When they finally broke apart, their breathing ragged, his forehead rested against hers.
“You’ve been driving me crazy all day in this dress. All I could think about was ripping it off you.”
She swallowed hard, searching his face, her emotions in turmoil. Her hands still rested against his chest, and she felt the steady beat of his heart beneath her palms. When his lips found hers again in another searing kiss, Holly could only throw herself into the moment.
She was not sure how long they kissed. A few moments? A few hours? She only knew she never wanted it to stop. His kiss and his touch made her feel cherished, wanted, needed.
She might have done exactly what she had thought about earlier, grabbed his tie and tugged him up the stairs, if a soft cry from Lydia’s room hadn’t intruded on the moment like the sharp crack of a branch weighed down by snow.
She froze as reality crashed in, cold and relentless.
He pressed his forehead to hers, his expression resigned. “I guess she wasn’t as exhausted as you thought.”
“I... I have to... We can’t...”
He stood up and spent a few moments rearranging her dress. “I know,” he said, his voice rough. “You have to. And we can’t.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
About so many things.
“Don’t be sorry. Lydia is your priority. As she should be.”
“This isn’t only about Lydia. I... I can’t sleep with you, Ryan. As much as I might want to.”
He released another ragged breath and nodded slowly. “I know that, too.”
He pulled her close for one more embrace and kissed her forehead, much as she had kissed her sleeping child earlier.
“Go take care of your daughter. I’m going to walk home. It’s not a cold shower but I guess a snowstorm is the next best thing.”
She felt ridiculously close to tears as she watched him walk out into the snow, then she hurried upstairs.
WHAT A MESShe had made of everything.
Ryan made his way through the few inches of snow, grateful for those residents who had already been out with shovels and snowblowers in front of some houses. His knee ached, but that wasn’t the thing bothering him the most.
How the hell was he going to be able to walk away from Holly and Lydia after Kim returned to pick up the pieces of her life?
He should never have agreed to go to that wedding. The moment he figured out how attracted he was to Holly, he should have done everything possible to keep a safe distance from her.
Women like her weren’t for him. Nothing real and lasting could ever come out of a fling between them.
Holly slotted in perfectly to the cozy world of Shelter Springs. She had a thriving business here. A life. Family and friends who loved and supported her and Lydia. All he could offer her was a transient life, moving from base to base, assignment to assignment.
That would be disastrous for Lydia. He didn’t need to be an expert in raising a child with special needs to know that. Sherequired structure and consistency, not a new school in a new community every few years.
It was going to break his heart to walk away from both of them. He relived dancing with the little girl at the wedding, her features screwed up with concentration as she tried to follow his lead and not stumble.
Which one had stolen his heart first? He wasn’t sure. What did it matter, anyway? He had been a goner that first day he had been in the shop and Lydia had come running in full of news and smiles to tell her mother about her day.
As soon as Kim was home and settled, he needed to pack up his gear and head back to the coast, even if walking away from them would leave him shattered.
Chapter Twenty
“THANKS SO MUCH FOR WALKING LYDIA HOME, AUDREY,”Holly said Monday, two days after the wedding and those hungry, heated kisses that came later. “I meant to text you and tell you I could pick her up but somehow the afternoon got away from me.”
While she had expected to have a slow day on this, her last full day in the store before the holidays, instead she had received several last-minute orders for holiday centerpieces and hostess gifts. At least the store had been fully staffed so she hadn’t been on her own.
