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Anna Beth squealed and spun around to find Jared stepping onto the porch behind her, still shrugging into his jacket.
“Yes, but so are you! Between freaky Santa and your silent tread, I’m about to have a heart attack.”
The flashing lights from Santa’s eyes illuminated the sheepish expression on his face. “Sorry, I wanted to check on you. I finished my part of the cleanup and mom said you weren’t feeling well. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine. Really. Just got a little overwhelmed.” Santa started going off again and Anna Beth waved her hand. “Can you exorcise him?”
Jared chuckled. “I think I know a prayer or two for evil Santa’s.”
He went around the back of the moving animatronic and she laughed as Santa’s hand chopped at him, nearly catching him on the side of his head. He ducked out of the way and after a moment of fiddling around behind Santa, the robot finally stopped moving. His eyes dimmed slowly and Anna Beth sighed with relief.
“Thank goodness. Fair warning, if I come back to visit your family again, Santa’s gonna die.”
“Shhh, don’t say that too loud or you might upset mom. She loves that awful thing.” Jared came up alongside her and leaned his forearms on the porch railing. “So, was it our incessant need to outdo each other or the amount of decorations we have to hang that sent you out here?”
Anna Beth appreciated his light hearted approach to probing her for information. Jared had always been good about getting to the bottom of what was bothering her without pushing too hard. Funny how time apart hadn’t changed that.
“Honestly, I forgot how crazy your family can get, but it really had little to do with them and more what’s going on inside my own head.”
“I think you’re being too nice. You can admit we’re nuts and I promise not to hold it against you.”
Anna Beth leaned on the railing next to him, their shoulders brushing. “Not, it’s...being around your family is great. It just makes me miss having a family of my own.”
“I understand that feeling.” She looked over at him in the moonlight. He stared off into the dark, lost in the past. “When I first moved in with the Jeffries, I’d never had a festive Christmas before. Traditions, presents, food that didn’t come out of a microwave...it was overwhelming. I ran off and hid for hours. Mike finally found me in his shop. He wasn’t mad. He just asked if I felt like coming back or if I needed another minute. I took another half an hour and when I came out of his shop, Mike stood there, waiting on me. It’s a heady feeling to go from no one giving a shit about you to a huge group.”
“You never told me that.” Anna Beth rested her hand on his arm.
Jared shrugged. “Guess it just never came up. I know I’m lucky and, given everything you’d lost, I suppose I never thought you’d want to hear how I spent my first Christmas in a shed, instead of with a family who cared about me.”
Anna Beth wasn’t really sure what to say. Had he really thought she was so self-involved that she wouldn’t listen to his worries and fears?
“I always cared about your feelings, Jared.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. You were a good friend.” Anna Beth’s stomach pitched at his use of the past tense, but she couldn’t hold it against him. He turned toward her and she could feel his eyes sweep over her face. “What about you, A.B.? How are you feeling now?”
The warm way her old nickname fell from his lips sent her stomach into a fit of somersaults and she nearly told him everything. Her anxiety attack. Feeling lost and alone. Thankfully, the lump in her throat stopped her from spilling her guts. She’d already broken down in front of this man once tonight, she wasn’t quite ready to do it again.
“I’m fine.” She pushed away from the railing and let out a breath, making a large O with her mouth. Anna Beth rubbed her upper arms and changed the subject. “It’s awfully cold. Think it will snow?”
Jared pulled out his phone and tapped on the screen for a few seconds. “The weather app on my phone says no, but it’s been wrong before. We were supposed to get eight inches last night and nothing.”
“Huh, that’s interesting.”
“Is it?” She caught Jared’s grin out of the corner of her eye as he put his phone away. “I always thought the weather was something people ta
lked about when they had nothing to say.” He cleared his throat as he stepped closer to her. “Or too much to choose from, in our case.”
The Christmas lights cast colorful shadows across his face as he leaned closer, his warm breath whispering across her skin.
“I’ve missed you, A.B.”
His proximity and scent made her dizzy and against her will, her body leaned toward him. More than anything she wanted to let him hold her and chase the clouds away.
But she didn’t want to give him the wrong impression, no matter how good it may feel.
Her hands came up to rest on his chest. “Jared…”
“Yeah?”
