door.
She joined the others in the great room. Clara poured her a nice glass of Riesling, and they toasted the season. Then Chloe took her aside. They firmed up the open house staging she would be dealing with tomorrow.
An hour into the party, she went upstairs to check on the girls, who had taken over a guest room. They’d gathered a number of chairs from other rooms and draped blankets between them. Ava heard them giggling together inside the makeshift fort.
“Anybody in here?”
“Just us!” Sylvie answered.
Ava got down on all fours and stuck her head under the blankets to find Sylvie, Annabelle and little Kiera sitting in a circle pretending to drink from empty pink plastic teacups.
“How’re you girls doing?”
“We’re having a tea party,” Sylvie replied.
“Ava!” cried Kiera gleefully. “Hi there!”
“Hi, Kiera.”
Kiera made lip-smacking sounds, so Ava leaned closer, and the little sweetie pressed her lips against her cheek.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” asked Annabelle sweetly.
“I would love one.” Ava crawled on in and joined their circle. Annabelle handed her a cup and a little plastic plate, and Ava proceeded to drink pretend tea and enjoy an imaginary cupcake. “Well,” she said, once she’d sipped and chewed for a couple of minutes. “That was delicious.” She pretended to blot her lips with an imaginary napkin. “And now, I must be on my way.” The fort was perfect for the three girls, but things got tight with a mom included.
“Bye-bye!” chirped Kiera brightly.
“Dinner soon,” Ava reminded them as she backed out the way she had come. “Don’t eat too many cupcakes.”
“Oh, Mom,” Sylvie scoffed. “They’re only ’maginary.”
“Well, all right then. Have as many as you like.” She emerged from the fort butt-first to find Darius leaning in the doorway to the upper hall.
Her heart did a silly forward roll, and her pulse went a little crazy. She shot to her feet. “This is getting ridiculous,” she muttered as she straightened her skirt and smoothed her sweater.
He didn’t say a word—probably because he knew if he spoke, the girls would hear him and demand that he crawl into their fort and have tea with them, too. Darius clearly had other plans. He stepped forward and grabbed her arm.
She should have jerked away, but she didn’t. It felt too delicious, his warm fingers pressing into her skin through her sweater, the little thrill of excitement skittering down the backs of her knees to have him so close, touching her. He pulled her from the room, and she went a lot more willingly than she should have.
“No,” he whispered for her ears alone once they were out in the upper hallway.
“No, what?”
“This isn’t ridiculous. This is fun.”
She almost giggled at that, which pretty much proved she was losing her mind.
“Come on,” he said.
“Where?”
“In here.” He ducked into the next bedroom, pulling her with him—and then shut the door. “Now. Where were we?”
She eased free of his grip and backed off a few paces. “I can’t believe I let you drag me in here.”
He folded those fine, hard arms across that broad chest and leaned back against the door. “Go out with me. Tomorrow night.”
“That is not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“No dating. Not in this town. Not with our families.”
“Ava. What’s wrong with our families?”
She didn’t even want to go into it. But he just stood there blocking the door, waiting for an explanation. So she gave in and provided one. “They’re all up in my business, that’s what. I’ve been out twice with nice men in the five years since I moved back to town. The first date was with a perfectly pleasant software designer. Afterward, all three of my brothers got me aside and told me I could do better. They’re so overprotective they make me want to scream. Then a year ago, I tried again, with another Realtor who has his office in the same building as mine. Your sister Nell saw us together. Later, there was endless discussion of if we would go out again and wasn’t it great that I was finally seeing someone? That was when it came to me.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to go out with anyone. I like my life just as it is. I have the life I’ve always wanted, and I don’t need the hassle of going on dates and all that.” Was she overexplaining? Definitely. But now she couldn’t seem to stop. “And then there’s my mother...” Ava rolled her eyes so hard, she was lucky she didn’t fall over backward. “I don’t even want to get started on her. She’s a hopeless matchmaker.”
“Ava.” He said her name slowly, as though he enjoyed the way it tasted in his mouth. “You have to know that what you’re giving me here just sounds like a bunch of excuses for you not to have to take a chance with a guy.”
She really hated that he was pretty much right, so she dug up another objection. “Well, you have to know that my brother Tom hates you.” Tom used to work for Bravo Steelworks. It hadn’t ended well.
Dare studied his boots for a second or two, then glanced back up at her. “I wouldn’t say Tom hates me exactly.”
“But you have to admit he doesn’t like you very much.”
“Ava.” A weary little breath escaped him. “I don’t care what our families say. I don’t care what anyone says.”
“Well, I do care. I love them, all of them. Dearly. But they all think they know what’s good for me, and they simply don’t. I don’t want to go out because when I do, I never hear the end of it. So, well, if you and I were to, um, start seeing each other, I wouldn’t want anyone to know, okay?” She backed up and dropped to the edge of the bed behind her. “Actually, I would prefer it if you didn’t even know.”
A low chuckle escaped him. “You’re a difficult woman, you know that? You always have been.”
“Which only proves you should show some good sense and stop chasing me all over your sister’s house.”
“But I like chasing you.” God. The way he said that. Rough and low, with enough heat to make her feel she might burst into flame. He held her gaze for a long count of five. Electricity seemed to arc in the still air between them. “And I know you’re offering something. I just can’t figure out what it is.”
Her throat clutched when he said that, and she realized he was right. She did want to offer him something: herself. Just for the holidays, just between the two of them.
Was
