Chapter 9
Nine
Ethan had been lying to himself for days now, assuring himself that what he felt for Lydia Harper was just compassion, just the natural protectiveness of someone helping a family in crisis.
But watching her walk down Mrs. Figgs’s driveway toward his truck on Thanksgiving Eve, her breath fogging in the cold November air, hands shoved deep in her coat pockets, he couldn’t pretend anymore.
He was falling for her.
Maybe had already fallen.
She climbed into the passenger seat with a grateful smile, and Ethan was absurdly pleased that he’d thought to stop at Iris Cafe on his way to pick her up. The paper cup of hot cocoa sat waiting in the cup holder, still steaming.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Lydia said, but her fingers wrapped around the cup immediately, and the small sound of contentment she made when she took the first sip went straight to Ethan’s chest.
“It’s cold out,” he said, putting the truck in gear. “Figured you could use something warm.”
The heater was blasting. It had been for the ten minutes he’d been parked outside Mrs. Figgs’s house, making sure the cab would be toasty when Lydia got in.
He’d told himself it was just common courtesy, but the truth was he’d been thinking about her all morning.
About how she always seemed slightly cold in his house, how she’d curl up on the couch with two blankets, how her hands were always tucked into her sleeves.
Small things. Intimate things. The kind of details you noticed about someone when you couldn’t stop noticing everything about them.
“Thank you,” Lydia said, and when she looked at him, her brown eyes were warm in a way that made his heart stutter. “For the cocoa. For taking me grocery shopping. For everything.”
“You don’t have to keep thanking me,” Ethan said, pulling out onto the main road toward town.
“I like helping. I like—” He stopped, caught himself before he said something he couldn’t take back.
I like having you here. I like watching you move through my house, like you belong there.
I like the way Rosie laughs at my terrible jokes, and the way Eli asks me questions about everything, and the way you look at me sometimes, like maybe you feel this too.
“You like?” Lydia prompted, a small smile playing at her lips.
“I like having a reason to actually use my kitchen,” Ethan finished, which was true but not what he’d been about to say. “It’s been pretty empty since—” He stopped again. Since Sarah. Since he’d been alone in that big house with all its empty rooms and unfulfilled promises.
But Lydia didn’t push. She just sipped her cocoa and watched the landscape blur past, and the comfortable silence between them felt like its own kind of conversation.
The grocery store was busy with last-minute Thanksgiving shoppers.
Harried parents with screaming toddlers, elderly couples moving slowly through the aisles, college students home for the holiday, grabbing last-minute items they’d forgotten to tell their mothers they needed.
The stores would be closing soon, and then there would be nothing to do about those last-minute things you had wanted to get.
Ethan found himself falling into an easy rhythm with Lydia as they navigated the crowded store.
She’d consult her list, written in neat handwriting on the back of an envelope, and he’d grab items from the top shelves she couldn’t reach.
Somewhere around the produce section, their hands had brushed, reaching for the same bag of cranberries, and the jolt of electricity from that simple touch had made them both freeze for half a second too long.
“Sorry,” Lydia had murmured, pulling her hand back.
“Don’t be,” Ethan had said, and grabbed two bags of cranberries instead of one, because he’d forgotten what they were shopping for the moment her fingers had touched his.
By the time they reached the checkout, they’d somehow ended up with a cart full of things that looked suspiciously like the ingredients for a feast meant to feed a family.
Not just Thanksgiving dinner, but breakfast casserole ingredients for tomorrow morning, extra juice boxes for the kids, the good coffee that Lydia preferred, and …
because Rosie had begged … a pumpkin pie decorated with whipped cream rosettes.
“This is too much,” Lydia said quietly as Ethan loaded items onto the conveyor belt. “I can’t let you pay for all of this.”
“You’re cooking,” Ethan pointed out. “Seems only fair I provide the ingredients.”
“But—”
“Lydia.” He looked at her, and something in his expression must have convinced her not to argue. “Let me do this. Please.”
She bit her lip, then nodded. And when the cashier smiled at them and said, “You two getting ready for the big day? How many are you cooking for?” Lydia and Ethan had both answered “four” at the exact same time, and then looked at each other with matching surprised expressions.
Four. Like they were a unit. Like this was normal.
Which it wasn’t, Ethan reminded himself as he loaded bags into the truck bed. This was temporary. Lydia would leave eventually, and he’d be back to frozen dinners and an empty house and the ghost of Sarah in every room.
The thought made his chest ache with a sharpness that surprised him.
“You okay?” Lydia asked, pausing behind him. “You just made a face.”
“Fine,” Ethan lied. “Just thinking about how much work Thanksgiving prep is going to be.”
“I can handle most of it,” Lydia said immediately. “You’ve already done so much?—”
“We’ll do it together,” Ethan interrupted. “That’s what—” He stopped for the third time in an hour, catching himself before he said that’s what families do. “That’s what makes sense. Division of labor.”
Lydia studied him for a moment, and Ethan had the uncomfortable sensation that she could see right through his careful deflections. But she just nodded and turned back to the receipt to check their purchases.
They loaded the bags into the truck bed, and Ethan opened the passenger door for her. Lydia’s cheeks were pink from the cold, her nose red, and she looked so beautiful in the gray afternoon light that Ethan had to look away before he did something stupid like tell her so.
The drive home started out fine. The roads were clear, the traffic mild, and Lydia had turned on the radio to a station playing soft jazz that made the truck cab feel warm and intimate despite the winter chill outside.
Then, halfway home, the truck hit a patch of black ice.
Ethan felt it the instant the tires lost traction.
That sickening float as the vehicle started to slide.
His hands were already moving, correcting gently, turning into the skid the way he’d been taught during combat driving courses.
No sudden movements. No panic. Just steady, controlled adjustments until the tires caught again and the truck straightened out.
The whole thing took maybe three seconds, but his heart was hammering.
“You okay?” he asked Lydia, his voice sharper than he’d intended.
She’d gone pale, her hands gripping the cocoa cup so tightly he was surprised it hadn’t crumpled. “I’m fine. That was … you … handled that really well.”
“Force of habit.” Ethan’s hands were steady on the wheel, but his pulse was still racing. Not from the skid, he’d driven through worse in Kandahar, but from the sudden, visceral terror of the thought, what if I’d lost control? What if something had happened to her?
Without thinking, Ethan rested his hand on the seatback behind Lydia’s shoulders. It was a protective gesture, something he used to do with Sarah.
His fingers brushed the ends of Lydia’s hair. Brown silk that was longer than he’d realized, falling past her shoulders. She went very still, but she didn’t pull away. Didn’t move. And neither did Ethan.
They drove the rest of the way like that, Ethan’s hand on the seatback, his fingers occasionally catching strands of her hair, both of them pretending it was casual. Natural. The most normal thing in the world.
Even though his heart was beating too fast and his skin felt too hot and every accidental brush of his fingers against her hair sent electricity down his spine.
When they pulled into the driveway, Ethan’s hand fell away, and the spell broke.
He unloaded groceries in efficient silence, carried them inside, and within minutes, Lydia returned with the kids and started organizing the kitchen for Thanksgiving prep while Ethan headed back out to finally fix her car battery.
“Start dinner without me,” he called from the doorway. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Be careful,” Lydia said, and something in her voice made him pause.
She was standing at the sink, her hands braced on the counter, and when she looked at him, her eyes were dark with something he couldn’t quite name. Worry, maybe. Or something more complicated.
“Always am,” Ethan said, forcing himself to turn away before he did something idiotic like cross the kitchen and kiss her.
The drive to the farmhouse took twenty-five minutes, and Ethan spent most of it trying to calm his racing thoughts.
He was reading too much into things. The hand on the seatback, the way she’d looked at him in the kitchen, the fact that she hadn’t flinched when he reached across to buckle her seatbelt.
None of it meant what his traitorous heart wanted it to mean.
She was vulnerable. Traumatized. Living in his house because she had nowhere else to go. The absolute last thing she needed was him making things complicated with feelings she probably didn’t share. Or, worse, responding out of gratitude.
The car battery replacement was straightforward.
Forty-five minutes of mechanical work that let him focus on something concrete and logical instead of the increasingly tangled mess of his emotions.
By the time he’d tested the engine and confirmed the vehicle was running smoothly, the sun was setting and the temperature was dropping fast.