“I never had Christmas before the Traverses. They included me in the celebration when they didn’t have to.”
He looked up, raising one brow. “Are you going to sit and eat? Because I will eat all of your French fries.”
She sat down, taking her own hamburger, which was a bit more vanilla than his, and transferring it to the plate in front of her. “Eat my French fries and suffer a painful fate,” she said, snatching the bag and removing a little pouch of fries. “Now. About you helping me with my amazing Christmas party....”
“Hollyberry,” he said, using an old name for her that only he could ever get away with, “do you see a damned Christmas tree on my boat?”
“No. But it’s early still.”
“There will be no Christmas tree on my boat. I may, in fact, skip Christmas. It’s on a Tuesday and I’ll be out fishing, like I am every day.” He took a bite of his burger and groaned, and she felt a strange, heated sense of satisfaction blooming in her stomach. Why did he have to make sex noises while eating?
At least, they sounded like sex noises to her. Curse Ryan and his ability to push her mind straight into the gutter with his mere presence.
“I know Margie and Dan mean a lot to you too,” she said. “Maybe you could skip handling fish carcasses for a day and help me make something special for them. A Christmas Eve party, and a traditional Travers family Christmas.”
“You plan parties for a living, and you want my help putting together one Christmas party?”
“That’s the thing. I’m busy. Very busy this time of year. I have two weddings coming up, and several Christmas parties that I’m organizing the details for already.”
“And that’s why you decided to add to your list of responsibilities, and do an unpaid party for the Traverses.”
“It’s the one party that actually matters to me,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Christmas is important to me, Ryan. Margie and Dan are important to me. They’ve given me so many Christmases and it’s my chance to return that gift.”
Ryan assessed her, his expression unmoved as he chewed his dinner.
“They’ve given us all so much,” she continued, trying her best not to make an idiot of herself by crying into a cheeseburger on Ryan’s boat. “I just want to give them a little something back. I thought...I thought it would be the same for you.”
RYAN KNEW DAMN WELL when he was being emotionally manipulated. It wasn’t an easy thing for a person to do to him, seeing as he had few emotional attachments in this world, and he liked it that way.
But damn it all, Dan and Margie Travers were the two most important people in his life. He knew full well what Holly was talking about when she spoke of all they’d given her. They’d done just the same for him.
He’d come to live with them when he was twelve, with a bad attitude and anger that went deeper than the ocean. But they’d put up with him, refused to give up on him. Kept him with them until after he was eighteen, until he’d gotten his first boat and established himself with restaurants and stores in Copper Ridge as the go-to supplier.
It wasn’t the Christmases that stood out for him. It was the quiet, firm guidance from Dan. The hugs from Margie, even when he’d been twelve and had pretended he didn’t want them. Being touched in a way that didn’t leave bruises behind had been rare in his world before them. Being told he could accomplish anything he worked for? Even more rare.
Yeah, he owed them. More than he could ever repay. They’d given him his first real home, his first job, carrying bags of feed at the Farm and Garden store they owned. They’d taught him that tough love didn’t mean using fists. That hard work did pay off, and that he could make something of himself, regardless of what his old man had told him.
But he would rather shove broken glass under his fingernails than get roped into holiday festivities.
“Well?” Holly asked.
“You’re evil,” he said.
“I’m not evil. I’m like a little Christmas elf.”
“Evil.”
“I want your help planning a party, not burying a body.”
“Depending on the circumstances, I’m a better bet for body burial than I am for decorations and cheer.”
She rolled her eyes and just sat there, looking at once soft and formidable, as she tended to. She took a bite of her burger, chewing thoughtfully. He couldn’t help but follow the motion of her lips as she did. There was no question that she was beautiful. She always had been. Bright red hair, green eyes, a perfect smattering of freckles across her small, upturned nose. And her lips. Full, pink. Yeah, she was pretty. She was also about a million years younger than he was, and several teaspoons of sugar sweeter.
Okay, she was only four years younger, but it might as well have been a lifetime.
She took another bite and his gaze dropped, yet again, to her lips, forcing an unwelcome memory into his mind.
Another night, about nine years ago, when he’d been fixated on her lips. She’d been crying then. It had been her eighteenth birthday and her parents had arranged to visit her at Dan and Margie’s, but they hadn’t come. He’d put his arm around her and pulled her in for a hug, then the air between them had changed. Crackled with electricity.
And he’d pulled away like he’d been burned. Holly Fulton had enough bad things in her life without having him too. That had been true then, and it was true now. No matter how pretty she was.
“They worry about you, you know,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because.” She picked up a French fry and waved it around. “You’re a boat-dwelling weirdo.”
“And?”
“Maybe you could show them that you’re...well-adjusted? Doing fine? Participating in normal, human type things?”
“You’re using Dan and Margie’s emotional distress at my possibly sad life against me?”
She scrunched up her face. “When you put it like that it sounds... unsavory.”
He picked up a French fry and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. “It is unsavory. It’s downright small. Low. Frankly, I’m surprised at you. For someone who looks so sweet, you’re ruthless.”
He could tell that she was very uncomfortable with being called ruthless. It was also the furthest thing from the truth. Still, he couldn’t help but goad her a little bit. Seeing as she was roping him into planning a Christmas party, and attending said Christmas party, both of which sounded about as appealing as getting a root canal while also receiving a vasectomy without anesthetic.
“Oh, cry me a river, Ryan. I’m strong-arming you into taking part in Christmas cheer and I will likely force-feed you gingerbread. It’s for your own good.”
“Like cod liver oil, flu shots and any book Oprah recommends.”
“A Christmas party is comparable to none of those.”
“Maybe not for you.”
“I promise not to get any joy on you. You don’t even have to like it.”
Saying yes to Holly really was the best idea. She wasn’t wrong. His involvement in this would make Dan and Margie less likely to think that he was turning into a seafaring hermit. He was a seafaring hermit, but as long as they saw him as something different, they might not worry so much.