Chapter Four
Willow checked the time on her phone and winced.
Ninety minutes until people started arriving and three hours’ worth of tasks left.
The dining hall looked like a craft store exploded—boxes overflowing with pastel streamers, a helium tank, tissue paper poufs in various stages of fluff, and a balloon arch kit that claimed “easy, no tools required” in a font that felt like a personal attack.
“Easy, my butt,” she muttered, narrowing her eyes at the package. She shoved the stepladder toward the wall where the banner would hang.
During art therapy, Honor and the veterans had made Layne’s BABY ON BOARD sign. It lay draped over the ladder like it was taking a nap—something Willow wished she could do. Beside it, twinkle lights waited in a hopeful tangle.
She moved from one pile to the next, weighing the time each task would require and trying to figure out where to start swimming in the sea of overwhelm.
Streamers first. No—lights first, so she wouldn’t have to weave them behind paper later.
She grabbed the stepladder and dragged it away from the wall to the big front window.
The high heels and sweater dress she wore weren’t ideal for climbing ladders, but she knew if she didn’t dress for the event before she arrived for duty that morning, she’d end up wearing grubby chore clothes with her hair in a messy ponytail in all the shower photos.
And she did not want her new niece or nephew to think their Aunt Willow was a bum.
Carefully, she climbed two rungs, testing the wobble. Not horrible. She reached her arms up to hook the first strand of lights over a nail and realized her heel was trying to skitter sideways.
“Don’t you dare,” she told the shoe, because lecturing footwear was the stage of stress she had reached.
Across the room, the door opened. Cool air skated in and then cut off.
She glanced over her shoulder, and suddenly the temperature warmed a few degrees.
Decker.
“Hey.” To cover her breathlessness, she looped the string light over another nail. “The dining hall’s closed for Layne’s baby shower. Breakfast and lunch are temporarily in the rec room.”
“Not here for food.” Decker’s voice was low and even, like a rock in the middle of her hurricane. “I’m helping.”
She twisted to look at him again. He stood just inside the door in a dark Henley and a thick jacket, hair damp from the snow. He scanned the chaos, taking it all in without flinching, like he’d expected exactly this level of disaster.
Finally, the warm weight of his stare landed on her.
“Helping, huh?” She offered a smile and hooked another section of the lights into place. “It’s Saturday. You should be enjoying your downtime.”
In quiet steps that barely echoed in the space that was never silent, he crossed the hall to stand next to the ladder. “Willow. I’m helping.”
He was a man of few words, and what he said landed hard. He wasn’t asking.
Something in her ribcage clenched. “Okay, then. Be prepared to take orders.”
“You’re not the first drill sergeant I’ve had.”
With a flash of a smile, she pointed around the room. “Twinkle lights across that wall. Streamers from the beams down to the arch. Banner centered under the window. And if you want a challenge, the balloon arch is trying to end me.”
The corner of his mouth quirked—almost a smile—and he shrugged out of his jacket.
Oh my…
Willow froze with the lights halfway up to the nail, unable to tear her attention away from those thick, muscled shoulders.
Each flex and pull of hard steel was far more interesting than this disorganized mess.
Speaking of mess, she only had—she threw a look at the wall clock—eighty-three minutes left. She was the queen of micromanaging milliseconds, and by her estimate, she had a good ten seconds to stare at the beautiful SEAL.
But Decker wasn’t just rugged good looks and a perfect body. He was a great guy, the kind who gave up his Saturday to hold up the other end of everything she was trying to do.
She forced herself to tear her gaze from him and focus on the lights.
When he stepped closer to the ladder, he only had to tilt his head a little bit to meet her gaze, and she was tall for a woman.
If he reached up, he could plant his hands on her hips.
Butterflies took flight in her stomach, making it hard to remember the twinkle lights, the baby shower or even her own name.
Somehow, she managed to loop the string over another nail before climbing down. She moved the ladder a few feet and climbed up again.
He watched her as if he had something to say. With Decker, she’d learned it was best to give him space, and she always found what he did say was worth waiting for.
“You get any more gifts? Honey? Books?”
His question threw her.
Her fingers tensed on the ladder she clung to, and she could only blink at him, thrown by the shift she wasn’t expecting.
He’d asked her about the honey on the ride back from town. She’d managed to evade a direct answer—a skill she picked up from years of dealing with big brothers. In her eyes, the honey was nothing.
Except it made her uneasy.
Then there was the mystery book…
“No.” Avoiding his stare, she hooked another light over a nail.
“You tell your brothers?”
She climbed down, the ladder creaking as it shifted. “No, and I don’t plan to. There’s nothing to tell them. It was a jar of honey, Decker.”
His gaze held hers. “And a book.”
She pulled another strand of lights through her fingers, trying not to give him any reason to raise an alarm. The last thing she wanted was the entire Malone family firing questions at her.
“Any idea who they’re from?”
“A secret admirer?” She wobbled her head in playful manner, turning the whole thing into a joke.
But Decker wasn’t buying it, if that ticking tendon in his jaw told her anything.
God, was it sexy too.
She stepped around the ladder and thrust the coil of lights into his hands. “Look, if you’re serious about helping…”
“I am.”
“Then help. Tall guy jobs.” She angled her chin toward the windows. “Twinkle this place like it’s a Pinterest board.”
“No idea what that is, but…copy.” He took the strand and reached up without needing the ladder, hooking lights easily over the nails she’d tapped in last night.
He moved with efficient, quiet precision, and every time she glanced over, more of the room had changed.
Bulbs winked to life along the window, the shadows softened, and the dingy winter morning became something magical.
Willow got the streamer fan started on the other wall, taping pastel ribbons in every color of the rainbow at measured intervals so they’d fall in graceful loops.
Decker came to hold the free end, and their fingers brushed. Heat licked up her arm like a spark on dry tinder, and her breath hitched.
Weird…but probably nothing.
She’d long ago stopped trusting those little lightning strikes in her body. They were the same current that had led to mistakes in the past. So many bad choices in pretty packaging that her gut had warned her about but she’d overruled. She wasn’t doing that again.
But this was Decker. Quiet, steady Decker with the soulful eyes. Not the same.
She passed him the tape, letting her fingers skim his on purpose this time.
He didn’t startle. He only anchored the streamer while she measured the next loop.
“Balloon arch next,” she announced, pretending her pulse wasn’t tapping double time. “It’s going to be a beast, but we’ve got this.”
They worked the rhythm out between them fast. He inflated, she knotted. He slid balloons onto the plastic strip, she adjusted spacing, color, fullness.
His forearm nudged her shoulder once, twice, and each time a tingle of sensation tracked up the back of her neck. Not unwelcome. Not safe either.
She focused harder on the task, on the way the arch began to take shape, on the tiny wins—another foot done, then another.
He didn’t talk much, but when he did, it was to ask what she needed next or to offer a hand before she asked. The room warmed around them, their bodies moving in sync.
A balloon slipped and squealed against another. Suddenly, it burst with a loud pop.
Willow held her breath, gaze darting to Decker.
In a therapy program for military vets, startling noises weren’t always accepted.
She’d never seen him react to sudden noises, not once since he’d arrived, but she waited anyway—ready to do damage control if the world threw a wrench in his nervous system.
Decker didn’t flinch. He looked down at the broken bits in her palm and offered a fresh balloon like it was nothing.
The breath she’d been holding leaked out slowly. Maybe he didn’t have that particular trigger. It made her wonder, not for the first time, what had landed him in therapy. A big loss? A collection of smaller ones?
She tied off the new balloon and slid it onto the strip. “Thanks.”
“Mm.”
They finished one side of the arch, then the other, and when she stepped back to check the curve, she realized she was smiling. Not the strained hostess smile she’d been wearing all morning—an actual, true smile of accomplishment.
He’d cut the work in half just by being…here.
“Okay.” She glanced around, hands on her hips. “Confetti balloons go at the bottom, pastels toward the top. Because gravity.” She grinned.
He handed her the confetti balloon without comment, but amusement flashed in his eyes. She stepped onto the ladder again to tweak the top, and he made a soft sound in his throat.
“What?” She nudged mint green to kiss light pink.
“You’re going up and down a ladder in heels. You’re just asking to get hurt.”
She peered over her shoulder, a slow smile sliding in. “That’s the most I’ve heard you say in a while. If I need to put myself in danger to get you talking…”
He let out something between a huff and a growl, low and distinctly male.
All of a sudden, he stepped close. His big hands bracketed her hips for a heartbeat—strong and warm—and he lifted her.