and somehow, some way, he contributed to it?
He caught her arm and stopped her.
When he didn’t say anything, she said, “Question?”
He stared into her pretty blue eyes. All the physical reactions he’d held at bay all weekend came flooding back. Only now they were combined with emotions. He cared about her. He cared about her a lot. He didn’t want to take away her dreams. He liked her.
The urge to kiss her itched through him again and he was growing tired of fighting it. Tired of fighting the first good thing that had happened to him in two long years.
When his head lowed toward hers, he didn’t try to stop himself. For the first time since his divorce, he wasn’t just physically attracted to a woman. He liked her.
Their lips met tentatively, just a quick brush. But response shivered through him. Attraction. Arousal. Wonderful forgotten sensations that he’d avoided, ignored or smothered over the past two years.
He deepened the kiss, pressing his mouth against hers and though he felt her hesitate, she pressed back.
She liked him.
Just when he would have deepen the kiss, made it a real kiss, she pulled away.
Smoothing her hand along her cascade of dark curls, she turned and started up the hall again. “We should get back to Finley.”
AT SIX O’CLOCK that night Rory and Finley stepped into a very comfortable hotel room. A double bed sat in the middle of the room, and, as he’d requested when he made his reservation, a cot for Finley sat beside the bed. As he tossed their suitcases into the closet and slid his briefcase onto the desk, the feelings from the kiss he’d shared with Shannon that afternoon still vibrated through him. Unfortunately, all those wonderful sensations were mitigated by the awkwardness afterward. Worse, he couldn’t stop thinking about Shannon herself. Her future. What would she do without the store?
He might not be taking away her “dream” but he was taking away her job. And maybe her home. With only one department store in her small city, there was no other store in town for her to manage. She’d definitely have to move away.
They’d been so busy all afternoon that she’d easily avoided talking abut her life and that kiss. But he had to talk to her again. He couldn’t sit here in a hotel all night and wonder. Plus, he’d finally figured out she probably didn’t want to talk about her decisions in the hallway of an office where she could be overheard.
Finley shrugged out of her jacket, but he pushed it up her arms again.
“Hey!”
He stooped down in front of her. “I have a favor to ask.”
She blinked.
“You know how Shannon took us in this weekend?”
She nodded.
“Well, she did us a favor.”
She tilted her head in question. “Uh-huh.”
“So now we have to return the favor.”
“We do?”
“Yes.” He pulled in a breath. It wasn’t a fabulous plan, but it was the only plan he could come up with, so he was running with it. “Shannon was supposed to decorate her house for Christmas over the weekend.”
Finley’s eyes grew round and large. She wasn’t a dummy. She knew what was coming.
He sucked it up and just told her straight out. “But because we were in her home, she didn’t decorate. She entertained us. So since we owe her for taking us in, I was thinking we should go to her house and help her do the work she would have done had we not needed her help.”
He’d couched his request in such a way Finley would see how much they were in Shannon’s debt. Still, she frowned. “I don’t want to.”
“I don’t doubt that. But didn’t she give you a way to think about Christmas today that made it seem easy for you?”
“Yeah.”
“So, she’s done us more than one favor and now we’re going to repay her. That’s the way life works.”
Her lower lip jutted out.
He rose anyway. “Suck it up, kid. We owe her. We’re doing this. And no hissy fits or diva behavior. You might not like Christmas but Shannon does and I won’t spoil this for her. So we’re going.”
She sighed heavily but didn’t argue.
He found a phone book and ordered Chinese food before shepherding Finley back to the car. They stopped for the takeout food, and were on Shannon’s front porch within the hour.
She answered their knock quickly, as if she’d been standing right by the door. When she saw them, a smile of pleasure blossomed on her pretty face, making Rory realize he’d made the right choice. “Hey.”
He held up the Chinese food. “I brought a peace offering.”
She motioned for them to step inside. “Peace offering?”
He handed her the bags of food, and wrestled out of his topcoat. “We wasted your entire weekend. So we decided to help you decorate.”
Her gaze flew to Finley. “Really?”
“Yes.” He glanced down at his daughter. “Right?”
Finley sighed. “Right.”
Shannon led them into the kitchen. “Well, thank you very much. I can use the help.” Depositing the food on the center island, she added, “Would you rather eat first and decorate second, or eat as we decorate?”
“How about eat as we decorate?” He slid his gaze to Finley, hoping Shannon would get the message that if Finley was busy eating then she wouldn’t actually have to decorate. An easy way to avoid trouble.
She nodded slightly, indicating she’d caught his drift. “I have some paper plates we can use.” She walked to the cupboard to get them. “We’ll make it like a picnic.”
They set everything up on the coffee table between the floral sofa and twin sage-green club chairs. When it came to dealing with Finley, Shannon was fine. But when the room grew quiet and Finley was busy eating rice and sweet-and-sour chicken, shivers of fear sprinkled her skin.
He’d kissed her. Spontaneously. Wonderfully. And everything inside of her had responded. It wasn’t a kiss of lust or surprise, as it would have been had he kissed her over the weekend. This kiss had been…emotional.
They liked each other. Two and a half days of forced company coupled with a day of walking through her store, finding out about each other, had taken their physical attraction and turned it into an emotional attachment.
It was wonderful…and
