Chapter Sixteen
AS TIRED AS SHE WAS FROM HER LONG DAY, HOLLY DIDN’T want the evening to end.
She had loved every moment spent with Ryan and Audrey. For a few moments, she hadn’t felt like a tired mother or a frazzled small business owner. She only felt like a woman in the company of an attractive man who made her feel like she had sparklers going off inside her.
As much as she had loved being with him and Audrey, she was aware of a little niggle of worry on the edge of her subconscious.
If she wasn’t careful, she was going to make a fool of herself over him and end up finding a broken heart in her stocking this Christmas.
“I’m tired and my feet are cold,” Lydia said on a whine. As Holly had feared, the excitement of the day had been too much for her daughter, even with her nap after school in the break room.
“We can’t have that,” Ryan said. Before Holly could respond, he swept up the girl and set her on his broad shoulders. Lydia gave a surprised shriek then giggled.
“I’m big,” she said.
“You sure are, honey,” Holly said. As she looked at the pair of them, she felt the ice she thought encased her heart chip away a little more.
“Did you have fun?” she asked Audrey. “Your friend’s group was really good.”
“It was,” Audrey agreed. “I liked when they rang the bells, too. That sounded cool.”
“And you found a few purchases.” She nodded to the bag Audrey carefully guarded.
“Yep. I think I’m almost done with my Christmas shopping, thanks to you paying me way too much to babysit Miss Lydia.”
“The paltry sum I’m paying you isn’t nearly enough for the great job you do,” she assured the teen.
They reached his truck first, which had a light coating of snow.
“You don’t have to walk us to my car.”
“Don’t have to, maybe, but I’m going to,” Ryan answered.
“Like Lydia, my feet are killing me, too,” Audrey said. “Can I wait in your truck, Uncle Ryan? I can start it up for you.”
“You know how?”
“Sure I do. I warm up my mom’s car all the time.”
He pulled a key ring out of his coat pocket and handed it to Audrey. Looking gleeful, she unlocked the driver’s side door and climbed inside.
“I’m trusting you to lock the doors until I get back and to make sure that gearshift doesn’t leave Park, even for an instant,” he said sternly. “Got it?”
Audrey made a face. “I won’t touch the gearshift, I promise. I’ll just start it up and then look at my phone.”
They walked through the alley toward Holly’s parking space behind the store.
She pressed her key fob to activate the remote start in her own SUV. By the time they reached it a moment later, Lydia’s chin was resting on Ryan’s hair and her eyes were half-closed.
After Holly opened the rear door, Ryan lowered the girl carefully from his shoulders and set her into her booster seat.
“I think she’s going to be asleep the moment I get her home.”
“Or earlier,” he said, his expression amused in the glow of the streetlight in the empty parking area.
While she hooked Lydia’s seat belt, he grabbed her scraper without a word and went to work brushing the snow off her vehicle for her.
His thoughtful gesture meant almost as much as his offer earlier to deliver her flowers.
“Thank you,” she said when he finished, after she had closed Lydia’s door.
“You’re welcome. Thanks for dinner,” he said.
She smiled. “It was a really fun evening.”
“Even seeing your ex?”
She thought about her reaction to unexpectedly encountering Troy. “It was totally fine.”
She could have left things there but she decided to be honest with him.
“Everyone seems to think I should be devastated by the breakup of my marriage. Maybe I was upset at first that Troy could walk away so easily, but that was mostly on Lydia’s behalf.
Our lives are much easier without him, which is a terrible thing to say.
The only reason I would ever dare say that out loud is because the door is closed and Lydia is already asleep. ”
He nodded and she had to wonder what he must be thinking at her confession.
“Well, I had a great time, too,” he said.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed the Christmas market as much as I did tonight.”
Was that too much of a confession? Had she revealed more than she intended about her growing feelings for him?
“I can honestly say it was the best Christmas market I’ve ever been to.”
She had to smile. “Now I have to suspect you’ve never been to any other Christmas markets.”
“True. But even if I had been to dozens, I would still have enjoyed the Shelter Springs market the most.”
“I’m glad.”
For a moment, they simply stood there, the silence between them stretching, yet somehow full.
Then Ryan reached out, brushing a snowflake from her hair with a gentleness that stole her breath.
Before she could think, his hand slid to her cheek, cradling her face with his warm hand as if she were something precious.
And then he kissed her again, as she had been dreaming about for days.
The world seemed to vanish, leaving only the snow, the moonlight and the steady strength of his arms as he pulled her closer.
Holly felt herself melt into him, her hands curling against his coat, her heart thudding like a faint echo of the Christmas music they had left behind.
She wanted to stay like this forever, to lean into him and let his warmth surround her.
He was the one who ended the kiss, easing away from her and resting his forehead against hers briefly.
“I told myself I wasn’t going to do that again,” he murmured.
Why not, when it’s so very lovely? She wanted to ask the question but couldn’t seem to form the words. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear his answer.
“Right. Probably not a good idea.” Her voice sounded hoarse, ragged, and she could only hope he didn’t notice.
He studied her in the moonlight then gently pushed a strand of hair away from her face.
“You’re a beautiful, desirable woman, Holly. I hope the fact that your idiot ex-husband left you for someone barely out of her teens doesn’t ever make you think otherwise.”
She blinked at the intensity of his tone and his words. Before she could manage to gather her thoughts enough to answer, he kissed her softly one more time, then gestured to her car.
“You should go.”
She nodded and slid into the driver’s seat. With hands that trembled from far more than the cold temperatures, she hooked her seat belt then backed out of her parking space and headed for Rose Cottage.
She didn’t need to look in her rearview mirror to know he watched to make sure she was on her way before walking back to his own truck.
THE NEXT DAY, only one more day before Kristine’s wedding, passed in a blur. She would be so relieved when this weekend was over and she could be done with weddings for a while.
Fortunately, both of her ill employees assured her they were feeling better and would be more than happy to cover the store the next day so she could focus on the wedding.
She was finishing up a last-minute order for a birthday floral arrangement when her cell phone rang. After spending all day on the Evergreen & Ivy phone, she didn’t really want to answer a personal call but she sighed when she recognized her former mother-in-law’s name and number.
“Holly. Hello.” Susan sounded exhausted in even that short greeting.
“Hi, Susan. How are you holding up?”
“One more day. We can make it through that, right? In thirty-six hours, this will all be over.”
Or only beginning, really, for Kris and Matt.
“That’s right. And before we know it, it will be Christmas.”
“Oh, don’t remind me. I haven’t even given Christmas more than a passing thought. That will have to wait until after the wedding. The next time one of my children wants a Christmas wedding, remind me to do whatever it takes to talk them out of it.”
Holly didn’t bother to point out that Susan’s children would all be married after Saturday afternoon.
“I won’t keep you,” Susan went on. “I only wanted to confirm that you’re still planning to take Lydia to the wedding rehearsal tonight.”
“Yes. Definitely. It will be a good chance to hand out the flowers for all the bridesmaids and the groomsmen.”
“Thank you. Great idea. That way you won’t have a frantic scramble tomorrow trying to ensure everyone has one. Oh, I also have to give the restaurant our final total for the rehearsal dinner. Are you sure you won’t join us?”
“I’m sure. Thank you again for the invitation, but you’re not even planning to start until after eight. That’s pretty late for Lydia.”
“Are you sure? You know you’re more than welcome.”
“I’m sure. We had a late night last night and she was cranky this morning. I don’t want that to happen tomorrow.”
“That’s right. Brittany said they bumped into you at the market. She said you were with your helicopter pilot, whom she described as, quote, ‘fire’ and ‘fine AF.’ Whatever that means.”
While she would agree with the description of Ryan, Holly certainly couldn’t tell her mother-in-law that Ryan wasn’t hers, as much as some part of her might wish things could be different.
It was for the best, she tried to tell herself, as she had been doing since that stunning kiss the night before.
Simply pretending to have a man in her life complicated her world enough.
She could only imagine how tough it would be to juggle a real relationship with a man like Ryan right now, when she was barely keeping her head above water.
“It was fun to bump into Brittany and Troy and that cute little Hudson at the market. He’s growing so fast, isn’t he?”
The older woman didn’t take the bait.
“Yes. He’s adorable. Listen, when all this wedding craziness is behind us, I would love the chance to get to know this Ryan. I want to make sure he’s good enough for you and Lydia. Maybe the three of you could come for dinner after the holidays.”
After Troy and Brittany returned to Oregon. Her mother-in-law didn’t say the words but Holly caught the subtext anyway.
“I hope you know we love you both, my dear,” Susan went on. “Nothing will ever change that.”