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John slipped his hand inside of hers and stepped closer. “How bad would I have to be?”
Rachel’s heart pounded in her chest. “Are you flirting with me?”
John blinked. A deep red blush stained his cheeks. “No. I…”
For a split second, Rachel saw something so deep and real clouding his eyes that it made her sad. He was lonely and worried. She wanted to give him a hug and tell him that everything would be okay.
He took a step backward and let go of her hand. “Thank you.”
She pushed away the sadness and tried to smile. “For landing on your arm?”
“For making Bella’s Christmas special.”
“What about you?” she asked softly.
“My life’s complicated.” John looked across the yard. Tank was moving through the trees, talking on his cell phone. “I’ve forgotten what special feels like.”
Rachel took a step forward and slipped her hand under his elbow. “One day you’ll remember. But for now, how about we head inside for some hot chocolate?”
John looked down at her and brushed a wet strand of hair out of her eyes. “I’m glad I came home early from work.”
“I’m glad you did, too.” They started walking, arm-in-arm, across the icy ground toward John’s home. Rachel breathed in the cold, crisp air and prayed that he would find something special in his life. He was a good person and had so much to be thankful for.
He also had a lot of responsibilities and worries. “Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you hadn’t become a billionaire?”
“All the time,” John said with a sigh. “But I probably wouldn’t have met you. Just think how less complicated my life would have been.”
Rachel smiled. “And less exciting. Who else comes home to find a blow-up Santa and a reindeer in their living room?”
“Do you think Bella wants a snowman as well?”
“No. You gave her what she really wanted.”
“What was that?”
“Time with you.” Rachel let go of his arm and opened the back door. “Your hot chocolate awaits, kind sir.”
John walked inside and turned around. When she was halfway through the doorframe he lightly kissed her lips. “Happy Christmas.”
While Rachel was dealing with the butterflies racing around her stomach, John pointed above her. Hanging from a green ribbon was a bunch of mistletoe.
“You kissed me.”
“I know,” John said with a shy smile. “I thought you might like a surprise, too.”
***
John hauled another basket of wood into his living room and passed it to his brother.
“Tell me your new home is going to have a gas fireplace?” Grant started stacking the wood beside the pile he’d just brought inside.
“You’re getting old.”
“Not so old that I don’t see what’s in front of my face.”
John wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear what his brother had to say. It was six days until Christmas, Bella was beyond excited, Rachel was driving him crazy, and someone was threatening to kill him.
“What are you talking about?”
Grant threw another log on the fire before going back to John’s basket of wood. “Since Jacinta died you’ve hardly put one Christmas decoration in your home. Now look at the place. You can probably see the glow from the moon with the number of lights strung outside.”
John cleared his throat. “We went overboard at Walmart. They had a sale.”
Grant’s eyebrows nearly shot off his face. “A sale?”
“Rachel wanted to go back there. The sale ends tomorrow, so we bought extra decorations for next Christmas.”
“Next Christmas?”
John glared at his brother. “Would you stop repeating everything I say?”
“So there are more decorations packed away in your garage?”
“Not exactly,” John muttered. “We got carried away when we started to put the extra decorations around the house. Bella wanted to put all of the lights up, so we did.”
“What about the blow-up monsters on your front yard. Were they Bella’s idea, too?”
John knew they’d gone a bit far with the blow-up figures, but as Rachel had told him, Christmas only comes once a year. It was just as well no one could see his home from the street. Otherwise, they’d have cars and trucks parked along the sidewalk at all hours of the night, watching what was going on in his front yard.
“They aren’t monsters.” John took a couple of logs out of the basket. The sooner it was empty, the sooner he could get away from his brother’s close scrutiny. “We’d already bought the Santa and the reindeer. The snowman, seven dwarfs, and Sleeping Beauty were last minute additions.”
“Who wanted Shrek?”
“That would have been me. It’s Bella’s favorite movie.”
Grant shook his head. “Bella, huh? Are you sure it isn’t your favorite?”
John decided not to answer his brother. He was a successful businessman, an ex-Navy SEAL, and a security specialist. He had a reputation that needed to be maintained, and Shrek wouldn’t win him six-figure contracts.
John zipped his jacket to his chin. “I’ll fill one more basket. That should give us enough wood for the next few days.”
“Not so fast, twinkle toes. I went into Angel Wings Café the other day. Tess was behind the counter talking to someone. They mentioned Rachel and the Christmas play. Your name came up in the conversation, too.”
“Eavesdroppers never hear good things about themselves.”
Grant snorted. “They weren’t talking about me. Tess is worried that Rachel’s getting too involved in your life. She thinks Rachel has taken more than a professional interest in Bella.”
John glared at Grant. “Says, Tess. There’s nothing unprofessional going on here.”
Grant’s gaze sliced through all of the Christmas decorations, the sparkling tree that stood taller than either of them, and the Christmas cakes sitting on the table, waiting to be boxed.
John picked up the empty wood basket. “Rachel normally puts together food parcels for families around Bozeman. Bella and I decided to help her this year. We made a few Christmas cakes to go with the non-perishable items.”
Grant counted the fruit cakes. “Thirty isn’t exactly a few.”
“The families will appreciate it.”
Grant stood up. “You’re right. If you need a hand to deliver them, I can help.” He picked up two more logs and stacked them on the pile. “I still haven’t met Rachel. What’s she like?”
John knew how Grant’s mind worked. He’d psychoanalyze what he said about Rachel, put two and two together, and come up with twenty. “You’ll meet her on Christmas day.”
“She’s coming here? Isn’t that going above and beyond what you’d expect a teacher to do?”
John had conveniently forgotten to tell his brother that Rachel had been living with him. Grant only came around once or twice a month. He’d figured that by the time his brother came back, the people sending him death threats would have been caught and life would be back to normal. But in all of his plans, he’d forgotten one thing. Christmas.
“Rachel’s living here.”
Grant dropped a log on his foot and said something short and not so sweet. “You want to repeat that?”
“She’s not living with me…well, she is, but not how you’re thinking. I’ve been away a lot. I’ve got a problem I’m dealing with at work. Rachel offered to look after Bella. It made sense that she stay here instead of going backward and forward between her apartment and my home.”
Grant looked at him as if he’d just come up with the lamest story he’d ever heard. “Are you sure she doesn’t want to be the next Mrs. John Fletcher? You’ve got a few more zeroes behind your name now.”
Someone cleared their throat behind John. Someone that sounded like Rachel.
He turned around. Rachel was standing in the doorway.
“I don’t know who you are, but I’m not a gold digger,” Rachel said frostily to Grant from the other side of the room. She looked at John and her expression didn’t change. “We’ve arrived back from Safeway. I’ll be in the kitchen sorting through the groceries if you need me.” She turned quickly away and stomped down the corridor.
John rushed across the room. “Rachel, wait. Grant didn’t mean what he said.” He heard the kitchen door slam and he turned back to his brother. “Look what you’ve done now.”
“She’s pretty. All that blonde hair and big blue eyes. A man could get lost in the girl-next-door thing she’s got going on.”
John clenched his jaw. “Keep away from her. Rachel’s off limits.”
“Because you like her?”
John closed the living room doors. “No. Because she’s my employee.”
“Oh, sure. Is that why you closed the doors? So your employee couldn’t hear you?”
“Sometimes I wish you weren’t such an idiot. You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”
Grant sent him a wide-eyed look. “Yeah, but Tess does. And I’m telling you now, Rachel likes you. Although from what I just saw, you may not have any relationship to salvage.”
