Chapter 10
CHAD
When a noise pulls me from sleep, I assume it’s the girls sneaking out of bed to peek at their Christmas presents.
I force my eyes open, mentally hyping myself up to talk one or both of them into going back to bed for a while.
It’s still dark outside, and it feels like it’s only been a couple hours since I fell asleep.
I glance over at the clock next to my bed, scowling at the red numbers declaring it’s just after midnight. I’ve only been in bed an hour, and it’s definitely too early for the girls to be getting up. I roll over, holding back a frustrated sigh.
The magic of Christmas is a little less magical in the dead of the night.
I peer over at the other side of my king-sized bed. Scarlett and Zoey are sleeping peacefully. I don’t even know if they’ve moved since they fell asleep when I put them to bed at nine. They had an eventful day, and even with the excitement of Christmas Eve, they were easy to put to bed.
Snick.
Yeah, that’s the sound of the lock turning. I scowl into the darkness. It must be Ivy, but what’s she doing?
I slip from bed and quietly leave the room.
A sliver of light from the door of the suite casts a line of yellow across the living room, and I round the corner to see Ivy hobbling out of the hotel room on her crutches.
Is she trying to escape to her room? I could see her thinking that she’s imposing on us and our Christmas celebrations.
I wanted to tell her earlier when she was smiling secretly to herself and stuffing the stockings how much I enjoyed having her here with us. It would have been fun with just me and the girls, but something about Ivy being here … it’s levelled everything up.
It wasn’t that it felt like I had a family again.
It was that I felt like things were real for the first time.
Real caring.
Real enjoyment.
Ivy wanted to spend time with my little family, despite her protests of being a burden, and having someone choose to spend time with me? It’s exhilarating and scary at the same time.
She’s propped the door open, which confuses me more. Did she need something from her room that Law missed? Couldn’t she have come in and asked me? Or texted Carlie or Law?
I heave a sigh. Of course she wouldn’t, and I should remind her how hypocritical she’s being. She insisted on doing everything for me, and now she won’t let me do the same for her.
I pull the door open just as Ivy leans into it, a sack from King Soopers hanging from one of her arms.
Ivy squeals in surprise and then claps a hand over her mouth. Her crutches drop, clattering against the doorway, one falling behind her and the other falling into the room. She windmills with her other hand and then falls forward, right into my chest.
I catch her automatically, my hands finding her waist to steady her. I suck in a quick breath at the rush of warmth that flows through me at having her in my arms.
Again.
I’ve been trying to push images like this out of my head since I carried her off the ice earlier. I want to shift an arm to wrap around her back and pull her against me. I want to run a finger along her bare shoulder, where her oversized T-shirt is falling off one side.
I haven’t thought this way about another woman since Shelby left. I haven’t had time, and maybe that’s what’s happening here. Without work and with the girls taking up every spare moment, I have time to think about Ivy.
Ivy’s hands rest on my chest, and they’re warm, even through the CSU T-shirt I’m wearing. “You scared me,” she says, her voice feather-light. She’s staring up at me, and the heated expression she gives me says that something similar to my thoughts is running through hers.
Does she see me as more than a friend, more than someone to help?
“I heard the lock,” I say in a soft voice, still staring at her. “Had to make sure you weren’t trying to escape.”
“Oh,” she says. It’s a bare whisper, but the huskiness to it unravels my insides.
I swallow. A strand of hair in a loose curl has fallen across her face, and my hand reaches up of its own accord, brushing it gently back.
The soft silkiness of her cheek makes my fingers tingle.
It takes all my willpower not to stroke her cheek with my thumb.
She gasps and her lips fall open. Then she quickly closes them and bites them together.
I swallow. I’m going to kiss her unless I do something right now to stop it. Step away. Pull my hands back. Get her crutches for her and send her to bed.
But I can’t move.
This is a bad idea.
How is it that I keep finding myself drawn to women like this, women who don’t want relationships, who aren’t interested in building a life with someone they love? Ivy’s young. I don’t blame her for not being ready to settle down yet.
Will she want it someday?
Am I thinking about waiting around for her if she does? Hoping. Like I did with Shelby.
“Chad …” she says in a low voice.
Her voice is like a siren, drawing me closer. Like a doomed sailor, I’m ready to dive in and drown.
“Daddy,” a voice whispers loudly, making Ivy jump and let out another startled sound, this one mostly a rush of air. I tighten my fingers around her waist but draw in my first deep breath in several minutes. “Is Santa here?” Scarlett asks.
It’s for the best that she interrupted before I did anything rash, but disappointment plummets through me anyway. I turn toward my daughter, sliding an arm around Ivy’s waist—to keep her steady, obviously. Her crutches are on the ground, and their clattering is probably what woke Scarlett up.
“Not yet,” I say, embarrassed when my voice comes out in a croak.
Scarlett rubs her eyes and tilts her head at me. “Why are you up, then?”
“I … uh, thought I heard something. That maybe it was him,” I say quickly. “I thought I should check, just in case.”
Scarlett turns to Ivy. “Did you hear Santa too?”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Ivy nods. In the dim light that the sliver from the door casts into the room, I can see that her cheeks are flushed.
Scarlett’s eyes widen and she grins. She gives a soft clap of her hands and bounces.
“Hurry back to bed,” I say before she gets too excited. She’ll be up half the night. “You don’t want Santa to catch you awake.”
She nods and holds out her hand. “You come too, or Santa will see you.” She makes an urgent waving motion at me, and Ivy snickers.
I can’t help my smile at that. Another image dances through my head.
Kissing Ivy in my kitchen and one of the girls catching us, all of us laughing, then Ivy scooping one of my daughters up into her arms and dancing around with her.
Us moving from romance to moments like that smoothly, making eyes at each other during an impromptu family dance party.
“Daddy,” Scarlett says, her whisper growing louder—and threatening to wake up Zoey if I don’t keep my head in the game.
“I’ll be right there. I need to help Ivy get her crutches.”
Scarlett lets out a long-suffering sigh and turns to go back into my room.
“You okay?” I ask, turning to Ivy. I clench my other hand, letting my fingers dig into my palm to keep myself grounded to the moment so we don’t fall back under the spell.
“I’m fine.” She starts to bend to pick up the crutch nearest us, but I hold her firmly.
“I’ll get them.” I shuffle us closer to the wall, letting her rest against it.
She doesn’t look at me as she presses her palm to the wall.
She has her other hand behind her, and the plastic sack rustles against her back.
“What did you need from your room so urgently at midnight?” I ask, holding her crutches to her.
“Nothing,” she says. She still avoids my gaze as she starts toward the bedroom she’s sleeping in.
I scowl at her. “It was important enough to get up in the middle of the night.”
She pauses by the couch, where we laid out our stockings—well, mine and the girls’. Ivy and Carlie Googled an ingenious way to fold a hand towel into something that resembles a stocking for her, and I insisted on sharing the candy that I’d bought.
She lifts her chin and meets my gaze for the first time since I almost kissed her. “Let me have one secret tonight, okay?” she says in a soft voice.
“Okay …” But I don’t move. I stare at her, a part of me arguing that I should try to recapture that moment before Scarlett interrupted.
“Go to bed, Chad,” she says softly.
It takes a beat for my feet to obey, but finally I move, walking past her and into my bedroom.
I close the door softly but stand there waiting and listening as the bag rustles again.
A few seconds later I hear her crutches moving from the living room and into the other bedroom.
Then comes the soft snick of her door closing.
I run a hand slowly down my face.
My mind rolls back to the first time I kissed Shelby. The way she laughed when I said I couldn’t help falling for her. Be careful, Chad Harrell, she’d teased. That’s a risky fall.
I stare at the girls, Scarlett already nestled close to Zoey and fast asleep again. I grind my teeth and hear Ivy’s voice lilting over the memory of Shelby. Go to bed.
This is a risky fall, Chad Harrell. You’ve been here before. Why would you go down this road when you know the wreck it ends in? It’s Shelby’s voice that taunts me in the lazy, indifferent drawl from the last time I saw her.
I’m not going down this road. It’s long past time to hit the brakes.