two hours, Erik.”
“That’s close enough to almost. I’ll be fine after a hot shower. How did it go with the neighbors?”
The man was hopeless.
“It was nice.” You escaped the part where Edie wanted to make us a couple, she thought, but other than that... “Crystal is going to bring me samples of her candles to see if I’d be interested in selling them. And Talia’s twins go to the school I enrolled Tyler in. We’re going to carpool.”
She frowned at the way he cupped his neck as he sat down at the island. He’d said he’d be fine, though. The man had a scar as wide as Tyler’s tired smile on the inside of his forearm. It was visible now where he’d pushed up his sleeves. He knew how much discomfort he could handle.
“What are you grinning about, bud?” he asked, tired but smiling himself.
Tyler took a deep breath, gave a decisive nod. “This was the best day ever.”
“Wow. That’s pretty cool.” Forearms resting on either side of his heaped and steaming bowl of stew, he looked over at the little guy who’d mimicked his position. “What made it so good?”
Tyler looked over his shoulder at the white lights softly illuminating the room behind them. The fire in the stone fireplace crackled and glowed.
“My tree. And the ice on everything. And my new friends.” He wrinkled his little brow, thinking. “And Mom, ’cause I got cocoa two times. And you.”
“Me?” Erik exhaled a little laugh. “What did I do?”
“Well,” he began, pondering. “You fixed things. And you made Mom laugh.”
Erik’s glance cut to where she sat at the end of the island, back to the child between them. “I did?”
“Uh-huh,” Tyler insisted, his nod vigorous. “When you dropped your coat on her.”
Though Erik looked a little puzzled, Rory knew exactly what Tyler was talking about. The two of them had just gathered boughs for the wreath. She’d been sorting them on the porch, her head bent over their project, when Erik had walked up behind her and asked if she’d take his jacket. With her back to him and him in work mode, she’d no sooner said she’d be glad to when he’d unceremoniously dropped it over her head.
He’d meant it to land on her shoulders. But she’d looked up just then. Heavy and huge on her, she’d practically disappeared under the soft black leather.
She’d already been smiling at what he’d done and gone still at the unexpectedness of it when he’d lifted the back of the collar and peeked around at her.
“You okay in there?” he’d asked, and the smile in his eyes had turned her smile into something that had sounded very much like a giggle.
She hadn’t giggled since she was sixteen.
Erik apparently remembered now, too.
Looking over at Tyler, he gave his little buddy a knowing nod. He remembered the bright sound of that laugh, of hearing a hint of lightness in it he suspected she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“She needs to do that more often,” he decided, and after arching his eyebrow at her, suggested Tyler finish his stew before he went after it himself.
Rory glanced away, stabbed a piece of carrot. She wished he wouldn’t do that—arch his eyebrow at her that way. Something about the expression seemed teasing, playful and challenging all at once. Except for the challenging part, it also tended to disarm her and she’d been having a hard enough time remembering why she needed to keep her emotional guard in place with him pretty much since he’d strong-armed her into trying Ed’s saw. Or maybe the problem had started last night, when she’d unloaded on him. Again. Or yesterday, when he’d sided with Tyler about the size of the tree.
There were reasons. Compelling ones, she was sure. She just couldn’t remember them as she gave him her most charming smile and told him there was more stew if he wanted it.
He had seconds, told her it was great, then finished the bit in the pot before she carried his and Tyler’s bowls to the sink.
“What Tyler said about it being a good day,” he murmured, handing her his milk glass when she came back for it. “It was.” He kept his focus on the glass and her hand, his tone thoughtful, as if he was a little surprised by that perception. Or perhaps by the admission.
“Now,” he continued, moving past whatever had prompted it, “if you don’t mind, I’m going to get that shower. You wouldn’t have a spare razor, would you?”
She told him she did. A small package of them was in the drawer below where she’d left the toothbrush on the counter for him last night. She didn’t bother telling him they were hot pink.
It did Rory’s heart good to know her little boy had had such a good time that day. It did something less definable to it to know Erik had somehow appreciated it, too. Something that fed an unfamiliar bubble of hope that common sense told her was best to ignore. But with Tyler pretty much worn out and in need of a bath, she gave it no further thought. By the time she’d helped him with his bath and his prayers, it was all he could do to keep his eyes open.
Erik seemed to have had the same problem. When she finally came back down the dimly lit stairs, the fire was nearly out and Erik had fallen asleep in front of the television.
He lay stretched out on the sofa in his jeans and pullover, one leg angled with his bare foot on the cushion, the other foot on the floor. With his dark head propped on the curved arm of the sofa, one arm thrown over his eyes, his other hand splayed on his stomach, it looked as if he’d intended to catch something more entertaining than the weather report before turning in for the night.
The volume on the detective series had been muted, though.
They hadn’t talked about it, but there had been no question that he would stay again that night. The negligible melt that afternoon had started refreezing the lower the sun had sunk and, last they’d heard, it was taking forever to get anywhere on the roads. Those that were open, anyway. That was why he’d followed the Otts home in his monster of a truck, because they’d made the drive on balding tires, and dropped off the Shumways since it was dark by then and they’d all walked earlier.
His breathing was deep and even as she picked up the television’s remote and turned off the set.
As exhausted as she suspected he was, she didn’t want to wake him. She shouldn’t stand there thinking about what a beautiful man he was, either. Or how kind and generous he truly seemed to be even when he didn’t want her getting too close. There was something terribly intimate about watching him sleep. Something that might almost have felt intrusive had she allowed herself to remain there any longer.
She lifted the soft throw blanket from the arm of the chair, moved back to lift it over him. Smiling a little at his freshly shaved face, she eased the covering over him. When he didn’t move, she let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding and carefully lifted her hand to his head.
Her fingers had just skimmed the barely damp hair he’d combed back from his forehead when she went still. She hadn’t been thinking. She’d simply started to do what she always did with Tyler when she tucked him in and
