Chapter 7
Seven
“You’re quiet,” I say as we make our way back to the house.
“I’m always quiet.” Noah’s tone isn’t defensive at all. Just matter-of-fact.
“True,” I concede. “But you’re more quiet than normal.
” It almost feels like a silly thing to say.
Have I known Noah long enough for us to have a normal?
But there’s definitely something different about him now.
He’s more contemplative. Like his own thoughts are consuming so much of his energy, he doesn’t have any left for the outside world.
We walk in silence for several steps before he says, “That was my mom on the phone.”
“Ah. Tough conversation?”
I brace myself, ready for him to shut me down, but he surprises me when he says, “Not really. She’s just worried about me. And even though she tries not to say it out loud, I can tell by the tone in her voice that she is.”
“I mean, she’s in Italy and you’re here. Can you blame her?”
Noah shoots me a sideways glance. “No, I guess not.”
“You could still go, you know,” I say. “Catch a flight. You’d be there before Christmas.”
“Nah,” he says. “I’ve got responsibilities here.” His steps slow as we approach the back stoop of the farmhouse. “Besides. If I leave, who will help you decorate for the reunion?”
I spin to face him. “You’ll help me? I’ve been meaning to ask you, but I wasn’t sure you’d want to. Or would have time with all the…” I glance back toward the barn. “The farm things.”
“Farm things?”
I roll my eyes. “Shut up. I don’t really know what it is you do around here. Animals? Apples?”
“Roadside rescues?” Noah adds, his lips lifting into a tiny smirk.
“You aren’t going to let me forget that, are you?”
A crisp winter wind swirls around us, and Noah pushes his hands into his coat pockets. “I do a little of everything,” he says. “But it’s Christmas. The farm things can wait.”
“It’s Christmas?” I repeat as I follow him up the steps to the back door. “What suddenly thawed the ice around your grumpy heart?”
He holds the door for me. “The text from Olivia threatening bodily harm if I didn’t offer my services might have something to do with it.”
I wait to respond until we’re both inside the kitchen, the door closed against the quickly decreasing temperature outside. “And here I thought you were determined to do the opposite of what Olivia wanted.” I take a step toward him. “Refuse to be set up. You stay out of my way. I stay out of yours.”
I’m close enough now that he has to look down to meet my gaze. “I did say that,” he says. “But then I tasted your homemade bread and decided some things are worth the sacrifice.”
I fight a smile, leaning forward the slightest bit. “So this is about the bread.”
“Yep.”
“Nothing else?”
His lips twitch. “Nope.”
“And you’re okay with me monopolizing your entire afternoon with Christmas things?”
His jaw tightens like he might be reconsidering, but then he nods. “Whatever you need.”
I settle back onto my heels and consider his offer. I need his help, so I’m not going to argue. But I can’t quite make out his intentions.
Noah seems like a man at war with himself. He must want to spend time with me; otherwise, he wouldn’t be standing here volunteering his help. And he wouldn’t have asked me to go see the goats. No matter what he says about Olivia, he’s clearly a man who makes his own choices.
But he’s also holding a huge part of himself back. He’s here. But he’s not all here. And I wish I could figure out why.
“Perfect,” I finally say. I take a huge step backward, needing a breath of air that doesn’t smell like Noah. “I’ll definitely need help moving the decorations from the storage closet upstairs. But the biggest thing is getting a Christmas tree. Will you drive me?”
He turns and looks through the window toward the parking lot like he’s checking to make sure the giant Stonebrook Farm pickup truck is still there.
“I’d do it in the rental car, but with the roads, I’m not sure that’s a very good idea,” I add.
“It’s definitely not. Where were you wanting to go?”
“Thomson Tree Farm. Or, if that won’t work, the Feed n’ Seed in Silver Creek. But…”
“Let me guess,” Noah says. “You want to pick one out at the tree farm?”
“Is it Christmas if I don’t get to pick out the tree?” I ask.
His expression shifts, another almost smile that sets off a tiny explosion of fireworks in my belly.
“We could get up to Thomson’s in the truck,” he says, “but not everyone has four-wheel drive, and it’s a pretty steep climb between here and there. I’m guessing they’re closed if only to keep people from trying to make the drive.”
My shoulders drop. “The Feed ’N Seed then?”
“They’re probably open. They almost always are.” Noah hesitates, his eyes looking over my shoulder and past the house. “But we might have another option.” He pulls out his phone. “Let me just ask Liv if she minds.”
I like the way he calls his cousin Liv. Like they’re friends too, not just family.
It was only ever me and Alec growing up, which was totally fine.
He and I have always had a great relationship.
But I love the idea of a big family like this.
Of cousins you know well enough to randomly text and have it be no big deal.
“Wait,” I say, suddenly realizing something. “If you have three brothers and no sisters—does that make Olivia the only girl? In the whole extended family?”
Noah nods. “Yeah. Tough gig, right?”
“There are no other cousins?”
“Not on the Hawthorne side,” Noah says. “I think she has some on her mom’s side, but it’s just my dad and Ray on the Hawthorne side. Eight boys and Olivia.”
“Where does she fit in the lineup? Age wise?”
“She’s the youngest in her family,” Noah says. “And she’s younger than me, but she’s older than the rest of my brothers. Flint and I are the same age.”
My skin prickles with awareness at the mention of the movie star. Noah says it so casually, but it’s not lost on me that if my tiny Christmas crush on Noah were to turn into something real and I actually started dating him, I would probably meet Flint Hawthorne.
I’ve never been particularly obsessed with the actor. It’s just weird to hear him mentioned and know Noah actually knows him. That he grew up with him.
“Megan,” Noah says, cutting through my thoughts, and I swing my gaze to him.
He’s wearing an amused expression that makes heat climb up the back of my neck and gives me the distinct impression that wasn’t the first time he’s said my name.
“What?” I say, feigning an innocence I don’t really feel.
His mouth quirks up to the side. “You were thinking about Flint, weren’t you?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Liar.”
I scoff. “I’m not lying. I wasn’t!”
His expression doesn’t break.
“Okay, fine. I was. But I was only thinking about how weird it must be to have someone that famous in the family.”
Noah pockets his phone. “Probably no different than it is for you to have a brother who played pro hockey. He’s just your brother, right? He has fans, people obsessed with him. But he’s still just Alec to you.”
My brother isn’t even in the same stratosphere as Flint Hawthorne. The man won an Oscar last year. But I understand what Noah is saying.
“Are you ever going to tell me how you met my brother?” I ask. I have no idea where I suddenly get the courage to ask. Maybe it’s because Noah seems like he’s teasing me. And if he’s comfortable enough to do that, then I’m comfortable enough to tease him back.
“Are you changing the subject so you don’t have to admit you have a crush on my cousin?”
“I do not have a crush on your cousin.”
“He was People Magazine’s sexiest man alive.”
“Sexiness is subjective,” I say. “Are you changing the subject so you don’t have to talk about your work?”
Something flashes behind Noah’s eyes, and his jaw flexes before he raises a hand and runs it across his beard. “I work at Stonebrook Farm,” he says, like it is not up for debate, then he breathes out a sigh. “Which is why I know exactly where to find you the perfect Christmas tree.”
I don’t miss the way he says you. Like he’s doing this for me, in particular.
Something flutters inside my ribcage, a pulse of longing that’s growing stronger and stronger every second we’re together. It’s maddening to feel so much attraction when there’s still so much I don’t know. But for now, I’m content to let him win.
I take a step toward him, dropping my defensive posture and opening my hands, making it clear I’m accepting defeat. “Okay. Then let’s go get a Christmas tree.”