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Chapter 14
~ AVA ~
There’s a crackling fire in my fireplace, the tree is illuminated with the soft glow of lights, and the smell of chocolate pecan pie hangs low and thick in the air.
It is, quite possibly, the best Christmas Eve I’ve enjoyed since my son started celebrating Christmases at his dad’s.
I watch as Harris pours the pecan mixture into the homemade pie crust.Then he begins arranging a top layer of pecans just like I showed him with the previous pie we made tonight.
“Maybe you should tell me more about these friends of yours that I’m meeting tomorrow,” I suggest.
He chuckles.“If I told you too much about them, then you might cancel on me.”
“Promise I won’t.”I cross my heart with my fingertip—my heart that seems to pick up in pace every time I think about going to his friends’ house for Christmas dinner.
I don’t know why.Meeting new people hasn’t been a sufficient cause for me to get nervous for a long time.
I remember when I was sitting in the waiting room during my son’s first surgery with my heart literally in my throat, pulse thundering.I remember how I felt sitting there in the hard chair, waiting for word from the doctors, and how eerie the room looked to me—the fluorescent lights seeming even brighter with my state of lightheadedness.
In that moment, I thought I’d never be nervous again unless it was for something of the same magnitude.
Yet here I am, feeling anxious each time I think about tomorrow.
It’s silly.I shouldn’t care what they think of me or whether I’ll manage to say all the right things.But for some inexplicable reason, it does matter.
“Okay.Well, you already know Mason, and you probably saw Freya hanging around his place when he lived next door because she remembers you and Nicholas.He’s still a SEAL, but he just got stationed at the Pentagon for a couple years.That’s why they’re living so close by.They bought a townhouse in DC.It’s nice; I’ve visited them a few times.”
“And the others?”
“There’s Graydon.He’s a SEAL too.He got married to Hailey just before I moved here.You’ll like Hailey.She’s crazy-smart.Then Carson is the oldest.I can’t remember his wife’s name.But she calls him by the name his Teammates gave him, Stein.So it gets kind of confusing.He was in Delta.”
“Delta?”
“Delta Force.Army.But he got out recently.I think they’ve got a B&B or something, though I’m not sure.Natasha!”he adds suddenly.“That’s his wife’s name.Then finally there’s Colt.He’s a teacher in New York City.”
“No kidding?And he’s the only one who wasn’t in the military?”
“Oh, he was.He was an Army Ranger.Can’t remember why he got out, but he seems pretty happy now.His wife’s name is Max.She’s funny.Really scarily blunt.I think I like her the most because you never have to wonder what she’s thinking.”
“Unlike Freya.”
He laughs.“Actually, wealwaysknow what’s on Freya’s mind.She’s a romance author, so it’s like she’s always writing scenes for her next book in her brain.You can practically see it in her eyes.And we’re all characters she likes to manipulate.”When he finishes, giving the bowl one final scrape with a rubber spatula, he adds, “But she means well.”
He lifts the spatula to his lips, but I swat it away.
“Hey—there are uncooked eggs in that mixture,” I warn him.
He shakes his head, setting down the spatula.“You moms are no fun.”
“Salmonella poisoning is no fun.”
He bends over to meet his lips to mine and I don’t resist.How could I?He looks like heaven here in my kitchen, in his slightly too-tight Henley shirt with an apron that I forced on him wrapped around his waist.
So I lift my chin, eagerly accepting the kiss he offers me.
“What was that for?”I ask, breathless when our lips part.
“For saving me just now.It’s not something that happens often to a guy like me.Usually, it’s the other way around.”
