Chapter Twenty-Four
Miles Flint had kissed more than a few women in his life. It came with the territory where he lived and worked. Decidedly few encounters had gone past that, however, contrary to many assumptions made.
He wondered if he even had the capability for that kind of thing anymore.
It just wasn’t enough for him. He knew many others didn’t care about anything but the physical, but he’d never had the one night or less knack.
Sometimes he thought that had died when his hour-old son, the result of one of those nights, had gaspingly breathed his first and last in his arms. Which had also been when he’d learned, via the DNA testing his attorney had insisted on, that it had been his own genetic quirk that had caused it.
It had been a decade ago, but it still held sway.
Since then, most of the emotional connections he was capable of went into his work. Other than with friends he already had and trusted, he couldn’t seem to connect deeply with the women he encountered.
But it seemed he had a knack for connecting to millions he’d never met. And he’d built a career many envied out of it. None of which explained why kissing Riley Garrett had about blown his new boots off.
And the only thing that did explain it was beyond unsettling. And a risk he wasn’t sure he really wanted to take.
Or at least, he hadn’t been. Until he’d kissed her.
A couple, walking arm in arm, came toward them, obviously headed for the saloon. The entrance to which they were blocking. They simultaneously moved to let the couple pass, stepping out of the doorway.
Out from under the mistletoe.
Mistletoe. Christmas. In Last Stand. That had to be it. The genuineness of it all here in this place Jackson had found such happiness had to have affected him, knocked him off-kilter.
Sometimes he had to admit the ache he felt inside looking at his friends, and seeing how they’d changed, how Jackson and Jeremy especially had changed since they’d come here.
He’d wondered what it must feel like to know you’d truly met your match.
And now his unruly imagination had taken off running with it, had him thinking that kiss was more than it was.
More than a kiss had ever been?
Those words were still spinning in his mind later when, back at the Baylor ranch, he went up to check in at Nic and Jackson’s place, as promised. Nic was there, but Jackson and Jeremy were apparently out with Maverick.
“He’s trying to tire them both out, so they’ll sleep tonight,” Nic told him. “Jeremy’s catching the Christmas spirit, and getting a bit excited.”
“Hard not to catch it, here,” he said, trying not to think about his mistletoe encounter just an hour ago. “But that’s great to hear. He hasn’t had much of that since…”
His voice trailed off, but he glanced at the photograph on what Nic called the family wall.
There were shots of her and Jackson, her and her parents, and all of them together.
But he’d been surprised to see a lovely shot he himself had taken just a month before the accident that had shattered Jackson and Jeremy’s lives.
A shot of the boy at about age six, laughing and smiling up at his mother.
“He still misses her horribly, and he always will,” Nic said. “And that’s as it should be.”
“It doesn’t bother you? Having that picture up there?”
“Why would it? She was Jeremy’s mother, and if not for her I wouldn’t have the greatest gift anyone can ever give.”
Miles looked at this woman who had changed his friend’s life forever, and for the good.
“Leah was a wonderful woman. And as someone who knew her fairly well, I can tell you how happy she would be that you came into their lives.”
Nic sighed. “I just wish she could know they are both loved and ever will be.”
Miles felt that odd combination of tightness in his throat and a pang in his gut.
Happiness for his dear friend, and the pang…
well, that was for himself, he guessed. In an effort to avoid what he was sure would have been a grim tone if he’d tried to say what he was feeling, he forced an only half-felt lightness into his voice.
“Maybe you can ask Santa to deliver that message.”
She blinked, then smiled. “I might just do that. He’ll be at the Christmas market, after all.”
“Of course he will.” And if the real Santa were to show up anywhere on earth, it’d be a place like Last Stand.
He managed to keep that crazy thought to himself.
“So, are you and Riley going to the parade and tree lighting tomorrow night?”
Damn. The woman never, as Jackson often said, missed a thing. “I’m thinking of going, and I’m sure she is,” he answered carefully, “so…yes, I guess?”
“What, she too old for you?”
He almost gaped at her. He’d completely forgotten about the eight-year gap. He said the first thing he could think of, the point he’d made to Riley herself not long ago. “Hey, now, would you be saying that if it was the other way around? A bit sexist, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t think you were that kind of jerk,” she said with satisfaction. “So what’s the problem? She working you too hard?”
“She works harder,” he said. “I don’t know how she keeps going like that every day.” He shrugged. “Maybe she’s too tired and not going.”
Nic rolled her eyes. “What is it with you guys? Come on, Miles, it’s obvious she rings your chimes—sorry, it’s that time of year—so why aren’t you going together?”
He grimaced. “Ever think maybe I don’t ring hers?”
Nic’s brow furrowed, and she studied him for a moment. “Hmm.” Then, without a word, she turned on her heel and walked out the front door just as Jackson and Jeremy and the panting but happy-looking golden dog came in. She kissed all three of them, lingering a bit longer with Jackson, and was gone.
“Uh-oh,” Jackson said to him after sending Jeremy back to wash up hands obviously grubby from throwing Maverick things to fetch.
“Uh-oh?” Miles asked.
“That was a woman on a mission. What were you two talking about?”
“I…the Christmas parade and tree lighting.” No way was he going to say it was the idea of him and Riley that had set her off.
Jackson frowned. “Not usually something that would get her revved up. Now if you’d told her you weren’t staying for the wedding…”
Miles laughed, feeling a bit of pressure ease. “No way, man. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”
“Good. Because I need you to hold my hat.”
Miles blinked. “What?”
His friend grinned at him. “Nic wants me to wear the hat the town gave me, but not during the ceremony. So I need a hat holder. Jeremy and Maverick are already going to be busy as ring bearers.”
He laughed then. “I’d be honored.”
He meant it. He knew Tucker was set to be best man, and Jackson’s sister Trista would be a bridesmaid, her fiancé a groomsman, with Nic’s mother the…matron of honor, he thought they called it. He hadn’t expected to be anything more than an attendee, and he did truly feel honored.
“Thanks,” Jackson said. “It…” He stopped, then clearly plunged ahead. “It means a lot to have the people who mean the most to me to be part of this.”
Miles’s throat tightened. “Damn, bro, don’t go getting mushy on me now.”
The moment ended laughingly with a bro hug, but Miles knew the words had been utterly sincere.
They also gave him an idea. And the next day, he put it into action.
“I was thinking,” he began, as they were checking all the pastures to be sure there was water for all the stock.
“Should I be worried?” Riley asked. She was smiling at him, and that gave him hope. Among other things that smile of hers gave him.
“That Christmas tree lighting tonight…”
“And the parade. Don’t forget that.”
“Yeah, that too. Jackson and Nic are taking Jeremy. They invited me along, but I’d really feel like a third wheel.”
“I’ve noticed the closer the wedding gets, the more they pull together.”
“And the mushier they get,” he said, using what Jackson had unintentionally given him.
Riley grinned at him. “I’ve noticed that, too.”
“I’d still like to go, to see it all, but I’m clueless.
So I was wondering if you’d mind me tagging along with you.
It’s okay if you’d rather not,” he said hastily.
“I’ll go on my own, and figure it out somehow, but it’d be a lot easier with a local.
And I thought if your dad’s going, I could maybe help if his leg starts bothering him. ”
There. He’d vomited it all out. In a way that would make any of the Hollywood deal makers he’d dealt with laugh. He never put it all out on the table like that—that’s just not how that game was played.
But this is not a game.
He realized in that moment just how true that was. He wasn’t entirely sure of what it was, because he’d never felt quite like this before.
But he was sure what it was not.
“Dad’s not going this year.”
Miles blinked. Out of all he’d said, that was what she’d seized on? Was that good, or was it just a diversion? She went on as if it were a casual conversation. Which it was not, to him.
“He doesn’t want to risk it when his leg’s starting to feel better. And he wants to see the new video feed Cody Rafferty and Sean Highwater have rigged up.”
That threw him off track a little. “They what?”
“They’re using the security cams outside the courthouse.
They look down on the square at the library and you can see the tree.
The front one shows the street, so you’ll get the parade.
They’ve jacked up—their phrase, not mine—the picture quality and speed, and they’re sending it to the city channel that shows the town hall meetings.
So people stuck at home can still watch. ”
“That’s pretty clever. And nice of them.”
“They love this town like all of us do,” she answered simply. “And they’re prepping for next year.”
He thought he saw a trace of sadness shadow her eyes for a moment. “What’s wrong?”
She sighed. “This isn’t generally known, but this will be Minna’s last year doing this. She always starts the process by flipping the switch for the tree, but…she’s decided doing it for fifty years is enough. And she’s getting more frail. She says every year past one hundred is worth about twenty.”
“My late great-grandmother told me on her ninety-fifth birthday that the best way to shake the desire to live forever is to get close to doing it.”
Riley’s smile came back. “I think I’d have liked her.”
“I know she’d have liked you.” The words hung there awkwardly for a minute. And he still didn’t have an answer to his request. His nerve snapped and he did something he rarely did, rushed to fill the silence. “She respected anyone who worked hard and upheld their values.”
She seemed to study him before saying, “So, can you guess who Minna’s handing off the Christmas duties to?”
He thought for a moment, then went with the only name that came to mind. “Maggie Rafferty?”
The wide, approving smile she gave him told him he’d been right. “Good call, Mr. Flint. You might make a Last Stander yet.”
He couldn’t describe the feelings that rose in him at those words.
“We’d better get moving,” she said briskly, “if we’re going to get everything done before we head for town.”
His heart slammed in his chest. We? “Yes, boss,” he said, grinning with sudden delight.
“I’ll drive,” she added, “since I know where best to park.”
“Yes, boss,” he repeated, and she rolled her eyes at him. Which made him grin even wider.
Her other words played back in his head. You might make a Last Stander yet.
He hoped so. Oh, yes, he hoped so.
And in that moment, what that would mean for the rest of his existence, for his work, didn’t matter one little bit.
Because he wanted this woman in his life.