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“I’m sure I’ll be fine. We fly above the weather.”
“What about you?” he asked Noelle, once the others had departed. “You want to ask me to stay again too?”
The sparkle in his eye caused a rash of awareness to break out along her skin. “I didn’t ask you to stay. I suggested staying for tomorrow’s Christmas Kickoff might change your mind about the holiday. There’s a difference.” One of semantics maybe, but she clung to the argument anyway. “Besides, you made it quite clear this morning that you make your own decisions. If you want to risk flying in the wind, that’s your business.”
She fought back a frown. That last sentence sounded a little passive-aggressive. It was his business and she didn’t care—not that much anyway.
“You’re right. It is my business,” he replied.
Noelle watched as he tapped the keys on his phone and pulled up the Boston weather. An odd feeling had gripped her stomach. A cross between nervousness and disappointment. Something about Hammond had her emotions skittering all over the place. One minute she detested him, the next she felt a kinship. The man had turned her into a collection of extremes. It wasn’t like her, being this mass of shifting energy.
Rather than continue staring, she turned to the pictures on the mantel. Kevin smiled at her from the Humvee and her insides settled a little. Good old Kevin who she’d loved for nearly fifteen years.
Loved like a brother.
No sooner did the thought rise than she stuffed it back down. How she felt about Kevin was her secret and hers alone. No one need ever know the truth.
Besides, she had loved him. He was her best friend. Her shoulder. Her rock. He’d given her so much. A home. A family. When she became his girl, her world went from being cold to one full of love and meaning. Kevin turned her into someone special. Wasn’t his fault she couldn’t feel the passion toward him that he deserved.
“Looks like you got your wish.” Hammond’s voice sounded above her ear. Startled, Noelle stepped back only to have her shoulders bump against his muscled chest, causing her to start again.
“What wish?” she managed to say as she turned around.
“Todd was right. There’s a high-wind warning up and down the New England coast. Logan’s backed up until the nor’easter moves on.”
“What does that mean?” she asked. Focused on putting distance between their bodies, the significance of his words failed to register.
“It means...” He reached out and cupped a hand on the curve of her neck. His thumb brushed the underside of her jaw, forcing her to look him in the eye. The sparkle she saw in his left her with goose bumps.
“It means,” he repeated, “that you’re stuck with me another day.”
It was the perfect time for a sarcastic remark. Unfortunately, Noelle was too distracted by the fluttering in her stomach to think of one. The idea of his continuing to stay around didn’t upset her nearly as much as it had yesterday.
In fact, heaven help her, it didn’t upset her at all.
* * *
James was disappointed when the barbed comment he’d been expecting didn’t come. Instead, he found himself standing by the fire while Noelle went to tell Belinda he’d changed his plans. Again. Oh, well, what good was flying your own plane if you couldn’t control your flight schedule, right?
He twirled his smartphone between his fingers. Christmas Kickoff, he thought with a snort. He’d go, but there was no way he’d change his thoughts on the holiday. The Hammond dysfunction was far too ingrained.
Turning his attention from the now empty doorway and back to his phone, James tried to settle the disquiet that was suddenly rolling in his stomach. He wished he could blame the sensation on being stuck in Christmas Land, but his phone screen told the truth. The conditions weren’t that bad in Boston; he’d flown in worse dozens of times.
He’d used the wind as an excuse. To hang around.
He didn’t rearrange his schedule on a whim for anyone, let alone a woman, and yet here he was making up reasons to spend additional time with Noelle Fryberg, a woman he was sure wasn’t one hundred percent happy about the decision. He was breaking his own number one rule and staying where he might not be wanted. All because she made him feel energized and connected in a way no one ever had.
No wonder his stomach felt like it was on a bungee.
CHAPTER FIVE
SOMEONE HAD SHOT off a Christmas bomb. How else could he explain it? Overnight, fall had disappeared and been replaced by poinsettias and tiny white lights. There were wreaths and red bows on doorways and evergreen garlands draped the fascia of every downtown building. It was even snowing, for crying out loud! Big, fluffy flakes straight out of central casting. An inch of the white stuff already coated the ground.
