckily I get another paycheck before Christmas or I’d be in trouble.”
“Where do you work?”
“At the bank over on Sunset Avenue.”
“A bank, huh? That should pay pretty well.”
“Not that great. Not tellers. Most of the money I see is what I’m sending through tubes to other people. But it’s a lot better than other jobs I’ve had.”
“You always wanted to be a teacher.”
Grace was surprised he remembered that about her—remembered anything actually. She didn’t deserve so much space in his head. “I still do. I’m hoping that ship hasn’t sailed away forever. I got my two-year degree and was working on my bachelor’s when I got pregnant with Bella. And after one miserable semester trying to go to school with debilitating morning sickness, I gave up. I never quite got back to it and after the divorce, well…it was completely out of the question. How about you? Did you go to college?”
“Me? You should know better than that. No, I went to a tech school, and I’ve been fixing cars ever since.”
Grace watched the way his lips moved as he spoke. He was so masculine and humble at the same time. It was such a rare and fascinating combination. “How do you not have a girlfriend or something?” She realized suddenly that she didn’t actually know if he did or not. She sat up straight, disturbing Bella and Fluffy. “Wait, do you have a girlfriend?”
“No. You’ll be happy to hear I’m single.”
“What? Why would I be happy?”
He smiled at her with a smug, knowing look on his face. “You’re saying you wouldn’t have been disappointed to find out I was with someone?”
Yes. She would have, she realized. And she hated that he knew it before she did. “Well, if you’re going to be like that, this conversation is over.”
As she tried to wiggle into a good position to put Bella over her shoulder and get up, she kept expecting Fluffy to jump off her lap. But he didn’t budge. She bounced her leg harder. “Off. Get off Fluffy. What a ridiculous name. You should have called him the Abominable Snowball.”
As grumpy as she was, Sam seemed to be equally cheerful. He laughed and snapped his fingers. “Down, Fluffy.”
Fluffy jumped down immediately and stood at attention with his short tail waving as if he awaited further orders.
Grace shifted further on her seat, keeping her arms tightly around Bella and prepared to stand up. Before she had moved an inch though, Sam stood up and took Bella from her arms. With the little girl in one arm, he held the other down to help her up. Rejecting his unspoken offer would have been rude, so Grace took hold of his hand.
His skin was warm and rough and strong—the kind of hands that were used to hard work. She’d already discovered this the last time their hands touched, but this
time she was dynamically aware of the fact that he was holding her hand in his.
Tugging gently, he pulled her up, reminding her that she’d been about to stand. Where had her mind gone wandering? She reached to take Bella from him.
“You’re tired,” Sam said. “Let me carry her for you.”
Minute by minute, it was getting easier to accept his offers of help. She should probably deal with that, but not just now. She was tired.
Going ahead of him out the door, she hurried across to her own door to get it unlocked as quickly as possible because it was really cold and Bella was only wearing her flannel pajamas. When she got the door unlocked, she once again turned to take Bella, but Sam stepped past her.
“Where’s her bed?”
“She sleeps with me.”
Sam raised his eyes, but turned toward the bedroom.
“What?” Grace asked following after him.
“Oh, I just wondered if I’d finally figured out the reason you’d gotten divorced.”
“Whatever.”
“Then why did you?”
Grace tried to keep her voice down so she didn’t wake Bella up, but it was getting difficult. She pulled the covers down on the bed and stepped back for Sam to lay her down. Sam was too focused on not waking Bella up to answer his question, so Grace also had to keep hold of her patience.
As Bella turned on her side and snuggled into her pillow, Grace tucked her elephant under her arm and pulled the covers up over her. When Grace turned away from the bed, she caught Sam watching her with a softened expression.
He followed Grace into the living room. “Watching you be all motherly might be one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.”
Grace moved to the front door and held it open for him. Spending time alone with him this time of night when her head was all messed up wasn’t smart. “Trust me. Being a mother is not hot. It’s messy and exhausting and does terrible things to your body.”
Sam stopped in the doorway, standing only inches away from her. He turned his shoulders toward her and looked down at her. After a few long, tremulous seconds, he tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. “Forgive me if I disagree. You’re as beautiful as ever, Gracie. Even more so, somehow.”
Love, Snow and Mistletoe: Four Sweet Christmas Romance Novellas Page 14