“Something happened,” Morgan guessed when he was silent for a long time again.
He cast her a look that said it all, that confirmed that strong value system.
“David was killed in Iraq,” he said roughly. “And I looked after Cindy, just like I promised.”
She wanted to ask if he loved her, but it was so evident from the agony on his face that he had loved her. Loved both his friends.
“You are a good man,” she whispered. She wanted to ask, Did she love you? The really-in-love kind? The head-over-heels kind? But she could tell by the set of his face he already felt he might have said too much.
He shrugged it off uncomfortably, and they pulled up to her house. He shut off the truck, and leaped out, not wanting to discuss it anymore. Still, he walked her up to her front door, helped her with the key.
“Thank you, Nate,” she said softly. “It was such a perfect day.”
“You’re welcome.” He turned to go down off her stoop.
Maybe it was the hot rum toddy.
Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was that he was a good, good man, who had made a vow to his best friend and kept it. Maybe it was because she thought he deserved to be really in love and suspected that he had sacrificed that feeling in the name of honor.
“Nate?”
He turned back to her.
Something else had been between them all day, too.
Awareness.
She crossed the small distance between them, stood on tiptoes and did what she had wanted to do from the moment she had met him.
She tasted him. She touched her lips to his own.
He tasted exactly as she had known he would.
Of mysterious things that made a woman’s heart race, but underneath that, of strength and solidness. Of a man who would do the right thing.
Of things made to last forever.
She stumbled back from him, both frightened and intrigued by the strength of her longing.
He was a man, she knew, who had been tremendously hurt.
She held her breath knowing that everything between them had just shifted with the invitation of her lips.
So far everything had been casual and spontaneous.
Now their kiss changed that.
It asked for more. It demanded some definition, it asked where things were going. It asked if he was ready to really fall in love.
The head-over-heels kind.
Because despite it all, despite her determination to be independent, to not give her life away, she felt ready to surrender to the tug inside her.
To love him.
Morgan held her breath, thinking he would walk away, perhaps never to look back.
But he didn’t. He regarded her solemnly, and then said, softly, “Wow.”
Then he walked away, leaving her feeling as if things were even more up in the air and ill-defined than they had been before.
“Mr. Hathoway?”
Nate glanced at the clock. It was just a little after 7 a.m. Morgan must have assumed he was up getting Ace ready for school. The truth was he had the process down to a science. He could get her ready, including hair, breakfast and bag lunch in under fifteen minutes.
“Yes, Miss McGuire?” he asked. Nate hadn’t called her since the sleigh ride, since her unexpected kiss and the clear invitation in it.
He hadn’t called her because he had told her things he had not expected to tell her. She was proving she could take chinks out of armor that not a single other person had even dented.
But Morgan McGuire wanted things that Nate could not promise. After that night with Molly and Keith, playing games, laughing, everything easy and light, he was aware of a deep longing in him, too.
To have a life like the one he’d had before. A stable life, where you woke up in the morning and trusted the day would go as you planned.
The truth? He wasn’t even sure he could be the man he had been before, a man naively unaware how quickly things could go wrong in the world, naively believing his strength would be enough to protect those he loved from harm.
He was aware how vulnerable answering a longing like that made a man.
“I’d like to discuss my last note with you.”
But here was another truth. Despite his desire to harden himself against Morgan McGuire, her temptations and invitations, he could feel a smile starting somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. He relished it, that he was lying in bed under the warmth of his blanket, the phone to his ear, listening to her.
He relished when she used that snippy, schoolmarm tone of voice on him. He wondered when that had happened, exactly, that he had started enjoying that schoolmarm tone.
“I sent you a request to send cookies for Mr. Wellhaven’s welcome party at the skating rink at Old Sawmill Pond.”
“I sent the damned cookies.”
Silence. “We’ve discussed cussing.”
“Ace is still in bed.”
He could tell she was debating asking how he could get her ready for school in time if she was still in bed, but she wisely decided to stick to one topic at a time.
“All right,” Morgan said, after a pause. “Let’s discuss the damned cookies, then.”
The smile was turning to laughter. He bit it back.
“I’m in charge of cookies for the welcome party for Mr. Wellhaven. He’ll be arriving Saturday.”
“The note said that.” Plus, Ace was in excitement overdrive about the skating party to be held at the pond in Mr. Wellhaven’s honor. Nate was going to have to give her the gift he had planned to give his daughter from Santa—the new skates—early.
“You said you missed my notes,” she pointed out.
“Hmm,” he returned, noncommittally. “I did say that.” He realized what he missed was her.
“After she received my note, Mrs. Weston sent four dozen sugar cookies decorated individually like giftwrapped Christmas parcels.”
“Good for Ashley.”
“Mrs. Campbell sent three dozen chocolate-dipped snowmen. Sharon McKinley sent melt-in-your-mouth shortbread, shaped like Christmas balls, with icing ribbons.”
“How did you know they were melt-in-your-mouth? Are you sampling the cookies, Miss McGuire? Tut-tut.” He heard her bite back laughter.
Why were the simplest things such a joy with her?”
“Mrs. Bonnabell sent—
“Look, it sounds like you have plenty of cookies. You won’t even need the box of Peek Freans I sent over.”
“That is hardly the point, Mr. Hathoway.”
“What is the point?”
“Everyone else made the effort.”
“Fine. I’ll ask Molly to whip me up a batch of brown snowmen, with ribbons around their necks, holding Christmas parcels. Individually decorated.”
“Your listening skills are very good, Mr. Hathoway.”
“Thank you.” Ridiculous to feel pleased that she had noticed how closely he listened to her every word. However, he guessed.
“However,”