Home for Christmas (Willow Park #5)

by Noelle Adams

  “This is Mark,” Sophie said, rather sheepishly. “He arrived earlier than I thought.” There was not much chance he could keep the names straight, but in the interest of being polite, she gestured around the room and added, “This is Jessica, Alice, Abigail, and Lydia.”

  “It’s nice to meet you all,” Mark said politely, standing very still beside Sophie.

  Alice and Jessica immediately rose to their feet. “Oh, we’re so glad to meet you,” Jessica said, reaching over to help the very pregnant Abigail stand up too. “We were just finishing up, so we won’t be around for much longer.”

  “Oh,” Sophie said, relieved that she didn’t need to hint. “You don’t have to—”

  “Of course, we do,” Abigail said with a little hug. “I’m sure the last thing Mark wants is to be chatted at by all of us. You spend time with your husband.”

  Mark was just watching the activity. He didn’t look upset or annoyed, but he did look a little blank, like the situation was too much for him to fully process right away.

  “It’s really nice to meet you,” Lydia said, walking over to stretch a hand out toward Mark. “We’ve all been praying for you.”

  Lydia was always like that—direct, completely guileless.

  “Thank you,” Mark murmured, shaking Lydia’s hand.

  Jessica took Lydia’s arm and encouraged her toward the door. “We’d all love to get to know you—at a better time.” She grabbed her platter of mostly eaten cookies on the way out.

  The women all hugged and thanked Sophie as they left, and they were gone within two minutes.

  “I didn’t mean to scare them all away,” Mark said, looking around at the used napkins and mostly empty glasses.

  “You didn’t. I think they were just trying to be nice and give us some space.” Sophie didn’t want him to be uncomfortable about anything. She reached up to hug him again. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “I wasn’t sure myself. But I just couldn’t put up with being there anymore, so I decided to take off. This sure is a little town.”

  “I know.” She was suddenly worried he wouldn’t like it. “The people have been really great to me here, but I know it’s not really what we’re used to. We don’t have to stay here long. There just wasn’t really anywhere else for us to go.”

  She would love to stay in Willow Park longer, but there was no way for him to do a job like he used to do here. They had to move to a bigger city. There was no choice, if Mark was ever going to be who he used to be.

  “I know.” He still had a bag on his shoulder, but now he let it slide to the floor. “It looks like you have a lot of friends here.”

  “Yeah.” She looked toward the door. “They’ve been…really great.”

  “Good.”

  He sounded a little distant, so she peered at his face, but he smiled at her until she let out a breath of relief.

  He was okay. And he was here. Things were going to start to get better now.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “I had something on the trip.” He watched as she went around the room, picking up trash and glasses. “The bedroom is in there?”

  “Yeah. Go on in and unpack, if you want. Or I can do it later. I made room for your stuff in the closet and the dresser.”

  He went into the bedroom, and she hurriedly put up the rest of the stuff from the book club. She didn’t want Mark to see reminders of the party he felt like he’d broken up.

  Then she joined him in the bedroom. He was standing over an open drawer, staring down at its contents.

  Curious, she went to look, but it was just her bras and underwear. She pushed it closed and opened the one beneath it. “This one is empty. And then I put some of your old stuff in the bottom two drawers.”

  “Okay.”

  Together, they unpacked his stuff. He didn’t actually have a whole lot with him—just the clothing and personal items he’d gotten over the last month. She wondered if some of his old clothes would even fit him anymore. He’d lost so much weight and hadn’t gained any of it back yet.

  She rubbed his back, smiling when he turned to look at her, as if he was surprised that she’d touched him.

  Reminding herself that the best thing to do was to be completely honest, she said, “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m…I’m a little nervous about adjusting to being together again, but I’m so happy you’re here.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

  She wasn’t sure whether he meant he was happy too or nervous too. Or maybe both. But she didn’t want to give him an interrogation the moment he arrived. “What do you feel like doing?” she asked. It wasn’t even nine yet. It was still early.

  Without warning, he reached out for her, pulling her against his body. He took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply.

  She was giggling when she pulled away. “I guess that answers that question.”

  He was smiling as he kissed her again. “You look gorgeous in that shirt.”

  She was wearing a red ribbed turtleneck. “It’s just a normal shirt.”

  “It makes your boobs look very fine.”

  She tightened her arms around him. “You mean it makes me look like I actually have boobs.”

  He swung her down onto the bed. “That too.”

  They kissed urgently, and then started to clumsily undress each other. Both of them were rushed and eager, and soon they were naked and he was buried inside her, pumping against her fast and hard.

  She was moving her hips with his, and gasping as the feelings and sensations filled her, flooded her. They were shaking the bed, and she was fumbling for purchase on his back, his butt, trying to hold on as best she could.

  Pleasure was building inside her, but too slowly. It wasn’t long before he let out a loud sound of helpless pleasure and shook against her fiercely.

  He was still kissing her as he relaxed, his body softening after his climax.

  “You didn’t get there,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It was perfect. I loved it.” She meant it too. She wouldn’t complain about an orgasm, but he meant a lot more to her than that. “I love you.”

  He stared down at her with a strange sort of hunger for a minute, and then he gave her a deep, hard kiss.

  The round of sex seemed to have taken the edge off his mood. They chatted casually about the apartment, about the town, about the church she attended as they lay in bed together afterwards. And Sophie was really happy when they drank a glass of wine together and then went to bed.

  He held her in his arms for a while, and she was about to drift off when she felt him getting out of bed and pulling on a pair of pants.

  “Where…you going?” she mumbled, rolling over to blink at him in the dark.

  “I’m just going to take a walk.”

  “Isn’t it raining?”

  “Not much. I won’t be long.”

  Before she could volunteer to go with him, he was gone.

  She felt a little worried as she lay in the dark alone. Then she decided not to expect miracles.

  So what if he wanted to walk in the middle of the night? He was allowed to do it if it helped him sleep.

  Tonight had been good, and there was no reason not to expect that tomorrow would be even better.

  ***

  It was dark and cool in the room when Sophie woke up, so she unconsciously huddled over toward the other side of the bed, where she could feel some kind of heat source.

  The heat source was Mark, a fact she gradually became aware of as she burrowed against his body.

  He mumbled wordlessly and wrapped an arm around her. She was more awake now, realizing it must still be very early in the morning. She liked that Mark held her like this, even in his sleep. It made her feel special, needed—even if he wasn’t aware of what he was doing.

  She sighed in pleasure and shifted against him, trying to get more comfortable, since he was now lying on one of her arms. Her motion must
have woken him, however. She felt something change in his body.

  Looking up at his face, she could see that his eyes were now opened.

  “You’re on my arm,” she said, giving the limb in question a tug.

  “I’m willing to bet that you’re the one who rolled over on me, so you only have yourself to blame.”

  A little tremor of affection and excitement ran through her at the soft, fond sound of his voice. The only time she’d heard him like this since he’d returned was that morning a few weeks ago in the hotel room.

  “I was cold,” she explained with a small smile.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We’ve had this conversation before, you know.” She readjusted herself, since he’d moved to free her hand, but she kept one of her arms wrapped around him, not wanting to lose the intimacy she felt.

  “I know.” He wasn’t smiling, but it sounded like there was a smile in his voice anyway. His hand slid down her back toward her bottom. “You’re not wearing very warm pajamas, so there’s that.”

  She wore a little red satin camisole with matching pants, since she’d wanted to look pretty for him as they went to bed. “I didn’t want to get out from under the covers to put something warmer on.”

  His hand had continued stroking her back, and now it moved around to the front, so he could feel the small swell of her breasts. Sophie wasn’t in a sexy mood, but the touch felt incredibly nice, and it touched something very deep in her heart. She released a long sigh.

  “I think your breasts have gotten bigger,” he murmured thoughtfully, as his fingers played with the nipple.

  She gasped in surprise. “Since when? Since last night?”

  He chuckled. “No. Since before I…since before. Haven’t they gotten bigger?”

  She rolled over onto her back and pushed down the covers to look. Her nipples were tight from the cool air and his touch, but in general her body looked the way it always had. “I don’t think so. They’re the same as always. Mostly flat.”

  He was staring at her too, and he rolled over so he was even closer, eyeing her chest with almost playful gravity. “Definitely bigger.”

  “I still wear the same bra size.”

  “You better lift your shirt up so I can take a better look.”

  She giggled and pulled the covers back up over her. “It’s way too cold for that. You’d have to turn the heat up higher.”

  For a moment, he had the oddest look on his face.

  “What?” she asked, unsure of what the expression meant.

  “I’m thinking.”

  Realizing he was debating the merits of turning up the heat and looking at her breasts, she choked on a laugh and wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t feel like sex—not at barely four in the morning—but she wanted to be close to him.

  And this silly conversation was the closest she’d felt since he’d returned.

  Five

  They both dozed off again, and Mark was still sleeping when Sophie woke up again, this time at about six-thirty in the morning.

  She’d gotten into the habit of going to get a cup of coffee and then climbing back in bed to drink it and watching the news headlines every morning. She didn’t want to wake Mark up, so she turned the volume on very soft.

  She was sliding on her slippers when she saw his eyes open.

  “Sorry,” she said with a sheepish smile. “Did I wake you up?” She felt a happy chill at the memory of their sweet conversation earlier that morning. Things were getting better. He was opening up. Today might be really good.

  He shook his head, his expression calm, not quite as expressive as it had been a few hours ago. “No. It’s fine.”

  “Do you want some coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  She left and returned a few minutes later with two cups of coffee, and she felt a silly little thrill at the fact that she was getting to drink coffee in bed with her husband this morning.

  He thanked her and propped himself up on his pillows so he could drink it without spilling.

  She turned the volume louder, and they watched in silence for a few minutes.

  “This is really good,” Mark said, after a little while.

  It was so close to what she was feeling herself that she just murmured, “Yeah.”

  Then she realized he wasn’t talking about the whole morning experience. He was just talking about the coffee. “I just bought it the other day. It’s gourmet Columbian. They just got it in at the grocery store down the block.”

  He smiled, the way he used to smile when he thought she’d spent too much money on something but wasn’t annoyed by it.

  “You just said it was good,” she said, reaching over to give his beard a little tug. “So you know it was worth the money.”

  He chuckled. “You’ve left me with no argument.”

  “Exactly.”

  They were both smiling when the commercials ended and the weather came on.

  “I can’t believe we might have snow this weekend.”

  “It’s already the first of December. I can’t believe it. Christmas will be here soon.” She swallowed the last of her coffee. “At least you’ll be here this Christmas.”

  “Yeah. I guess so. It seems strange to think about Christmas. It seems strange to think about a lot of things.”

  She tensed up internally but managed not to let it show in her body. She didn’t want to make it seem like Mark’s words were significant.

  They were, though. At least to her. It was the first time he’d said anything personal, anything about his feelings about being home again, on his own initiative.

  “Yeah. I guess it would. Is there anything in particular you want to do this Christmas?”

  “Were you going to your folks?”

  “I was originally, since I thought I’d be on my own. But we can visit them either before or after Christmas. It might be more comfortable if we just spent Christmas on our own. Unless you wanted to do something else.”

  “No. On our own sounds good. I’m not sure I’m ready to be around a lot of people yet.”

  “Sure. We’ll spend Christmas just the two of us.” She smiled and reached down to squeeze his hand.

  “Do you want more coffee?” he asked, pulling his hand away. It wasn’t rude or abrupt in any way, but it felt like he wanted to get away from her.

  “Sure. Thank you.”

  He got out of bed, and she watched him walk toward the kitchen in just his underwear. He’d always had a very nice ass, and it was firm and tight still, even though the rest of him was too thin.

  For just a moment, she felt like he was a stranger. An actual stranger. In bed with her. Getting her coffee.

  She wondered if she really knew him at all.

  She’d brushed the thought away and was smiling when he returned.

  “What did you want to do today?” she asked, when he climbed into bed beside her.

  “I don’t know.”

  She didn’t want him to just lie around all day, even though it might be his first inclination. It felt like he needed something to do, something to occupy his mind. She knew very well that, if one was unoccupied, it was very easy to brood, and Mark was always a “doing” sort of person. “Why don’t you come to the bookstore with me?” she suggested. “You can help out, if you don’t have anything else in mind.”

  He actually looked relieved, as if the pressure of decision-making had been taken away from him. “Okay. That would be fine.”

  Sophie smiled as she sipped her coffee.

  It was definitely a good day. Not only did she get to drink coffee and watch the news with her husband, but she also got to go to work with him.

  It wasn’t like it used to be—pretty soon, they’d have to work on getting him back to his old self, where she didn’t always have to nudge him into doing things—but, still, this was nice.

  ***

  The morning went really well.

  Her grandfather was kind and easy-going, and he was happy to see Mark wi
thout trying to crowd him. Sophie let her grandfather handle the cash register while she and Mark worked in the back room, re-organizing the stock the way she’d been wanting to do for a while. They also switched out the fall-themed knickknacks on the front shelves with Christmas-themed knickknacks. Mark walked to the sandwich shop two doors down to get lunch for the three of them, and Sophie was almost flushed with happiness at having such a good day with him.

  When Thomas Morgan, Abigail’s husband, walked into the store in the middle of the afternoon, Sophie was happy to see him. She wanted to introduce him to Mark. She was hoping the two men could be friends.

  Thomas was a surgeon at the local hospital, and he always came across as competent and self-possessed. He smiled when he saw Sophie. “I need a Christmas present for Mia, and all she ever wants is more books,” he said. “Do you have anything she hasn’t read yet?”

  Sophie made a face. Thomas and Abigail’s daughter read as well and as much as a child twice her age. “I don’t know. She’s read through my kid’s section.”

  “Abigail gave me strict instructions that I was to stick to age-appropriate books.” He curled up his lip in a way that made Sophie chuckle.

  She glanced behind her to see if Mark was around, but he’d gone to the bathroom and must not have come back out yet.

  Focusing on the problem at hand, she mentally scanned her inventory. “Oh,” she said, walking over to the glass case in which they kept the rare or more valuable books. She indicated a row near the bottom of the case. “Has she read these?”

  Thomas leaned down to look. “No. I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of them. Are they any good?”

  “Yes. I loved them. They’re about a hundred years old now, but they’re so much fun, and they’re well written. They’re about girls who are friends, and the books grow up with the girls, so the later books are a lot harder.”

  Thomas had pulled the first book off the shelf. “This is too easy for her.”

  “Yeah, but look at this one.” She pulled off one of the high school books and opened it. “The reading level grows up with the girls. She might not be ready to read the older ones yet, but she can definitely read the first six.”