Chapter Twenty-Six
THIS PROBABLY WASN’T THE SMARTEST IDEA SHE’D EVER HAD .
She was feeling entirely too vulnerable right now, with her emotions raw and tangled. She couldn’t move away, though. Not yet. She wanted to hold onto every possible moment with him.
He kissed her with a staggering tenderness that left her breathless, as if she were something fragile and extraordinary.
Holly’s hands slid up to his shoulders, her fingers curling into the solid strength of him, grounding her in the moment. The storm of emotions that had overwhelmed her only minutes before completely ebbed away, replaced by a warmth that spread through her, chasing away every shadow.
This was safety. This was solace. And this, she realized with a trembling clarity, was something deeper.
He was the one who pulled away, resting his forehead on hers. Their ragged breathing mingled in the room and she couldn’t seem to look away from the intensity of his expression.
“How the hell am I going to find the strength to leave you and Lydia?”
She blinked, stunned at the emotion in his voice.
“What?”
“The thought of it is ripping me up inside. Somehow the two of you have become... everything to me.”
Joy exploded through her at the unexpected words and the tenderness behind them. She had no idea what to say; she could only murmur his name.
“I’m in love with you, Holly. I don’t know how it happened but there it is. Somehow while we were pretending to have a relationship, I discovered how badly I wanted it all to be real. When we lost Lydia tonight, I realized I don’t want to lose her or you.”
“Oh,” she breathed, overwhelmed by his words and the emotion in his voice.
“You and your daughter have worked your way into my heart and I’m pretty sure you’re there to stay.”
This couldn’t be real. Maybe she was still asleep in her car on the way home from Haven Point and she would wake up to find her subconscious had conjured up this whole exchange as a new form of torture.
No. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, feeling the hard muscles beneath. His strength was definitely real, as was the wild happiness zinging through her.
“I thought... you said you weren’t interested in any relationship at all.”
“For a guy who likes to think he’s pretty smart, apparently I’ve said a lot of stupid stuff.”
“I assumed that if you ever did change your mind, you certainly wouldn’t want a relationship with someone like me.”
“You mean someone amazing? A woman who has more courage than nearly everybody I’ve ever worked with in the navy?”
“I mean a divorced single mom in a small Idaho town who has a child with lifelong special needs.”
He took her hand in his and tucked it against his heart. “I am not sure I really knew what I wanted, until I came to Shelter Springs this Christmas and met a certain lovely florist who is handling all the challenges in her life with grace and strength.”
His words seemed to heal something inside she hadn’t realized was broken.
Once more, he bent his head, his lips capturing hers in a soft kiss that was somehow both gentle and consuming, as if he wanted to show her everything he couldn’t put into words. The aching tenderness in his touch unraveled her completely, leaving her no choice but to surrender to the moment.
She met his tenderness with her own, trying to tell him everything in her heart.
After a long, delicious moment, she eased away from him, needing to put her feelings into words.
“I’ve been so miserable the past few days, knowing you would be leaving soon and I would probably never see you again. I was upset about not spending Christmas Eve with Lydia but a good part of my misery was because of you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, though he didn’t look particularly repentant.
“I think I fell for you the very first time you came to the shop, when you met Lydia and I watched you tumble into love with her. I wasn’t surprised about that part.
Everyone does. They can’t help it. But there was something about seeing this big, tough-looking military pilot turn to putty when he met my child.
I fell hard and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about it ever since. ”
HER WORDS SENT joy spilling through him like sunshine through a window on a stormy day.
He so easily could have missed this. It was all chance, a strange yet beautiful serendipity.
If Kim hadn’t asked him for help, if he hadn’t gone to pick up Audrey that day at Evergreen & Ivy, if he hadn’t agreed—for reasons that still confounded him—to take her to the wedding, he wouldn’t be right here in this moment, with the future stretching out ahead of them.
He had no idea what that future might look like for them.
All the reasons why this shouldn’t work still held.
He still had military commitments and was still stationed hundreds of miles away.
Her business here in Shelter Springs was thriving and he couldn’t take her away from that or from her support network of family and close friends.
They could figure all of that out. He was suddenly confident they would find a way. The important thing was that they could now figure it out together.
He kissed her again, until they were both breathing hard and she was trembling in his arms. He wanted more, so much more, though he knew this wasn’t the moment.
“I have to go,” she murmured against his mouth. “My family is expecting me. We’re going to stay up all night and play games.”
He cocked an eyebrow, heat arcing through him. “We could stay here all night and play games, just the two of us.”
She swallowed hard and he saw an answering hunger in her eyes that humbled him.
“I have a feeling your games would be far more fun than Apples to Apples,” she said, her voice husky.
“You can count on it.”
She turned adorably pink and he had no choice but to kiss her again.
A long moment later, he set her away from him. “I won’t take you away from your family on Christmas Eve, Holly.”
“You could always join us.”
While that idea definitely appealed, he thought they both needed a little time to come to terms with these feelings growing between them. It would be tough to hide those feelings at a party with her parents and siblings and he suspected Holly wasn’t ready to explain them yet to her family.
And then there was his own family, waiting for him to spend what was left of Christmas Eve with them.
“I’m sure my dad and Diane have gone home by now but Audrey and Kim will be wondering where I am.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She didn’t bother to hide her disappointment and he had to kiss her again.
“How about we make a deal?”
She smiled. “Another one?”
“The first one worked out great for me. Agreeing to go to that wedding with you might have been the single best decision of my life.”
She smiled, looking radiant and bubbling over with happiness.
“Unless you have other plans, let’s spend New Year’s Eve together. You, me and Lydia.”
“I don’t have plans. I would love that.”
Her smile was so bright it outshone the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree behind her, and Ryan felt the warmth of it sink into every corner of his being. In that moment, he knew. This was what he’d been searching for, even when he didn’t know he was looking.
A family, a home, a future that promised more joy than he had ever dared to imagine.
He pulled her into his arms one last time and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Then it’s a date,” he murmured. “The first of many.”
Holly tilted her face to his, her eyes shining with a happiness that matched his own. “Merry Christmas, Ryan.”
“Merry Christmas,” he said, filled with anticipation for all the holidays to come.