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“But it could ruin your chances for a win,” Deidre protested.
Marc and Mari exchanged a significant glance.
“Marc’s right,” Mari said resolutely. “You have enough on your mind as it is without worrying about the outcome of Marc’s race.” When Marc swung his giggling daughter into his arms and changed the subject, Deidre took the hint and didn’t belabor the topic, although she was far from being reassured.
She’d promised to pick up Liam and Natalie’s mail while they were on their honeymoon in Turks and Caicos. By the time Deidre returned to Cedar Cottage later that afternoon, the snow had picked up. It wasn’t enough to make conditions hazardous yet, but Deidre was glad to be getting home.
Would Nick show up here at the cottage to take her to dinner, she wondered as she went into the cottage. He hadn’t called, but that wasn’t too surprising, given the fact she’d never told him her number. She supposed she should, given their strange, probably impermanent partnership at DuBois Enterprises.
She took a hot bath and dressed in a pair of jeans and a favorite soft, cotton cable-knit sweater. To her dismay, she found herself spending way too much time on her makeup, accentuating the color and shape of her eyes with liner and subtle eye shadow. When she realized what she was doing, she irritably threw the makeup in a bag and stalked out of the bathroom.
What was she doing, primping for Nick Malone?
She was convinced she was indifferent to his arrival when a knock came at her door a little after six o’clock.
She was entirely uncaring about seeing him, that is, until she opened her front door and saw him standing on the dim porch, snow dusting his hair and jacket, and holding the trunk of a perfectly shaped, six-foot pine tree and a huge bag from Shop and Save.
“I thought you might like a Christmas tree,” he stated simply.
She blinked in amazement, transferring her gaze from the tree to his face. She was stunned. Had he noticed last night—that flash of longing she’d tried to hide when they’d talked about childhood Christmases? Had he noticed months ago, at The Pines, when she’d conversed with Lincoln?
She knew he had when she looked into his somber eyes, knew it down in her very bones.
“I hope it’s okay,” he said quietly. “What do you say, Deidre? A truce? Just for one night?” he added when she didn’t speak.
She dazedly realized she’d just left him standing there at the front door, gaping at him.
“I...well...all right. I mean...
it is a great tree.” His face lit up at her flustered response. She gave him a sheepish grin. It was hard to frown at Nick when he flashed those dimples.
He gave the pine a good shake to remove the few snowflakes that had settled on the upper boughs.
“One of the reasons I got this one was that it was beneath a canopy and completely dry...at least until I carried it to the car,” he explained, knocking off a last few stubborn flakes with his gloved hand.
Without thinking Deidre stepped forward and brushed snow off his shoulder, going up on tiptoe to swipe her hand through his dark brown hair. The strands felt thick, soft and chilled beneath her fingers. He glanced at her in surprise. His face was close. He had little flecks of black interspersed in the silver-gray of his irises. His lashes were very thick….
She cleared her throat and stepped back, banging her hip clumsily on the door.
“Come in,” she said breathlessly, opening the door wider to make way for Nick and his heartwarming gift, all the while hoping she wasn’t making a huge mistake by letting him into the cottage...by inviting him into her life.
Chapter Three
They set the tree in the front window where it could be easily admired from the rural road and while curled up on the couch before the fire. Deidre busied herself pulling out all the decorations from the bag while Nick arranged the tree in the base.
“Look at these old-fashioned lights! I love these. They’re so retro,” she said, grinning as she withdrew large, colored bulbs from the bag. Nick removed his head from beneath the tree and glanced back at her. She couldn’t help but notice he was awesome to look at, lying on his side with his back to her, his hands beneath the tree, tightening the screws on the base. His body was long, his hips were lean, his thighs strong-looking. His back muscles flexed interestingly beneath the blue-and-white plaid fitted shirt he wore. She dragged her gaze off the vision of his butt outlined in a pair of jeans.
Her cheeks heated when she noticed his strange expression. Had he noticed where she’d been staring?
“What’s wrong?” she asked when he continued to look at her.
“Nothing. It’s just—Lincoln liked that kind of bulb, too. He never gave a damn about new trends. Not when it came to Christmas. He put up an old-fashioned Christmas tree at The Pines—large, colored bulb lights, garland, tinsel...always the biggest, most gorgeous tree on the lake,” he mumbled. He stuck his head beneath the tree again.
Deidre walked toward him, still holding the box of lights.
“Would Lincoln have the staff put up the tree?”
“The staff helped, but Linc was always in the middle of things. He’d make a party of it,” she heard him say from beneath the boughs. “Sasha, Linea, Otto and Linda joined us last year,” he said, mentioning Lincoln’s chef, administrative assistant, driver and one of his nurses. “Linc insisted on being brought downstairs and overseeing things from his wheelchair.”
