Despite the wildness of her hair, her makeup was subtle and expert: a hint of green shadow bringing out the spectacular hazel of eyes that were enormous with a combination of both fright and annoyance at the moment.
She had a touch of gloss on her mouth that made her lips look plump and kissable. Sam remembered, suddenly and in almost excruciating detail, the flavor and texture and warmth and invitation of those lips.
He realized his hand was still resting at the edge of her hood, and he snapped it down by his side. He noticed she had a brush of color on high cheekbones—from the crisp air or chasing the pony or an expert hand with a makeup brush—he couldn’t be sure.
But in a face that was otherwise winter-pale, her skin as delicate as porcelain, the color on her cheekbones made them look sculpted and accentuated the breathtaking perfection of her face. It occurred to him that once she had been cute. That cuteness had transformed into beauty.
“Hanna. Hanna Merrifield,” he said, and then ran a hand through his own hair, sending melted snow flying. “Mr. Dewey told me you didn’t live here anymore. He said you haven’t lived here for years.”
“I haven’t, I don’t,” she said, a slight tremor in her voice, more shaken than she was letting on.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Mr. Dewey quit two hours ago, though I’m hoping by morning he will have reconsidered. He let me know the pony was loose on the highway.”
Hanna would, he knew, be super annoyed to know that despite the polished perfection of her makeup and hair, and the clear indication of education in her voice, he still saw the girl who had been pressed into service as a Christmas elf to help with selling trees, visits with Santa, and pony-pulled sleigh rides on her family’s Christmas tree farm.
Maybe it was because the too-large parka over her suit reminded him of her as an elf all those years ago. The boots, comical in their largeness, obviously did not belong to her either, but added to the impression of a child playing the grown-up.
He remembered, suddenly, as clearly as if were yesterday, the day he had seen her in her green elf costume in her father’s Christmas tree lot. She had probably been all of fifteen.
It was the first time he’d ever noticed the girl who went to the same high school as he did, but was in the grade behind him, and therefore invisible.
But in that elf suit? Anything but invisible. Cute and comical, but with the length of her legs being shown off by the shortness of the green tunic, there had been just a whisper of something else...
She’d been mortified that he and his friends had seen her, and if he had been then the man he was now, he would have possibly had the grace to pretend the encounter had never happened.
But he had just been a boy himself, and after that day, he had not been able to resist teasing her when their paths crossed. He had liked seeing her looking flustered and adorable, spitting at him like a cornered barn kitten.
But then, he reminded himself, she had shown him she had some claw, and that was a lesson about Hanna Merrifield that he would do well to remember.
Her focus moved off the pony, and she was regarding him intently now, curious how he had known her, and then recognition dawned in her features.
“Sam?” she asked, and it was evident she was as stunned by this unexpected reunion as he was. “Sam Chisholm?”
“One and the same.”
Hanna Merrifield’s fingers combed through the lushness of her thick hair once more, and she sent a flustered look and a frown at the clumsy boots on her feet, and muttered, “Oh, sheesh.”
Sam raised an eyebrow at her and she flushed.
“A person just wants to make a good impression when they meet someone from their past,” she said, tossing her head a bit defensively. Then she bit her lip, regretting having said it, even though it was true. “I’m an accountant. Banks and Banks.”
Sam realized she was trying to divorce herself from the very image that had first leapt into his mind: of Hanna as an adorable Christmas elf. Still, he tried not to look too shocked. Hanna, an accountant?
“Why on earth didn’t you let go of the pony?”
“Easy for you to say,” she said, tearing her gaze away from her boots, and glaring sideways at the pony. “I’d just caught her.”
Was Hanna cradling one of her hands in the other? “Did you do something to your hand?”
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“I seem to remember pony frustrations in your past,” he said, and earned himself a sharp look that clearly said I’m an accountant now. I just told you.
“It’s the same pony,” she said, reluctantly and not at all fondly. “And now she’s on the loose again.”
His fault entirely, from Hanna’s tone of voice.
“Well, she doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. Can I have a look at your hand?”
“No. And she never appears to be going anywhere. She’s not fond of wasted motion. She’s saving all her energy for when I make another attempt to catch her.”
Against his better judgment, Sam held out his hands to her. He noticed she reached out with only one. Still, he could feel the warmth of that hand rising past the Merino wool of a very good glove. He set his legs against the slippery footing, and then pulled Hanna to her feet.
They stood regarding one another. He looked for signs that she had changed, and despite the cut of her I’m-an-accountant-now suit and the passage of nine years, he found very few. If he was to wipe away that faint dusting of makeup, Hanna Merrifield would look much the same as she had looked at fifteen. The bone structure that had promised great beauty had delivered.
Except there was something faintly bruised about her eyes, like she carried sorrow around with her, which Sam knew she did. It made him want to squeeze her uninjured hand, which he realized, uncomfortably, he was still holding.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” he said, and gave in to the impulse to offer comfort. He gave her hand a quick, hard squeeze before dropping it. “Wasn’t it six months ago now?”
Hanna nodded. She was looking down at her hand as if even through her glove she had felt the same nearly electrical jolt as him.
Sam shoved his own hands in the deep pockets of his long, leather jacket.
“I’m also sorry about nearly running you down. You and the pony just seemed to materialize out of the night. Do you think the pony is all right?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said gloomily, and he couldn’t help but smile at her tone. “She’s the reason I’m out here. The farm manager has just quit because of her dreadful antics. Though I’m hoping I can talk him out of it.”
Though he wondered about the wisdom of trying to talk the manager out of quitting when he had obviously left her in a complete pickle, Sam kept that to himself.
“Bad timing, isn’t it?” he said. “Right before Christmas? His defection explains why the driveway isn’t plowed for customers.”
“I don’t think the tree stand or gift shop has been open at night.”
The businessman in him couldn’t stop from commenting, “But that’s when it’s convenient for people who work during the day to shop.”
“It’s early in the season,” Hanna said, a bit defensively, and then sighed. “You don’t know the half of it.” Her gloom seemed to deepen.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Sam told himself it was purely his interest in the farm, and not any kind