to bed,” she explained, hoping to minimize the delay to Erik’s schedule. “After we get the tree decorated, I’ll finish whatever I haven’t done in the store. I’ve been working out there after he goes to sleep, but I ran out of hours in the past couple of days.
“Since Sunday isn’t good for you,” she hurried on, easily able to imagine a scowl etched in his too-handsome face, “I’ll be ready Monday for sure.” That would also give her time to read the business plan she’d tried without much luck to study on the ferry and after Tyler had gone to bed. Having to look up terms like gross margin, inventory turns and marketing mix had also slowed her down considerably. So did being so tired her eyes blurred.
She hated the plea that entered her quiet “Okay?”
Leaning against the edge of his desk, Erik stared past the schematics on his drafting table to the black-framed photos of Merrick & Sullivan racing sloops lining the pearl-gray wall. To his left, the windows of his office, like those of the other offices lining the catwalk, overlooked the production floor a story below. Those on his right exposed the lights of other industrial buildings lining the night-darkened waterway.
The pleasure he’d felt knowing the snowman had been a hit with Tyler had rapidly faded to something far less definable.
When he’d left her place the other night, his only thoughts had been about doing what he could to make the kid’s Christmas a little better, and his need for physical distance from the boy’s mom. He’d wanted to focus on his work and his world and to get her out of his head for a while. He was good at that. Focusing his thoughts, his energies.
He usually was, anyway. His days were crowded enough to prevent more than a fleeting thought of her undeniably feminine shape, or the way her bottom lip curved when she smiled. But she was messing with his nights, too, driving him from his bed to pace the floor or exhaust himself with his weights before sleep would finally drive her from his mind.
He never should have kissed her. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t know the sweetness of her mouth, the feel of her satin-soft skin, how perfectly her body fit against his.
Now, frustrated on a number of levels, he pushed from his desk, jammed his fingers through his hair.
“Forget Monday,” he muttered. Just because he would have preferred she keep her focus on his schedule didn’t mean she could make it her priority.
In roughly two weeks she’d lost her job, sold her home and was settling into a place that hadn’t even been on her radar until his amazingly generous neighbor had decided to help them both out. In between, she seemed to be doing everything she could to ease the transition for her son while dealing with the former in-laws from hell and getting a business she knew nothing about back up and running.
No way could he justify pushing her just because he wanted his obligations there over and done with.
“The store can wait for now. We’ll pick up after Christmas.”
Pure skepticism shaded her quiet “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he echoed. “You and Tyler have a good time picking out your tree. There’s a great tree lot on Sydney Road. It’s only a few miles from you. Old family operation. Tell them you bought John and Dotty Sullivan’s store. I imagine they’ll give you a good price on a little one.”
“I’ll do that. And thank you. Thank you,” she repeated, sounding relieved beyond belief by the reprieve he’d offered. “But the tree can’t be little. Tyler has his heart set on the tallest one we can fit into the room.”
Erik’s voice went flat. “The ceilings in there are nine feet high.”
“Then I guess we’re getting an eight-foot tree. That’ll leave room for the angel.”
“And you’re hauling it how?”
“The only way I can,” she replied, ever so reasonably. “On my car.”
The thought of eight feet of freshly cut conifer atop twelve feet of rounded, lime-green Bug drew his quick frown.
“Have you ever driven with a tree strapped to your roof?”
“Not exactly. No,” she finally admitted, leaving him to assume that her husband had been behind the wheel. He also figured that the guy had transported prior trees on something considerably larger than what she drove now. Or they’d had it delivered, given what she’d said about the sort of family she’d just shed.
“Then you need to know that the weight affects the way a car handles. Especially if it’s windy, and we have a wind advisory for the weekend. Make sure they net it for you. It’ll be easier to manage that way. And take a blanket to protect your roof. Have someone help you secure it, too. You want it tied tight so it doesn’t slip.”
She hadn’t thought about the weather. Rain at least part of the day was a given. It was the Northwest. She didn’t like wind, though. It made inclement weather that much more miserable.
“Did you promise Tyler you’d have it up tomorrow?”
“It was the only thing I could think of to take his mind off having to change schools.”
“Did it work?”
Her little boy hadn’t budged from the window. He hadn’t even taken off his jacket.
“Not as well as your lights did.”
The admission would have made him smile, had he not just caught the hint of defeat in her voice. Or maybe what he heard was simply fatigue.
“Tell you what.” Totally sabotaging his plan to stay away, he did a quick reschedule. “I’ll only be a half an hour away from you tomorrow. What time will you be at the lot?”
“About the same time you said you have to be in Tacoma.”
“I’m just picking up parts from a machinist. I’ll leave earlier and be at the lot about twelve-thirty.” It would take an hour to pick up the tree, an hour plus to get back. That left him plenty of time to drop off the parts at the boatworks, get home, shower, change and get to yet another client’s holiday party. At least this time he didn’t have to pick up a date. He didn’t have one.
“You don’t have to do that, Erik. You’ve done enough,” she insisted, obviously referring to the lights. “We’ll manage.”
“We? You mean you and Tyler?”
“We’re the only we here.”
“Look.” He was really getting tired of the I-don’t-want-to-be-obligated-to-you tone that had slipped into her voice, but he had neither the time nor the inclination to argue with her. “You’ve said you want this Christmas to be good for your son. I assume that means you don’t want him to have memories of his mom having a meltdown because his tree fell off the car and the car behind her hit it and turned it into kindling. Or because the thing weighs a ton and she can’t get it into the house. Or into the tree stand, for that matter. You have a tree stand, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. And I don’t have meltdowns,” she replied. “Especially in front of my son.”
“No. You probably don’t,” he conceded, not at all sure whom he was
