by Teri Wilson
His lips curved into a smile just thinking about Zoey’s indignation when he’d first demanded that she ask him nicely for assistance and how that stubborn fury had eventually melted away like a snowman on the first balmy day of spring. In that moment, something inside him had melted, as well. A warm sensation as real as the summer sun had passed through him as he’d watched her change of heart play out in her luminous green eyes. They’d gone from the color of a stormy sea to that of a field of clover in the span of a minute or two. He could see so much in those eyes of hers. Her fears, her secrets, her awareness of how very much he wanted to kiss her.
He’d miss those eyes. And the woman they belonged to.
Any satisfaction he’d gotten out of hearing her ask for his help, hearing her admit that she needed him, was tempered by the knowledge that it was a hollow victory. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve—the day of the Reindeer Roundup. The official last day of his tenure at the reindeer farm. Zoey might need him, but he’d be gone in less than forty-eight hours.
A soft knock sounded at the door. So quiet that at first he thought he’d only imagined it.
He frowned in the dim light of the cabin. That knock could only have come from one person. The one person he really didn’t want to see right now.
Wasn’t it enough that he was doing the right thing? He was sticking around to help with the Reindeer Roundup then leaving before things grew more complicated. Zoey might not be able to see it now, but life wouldn’t always seem so cozy if he stayed at the farm. Sooner or later, he’d let her down. It was all he knew, all he’d ever known. Disappointment. Hurt. Pain. Even if he’d wanted to build something more with her—an admission he was in no way ready to make—he wouldn’t know how.
As far as the genetic lottery went, he hadn’t exactly won the jackpot. He was a marked man. Only time would tell what kind of darkness lurked deep inside him. If...when...it raised its ugly head, he wanted Zoey as far away as possible.
He cared about her far too much to stick around.
But that didn’t mean leaving would be easy.
“Alec?” Zoey’s voice drifted through the closed door. “It’s me. Open up.”
He pushed himself off the bed, slid his feet back into his shoes and opened the door just a crack. Barely wide enough for him to imagine he saw the glimmer of Christmas lights reflected in her eyes.
Those eyes.
“Zoey,” he said flatly. “This isn’t a good time.”
She smiled as though he’d invited her in for Christmas dinner. “Come outside with me for a minute.”
He shook his head. “Can’t.”
Can’t? Or won’t?
It didn’t really matter. Spending time outside with Zoey in the moonlight fell under the category of very bad ideas. Everything about her—the lovely curve of her neck, her gentle smile, even the annoying way she typically crawled right under his skin—seemed magnified under the starry Alaskan sky. He had difficulty thinking straight with moonbeams caressing her porcelain skin, and he was beginning to question how long he could resist kissing her.
He might care about her enough to leave before he ended up hurting her, but he was only human.
“Yes, you can.” She gave the door a poke with her pointer finger. “Come on. What can you possibly be doing that’s so important?”
His mind drifted back to the duffel bag at his feet. “Packing.”
She flinched a little.
Disappointment, he thought. Get used to it.
“You can spare a few minutes.” She reached inside, circled slender fingers around his wrist and gave his arm a tug.
“Zoey, it’s late. We have a big day tomorrow.” He clamped his mouth shut when he realized it sounded like something a husband would say to a wife. We have a big day tomorrow....
Oblivious, her smile grew even bigger. “It’s midnight. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“That in six hours I have to feed a bunch of reindeer?” he said dryly.
She laughed. It sounded almost like the hopeful peal of church bells. “No, silly. It means it’s officially Christmas Eve.”
So this was about Christmas. Naturally.
“Zoey, you know I...”
She gave his arm another tug. A firm one this time. One that had him stumbling over the threshold and onto the porch.
“Surprise!” she said, her voice going quiet and taking on an almost shy quality.
She beamed up at him. As he expected, she looked even more beautiful than usual with subtle hints of frost and starlight in the thick waves of her blond hair. And for some reason, instead of her usual warm vanilla scent, she suddenly smelled of pine and freshly fallen snow.
Of Christmas.
He was bedazzled at first, knowing with absolute certainty that something significant was happening but so distracted by Zoey herself that he was unaware exactly what it was. Until she released her grip on his wrist, cupped his face with the gentlest of touches and turned his gaze so that it fell on the tree.
Right there on his front porch. A tree.
Covered from top to bottom in twinkling white lights, silver ribbons and delicate glass balls.
He switched his gaze back to Zoey. There were a million things he could have said, things he wanted to say. But his throat felt strangely tight all of a sudden, and he found himself incapable of uttering anything more than a single, disoriented syllable. “What?”
There was something astoundingly intimate about the way she looked at him then, almost as if she could see inside him. As though she understood him in a way no one else ever could. It reminded him of the way he’d once felt in God’s presence. “Merry Christmas, Alec.”
* * *
As Zoey watched Alec’s emotions play out on his handsome face, she still wasn’t quite sure if she’d done the right thing.
She’d known she was taking a risk. He’d never had a Christmas tree before, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wanted one now. Maybe he thought it was too late. Maybe seeing it there would remind him of his former fiancée. The fiancée Zoey was having an increasingly difficult time thinking about. Not because she was jealous or anything. Because she wasn’t.
She actually felt sorry for the woman, whoever she was. Had she really thought Alec would turn into some kind of monster? Zoey just couldn’t see it. Alec might be a little rough around the edges, but underneath it all he was a wonderful man.
Too wonderful.
She swallowed around the lump in her throat as she watched the wonderful man in question reach out and touch the needles of the evergreen tree with a gentle brush of his fingertips.
Okay, so maybe she was just the slightest bit jealous.
She obviously cared for him. She’d figured out that much while tromping through the woods looking for a tree with a trunk small enough for her to chop down on her own. Beyond that, she didn’t have a clue. Just what did she want from Alec Wynn?
Zoey’s heart tripped. She had no idea what she was doing. There was no plan whatsoever. All she knew was that she’d wanted to rectify some of the wrong in his past, even if all she could do was this one tiny thing. She’d wanted to surprise him.
By the look of things, she’d done exactly that. He’d yet to utter a coherent sentence.
She wished he’d say something. She was beginning to feel as though this had been a big, sappy, sentimental mistake. Why would someone who did his best to ignore Christmas altogether want a tree anyway?
Alec raked a hand through his hair and took a step back from the tree. “Zoey...”
He didn’t sound pleased. Then again, he didn’t sound particularly annoyed, either. And she’d seen him annoyed on plenty of occasions.
“Do you like it?” She risked another glance at him, took a deep breath and held it as she waited for his response.
“Do I like it?” His gaze slid toward her, and the look of shock on his face slowly changed into something else entirely.
His mouth curved into a smile that could almost be described as giddy. Zoey couldn’t help but think that he looked like a kid on Christmas morning. Seeing that expression of pure, unadulterated joy was so unexpected, so moving, that it caused a silent sob to well up in her chest. Her throat burned with the effort to keep her tears at bay. She didn’t want anything to ruin the moment. Not tears. Not the fact that Alec was leaving so soon. Not anything.
“What is it, exactly?” There was a laugh on the heels of the question. A laugh unlike anything she’d ever heard from him before.
The sound of it skittered through her, squeezing her chest and making it difficult to breathe. “It’s a Christmas tree, silly. Your Christmas tree.”
His first Christmas tree. She found that thought wholly inconceivable.
“Yeah, I got that part.” He laughed again, without a trace of his usual irony. Then he ran a thumb over the branch closest to him. “This is a real tree. Where did you get it?”
She shrugged. “Where trees usually come from. The woods.”
“The woods?” His eyebrows shot to his hairline.
“Yes. This is Alaska, remember? You can’t walk ten yards without tripping over an evergreen.” She waved a hand toward the cluster of snowcapped greenery behind his little cabin.
“Please tell me you didn’t chop this thing down all by yourself.” His smile dimmed. Zoey had known it wouldn’t last forever, but she’d hoped for more than a minute or two.
“Okay, I didn’t.” She crossed her arms.
Alec breathed out a relieved sigh. Some of the color that had drained from his face made a brief return.
She smiled. “Except that I sort of did.”
“Zoey.” Indignation crept back into his tone.
“Would you relax?” Why was she constantly having to tell him to relax, even after all this time? “You’re not the only one who knows how to use an ax. It’s a necessary skill for any Alaskan.”
“So this is the sort of thing you’re going to run around doing after I’m gone? Swinging a deadly weapon while you’re alone in the woods? At night?” He looked down at her, the soft glow of the lights from the Christmas tree illuminating his chiseled cheekbones, his strong jaw. His lips.
For once, she didn’t find his anger irritating. As much as she hated to admit it, it was actually sort of sweet. He was worried about her. He’d thought about what would happen to her once he’d left for Denali.
Something in her heart broke free. “Alec?”
He gave her a penetrating look but said nothing.
Her heart hammering into overdrive, she closed the short distance between them. “I don’t want to talk about what’s going to happen after you’re gone. Not tonight.”
The air between them grew very still while he considered her request. Zoey fixed her gaze on his cool blue eyes and watched as his irritation fell away and acceptance took its place. “Fair enough.”
She stood so close to him that she felt his words rumble through her. She smiled. “Good.”
“Good,” he echoed, returning her smile.
She inhaled a tentative breath and the air around them began to move once more, crackling and humming with electricity. Something stirred inside her, as if she’d been lit from the inside out.
“Thank you for the tree.” He reached for her hands and took them in his. “It might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“You’re welcome.” How many things had he done without as a kid? Zoey didn’t want to think about it.
But just then the tiny scar above his left eye, the one she’d been close enough to notice only once or twice before, caught the light coming off the Christmas tree. It glimmered in a pale, ghostly white slash right across his eyebrow. And for the first time she realized Alec hadn’t gotten that scar from a childhood playground accident, a spill on a diving board or a fall from a tree house.
I come from a bad place.
How bad, exactly? Had Alec been abused?
She didn’t want to believe it, but in her heart she knew it was true. It explained so much.
She let her gaze travel over his face, looking for more signs of his past, answers to the questions she’d had about him for so long now. There were no more scars. Not physical ones. But his eyes—the exact shade of gray-blue as the sea that churned against Alaska’s shores—told another story. Alec still had plenty of scars, only they were deep inside where she couldn’t see or touch them.
“The way you look at me sometimes...it gets me right here.” Alec lifted their interlocked hands to his chest. “It’s like you really see me.”
“I do see you,” she whispered.
So much had changed since that first day when he’d ridden up on his motorcycle in a swirl of snow, clad head to toe in black and sporting an Alaska-sized chip on his shoulder. She’d found him moody, temperamental and dangerous.
He’d reminded her of a superhero.
He still does.
She bit her lip as she released her hand from his and lifted it, slowly, gently toward his brow.
Alec’s breath released in a single, sharp exhale. Undaunted, she ran her fingertips across his scar ever so slowly.
She fixed her gaze with his. “Is this...?”
She wasn’t sure how to finish the question. But there was no need. Alec knew precisely what she was asking him.
He nodded slowly, the memory playing out in his eyes as they grew darker, stormier. “Yes. My father.”
“When?” The pad of her thumb moved across his skin again in a tender, healing trail.
If only healing could come so easily.
“On my tenth birthday,” he said, his voice going hoarse.
Zoey had spent the better part of her life believing that losing her parents was the most awful thing that could have happened to her. It was the pinnacle moment in her existence, a bold black line separating her life into two distinct categories—before and after. For years she’d labored under the misconception that this made her different in a way that other people would never understand. How could someone else know what it had been like...being left so completely and utterly alone?
Had she really been so naïve? There were worse things than losing both parents. Far worse. Alec’s face bore the evidence.
She wanted to erase it. His scar. His hurt. His past. All of it.
She couldn’t, of course. Such things weren’t possible. The pain of Alec’s past ran deep. It wasn’t something she could simply kiss and make better.
But she could try.
She caught Alec’s face in her hands, rose up onto the tips of her toes and closed her eyes. It was only a whisper of a kiss, the lightest possible brush of her lips against the cool white of his scar. But as her lips touched that place, the sole physical hint of all Alec had been through, she could feel the rapid beat of his pulse beneath her fingertips.
Before she could even think about opening her eyes, Alec circled both her wrists and removed her hands from his face. He let his forehead fall against hers. “Zoey.”
There was a world of regret in the way he whispered her name.
She let her eyes drift open, knowing what she would find in his. Sure enough, there it was—the same guardedness, the same caution she always saw looking back at her. This time, though, it was tempered by a heavy dose of longing.
She studied his face. His jaw clenched, and suddenly a very different kind of tension played out in his features. A tension that betrayed what a struggle it was for him to keep the wall between them from crumbling down around their feet.
“Zoey,” he said again, softer and more tenderly this time. “I told you before that I come from a bad place.
Worse than you can imagine.”
“I know.” She nodded and bored her gaze into his, wanting more than anything for him to understand how much truth her next words carried. “But that doesn’t make you a bad man.”
The words froze Alec on the spot. He became as still as stone. Snowflakes gathered in his eyelashes, and he didn’t so much as blink.
Zoey swallowed back the tightness in her throat. I’ve overstepped. I’ve said something wrong.
It needed to be said. She just didn’t know if he was ready to hear it, least of all from her.
Help him believe it, God.
She let her gaze drift down to her wrists, still encircled in Alec’s big hands. She wanted to touch his face while she still could, memorize every detail with her fingertips before it was too late. Before he left for good. But she didn’t dare move. She’d already made what was beginning to feel like a huge mistake. There was no sense in humiliating herself further.
“Thank you.” There was a wondrous timbre in his voice that sent Zoey’s gaze flying back to his.
She found him staring down at her with undeniable fascination. And undeniable affection. Being the object of such a look filled her with a rush of warmth so at odds with the chill in the air that it shocked her.
Then his gaze fell on her mouth, and she forgot all about the weather, all about the Christmas tree, all about the thirty-one reindeer who were possibly spying on them at this very moment. She forgot everyone and everything but him.
He tightened his grip on her wrists and pulled her closer, until they were nearly nose to nose, until she could feel the pounding of his heart against her chest and she wasn’t sure where her heartbeat stopped and his began. And in that final fleeting moment before he kissed her, he looked at her so purposefully she thought she would melt right there as snow flurries fluttered all around them.
Then his lips were on hers, and his hands moved to cradle her face, stroke her hair. A world of feelings swirled inside Zoey, from sheer exhilaration to a familiar awareness. She felt as though they’d kissed in another place and time long, long ago and had finally found their way back to each other.
