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“Did you really fly across an ocean to talk about your mother?”
His eyes glittered. “I think you know the answer to that question.” He glanced at his prime cut of beef with displeasure. “Would you mind if we get out of here?”
“It’s an expensive meal.”
“I don’t give a damn about how much it cost. I was wrong to bring you here. Please tell me you live close by. And that you’ll let me come home with you to get in out of the cold.”
Her heart fizzed. “I have pizza in the freezer.”
“Good.”
“But no guest room.”
“I suppose that could be good or bad depending upon your perspective.”
The little flutters that had started in her stomach filled her chest now. “My car is still at work.”
“I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”
They rose in silence. Ian tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table and anchored it with the candleholder.
The waiter rushed over aghast. “Is there a problem with the meal, madam? Sir?”
Bella smiled at him dreamily. “It was delicious, but we’ve decided it might be dangerous to linger any longer… the snow, you know.”
“A takeout container,” the employee offered desperately, clearly worried that his Yelp score was going to tumble.
Bella went up on tiptoe and gave the startled older man a kiss on the cheek. “Merry Christmas. The meal was fine… wonderful, even. We’ve just discovered somewhere we need to be.”
* * *
Ian brought the Range Rover around to the front door of the restaurant, half afraid Bella might have disappeared in the short time he had been gone. Clearly miracles really did happen at Christmas, because his beautiful, sometimes aggravating date was standing right where he had left her.
Snow fell more heavily now, the accumulation startlingly deep already. Bella was wearing flimsy flats. He scooped her into his arms and carried her the short distance to the passenger seat. When she was settled, he closed her door, loped around the car, and slid behind the wheel.
The storm had set in with a vengeance. Visibility was incredibly bad, particularly since he had to concentrate with all his might to stay on the correct side of the road. It wasn’t easy with Bella at his elbow.
She gave him directions calmly, apparently unfazed that they had walked out on a fancy-ass dinner and were close to being stranded in a blizzard.
“How much farther?” he asked hoarsely.
“Two more blocks to the next light. Then right on Barker Street. Last house at the end of the cul-de-sac. We don’t have my car, so I’ll run inside and open the garage.”
He didn’t like that idea. What if she decided to lock him out? But he didn’t have a better suggestion.
The directions were spot on. When he pulled up in her driveway, Bella hopped out before he could protest. Immediately, she was swallowed up in the veils of snow.
The moments between the time she got out of the car and the instant the garage door started to go up were some of the longest of Ian’s life. He pulled forward carefully. When he shut off the engine, Bella was waiting for him, standing on the top step that led into the house.
His overcoat was covered in rapidly melting snowflakes.
“Take it off,” Bella said, watching him brush the moisture from his sleeves. “I have a coat rack here by the door.”
He followed her inside, looking around with interest. Her house was small and old, but everything from the gleaming hardwood floors to the kitchen appliances to the double-paned windows had been immaculately updated. “When did you buy this place?” he asked. “It’s charming.”
“It’s a rental. I’ve been here for almost two years now while I worked on my degree.”
“I see.”
