He rubbed his jaw with his obviously red-from-coffee-burn hand and considered her thoughtfully. “What’s got you so jumpy?”
Jumpy? she thought frantically. Yes, she was jumpy, because she was plotting his relationship status and then poured coffee on him, but how could he tell? Usually, people just assumed anything clumsy or silly on her part was just her nature. Could he actually differentiate from normal Ronnie bumbling and nervous jitters?
“Nothing,” she answered, but even she could hear the guilt in her tone.
“Hey, Ronnie, I just got a text from my ex-mother-in-law. I’m going to have to cut out on the coffee today, but we’ll catch up another day, if that’s okay? I really gotta run. Why, hello!” Brooke said all of it in one long rush, finally noticing Eli—the future husband she didn’t yet know she needed—at the end of her explanation.
“Hey,” Eli answered, but his gaze didn’t stray from Ronnie.
One part of her did a little somersault of joy. Usually, men forgot her the moment any other attractive woman came within spitting distance. Ronnie just wasn’t the kind of woman that men remembered, other than in friendship. She was perky, clumsy, and sometimes actually silly.
Sexy? Yeah, that wasn’t a word that got tossed in her general direction very often. But something about the way Eli looked at her made her feel special. Important. Maybe even valued?
No, Ronnie, focus. “Surely you can stay a minute or two, Brooke. I was hoping to introduce you to my new friend, Eli.”
“I really can’t,” Brooke said, looking almost regretfully at Eli. “Gotta run. Later, Ronnie.”
Ronnie blew out a frustrated breath. A perfectly good plan, gone completely to trash because of timing and stupid coffee.
It took her a second to realize she was still mopping pathetically at Eli, who simply stood, allowing her to drag shreds of paper napkin all over his clothes.
“Why do you insult yourself so often?” he asked, seeming more concerned with her than the mess she’d made of him.
“What?” she asked, flustered. He smelled good. Something about him just fascinated her on so many levels. His eyes, past the beard, were such a soft and warm color. Like those fancy golden diamonds, almost amber instead of boring brown. Maybe it wasn’t the color that so interested her, but the genuine focus he put on her when they were together.
He was such an unusual man.
“So far, I think you’ve called yourself clumsy, flaky and I don’t even remember what else. Why do you do that?” His fingertips came out, just grazing her cheek as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. He’d done that in the grocery store, too, and it was like the whole world narrowed down to just the two of them in some magical bubble when he did. She couldn’t see or hear past the sound of her own breath and the way he looked at her. The almost impossibly sweet gentleness of his touch shook her, right to the core.
“I don’t know,” she sputtered, a little confused by the question. “No one ever asked me why before. I don’t think I even realize when I’m doing it.”
“Do me a favor, please?”
Some insane little part of her wanted to sigh and just say, “Anything,” like some doofy woman in a romantic movie. Instead, she blew out a breath and shifted her weight, forcing her chin up to face off with him as an equal. Even if he towered over her and raising her chin didn’t change a good golly darn thing.
“What?” she responded, figuring that was a way less spineless answer.
“Pay attention to the words you’re using to insult my friend, Veronica, okay? You did say we’re friends now, right?” His smile was sinful, something private and secretive that tempted her to give up on setting him up with someone else and instead do something crazy...
Like go after him for herself. Which was probably the most insane idea to ever pop into her head, because what would a guy like him do with a gal like her? She was a red hot mess and he clearly had his shit together.
“They’re not insults,” she corrected. “More like disclaimers.”
“Then don’t give disclaimers,” he suggested. “I like Veronica just fine, but I hate to hear you talk badly about her.”
Again, that silly sigh wanted to break free from her. This man was lethally hot, just like she’d thought before. Way too hot for a small town. “I’ll give it a shot. Fair enough?”
He surprised her, reaching out to catch her hand. “Let’s toss these coffee cups and get going.”
Belatedly, she remembered her foiled plan and this time she did sigh. All that planning and it didn’t even work. “Fair enough.”
It was okay, she reminded herself. She had other plans. One going awry didn’t mean she wouldn’t still manage to have him matched up by the holidays.
She’d just have to get a bit more creative...
A couple weeks passed, and Elijah would have to be pretty oblivious to not catch on to exactly what Veronica was plotting. She’d lobbed various women into his path in seemingly random order. The thing was, she still didn't seem to realize that the woman he was interested in most was her.
Which made sense, since she seemed to spend most of her time bolstering and helping others while being cheerfully oblivious to her own needs. In his opinion, if she wasn’t going to do things to spoil herself a little, maybe it was about time someone else tried to do just that. Luckily for them both, he was a particularly observant man. It had been easy to learn more about her, enough to begin giving her back some of the good she threw out into the world.
When he realized how much she loathed the office coffee, he'd picked up a coffee machine—nothing special, less than forty bucks on the internet—that made espresso and foam. The look on her face when she'd spotted it in the break room was priceless, and it had taken an almost herculean effort to resist smiling as she pestered her brother as to where it had come from.
"Eli brought it in," Mac said simply. Only then had Veronica glanced across the room to him. Their eyes met, nothing more than a beat or two of time, and he'd nodded. Her beaming smile went a long way toward making him happy he'd taken the time to Google how to make the fancy coffee they sold in the coffee shop downtown which she seemed to favor.
It took him the better part of the week to realize she was investing literal hours working with the parade committee downtown to help with the planning and setup of the town's yearly holiday streetlight sale.
The idea of the streetlight sale was pretty simple and commercial, in his opinion, rather than anything to do with any actual holiday spirit. Local vendors wanted people to shop there, so they held a parade, put up lights, and gave away specially decorated—to match whatever they were selling, mostly—miniature live Christmas trees. The small tree in front of the bakery was covered with donuts and candy shaped ornaments. The pizza shop? Tiny slices of pizza decorated the tree while the topper was a particularly rotund Santa, holding a pizza box. It went on and on, the entire main street of the town decorated to the nines for the holiday.
On the surface, he could see where some might be tricked into thinking it was a seasonal wonderland, especially with the couple inches of fresh snow that had fallen. Scrape that surface just a little, and he could see why the chamber of commerce funded the event.
But after all the hours Veronica put in at work, she then put in more for the planning committee and even more on deciding which woman she'd hurl into his path next.
It had to be exhausting.
Which was exactly why he found himself, wearing a flannel and a toboggan, standing in the center of town in front of the gazebo, waiting for her to show up.
Veronica wasn't in the parade, he'd learned, but she planned to be at the gazebo to hand out peppermint sticks—made at a local candy shop—to children during the caroling portion of the events, when the parade ended in the center of town.
He held a large brown paper bag by the handles and simply waited, milling around with about half the population of the town, as the various floats and groups poured down the street for the parade. It wasn't really his
kind of thing, but he was rewarded for his patience when he spotted Veronica.
As he'd guessed, she was wearing the same outfit she'd been wearing at work—a flannel printed dress that ended just above her knees, an open black leather jacket with decorative studs, and black leather boots that ended just below her knee. The outfit, with the plaid in holiday colors of red and green, was cute for the season. She’d topped off the look with a festive Santa hat. What her getup didn't look was warm. Not that Veronica seemed to mind, simply handing out candies and grinning at everyone who stopped to talk to her.
For someone who thought so little of themselves, she sure was willing to give of herself to the point of being self-destructive. It amused and frustrated him on equal levels. Making his way to her side, he prepared for the wattage of that killer smile of hers and almost braced for the reaction his heart had each time she granted it...
It seemed to almost skip a beat. Which was ridiculous and overly romantic, but hey... guys were allowed a soft side, right?
"Hey," he said.
"Hiya," she answered. "What's in the bag?"
He reached inside, pulling out a pair of black gloves. The label said one size fits all, so he figured they'd work, even though her hands were as tiny as the rest of her.
Her brows shot up. "Those for me?"
He nodded.
"How did you know? My fingers are practically blue!" She snagged the gloves, shoving her fingers inside with a sigh of pleasure. "Are they warm, or am I sincerely that cold?'
He reached into the bag again and presented her with the hand warmer he'd had the gloves wrapped around. She practically glowed at him, looking happier than he thought his silly gifts deserved. "I noticed what you were wearing today and figured you'd be freezing by now, since I didn't' think you had time after work to go home to change."
And she hadn't asked him for a ride, which meant either her car was fixed or someone else had given her a lift to town. Was it wrong that he hoped for the latter? He enjoyed the time with her at the beginning and end of his day. Talking to her just made him happy.
"I almost said you're a genius, but that's common knowledge, right?" Her laugh was half residual happiness, half nervousness. He'd noticed that lately, too.
For all her efforts to throw other women into his path, she'd been paying more attention to him. She seemed as hyper aware of his presence as he was of hers… their eyes often met and held, and he seemed to feel a weird connection to her that wasn’t there before.
Which was good, since he couldn't seem to pay attention to anything but her, lately. It seemed only fair that the whole thing went both ways.
"What else is in the bag?" she inquired.
"You've still got candy to hand out," he pointed out. "Or were you ready to leave already? I can give you a ride home afterward, if you want."
"You’re my hero, Eli. I’d love that. Oh, the peppermints! Thanks. Be back in a jiffy." She scuttled into the crowd, vanishing to reappear a few times in cracks in the crowd.
He knew she wouldn't be right back. It wasn't in her nature. She was doing what she did best—taking care of people and making them smile—so she'd be a while.
He'd expected as much, so he settled onto the steps of the gazebo. In moments, they'd turned on the fairy lights, illuminating the gazebo. The golden glow of the lights made the whiteness of the snow all the more stark, like some pure puffy quilt thrown over the edges of the world to soften them. Tinsel glinted in the glow, and a soft snow began to fall.
With a hum of sound, the choir from the high school got in tune and then burst into a rowdy and rambunctious version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Veronica finally reappeared at his side. “I’m all out of peppermints,” she explained. “Now do I get to see what else is in the mystery bag?”
He grinned at her. She brought up mystery boxes and unboxing videos in conversations all the time, leading him to believe that this particular woman loved a little surprise. Not that she often got them, from what he’d seen. The bag had been a very intentional way to tweak her curiosity. “Stuff,” he responded vaguely.
“What kind of stuff?”
Pulling out the fleece blanket he’d rolled into one corner of the bag, he offered it to her. “This kind of stuff.”
Her eyes widened and she accepted the gift with a smile. She sniffed the blanket before snuggling herself into it and turning to face the carolers. “This was really nice of you, Eli,” she said.
Setting the bag at his feet, he caught her shoulders, rubbing his hands up and down her arms to encourage warmth. She had to be freezing. “Thanks, but there’s more in the bag.”
One of her dark brows arched as she peeked at him over her shoulder. “More stuff for me?”
Reaching down, he freed the thermos he’d packed from the stuff in the bag. “Well, I don’t know. Want a cup of coffee from your favorite coffee shop?”
“I think I’m in love,” she muttered, accepting the lid filled with fluid gratefully. After the first sip, her eyes rolled back and closed and some color came back to her pale cheeks. “Yeah, for sure in love.”
“With me or the coffee?” he joked.
Her lips curled in a smile. “For now, the coffee. But you’re growing on me.”
“About damn time,” he muttered.
She glanced at him. “What?”
“Listen, they’re talking about Santa,” he said instead of answering.
They listened to the carolers side by side, and he felt a peace he’d been looking for ever since coming home. He liked that making her happy seemed to be about the little things. And taking care of her, well, it somehow made him feel important.
When her small fingers caught his and she held his hand, it might have been a goofy thought, but he couldn’t help but think…
For the first time since he’d come home, he felt like he was home.
Chapter 4
They were headed back toward his car, and Ronnie pulled the blanket tighter around her neck. It was so soft—alpaca, maybe?—and it smelled like Eli.
She shouldn’t be reveling in that, but how could she resist? The man was brilliant, kind, sweet—the whole package and topped off with a sexy beard and a smile that could melt an iceberg. She reminded herself for the eleventy billionth time that it shouldn’t matter how irresistible he was. Her project was to matchmake him with his happy ever after by Christmas.
Not to ogle his butt as he crunched through the snow while huffing his scent off the blanket like it was catnip. “Did I remember to thank you for everything you did tonight? Because if I didn’t, thank you, Elijah Conrad.”
He stopped, tilting his head back so snowflakes caught on his beard. For a second, they were crystals in delicate shapes. Moments later, they were water droplets, decorating him with diamonds. “You don’t have to thank me. I wanted to do something nice for you, since you were busy doing nice things for just about everyone else in the town.”
She swallowed hard. “I like helping people,” she admitted, perhaps a little defensively. It wasn’t a crime, even though her brother was always ranting on about how she needed to learn to say no.
She didn’t want to say no. She liked being busy.
“I know you do,” he said, finally tilting his head to look at her. He stepped closer, into her space. She could’ve backed up if she wanted to.
She did what she’d been thinking about doing for a while and met him halfway. Leaning on him, she gazed into his eyes. “And you’re not going to give me the usual lecture I get from Mac? About how I need to stop helping people or whatever?”
His smile grew. “Nope.”
“Oh,” she whispered. The snow falling around them made a sound like a hush, muffling everything so it was just them, in the light of a streetlamp, while flakes drifted like magic from the sky.
“I like you, Veronica Murray. Just the way you are.”
She blinked fast. She hated to ruin the moment, but… “I have to make a confession,” she began.
&nb
sp; His fingertip covered her lips. “Before you do, I’d like to do something.”
That touch dragged down her bottom lip, then he was cupping her chin and tilting her head back just a little. When his lips met hers, she sighed into him. He was so warm, and that beard of his was surprisingly soft against her skin. Going up on tiptoes, she was happy when his embrace went from sweet and testing to a little hungry.
A little wild. Their tongues met and she shivered as electricity seemed to dance across her flesh. Everything lit up for him, and she wondered if her body was literally glowing from the heat he’d awakened with just one kiss.
“You’re cold,” he muttered against her mouth. It pleased her on some feminine level that even though he’d said that, he didn’t seem to want to let her go. “Come on, I’m parked right around the corner.”
He’d caught her hand and was tugging her along before she managed to catch her breath and thoughts well enough to formulate a sentence. “Wait! I said I had to make a confession.”
“Can you tell me in the car, once I have the heater on to get you warmed up?”
“I don’t need warmed up,” she insisted, pulling him to a stop. Tumbling back into his arms, she couldn’t help a little fission of pleasure that he reached out to embrace her without the slightest hesitation.
“You shivered,” he pointed out. “I tend to think that means you’re chilled.”
Going on tiptoes, she nibbled his earlobe. When he shivered in reaction, she smiled at him. “So, you’re cold?”
“Quick,” he said. “Confess.”
“I’ve been trying to play matchmaker.”
He looked at her impassively.
“You don’t look as mad as I thought you might be,” she pointed out.
Leaning down, he dragged kisses across her throat, up to her ear, then finally captured her mouth again. She didn’t even feel them move, but when the wall hit her back, she used it to brace her legs and practically climb the man.
Genius or not, he was built for sin and she was really tempted to take him out for a test drive.
A Merrily Matched Christmas Page 6