His hand was still out for the keys, but she held on to them.
A smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “If you want to drive it back up yourself, go for it,” he said, “although I’ve been itching to get behind the wheel of a cherry-red Camaro since I was seventeen.”
She suspected it was a ruse to make her comfortable letting him drive and help her save face. Okay, that was nice of him. She handed him the keys.
* * *
Carson was glad they ended up taking Lily to town. Beyond Penny’s request, he found himself curious about the shy photographer. She said she was working on a college project, and he had surmised from all the camera equipment that it involved photography. But that was all he knew.
He was about to ask when she turned to him. “So, how long have you and the twins lived in this area?” she asked.
“We moved here when they were born,” he said. “We’ve always lived in Colorado, various parts, but a job opened up here at just the point when we were ready for a more stable life. How about you? Where are you from?”
“Most recently, Phoenix.” Lily didn’t elaborate but instead asked another question. “Do you like the job?”
He got the odd feeling she was trying to ask him questions to deflect attention from herself. “I do. It’s a wonderful church and community. Not without its problems—there’s a lot of poverty—but people are good-hearted here. It’s an old-fashioned community. Neighbors look after neighbors.” Great. He sounded like his grandfather, hearty and wholesome and focused on his own small town. Not fun and exciting.
Pam had always criticized him for being boring.
But how could he not be? He’d grown up on the straight and narrow, with strict parents. Now he was a pastor and a frazzled single dad.
What chance did he have to be full of scintillating conversation, when his biggest social activity all season had been helping at the kids’ classroom holiday party?
“And how about you girls?” Lily turned in the seat to look back at them. “How do you like your town?”
“There’s an ice cream store,” Skye said matter-of-factly, as if that were the feature that determined the worth of a town.
“And our teacher, Ms. Garcia, is so nice.” Sunny launched into her favorite theme. “She brings her dogs to school sometimes. And when we told her we want a dog, too, she said one of her dogs is having puppies!”
Not this again. “If we ever did get a dog,” Carson said, “we would get one from the shelter. Not a puppy.”
“That’s okay, Daddy,” Skye said. “We like all dogs. We don’t have to get a mala... Mala...”
“Malamute?” Lily glanced over at Carson. “A malamute puppy would be adorable, but a lot of work. And hair.”
“Exactly.” Carson turned the truck onto Esperanza Springs’s Main Street. “Look at the decorations, girls,” he said in an effort to distract them from their dog quest.
It worked. Even though it was early in the afternoon, it was a gray enough day that the streetlights had lit up. The town resembled a Christmas card scene.
“So beautiful,” Lily murmured, leaning forward and staring out the window, elbows on knees.
“You said you live in Phoenix?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She wrinkled her nose. “We have Christmas decorations, but where I live, they tend to be giant inflatable cartoon characters and lights wrapped around the trunks of palm trees. This is prettier.”
Carson pulled the truck into a parking space just down from the hardware store. Across the street, the Mountain High Bakery was doing a surprisingly brisk business—people picking up their Christmas desserts, no doubt. In front of La Boca Feliz, Valeria Perez folded the signboard and picked it up, shaking her head at an approaching couple with an apologetic smile. Closing down for the day: good. That meant Valeria would be able to attend church with the rest of her family.
“Oh, wow, look!” Sunny bounced in her seat. “Mrs. Barnes’s new dog has reindeer antlers on!”
“Can we go pet it, Daddy? Can we?” Skye leaned forward to beg.
“In a minute. Get out on Lily’s side.” He came around and opened Lily’s door. Growing up as the only child of older parents had certainly had its drawbacks, like making him into a total nerd, but at least he had learned old-fashioned manners. His women friends always praised him for that. Usually in the process of making it clear that he was just a friend, no more.
And why did that matter? He automatically held out a hand to help Lily down from the high truck seat. He didn’t look at her, not wanting her to read his thoughts.
Once he’d helped her down and dropped her hand almost as fast as she pulled it away, he opened the back door of the truck. The girls tumbled out and rushed to Mrs. Barnes, an older member of the congregation known for pressing other church members into service doing things they didn’t want to do. At a ranch fund-raiser last summer, she had come to meddle but had ended up falling in love with one of the senior dogs. Now Bosco plodded slowly beside her, indeed sporting a pair of light-up antlers.
“Girls,” he warned, a hand on each one’s shoulder. “Make sure you ask Mrs. Barnes if it’s okay to pet Bosco.” He knew it was, but he also wanted the twins to practice safety around other people’s dogs. Plus, he knew that Mrs. Barnes enjoyed talking about Bosco, reveling in the attention and status her dog brought her. Indeed, several other people had already clustered around to admire the dog in his costume.
“Dogs sure do a lot for people,” Lily said, closer than he had expected.
He looked at her and saw that a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“Oh, no,” he said, mock-serious, “you’re not going to throw me under the bus. I am not getting a dog.”
She raised mittened hands, laughing openly now. “Did I tell you to get a dog?” she asked innocently.
Her cheeks were flushed in the cold, and strands of blond hair escaped from the furry hood of her jacket. Her lips curved upward, and her wide eyes sparkled, and Carson’s heart picked up its pace.
Time to get businesslike. “The hardware store is right there,” he said, gesturing toward Donegal’s Hardware. “Come on, girls, let’s leave Mrs. Barnes to her errands. We have a few of our own to do.”
“What are you buying, Miss Lily?” Sunny tucked a hand into Lily’s.
Not to be outdone, Skye took Lily’s other hand.
They walked ahead of Carson, and the sight made his heart lurch.
Maybe this was a very bad idea. Carson didn’t need the girls getting attached to some model-perfect photographer who would be here only a few days. He’d noticed that they tended to be drawn to young women, probably because they missed their own mother. They’d been four when she died, so their memories were patchy, but despite Carson’s best efforts to be both mother and father, some part of them knew what was missing in their lives.
“I’m buying coffee and a coffee maker,” Lily said, “because I love coffee so much, and there isn’t one at the cabin.”
“You’re like our daddy!” Skye tugged at her hand. “Daddy isn’t very nice if he hasn’t had his coffee.”
Lily laughed back at him, and he couldn’t keep his own mouth from lifting into a smile. Their eyes met.
Color rose into her cheeks, and she looked away, and then the girls tugged her into the store.
Inside, tinsel and ornaments hung from the ceiling and Christmas music played. Long lines of customers waited at the two front registers, some holding wrapping paper