He couldn’t help feeling both relieved and disappointed by how easily she’d accepted him back in that capacity. He let go of her hand.
“I’ll come by at three?” he said.
“Okay. Oh—” She rummaged next to her and then held out a white paper bag. “Your bollen.”
He frowned. “You don’t have to buy me off. I’m leaving now.”
She shook her head. “Take it.” Her sunlit green eyes watched him above her spray of freckles and determined mouth. “It’s yours.”
He held her gaze for a moment, fighting a surge of the thing he’d tried to bury concerning Riley Madigan. He took the bollen from her without a word.
She rolled up her window and backed out of her space, then drove away.
Riley’s doorbell rang at three. She wrung her hands as she approached the front door. Despite the awfulness at the memorial and what came after, Mark had kept his word in helping her with the house. And after this morning, she knew he was willing to be civil and show that they could move on with their lives despite the rumor mill in this small town, or maybe because of it. And now he was coming to see the nativity, unaware she’d finished it the night before.
Her bare feet padded on the satiny wood floor. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, then pulled it open, shivering from the rush of cold air.
Mark quickly stepped inside so she could close the door, glancing at the giant fresh fir wreath with the big red bow on her door as he did so. He pulled off his hat as if that’s what he always did when he entered a house.
Her brow lifted. “You got a haircut.”
He nervously ran a hand over his scars. “Steph did it.”
“She did a great job.” It was no lie. The smooth lines of the cut accentuated the angular planes of his face, his eyes, and the softness of his mouth.
His smile revealed relief. “Thanks.”
After another awkward pause, they spoke over one another.
“I’ll take your coat—”
“I wasn’t sure if I should—”
They stopped again. How had they come to this? Unable to make decent conversation? Oh, right. Because she was an idiot.
“The nativity figures are in the art room,” she said. “Go ahead. I’ll meet you back there in a couple minutes.” This was her plan. To let him view them alone first.
He nodded and headed to the art room.
In all honesty, she was chickening out. She’d fretted all day over what he’d think of the nativity figures now that they were done, and she didn’t want to be there when he first laid eyes on them. It might have been ridiculous, but wasn’t she a coward, anyway? Isn’t this what she did?
She sat down on the couch and rearranged some books on the new coffee table she’d found at one of the thrift stores in Wenatchee. Her mother had suggested she get one for the front room, but Riley doubted her mother meant the multicolored tramp-art piece that complemented her green couch. Her eyes lifted to the paintings on the wall, the middle one in particular, and she realized something. The thing that made her grandma’s house feel like home wasn’t the house. It wasn’t Montana. It wasn’t even Christmas.
It was her grandma.
And she’d felt her grandma in this house right here in Miracle Creek.
It was people who had the potential to make a house feel like a home, no matter where it was or what time of year.
Had her parents been that lousy at it? Had she? All this time? She suddenly felt very drained.
After a couple of minutes, Riley stood. She listened for any sound coming from the art room as she warily made her way back. She hesitated at the partially opened door, then knocked quietly and pushed the door open.
Mark turned, his posture straight, his hands in his pockets. He watched her approach even as her gaze bounced between him and the figures leaning against the closet doors, the baby Jesus figure still on her easel.
Unable to stand the silence any longer, she opened her mouth to ask him what he thought, but he put his finger to his lips, and she stilled. He held out his hand, and she took it, a touch she didn’t deserve. He pulled her to him until they stood shoulder to shoulder. She closed her eyes, not wanting to be this close to him, missing being this close to him.
“Thank you, Riley.”
A shiver slid down her spine at the gentle timbre of his voice. She opened her eyes. “Thanks for asking me.”
He scrutinized her as if he were about to ask her a question, but she didn’t feel up to answering anything.
“Shall I keep them here until you’re ready to give them to Cal?” she asked, heading him off.
He let go of her fingers and folded his arms in front of him. “Yeah, that would be great, as long as you don’t need this space.”
“It’s not a problem. I’ve gotten used to having them around.”
He nodded, watching her curiously. “Well, I better get going.” He followed her out of the room and back to the front door.
“They really are incredible, Riley. More than I hoped for.”
“I’m glad you like them. Just let me know when you want to pick them up.”
He placed his hat back on his head and nodded. Then he was gone.
She thought she’d been so careful with everything and everyone. Not just here. All of her adult life. She’d had to be. Because every time she let her guard down, every time she trusted someone, it ended in disaster. She’d obeyed her rules with Gavin, heck even with Dalton. Look where that got her. And Mark had come in around a side door. A door she didn’t even know she had.
Ha.
When had her rules ever applied to Mark?
The sound of his truck fading down her street left her standing at the window, wishing he hadn’t had to go. Wishing she could have shared more about finishing the nativity. Wishing he would have kept her hand a little longer. Wishing she’d had a reason to make him stay.
Mark stood next to his dad and Yvette, no easy feat with the lights low and the disco ball spinning in the center of the high-ceilinged room. Some guy from the forties crooned over the sound system and a cluster of older women in sequins kept eyeing him with coy smiles and waves. Mark clung to his plate of peach pie and fork like it was the only thing keeping him afloat in the sea of swaying bodies on the dance floor.
He nodded politely at Mrs. Polk, then turned to his dad. “Remind me why you made me come to this, again?”
His dad snickered. “I’m not the one who made you guest of honor. You came out of your own sense of duty. Can’t help it if I raised you right.”
Mark grimaced, and the song ended to light applause. “Jingle Bell Rock” followed, and the floor stayed full. The community spirit at these things was always high.
One night a year, Miracle Creek Vineyards donated their small events lodge to the Annual Firemen’s Holiday Ball. The dance gave the fourteen-years-and-older people of Miracle Creek a reason to get dressed up and celebrate for a good cause. On top of that, word of Mark’s application to the volunteer fire department had surfaced, and he was getting a lot of premature congratulations tonight. At least nobody dared ask where the art teacher was, though sometimes he sensed it right on the tips of their tongues.
Mark wanted to go home and crawl into bed.
He was about to say so when the music changed again, and his dad promptly set down his and Yvette’s drinks and led her out to the dance floor.
“Hey. Don’t leave me,” Mark whisper-shouted in their direction, flickering a glance toward the widows’ corner.
His dad only arched his brow in return, and he and Yvette faded into the crowd on the dance floor.
Traitors.
Steph and Brian danced by, and she waved. He lifted his pie plate in response. But she waved again, this time nodding her head toward the heavy double doors at the entrance. He frowned and looked in that direction, then pr
omptly forgot all about his pie.
Just entering from the cloakroom, Riley stood in a dress he could only describe as miraculous with her dark hair piled in big curls on her head, looking hesitantly around the room, gathering turned heads of her own. When her eyes found Mark’s, she stopped.
She wasn’t going to come to the dance. Yvette had said she wasn’t coming. But here she was. Walking toward him.
Friends. Just friends. That’s all they could be.
I’m in trouble, he thought, reminding himself to breathe.
Riley walked across the room toward Mark at a pace she hoped appeared relaxed because her heart was hammering and her legs shook. He wore a well-cut suit and a burgundy tie, holding a plate of pie and a fork, staring right back at her. He wasn’t the only one. She could feel the eyes of everyone on her, watching to see what the art teacher would do or say to the fireman.
She swallowed and kept walking in her three-inch strappy heels and a dress she’d worn for one of her dad’s premieres—a deep teal taffeta with a plunging sweetheart neckline, fitted waist, and a full pleated skirt falling to her knees. The dress made her feel beautiful and strong, and that’s how she needed to feel right now.
He turned away abruptly, and she faltered. But then she saw he was just setting down his pie on the nearest table. He pivoted back to her so quickly she heard a few chuckles from nearby observers.
Gathering her nerve, she took the final few steps to him. “Hi.”
“Hey.” He shook his head, his gaze never leaving hers. “You look incredible.”
She flushed. “Thanks. You make the suit look good.”
“This old thing?” he asked, still not breaking eye contact.
She smiled, and he returned it.
Good. This was good.
“I brought you something,” she said. She held out a gift bag from behind her back.
He took it and peered inside. “Mini candy canes?”
“They’re to throw at people. To hit them in the—”
“—Christmas spirit,” he finished with her. He studied her, clearly mystified.
The music changed, slowing down.
“Want to dance?” she asked before her courage fled.
His gaze flickered to the dance floor. He nodded once, and set the bag down next to his dessert, grabbing a handful of candy canes and shoving them in his pocket. The simple act gave her courage, and her legs didn’t shake so much when he took her hand and led her to the dance floor.
He chose a spot and pulled her into a standard dance position. His hand at her waist kept her at a safe distance. Although “safe” was a fluid term at the moment. Her heart rioted.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said as he swayed them slowly side to side. “Or that you’d even want to come.”
“Because it would be awkward?”
“Because it would be Christmassy.” He nodded to the lights and tree in the corner. The main portion of the room was backed by a bank of tall windows overlooking the river valley. “But awkward works.”
“I expected it,” she said. “The Christmassy, I mean. It’s okay.”
“Are you sure? I know you have rules and stuff. Santa’s going to visit—”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You will?”
“I kinda made friends with Christmas.”
He stopped dancing. “How?”
She made a little shrug like it was no big deal, her eyes lowering. “I did something for someone else.”
He drew her closer. “Who was that?”
She looked up, meeting his intense gaze. Then she lifted her hand from his shoulder, pointed at both her eyes, then pointed at him.
She’d expected him to nod. Or smile. Maybe even laugh.
Instead he took her hand and led her off the dance floor mid-song, pulling the gazes of a dozen or more people with them. She followed as best as she could in her heels out through a door and onto a dark deck overlooking a vineyard hillside. The shock of cold enveloped her as Mark let go of her hand and began to pace, running a hand through his hair.
“Mark?” She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.
He looked at her, then pulled off his jacket and set it around her shoulders. He rubbed her arms, watching the space between them.
“What are we doing here, Riley?”
“Freezing?”
That drew his eyes up to hers, anyway.
“Sorry,” she said. “I know what you meant.”
“I can’t do this.” He shook his head. “I can’t pretend to not feel things I do, and I can’t even feel about you the way I want to because you’re leaving without any plans to come back. So, tell me, why did you come tonight? To tell me you’re friends with Christmas? I’m happy for you, Riley. I really am. Nobody could be more relieved for you than I am.” His gaze searched hers, begging her for answers. “But is that really why you came?”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she said. “‘Courage is knowing what not to fear.’ You said that.”
“Plato said that.”
“Then you said it.”
He shook his head in frustration, but she continued before he could say anything.
“All this time, I thought courage was putting up walls against the things and people that hurt you. That courage was anticipating how you might be hurt and preventing it before you got close. Even with my grandma, I thought it was strength to push away this thing, this holiday she loved so much, to protect myself from feeling that pain year after year—”
“You were just a kid.”
“I’m not a kid anymore. You were only a couple years older than I was when you lost your mom. You didn’t shut out the best things about her.”
His gaze intensified. “No, but I shut out almost everything when I lost Jay.”
She paused. Her voice wavered. “I think I’ve been doing this wrong. I’ve been afraid of the wrong things.”
He waited, watching.
“I want to be brave,” she said. “Will you help me?”
His piercing gaze never left hers. “Since the fires, I’ve been trying to work my way around the idea of living again. Then you came and threatened me and laughed at me and ordered me around, and I stopped trying to work my way around living and just started . . . living. Waking up and making plans for how to spend time with you, how to make you smile, how to make a life, how to make you love me—”
He’d stopped himself as her breath caught.
Her voice softened. “You love me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Yes, you did.”
He stepped closer, his complexion mottled. “I said make—”
“—you love me,” she finished.
“I said you—”
“You.”
He pulled her close. “Love.”
Her pulse raced. “Love.”
His lips neared hers. “Me.”
“M—”
His mouth met hers, and she wasn’t able to finish her argument—or win it. Or maybe she had won, because this kiss warmed her all the way to her toes, and she forgot snow and sky and mountains or maybe felt them all at once—
He broke the kiss, his hands cradling her face. “If you hate it here, if you can’t stand this place, then yes, leave. Find somewhere that makes you happy. I’d follow you. I’d take all the looks and stares and follow you anywhere, if you’d let me.”
She swallowed hard, knowing what that would mean for him.
“But, Riley”—his eyes pled with hers—“if you like this place? If you love this place? If you love me—” He stopped, his chest rising and falling.
“If I love you,” she whispered, searching his eyes, begging him to trust her.
“If you could be happy here, then stay here. Stay with me. Ma
ke more memories with me.”
She saw a thousand hopes in his eyes. And more courage than she’d ever known.
She was out of arguments. “I’ll stay. With you.”
He smiled his beautiful, breathless smile. “Then get used to more of this.”
She laughed as he picked her up, kissing her again.
In an instant, the deck space flooded with Christmas lights as indoor curtains were drawn back on the wall of windows behind them, revealing one side of the dance area and plenty of eyes.
They heard a shout, and somebody whistled.
“Way to go, fireman!”
“Get her inside—she’s gonna freeze!”
Mark’s deep laughter pulled a smile from her. “We better do what he says.”
“I kind of like it out here,” she said, still looking down at him.
He set her feet on the deck.
“Kiss her again!” someone shouted.
“I know where I’d like to throw a few of those candy canes,” Mark grumbled. He lifted his head and shouted back, “I’m trying to!”
“Mark?”
He turned back to her, frowning. “Hmm?”
“My lips are cold.”
He slowly smiled. “Ms. Madigan, I am going to love keeping you warm.”
Mark closed his eyes under the blindfold as Riley pulled it tight. “Ouch.”
“Can you see anything?”
“My eyes are closed.”
“Good.” Riley grabbed his hand and led him out of the house and down the porch steps.
“Hey, slow down. I can’t see, remember?”
“You know this place like the back of your hand.” She didn’t slow.
He did his best to keep up with her. “Are we going to the storage building to make out?” he asked. “’Cause if we are, I’m kind of digging this blindfold idea.” He grabbed for her with his free arm.
She laughed, evading his grasp. “Not this time. It’s a surprise. Be good.”
“Oh, I’m good.”
She laughed again.
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