“Why wouldn’t I be?”
He couldn’t really bring up the sexual tension simmering between them without introducing the possibility it was all in his head, so he didn’t really want to spell it out for her. “Just checking. I don’t want to intrude on family time.”
She opened her door, but before sliding into her seat, she looked at him. “It’s not intruding. So...have fun in Boston, I guess. And if I don’t see you before Thanksgiving, I’ll see you at Granddad’s?”
“Sounds good.” He really wanted to kiss her goodnight, but he figured if she was thinking the same thing, she wouldn’t have put her car door between them. “I’ll see you there.”
Thanksgiving felt like forever away, and as he watched her drive away, he knew he’d be thinking about her the entire time, even though it didn’t make any sense. Wanting her so badly didn’t make sense. Not being able to keep her out of his thoughts didn’t make any sense.
He couldn’t make sense of his attraction to Zoe Randall, but he could feel himself nearing the point he didn’t care anymore.
To hell with sense.
Chapter Five
Zoe wasn’t surprised to see a gray BMW sedan parked next to Noah’s truck when she pulled down the long dirt drive to her grandfather’s house. Preston was probably painfully punctual and she was running a little late.
She’d like to blame it on the glass casserole pan of baked macaroni and cheese that was probably melting her passenger-side floor mat at the moment, but preparing one of the few holiday dishes she made well had gone smoothly. Choosing what to wear, however, hadn’t.
She’d gone through a lot of wardrobe changes for a casual Thanksgiving dinner, but as she parked on the other side of the BMW, she knew the driver of that particular car was the real reason her bedroom looked like a tornado had gone through it. The first outfit was a lot morenight out at the clubthanfamily dinner, and she’d been so annoyed by her subconscious’s obvious desire to catch Preston’s eye that she’d taken it all off and tossed it on the bed.
Unfortunately, she’d been annoyed to the point she went too far in the other direction. Maybe it was only a family dinner, but it was Thanksgiving and she wasn’t going to sit at her grandfather’s table in sweatpants and a slouchy sweatshirt. The quest for the perfect happy medium had left a path of destruction from her closet to the bed, and she might have to sleep on her couch when she got home.
She hadn’t seen Preston since the Dock, as he’d been in Boston, and then, when she saw his car parked near the bookshop, she’d decided to stop by his office to say hi, but thePrivate Meeting in Session, Please Call for an Appointmentsign had been hung in the window. By the time she had another chance to leave the bookshop, his office was closed and the BMW was gone. Their only communication had been him liking her Instagram photos. It wasn’t much, but she knew he didn’t follow the account, which meant every day he thought of her and checked the feed.
And now she was going to see him again. And they’d eat together and then sit around, watching football they didn’t care about—but it was a tradition, according to Granddad—and moaning about how full they were, but not too full for pie. It was going to be a very comfortable, homey day and it made her anxious.
After walking around her car and pulling on her oven mitts, she lifted the casserole dish off the floor and bumped the door closed with her hip. She didn’t have long before the heat from the glass started burning through the mitts, so despite not feeling prepared to come face to face with Preston yet, she didn’t waste time walking to the front door. She kicked the old, thick wood door a few times with her toe, hoping Carly hurried up because the casserole dish was about to be too hot to hold.
Thankfully, the door swung open almost immediately, but it wasn’t Carly who opened it. Of course it had to be Preston, and her heart did a little pitter-patter that wasn’t okay. A sexual response was totally cool. An emotional response was not.
“Can I take that for you?”
“Not with your bare hands,” she said, twisting away when he reached for the macaroni and cheese.
“Good point.” He stepped back so she could pass by, and she inhaled the scent of him—just the lightest touch of something warm and spicy—before the aroma of roasting turkey overwhelmed it.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” she called out as she walked into the kitchen and made a beeline for one of the trivets already spread out across the old harvest table.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” everybody echoed back to her. Everybody consisted of her grandfather, Carly, Noah and Preston, which was a dynamic that made Zoe vaguely uncomfortable.
Granddad would sit at the head of the table and nobody had sat at the foot of the table since her grandmother passed, which put Noah and Carly on one side of the table and Preston and Zoe on the other. It was very couple-y, she thought. She wasn’t part of a couple, and Carly didn’t need that kind of encouragement.
“This is a lot of food,” Preston said as they started moving dishes from the stove to the table. “Are you expecting more guests?”
“Nope.” Joe glanced up from the turkey he was carving. “It just happens that, by the time everybody has that one dish they can’t have Thanksgiving without, there’s this much food.”
“Leftovers fordays,” Carly added.
“Except maybe that baked macaroni and cheese,” Granddad said with a sly smile. “Zoe makes it almost as good as her grandma did, Preston, and you’re in for a treat.”
Zoe exchanged areally?look and an eye roll with Carly before going to the fridge for butter to set out and the cans of chilled cranberry sauce to open and slice.
Preston cleared his throat. “What can I help with?”
Zoe liked the way he phrased it. If he’d askedifhe could help, of course they’d say no. That he was company and should have a seat. Instead, she set the can opener on the table next to the cranberry sauce cans.
“You can open those and put them in the bowls there. And then slice them. I would just dump the cans and let people spoon chunks out, but Granddad likes slices, so we slice.”
