Chapter Nine #3
No, she didn’t want Walker to notice her. She wanted the opposite. For him to forget she existed. Only that wasn’t really what she wanted, just what she should want for both their sakes.
“You just shivered.” He reached for his jacket’s zipper. “If you’re cold, you can have my jacket.”
In which case, he’d be cold. He’d donned a black toboggan hat, a black scarf, and gloves he’d grabbed from the truck, but without his coat, he’d be cool.
Knowing and impressed that he was serious, that he’d give up his coat if she said she was cold, that he’d be uncomfortable, to keep her warm, Maggie held up her gloved hand.
“Don’t take off your jacket. I’m fine.” Her shivers hadn’t been from the December weather. Wearing his jacket, being embraced in something that held his body’s warmth, that smelled of him, yeah, would only make her shivering worse.
“You say that a lot.” Those honey-colored eyes bore into her as if trying to see deeper than the surface.
He saw more than most.
Trying to pull herself together, to act as if he didn’t keep knocking her off-kilter, she asked, “That I’m fine?”
He nodded. “Would you tell anyone if you weren’t fine, Maggie? Or are you trained to be content with whatever your current situation is?”
He made a good point, but Maggie shrugged. “Life has taught me that there’s no reason to complain. My experience is that rarely does something change with vocalizing dissatisfaction. So, one might as well be content with their current situation and make the best of it.”
He frowned. “That sounds pessimistic.”
Taking care to avoid a low spot where perhaps an animal had dug, she glanced toward him. “And you’re an optimist?”
“Compared to you? I am Mr. Positivity.”
“I don’t think I’m a pessimist,” she defended.
Despite everything, she didn’t go around bemoaning gloom and doom.
She had wallowed in pity for far longer than she should have, but she’d been licking her wounds.
She’d lost everything that had mattered to her.
Looking back, it was no wonder she’d tried to drown her sorrows with alcohol or whatever she could get her hands on.
She wasn’t a pessimist, though. Now, despite everything, she had her eyes on the future.
It was just a different one than she’d originally planned for. “I’m a realist.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He grinned, hinting that he was teasing her.
“I’m more optimistic about my life than I’ve been in a long time.” Because Lukas had given her a job and, with time, possibly the opportunity to discover what had really happened that day.
Perhaps she should just accept the FEB’s ruling that the crash had been her fault. But no matter how many times she replayed what she could recall of that day in her mind, she didn’t believe she’d caused the crash. She couldn’t believe it.
“Optimistic because you’re here with me?” Oh yeah, he was definitely teasing. “Or because you’re in Pine Hill? Or something else exciting going on in your life?”
She couldn’t tell him that she was optimistic because she’d pulled herself from spiraling downward into the gutter and now had a shot at a decent future.
That she worked for Lukas wasn’t something to be shared, especially not as she couldn’t risk Sarah finding out and possibly stopping the time she spent with Maggie.
“My guess is that it would be difficult for anyone to be in Pine Hill for long and them not develop a sense of optimism.”
He knew she’d backtracked and wasn’t giving him the full truth. She could see it in his eyes.
But he didn’t call her out, just gave her space, and half-smiled. “Good answer, princess.”
It was a good answer. One that made her feel better on the inside.
She was in a different place mentally and emotionally than she’d been prior to arriving in Pine Hill, and even then, she’d been so much better than she’d been just a few months prior to that.
No doubt once she’d fully embraced her career with iSecure, life would be even better.
Even if she never cleared her name, never got her wings back, life would be better. See, she could be optimistic.
As they reached one of the Christmas tree fields, Maggie turned to him. “What kind of tree are you looking for?”
“A good one,” he immediately countered.
“Seriously? How am I supposed to know what I’m helping you find with answers like that? I need specifics.”
“Specifics? Hmmm. I haven’t thought that far ahead. We’re in a blue spruce section and these, look great. But I’m not opposed to a different variety. Do you have a suggestion? Maybe a Douglas fir or a type of pine? Since it’s going into the house, which one smells the best?”
Maggie had no idea. “That’s a question for someone who works outside, not in the cafe.”
“Fair enough. Or we could do a sniff test.”
“The sniff test? You want me to sniff Christmas trees with you?”
Laughing, he nodded. “The tree will be going into my living room, so we’re limited by the nine-foot ceilings.”
“Under nine foot. That narrows it down.” She glanced around the tree-filled field where they currently were. The trees ranged anywhere from four feet to around twelve. “A little.”
“I think close to seven feet would be a good height. Not all the way to the ceiling, but not something that would be completely dwarfed by the room, either.”
“Seven feet,” she repeated, studying the trees within their view, then pointed to her right. “There are several around that height in that section.”
Glancing in the direction she indicated, his eyes crinkled. “Let’s go sniff them. My first live Christmas tree awaits.”
“Your first? Seriously?” Maggie’s lips twitched at his let’s go sniff them. No doubt they’d be doing just that. “I had you pegged for a live Christmas tree every year kind of guy.”
“As opposed to a fake Christmas tree kind of guy or a no Christmas tree guy?”
“I mean, if the artificial greenery fits…” Maggie’s voice trailed off and her feet stilled.
What was she doing? She should not be feeling so lighthearted with him.
But it was as if the scarf and hat had cracked something inside her, warming her in ways that went far beyond what could be measured in Farenheight degrees.
Or maybe it was that he’d been willing to be cold so that she wouldn’t be.
Or maybe, it was just Walker. Whatever it was, he’d stopped walking too.
The way his eyes sparkled said he approved of her weakening attitude.
But did she? She shouldn’t, and yet, as she stared into those golden eyes, she couldn’t retreat back behind the wall she normally kept between them.
She’d swear he’d knocked it down completely.
“Living in Pine Hill made me think I needed to start out with the real deal. This place doesn’t seem like a factory-produced tree kind of town.”
“There’s no Pine Hill rule against artificial trees,” she assured as they resumed making their way through the trees, inspecting each one they passed. “Even Sarah, who I think of as the Queen of Christmas, has a mix of artificial with the one big real one.”
“I’ve no problem with a fake tree, but this is Zoie’s first Christmas. I want it to be magical.”
“She won’t remember this first Christmas,” Maggie pointed out, pausing to examine a particularly nice tree.
“But I will.”
Maggie smiled at his low words and thought once again what a great dad he was.
Zoie was in for a lifetime of being cherished and Walker trying to make every moment special for his daughter.
As flustered as he made her, that he was such a loving dad softened Maggie’s disposition even more toward him.
It was difficult to keep a tough exterior around someone so masculine but who had no issue with showing his gentler side.
The cold had pinkened his cheeks and nose, but she’d be hard-pressed to say she’d ever seen him look better than he did to her at that moment.
Staring at him, hoping he couldn’t see whatever it was that was happening to her with being around him today, Maggie gulped.
He seemed to sense something was changing, because he stood there, his golden eyes studying her with an intensity that made her feel seen, important, wanted.
“Walker, I—” Maggie stopped.
What was she going to say? That she appreciated him? That she thought he was a good man? That being around him was devastating to her thoughts that no man could break through the wall she’d erected at William’s harsh handling of her heart?
“Come on, princess.” He shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “Let’s find our tree and get home to Zoie.”
Our tree? He’d just been using a turn of phrase, but his words got to her. There was no ours. However, walking beside him, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like if in some alternate universe, there could have been.