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“Will you sing along?”
“I’d love to. Do you have any sheet music?”
“I don’t.”
“Then how do you play?”
“I can play most songs from memory,” he said.
“How?”
Alec shrugged uncomfortably. “I have a head for numbers and a very good memory.”
She just looked at him a moment and shook her head. “Gorgeous and brilliant. You’re the total package, Lord Sherbourne.”
He grimaced, but his eyes were twinkling. “As well as grumpy and arrogant and all of those other things you called me.”
“I say it with love.”
“Really?” he mocked. “So what should we sing?”
“Are you going to sing with me?”
“I think I should, just in case you can’t carry a tune.”
Cara laughed, and still laughing, she leaned against Alec. “You’re wonderful. I hope you don’t mind that I like you.”
He turned his head, met her gaze, his expression serious, but warm. “I like you, too,” he said quietly. “I don’t think I’ve enjoyed Christmas this much ever.”
“In that case, how about something simple, just to see if I can remember the words.”
“‘Away in a Manger?’ That’s fairly simple.”
She nodded. “I do know the words to that one.”
He played a few keys, and Cara began singing, and she’d expected Alec to join her but he didn’t.
When the song ended, he looked at her, amazed. “You can sing.”
“I said I can sing.”
“But you have a real voice.”
She blushed. “I like singing. I wanted to be in the choirs at school, but I couldn’t, not playing all the sports I did.”
“What one would you like to sing next?”
“My mom’s favorite. ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel.’”
Alec nodded and began playing. Cara started singing and closed her eyes, picturing her family at home, and her mother preparing for Christmas, and she felt a rush of gratitude for all the things she’d been taught, and a mother’s love that had been strong and constant. She was lucky to have parents who were always there for her, and brothers and a sister who always rallied around her. She’d never been alone, and she’d never known true loneliness, not like Alec. And when she finally ended, she was so full of emotion, and so full of love, that there were no words.
As his fingers stilled on the keys, he turned to her and her heart turned over and over. She had fallen for him and wanted nothing more than more time with him.
“I think this has been my favorite part of Christmas,” he said quietly. “I could listen to you all night.”
She smiled at him, smiled hard to hold back the tears. His aunts were wrong. He would fall in love again one day. He just hadn’t met the right person yet. Or maybe, just maybe, she might be the right one. Why not? Why couldn’t she hope?
Who said you couldn’t fall in love in six days?
