Her Holiday Man

by Shannon Stacey

  “I didn’t intend to tell her, but thank you for explaining what you said. I don’t care to feel like a dirty, shameful secret.”

  “You would never be that.” He took a deep breath. “I just don’t want her getting her hopes up, since we both know this isn’t going to end in a relationship, right?”

  Her mouth tightened, but she nodded. “I’m still learning how to take care of myself, so the last thing I want to do is hand my life back over to another man. Especially a man like you.”

  The words stabbed through him like blades and he struggled to keep his face expressionless. A man like him?

  Maybe his hands were rough and he didn’t drive a fancy car, but he’d also never stolen money from his friends or abandoned his wife and child, either.

  “I guess we’re on the same page, then.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away. “Have a good day at work.”

  Chapter Eight

  Monday afternoon was hectic at the QuickStop, but Christina didn’t complain because being busy made the time go by. With Christmas right around the corner, people were burning more gas than usual, and they were running inside to grab random items to avoid the long lines at the big stores.

  She was just about to open a bag of chips to snack on between customers when the door opened and Nathaniel walked in with Will right behind him.

  Confusion quickly gave way to fear as she wondered if something had happened to Gail. But the two guys looked relaxed and were chatting about something, and when she made eye contact with Will, there was nothing alarming to be seen.

  “Mom, Grammy Gail has a headache, so I’m going to work with Will!”

  “Maybe.” Will rustled her son’s hair in such a natural gesture of affection, Christina was afraid her throat was going to close up. “Why don’t you go grab a drink from the cooler while I talk to your mom.”

  “No soda,” she called after Nathaniel.

  Then she turned back to Will, hoping this talk—whatever it was about—went better than the talk they’d had yesterday. It had been awkward, with some kind of undertone she couldn’t grasp, and Will hadn’t been around when she’d picked up Nathaniel.

  “I got home early,” he said, “and Mom has a bit of a headache, like Nathaniel said.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah. Honestly, I think she’s just having a rough day and wants to curl up in her bed with a book or some knitting. I didn’t think you’d mind if I got Nathaniel out of there for a while.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Since things were slow enough at the garage so I left early, I thought Nathaniel and I could take your car in and put those snow tires on. Then we could come back here and, when your shift is over, go over to the café for dinner. Mom said you guys were planning to come over for lasagna but she wasn’t up to it, so she’s having soup.”

  “Oh.” She almost wished they’d be interrupted by a customer to give her a minute to think, but there was only one woman in sight and she was paying at the pump.

  She knew Will carried a lot of emotional baggage. Trying to reconcile his attraction for Christina with his feelings about his wife had to be hard, so she tried not to read anything more than that into his pushing her away, only to pull her back in.

  “He might have homework,” she said, even though it didn’t really matter. She just hated feeling off-kilter and was buying time to steady herself.

  “No homework, he said. Since there’s only tomorrow and then Christmas break, the teachers didn’t bother.” He glanced over his shoulder to where Nathaniel was trying to narrow down his beverage choices before turning back to her. “I’d like to take you both to dinner. I felt like things were left a little weird between us and I don’t want that. I want us to be friends, Christina.”

  Friends. Even though she’d known that was the word that would define their relationship before it started, it hurt a little. But not being friends at all would hurt even more. “I want that, too.”

  “Good.” His smile got the butterflies in her stomach all riled up. So much for getting him out of her system. “You get off at six, right?”

  “Yeah. But you don’t have to take us to the café. We can heat something up at home.”

  “I want to. It’ll be fun and it’s good to get out of the house for a while. So where are your keys?”

  Nathaniel walked up to the counter with a bottle of lemonade and a can of the soda Will preferred. “Did she say I could go to work with you?”

  “Going to the café for supper was more important, so I started with that and she said yes,” Will said. “So now we’ll ask her about work.”

  Nathaniel gave her a pleading look and Will chuckled before mimicking the puppy-dog eyes, which made her laugh. “Yes, you can go to work with Will. But listen to what he says and be safe around the equipment.”

  “I’m always safe with tools. I even—” Nathaniel broke off when Will gave him a subtle elbow poke. “I’ll be safe. I promise.”

  When they’d left in her car, Christina sighed and looked at the clock. Before it had seemed like the day was flying by. Now she knew the numbers would tick off with excruciating slowness.

  She told herself it had nothing to do with going out to dinner with Will. It wasn’t a date. It was simply a way to solve the problem of neither of them having dinner planned for home.

  When she finally saw her car pull into the parking lot, she was on her way to clock out, so she met them in the parking lot. After thanking him again for the snow tires and admiring the grease stains on Nathaniel’s sweatshirt, she took her keys from Will.

  “I’m starving,” he said. “Let’s go eat.”

  “Can I ride with Will?” Nathaniel asked, his cheeks turning pink from the cold.

  She should say no. She was having a hard enough time keeping her own relationship with Will on an even keel. Having Nathaniel along for the ride would only make things harder.

  But, like it or not, her son had bonded with their neighbor and she didn’t have the heart to tell him no. She trusted Will and knew that, no matter what, he wouldn’t turn his back on her son.

  “Okay, but don’t talk his ear off.”

  “We just talk about man stuff.”

  She would have laughed, but Nathaniel’s expression was so serious she was afraid he might be insulted. “Oh. Man stuff. We should get going, then.”

  “You know where it is, right?” Will asked, and she nodded. “So we’ll meet you there.”

  Christina used the short drive to lecture herself. Will was being friendly and nothing more. Yes, the attraction still sizzled between them, but it wasn’t going anywhere so she would just have to do her best to ignore it. And with Nathaniel only having one more day of school before Christmas break, she and Will wouldn’t be spending time alone, anyway.

  Friends. It was good to have friends, she told herself for the umpteenth time.

  * * *

  We’re on the same page.

  Will had said it to Christina twice as his way of reminding her—and maybe himself—that there was nothing between them but a physical attraction.

  But now, sitting across the table and watching her laugh at something Nathaniel said to her, Will wasn’t sure what page he was on anymore. He felt as if somebody had taken his book and tossed it in the air so it landed open to a random page he couldn’t make sense of.

  Sitting in a diner with Christina and Nathaniel because it was easier than trying to figure out what to eat at home shouldn’t have been one of the more enjoyable evenings he’d had in...a very long time. It was comfortable and fun and he liked spending time with them.

  There would probably be some gossip. He’d seen a few people he knew look his way when he’d walked in, taking in the fact he was with a woman and child. Surprisingly, he didn’t care. Let them
talk.

  Christina managed to get Nathaniel to stop talking about Hammond’s garage long enough to look at the menu, and Will felt his chest tighten at the sight of their heads bowed over the list of offerings.

  He cared about them. Both of them, which was probably only natural since they all spent so much time together. And he’d keep telling himself it didn’t mean anything more than friendship because he and Christina had nothing else to offer each other.

  Especially a man like you.

  Her words still stung, but he was managing to get a little perspective. Of course she liked a high-class kind of guy. He’d seen the pictures of her on the internet. She might be sitting across from him in a QuickStop polo shirt with a home kitchen haircut, but she’d spent a long time being Mrs. Robert Forrester.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, and he realized he’d been staring at her.

  “Sorry. I was thinking about what I want to eat and must have been looking in your direction when I spaced out.”

  They ended up all ordering cheeseburgers, although Will ordered bacon on his and then Nathaniel wanted to add bacon, too. He grinned at the boy when Christina sighed in exasperation.

  He liked this Christina Forrester. She’d not only survived losing the Mrs. Robert part of her name, but she’d bounced back from a blow that probably would have devastated a lot of the women she’d called friends back then. She was funny and kind and a great mother. Yeah, he definitely liked this Christina. A lot.

  Will closed his eyes. He wasn’t going there.

  “Do you have a headache, Will?”

  Nathaniel’s voice distracted him from the path his thoughts had been taking, and Will was thankful. “Nope. Just resting my eyes for a minute. Did your teacher plan anything fun for tomorrow?”

  As Will anticipated, Nathaniel took that conversational ball and ran with it. The adults only had to nod and make appreciative sounds once in a while, so Will sat back and sipped his decaf. When he stretched out his legs, one came to rest against Christina’s.

  He should pull away. He knew it. But she didn’t, so he didn’t and then the moment passed. With the warmth of her calf pressed against his, Will drank his coffee and listened to Nathaniel talk about school until the server brought him a bucket of crayons.

  With a little prodding from his mom, he turned his placemat over and started drawing on the back. Christina gave Will a look clearly meant to convey an apology, but he only smiled. The chatter didn’t bother him at all.

  He was actually disappointed when the cheeseburgers had been consumed and it was time to go home, but he didn’t have a good excuse to linger. Christina had already nixed dessert because it was creeping up on Nathaniel’s bedtime.

  There was a moment, however, after she’d started the car and Nathaniel was buckled into his seat, when Will was alone with her. “Thanks for coming to dinner with me. I would have been bored alone.”

  She laughed. “You certainly didn’t lack for conversation. And thank you for paying. You didn’t have to.”

  “It was my treat, in exchange for the company.”

  “Tell Gail I hope she feels better. If you think she’s coming down with something, please tell me and I’ll try to change my shifts around. It’s hard with Christmas on Thursday, but I’ll figure something out.”

  “I think it was just a headache, but if she can’t take Nathaniel after school, I’ll be at the house. I’m just doing busy work at Hammond’s right now, anyway.”

  She sighed, but he knew she didn’t have a lot of options. “Thank you.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  “I should get him home to bed. One more school day to get through.”

  “Good night, Christina.”

  She was pulling out of the parking lot when he started his truck, and he let it idle for a few minutes to warm up. He felt better now that they’d put some of the awkwardness behind them, and he promised himself he wasn’t going to screw it up again by letting his body overrule his common sense.

  He just had to resist wanting her until the feeling faded.

  His resistance lasted less than twenty-four hours. When Christina got home from work the following night, Nathaniel pleaded to stay with his Grammy Gail. There was a Christmas special on that his mom watched every year, and she couldn’t believe the boy had never seen it. Since he didn’t have school on Christmas Eve, they argued it wouldn’t hurt him to stay up a little late.

  Once Christina had caved and gone across the street, leaving her son to cuddle up on the couch, Will realized she had ninety minutes of kid-free time.

  “Christina mentioned doing some baking,” he said to his mom. “I never replaced that bag of sugar. I should go do that.”

  “I’m sure if she needs some, she’ll come over.”

  “I don’t want to put her out after she did me a favor.” Realizing it would be a tough errand to justify if his mom got stubborn about it, he patted his pockets for his wallet and keys, and then headed for the door. “I won’t be long.”

  It took fifteen minutes to run into a store for a bag of sugar and get back. Then he walked across the street and rang her doorbell. After peeking through the curtains to see who it was, she opened the door and let him in. She’d changed into a sweatshirt and a pair of those tight, stretchy pants, and her hair was wet. “Wow, you showered fast.”

  She laughed. “It’s a skill you acquire quickly when you have one bathroom and a seven-year-old. Is that sugar?”

  “Yeah. To replace the one I borrowed.”

  “I heard your truck a few minutes ago. You didn’t go buy this just now, did you?”

  “Yeah. I thought you might want to do some baking and...yeah.”

  She frowned, accepting the bag from him. “Tell me you didn’t get this at the QuickStop. It’s so expensive there.”

  It would be worth it if he wasn’t still standing on her doorstep while she heated the outdoors. They were very quickly running out of things to say about the sugar and it was his only excuse for being there.

  “Come in and have a brownie, at least,” she said, stepping aside to let him in. “It’s freezing out there.”

  “The last time I had a brownie in your kitchen, I ended up kissing you.”

  She closed the door and then leaned against it, smiling. “I’m willing to risk it.”

  Will wasn’t sure what she meant by that and he hated the uncertainty. He’d enjoyed their dinner out so much, he was afraid to make a wrong move and bring the awkwardness back.

  He decided to dive right in. “You should know it’s a high risk.”

  When she pushed away from the door to set the sugar on the counter, he took a step toward her and was relieved when she moved into his arms. He bowed his head and pressed his lips to hers.

  Will loved kissing her. He liked the feel of her mouth and the way her hands moved under his coat to clutch his shirt. He liked the little sound she made when he slid his fingers into her hair.

  “How long is that movie?” she asked a little breathlessly when he lifted his head.

  “Ninety minutes. And I don’t think it starts for another ten minutes or so.”

  When she gave him a look full of hot promise, he laced his fingers through hers and let her lead him up the stairs.

  * * *

  Christina expected Will to throw his clothes on and leave as soon as the heavy breathing was over, but he seemed content to hold her close. With her cheek rested against his naked chest, she could hear his heart beat as it slowly returned to normal.

  “The movie’s not over yet,” she said after a few minutes, “but Gail has to be wondering why it’s taking you so long to return a bag of sugar.”

  “She’s a pretty smart lady. I don’t think she’ll ask.”

  He’d always been so
concerned about giving his mom the wrong idea about them, she was surprised when he nestled deeper into the covers. His skin was warm and she loved the feel of his arms wrapped around her. “Are you looking forward to going to Erin’s tomorrow?”

  “I think it’ll be fun,” he murmured against her hair.

  “The girls are such a fun age for Christmas,” she said. “Do they get to open presents while you’re there or do they have to wait for Christmas morning?”

  “This will be my first Christmas with the girls, so I don’t know. I haven’t been around for the holidays since before they were born.” She waited for him to tense up at the reminder he’d left town and why, but it didn’t come. “They’ll get to open their gifts from Mom and me at least, though. Does Nathaniel open any on Christmas Eve?”

  “I’m going to let him open two. One is a new set of pajamas and the other’s a game. I want to start a new tradition of playing a new board game on Christmas Eve in our jammies. That probably sounds silly.”

  “No, it doesn’t. What was the old tradition?”

  “Robert’s family always had a formal dinner on Christmas Eve, so the nanny would feed Nathaniel and put him to bed.”

  Will did tense up a little then, and rolled onto his back. He didn’t let her go, though, but tucked her under his arm. “No offense, but I’m not a big fan of Robert.”

  The conviction in his voice made her smile, even though talking about her ex-husband reminded her of unhappy times. “It wasn’t just him. We were both raised that way, so we never questioned it.”

  He was quiet for so long she wondered if he was nodding off, but then he spoke in a quiet voice. “I know the scandal and the divorce turned your life upside down, but did it break your heart?”

  It was a question she’d asked herself a lot as she started over. “We’d been friends since childhood. Not only were our mothers friends, but our nannies were really close. We were always a couple and I did love him. But maybe it wasn’t the right kind of love because I was hurt and felt betrayed but, no, I don’t know that he broke my heart.”