And he would go back to his old ways. The ones that didn’t include morning kisses and turning takeout into a romantic dinner.
“It goes faster with two people.” She stepped beside him and pressed a kiss on his cheek as if she understood his hesitation and wanted to shatter it. “Now, show me what we’re doing. It’s freezing out here.”
Once the pieces of Dorothy’s new bench were inside the entryway, Zach poured a cup of hot coffee and grimaced at what Georgie was holding. “Please tell me that is your ugly sweater for the scavenger hunt and not something you plan to wear.”
Georgie’s laughter bounced around the kitchen. She hung a red sweater, its sequined candy canes twinkling, over the back of a kitchen bar stool. She placed a green sweater on the next stool and adjusted its thick collar. On the sweater, twin bucks faced off at the waist and an odd snowflake pattern circled the chest. “Dorothy felt the same about Big E’s green sweater and seemed thrilled to be donating it to our ugly sweater cause.”
“Then that’s another item off our scavenger hunt list.” He picked up one of the cranberry-orange muffins Dorothy had brought over from the dining hall earlier.
Georgie plugged in a hot glue gun and set it on the counter. Then she unloaded a box of Christmas trim onto the kitchen island, each bit tackier than the next. He leaned toward her. Was she humming, too?
He listened closer, certain he caught the notes from “Jingle Bells.” He poured another cup of coffee, suddenly convinced more caffeine was required. Georgie was humming a Christmas carol and he had the urge to join her. “What are you doing now?”
“Getting our supplies out.” She unloaded another bag of Christmas decorations onto the wide counter. “We can’t leave the sweaters like they are.”
“Why not?” Why couldn’t he press Pause and stop things right where they were? No more talk of moving to London. No more worsening of Rain Dancer’s condition. No difficult goodbyes or ending of what was becoming quite an incredible, extended moment.
He’d learned the truth during Cody’s final battle. Time refused to slow. There was no freeze button. And minutes were wasted wishing for impossible things. Life had to be enjoyed in the now.
“We can’t leave the sweaters as they are because those aren’t the scavenger hunt rules,” she said.
And the only rule that applied to life was that things always came to an end. “What’s the plan?”
“You decorate my sweater.” She handed him a roll of blue-and-silver tinsel. “I’ll decorate yours.”
And he’d enjoy their moment because it hadn’t come to an end yet. “I can do anything I want to this sweater?”
“We still need to be able to wear them to the party on Wednesday night also,” she warned.
The sisters had decided to throw a family-style joint bachelor and bachelorette party on Wednesday night. The theme was Ugly Christmas Sweaters, since they had to have them for the scavenger hunt anyway. Everyone had been told to get their ugly on their sweaters to celebrate Lily and Conner’s upcoming nuptials. Zach unwound the tinsel and plotted his attack on Georgie’s sweater.
Thirty minutes and several hot-glue sticks later, Zach stepped back to admire his effort. “I think mine might be uglier than yours.”
“Lily is not going to want her sweater back. I’ll have to get her a new one.” Georgie used the edge of her scissors to curl more ribbon, reminding him of a crazed, gleeful designer. “You can’t take the title yet. I’m not finished.”
“I hope you like the scent of artificial pine.” Zach reached into his back pocket and crinkled the wrapping of a value pack of air fresheners.
“Where did you get those?” Georgie wrinkled her nose.
“Dorothy.” He smiled and attached the air fresheners to the garland he’d looped all around the sweater. “She hid them from Big E and thought we might need them for scavenger hunt supplies.”
“Dorothy provided me with these.” Georgie revealed a dozen bells and set them jingling in her hands. Her laughter edged into a cackle.
“You don’t have to use all those.” He scowled at the bells.
“Did you use all those scented trees?” One eyebrow arched. The bells jingled louder.
“Definitely.” He laughed. “You can’t ever smell too fresh.”
“Or jingle too much.” She went to work, attaching the bells to the giant reindeer antlers she’d hot glued to the shoulders of the sweater.
Mini blinking lights woven through both sweaters, every scrap of sparkly tinsel and glitter hot glued onto the sweaters, Georgie and Zach high-fived and admired each other’s work.
Dorothy came through the back door, dropped a collection of paint cans and paintbrushes on the kitchen counter and caught her laughter behind her hands. “Those are quite awful, aren’t they? I think you two have outdone yourselves.”
“That was the plan.” Georgie walked toward her grandmother. “Can we help you?”
“I’m going to decide on a paint color for my bench and get started.” Dorothy sorted the half-dozen sample cans on the counter. “Then Zach can put it together for me. It’s like an early Christmas present.”
“We put down the tarps like you wanted and set everything up in the sunporch for you,” Zach said.
“Then that’s where I’ll head.” Dorothy grinned at them. “What’s next on the scavenger hunt list?”
Georgie pulled out their list and glanced outside at the heavily falling snow. “Can we push building snowmen off until tomorrow?”
“Alice Gardner gave me an extra-large bag of birdseed in exchange for helping Frank fix the forklift yesterday. We can use it to make our outdoor ornaments.” Zach knew he should be hunting down Ethan, not offering to check off another item on their scavenger hunt list.
But he feared Ethan would escort him off the ranch once Zach spoke to the Blackwell vet. Once he confessed to Ethan his real reason for being at the ranch. And if he was honest, he wasn’t quite ready to leave yet. Selfish as he was.
“Birdseed ornaments it is.” Georgie stuck the scavenger hunt list back inside her pocket. “How does this work?”
Dorothy made the motion of sealing her lips. “I can’t help you. But I can tell you that there are cookie cutters stored on the top shelf in the pantry.”
Georgie picked up her phone and opened her internet browser. “There’s a how-to video on everything online. Surely we can find one.”
“I’ll get the cookie cutters.” Zach headed to the pantry, located the cookie cutters, then retrieved the birdseed from the rental car. He returned to find Georgie already well into the ornament-making process.
“I’m going to mix this with flour.” Georgie stirred a liquid solution around inside a large pot on the stove. “Then you add the birdseed and we make ornaments.”
Zach followed Georgie’s instructions, added birdseed to the bowl and mixed everything together.
“Now, according to the video, we fill,” Georgie said.
They worked in tandem, pressing the mixture into the waiting cookie cutters that they’d set out on a large cookie sheet. Their rhythm was quick and efficient. He liked that about Georgie. She set her mind to something and accomplished it, big or small. He liked working beside her. He liked making ugly sweaters and birdseed ornaments. He simply liked being with her.
The truth was Zach liked Georgie too much.
He moved around to the other side of the kitchen island, as if that would lessen her appeal and his feelings. If anything, the new position gave him a better view of her face and more reasons for his gaze to keep tracking to her.
He concentrated on his cookie cutters and scrambled for something to distract him.
Fortunately, Dorothy emerged from the sunporch, white paint coating her hands and paintbrush. “I’m down to two colors. Going to let the sample sections dry, then see if I can decide.”
�
��What are your choices?” Georgie’s Christmas carol humming lowered.
“White and off-white.” Dorothy laughed. “There’s too many shades.”
“With sandpaper and stain, the bench can be antiqued.” Zach swiped sticky birdseed mash off his fingers.
“I never considered that.” Dorothy piled the paintbrushes in the kitchen sink.
“That would look terrific.” Georgie finished filling another cookie cutter, seemingly not bothered by the gooey mash sealing her fingers together. “We could help, if you’d like.”
We. There she was, offering Zach and herself up as if they were a team. As if they came together. Were meant to be together. Zach scooped more birdseed from the bowl. And there he was, again liking the sound of we. If it involved her and him. He had to stop. He’d finish the birdseed ornaments and retreat to the Once Was Barn, lose himself and his hazardous feelings among the broken and forgotten furniture.
“I saw Iris Lane outside White Buffalo Grocers this morning.” Dorothy washed paint off her hands. “She showed me the paper sign, proving your name fits.”
“She did?” Georgie knocked a wooden spoon and bell-shaped cookie cutter onto the floor.
“Who is Iris?” Zach packed birdseed into a gingerbread man cookie cutter. “What is she proving?”
“It’s nothing.” Georgie waved the wooden spoon around as if swatting away an aggravating horsefly.
Judging from the alarm in her gaze and her hasty words, Zach assumed it was more than nothing.
“It’s not nothing to Iris and Estelle.” Dorothy dried her hands. Her kind gaze followed Georgie around the island. “The two women suggested Georgie could open a medical practice here in Falcon Creek, using Dr. Cummings’s offices.”
Zach’s fingers stilled inside the birdseed bowl. Georgie living in Falcon Creek, Montana, not London, England. Georgie practicing patient care, not working in a research lab. That was everything Zach could see for her. Yet nothing Georgie wanted for her future. “When was this suggested?”
“Yesterday at the salon.” Georgie swung her wooden spoon in a cutting motion, striking through the idea.
Zach held on. If Georgie remained in Montana…maybe they could… He smashed his fingers in the birdseed and squashed the thought.
“Iris wrote Georgie’s full name on a piece of paper to show Georgie that her name would fit nicely on Dr. Cummings’s office sign outside his building.” Dorothy picked up a wooden skewer and poked holes in the tops of the filled cookie cutters for the string hangers to be looped through. “It seems the two women have been sharing their idea around town.”
The wooden spoon clattered on the counter. Georgie paled. “I never agreed to open a medical practice here in Falcon Creek.”
She’d only agreed to move farther away from her family. Zach stuffed birdseed into a stocking-shaped cookie cutter. His own Christmas spirit—the one he’d recently been discovering—fizzled. Georgie wanted her research lab in England. Not her family in Falcon Creek. Or her sisters in California. Or him.
“Folks in town tend to get an idea and run with it.” Dorothy reached across the island and clasped Georgie’s hand. Her voice was kind and reassuring. “They mean no harm.”
Zach and Georgie would cause their own kind of harm when the truth came out. He reached into the bowl and wadded the birdseed into palm-sized balls.
“I just don’t want to disappoint them when I leave.” Georgie held her grandmother’s hand. “And I am leaving.”
“Of course you are, dear.” Dorothy released Georgie and picked up the skewer again. Her voice returned to cheerful and positive. “You have a life outside Falcon Creek to live. We’re just lucky to have had you here for this long.”
Georgie stepped around the counter and hugged her grandmother. “Thank you for understanding.”
Zach understood, too. Reminded himself again that their we was only temporary. He frowned and formed another birdseed ball.
Georgie spun around and gaped at him. “What are you doing? Those look large enough to play softball with.”
Zach glanced at the birdseed snowball in his hands. Laughter curved inside him, a welcome relief that settled him back into the moment. One of the few he had left with Georgie. “Or it’s large enough for our snowman to hold tomorrow.”
“Hmm, not bad.” Georgie smiled.
Zach shrugged. “We can’t waste the bird feed and we’re out of cookie cutters.”
“You seem to be enjoying this quite a bit.” Georgie tapped her fingers on the counter. “You know Estelle told me yesterday that cowboys who come to Falcon Creek never leave.”
“Is that so?” He tossed the birdseed ball from one hand to the other. The snow would be thawing before the birdseed snowballs were finished.
“That’s what she claimed.” Georgie tipped her head at him. “You could stay here in Falcon Creek.”
Not without you. “What would I do in Falcon Creek?”
“Restore and build furniture,” Dorothy suggested. “I’ve got a list. And I wouldn’t put it past Hadley and Grace to have made lists of their own.”
“Work on the ranch,” Georgie offered. “Katie told me yesterday how good you are with the horses. How she needs someone like you on her full-time staff.”
He wasn’t interested in Katie. He was interested in Georgie. And if she could ever want someone like him. “There’s not a rodeo in Falcon Creek.”
“Then bring one here,” she said.
She was serious. He heard it in her tone, saw it in the set of her chin. He dropped the birdseed ball on the cookie tray. “Like you, I have a life to live outside Falcon Creek.”
Disappointment collapsed across her face. She spun away from him. “Dorothy, should we check the paint samples? See if they’ve dried and whether you like one color more than the other.”
“Yes. I’m quite excited to see the finished product.” Dorothy and Georgie walked into the sunporch.
Zach cleaned up and put the kitchen back as it had been. If only putting his thoughts together were as easy as stacking the stainless-steel bowls inside the cabinet.
Should he have told Georgie he wanted to stay in Falcon Creek? Then invited her to join him? Invited her to give up her dream job and career to be with him—a wandering rodeo cowboy? As if he believed she’d ever choose him first.
Georgie had already made her choice.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
UGLY SWEATERS HANGING in the bedroom closet and warm in her borrowed flannel plaid pj’s, Georgie picked up her phone to plug it into the charger for the night. A new text message alert flashed on her screen.
Her dad’s text read like a military brief, short and to the point: Arriving tomorrow. Before 1700 hours. Pending weather delays.
Georgie replied: Please be careful. See you soon.
Her father responded: Will deliver updates tomorrow.
And Georgie would deliver her job update in the dining hall to her father and the rest of her family, Harrisons and Blackwells together. Peyton and Amanda were scheduled to arrive tomorrow, but they’d already been alerted by the airlines to a possible weather delay due to an approaching winter storm. Still, Georgie couldn’t wait.
She had to put down boundaries and tell everyone, including herself, what was happening. She was moving to London. Her plans had not changed. Perhaps if she spoke to the entire dining hall, her heart would hear her and stand down, too.
Her feelings for Zach were too strong. Too fast. Everything she felt for him went against every rule and guideline she’d ever imposed for relationships. Love was a conscious decision two people made after years together. First as friends, learning about each other. Then as a couple, dating and exploring their compatibilities and acknowledging their differences. Then as a seriously committed couple who knew how to communicate and designed a future together, one that included marriage and kids.
Love was like a long-distance coast-to-coast drive. Love was the destination the car arrived at. Love wasn’t a passenger, picked up at the first stop.
Love wasn’t what she was feeling.
The bathroom door opened, and Zach stood on the other side of the bed. “You okay? It was those jalapeño poppers at dinner tonight, wasn’t it? Those had a kick stronger than swallowing a tablespoon of raw chili powder.”
The most ridiculous urge to smile overtook her. But the dry mouth, weak knees and stomach butterflies were not love either. That was simple attraction and attraction faded. “I never had any poppers tonight.”
“Good choice.” He touched his stomach and peered at her. A plea in his voice. “Maybe next time you could tell me to skip those, too.”
Next time she would skip inviting a charming cowboy to her family’s home. Next time she would skip the holiday family reunion. Next time she would skip the falling in love.
In love. Heat crawled from her chest, circled her neck and lit even her earlobes as if she’d eaten a dozen jalapeño poppers.
Her phone slipped from her hand, smacked against the bedside table and clunked on the floor. Georgie dropped to her knees and hitched forward on all fours, escaping from Zach’s view.
She was not in love.
Sure, she liked Zach. Found him attractive. Wanted to spend more and more time with him.
That hardly qualified as love.
Love was gradual. A natural building of feelings. One atop the other—friendship, respect, loyalty.
Love would render her exhilarated and ecstatic, like her sisters. She was short of breath, miserable and definitely not in love.
“Need help over there?” Zach asked.
He’d done more than enough. He’d made her love him. “No. My phone just slid farther under the bed than I expected.”
And she’d fallen harder than she’d ever thought possible. She clutched her phone. It wasn’t possible. She had not made the choice to be in love. She was not making it now. So, it was rather simple: she was not in love.
Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set Page 16