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She pressed her lips together as if savoring the kiss. “Right.”
He bit back a groan and opened her door. She stepped up and inside; he slammed the door after her and turned. At least six people were openly staring at them. “Christ,” he muttered and headed to his side of the truck.
He’d kissed the hell out of her in the open at one in the damn afternoon on a Sunday. Everyone and their mother was in town for something.
He got in beside her and put the truck in gear. Their trip to the market was uneventful, though there was definitely more staring. Kendall didn’t seem to notice or at least didn’t seem to care.
She seemed to know everyone, introducing him to so many people his brain was buzzing with names and faces. By the time he got them back to the house, he was ready to shut himself in the shop and blast his music.
Instead he hauled in the tree and placed it in the tree stand. Another twenty minutes of adjustment and he’d finally earned himself a beer.
Lily surveyed the room with a satisfied nod. “You outdid yourself, Kendall.”
“I know. Isn’t it beautiful? Brandon held it for me.”
“Oh, did he now?”
“Enough, Mom.”
Shane sipped his beer, then let it dangle from his fingers. “I’d like to hear this.”
“No, he would not.”
Now that Lily had an attentive audience, her cherubic face lit up, and her dark eyes danced. “Brandon’s always been sweet on my Kendall.”
“Sweet on me? Mom, we don’t live in the Deep South.”
“What else would you call it? The boy moons over you.”
“Yeah, he does,” Shane muttered.
Kendall rolled her eyes, then turned and fisted her hand on each hip. “That’s why you called me Sunshine at the tree lot.”
Shane took a lazy sip of his beer. “You put a lot of importance on a nickname, babe.”
Her cheeks flushed, and she looked to the left of him at her mother, then spun back to the tree. “We’ll let the tree soak up some water and the branches fall. We can trim the tree tonight, Mom.”
“Do you want to come over and help us, Shane?”
Shane looked down at Lily. “I’ve got some work to do in the barn.”
“That’s too bad. We watch bad movies and have a lot of fun.”
He drained his bottle. The urge to say yes surprised him, but he didn’t want to get in the middle of any traditions they had. Besides, they probably watched schmaltzy movies.
He hadn’t had a family Christmas tree since he was a boy. Larry had people come in and do the tree at the house. It was classic and beautiful, but it was more of a necessity for the showcase house than any love Larry had for the holiday. He cleared his throat. “We’ve got to go finish the porch.”
“Right.” Kendall tugged on an oversize flannel shirt that hung around her hips and a pair of stretchy gloves before slipping out the door.
Following her outside, he came to a stop to assess the porch in the late-day sun. He’d been steadily going through the money from his job with Doyle. Lumber wasn’t cheap, but he was able to buy most of it in bulk. Doing the labor himself helped keep the cost down.
Her idea to stain the porch was a good one. Especially after he made adjustments to a few of the warped boards. They could stain it in the spring—
Hell. How did he know he’d be there in the spring? They might sell by then.
He scrubbed his hand through his hair. It was getting longer now, the buzz cut grown out over his ears and sticking up in the front by the end of the day. He dug a knit cap out of his back pocket and pulled it on.
She looked up at him, her dark eyes shining. “Aww, is California boy not fond of the cold?”
