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As more people arrived, the crush shifted forward and he pressed up against her. The heavy warmth of his body crept into hers and a delicious, unfamiliar contentment stole through her.
He said something she couldn’t hear.
“What?” She tipped her head back and the top of her head brushed his chin.
“Your hair smells of vanilla and cinnamon,” he said into her ear. “It’s a heady fragrance.”
The heat of his breath in the whorls of her ear caused tingles to ripple along her spine. Her awareness of him, never long absent, rocketed up.
“Just ordinary shampoo,” she said, tilting her head so she could see his face.
“There’s nothing ordinary about you,” he said.
The moment stretched. Tension built within her as their eyes held. Her breathing quickened.
She forced herself to look away.
No.
She didn’t want this.
Not now. Not with Callum.
Even though it felt so right. Even though she’d accepted he wasn’t to blame for her father’s suicide, there was too much history between them. An affair with him would only bring unhappiness—especially once he found out that while he’d always been brutally truthful, she’d been less honest.
She shivered, and a wave of ever-present loneliness swamped her.
Callum wrapped his arms around her from behind and pulled her to rest against the length of his body. “I’ll keep you warm.”
She let herself sag into the safe refuge of his arms. It felt strangely like coming home.
A dangerous dream.
The band was playing “Silent Night.” All around, Miranda was aware of couples, young and old, of families, and the joy of Christmas Eve surrounding them.
She wanted that joy. That love. It came to her in a moment of clarity that she’d been a fool to turn down Callum’s proposal.
If she’d agreed to marry him, it all would have been hers—companionship, great sex and a life with a man who did his best to consider her and solve all her problems.
“Tomorrow morning, I’ll take you for a walk in the snow. There won’t be time for a ride, but the horses will be out in the field in the morning and you can meet them.”
How could she have been so dense?
While she’d been intent on hating him, fighting him, she’d been falling in love with Callum. How she wished…
Then reality kicked in. Callum would never love her. He might desire her with fierce passion, but that wasn’t love. He’d told her point-blank he didn’t want the emotional complications love entailed.
Her Christmas wish would never come true.
It was early and the rest of the household still slept when Callum pulled the front door open and stood back for Miranda to pass.
She halted just ahead of him and he heard her gasp as she took in the bright beauty of the morning sunlight on the pristine blanket of fresh-fallen snow.
“This is the gift you said you wanted,” he murmured behind her.
“It’s so beautiful—so peaceful—it makes my heart hurt.” Her voice was husky. “What a perfect start to Christmas Day.”
He knew what she meant.
She stepped forward and the sun caught her hair, turning it to gold. Callum followed and her scent stayed with him. Vanilla. And a hint of honey this morning.
“Old Jim will already have put the horses out in the paddock.” He led her through the silent, snow-encrusted garden, their Wellingtons crunching on the snow that covered the cobbled pathways.
Mojo and Moxie padded up behind them, looking expectant. Callum eyed the dogs. “You can come but you need to behave. No running off.” Opening the gate set in an archway in the stone garden wall, he paused for a moment to let Miranda take in the vista before them.
“Wow.” She sounded awed.
“Come on.” He snagged her gloved hand in his. “Let me show you.”
They entered a lane lined with post-and-rail fencing and leafless trees, their boughs forming ghostly shapes that fragmented the stark landscape.
“It feels like we’re the only people in the whole world.”
He glanced down at her. “Maybe we are.”
With a hint of bravado that had been missing since he’d produced the proof of her father’s confession, she said, “You and me? That could be interesting.”
