AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Uncle?” Mrs. James called. “About how old is he? I may be in my nineties, but I’m still a spring chicken.”
Oh. My. God.
This was not at all how I thought Claus would get us away from Mrs. James.
Claus grabbed my arm and pulled me up. He wrapped his arms around my waist, pressing my front to his side, and pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “He’s seventy-nine. All the ladies in the nursing home love him.”
What was happening? Why was this happening?
All I had wanted to do was get my mail that had been piling up the past week, and instead, I was in Claus’ arms while he talked to Mrs. James about getting her a date.
“Oh,” Mrs. James gasped. “A ladies’ man, and I do love a little bit of a competition. Give him my number and tell him to give me a call. Stevie has it.”
“Will do, Mrs. James. Have a nice day,” Claus called.
She shuffled up her walk and back into her house with her shovel in toe.
“What do you suppose she is going to do with that shovel inside?” I asked.
Claus chuckled and squeezed his arm around my waist. “God only knows, sweets. Let’s get inside before she comes back out.”
“You can let go of me.”
He looked down at me but didn’t move his arm. “Do I have to?” he asked.
I blinked three times, trying to figure out what was going on now. “Whenever you are around, Claus, I have no idea what is happening.”
“Keeps you on your toes, Stevie.” His arm dropped from around my waist, but he threaded his fingers through mine and pulled me up the sidewalk.
“I didn’t know I needed to be kept on my toes.”
He pulled me through the front door and tugged the door shut behind us.
I dropped my mail on the table by the front door and looked down at our hands which were still connected. “I think you can let go now.”
He dropped my hand but smirked. “For now,” he muttered. He moved into the living room and slowly looked around. “I see you’ve done some more decorating since I left.”
I had.
I had woken up somehow rejuvenated, even though I had spent the night on the couch with a pillow shoved under my head, thanks to Claus.
“And unpacking,” he observed.
There was a stack of empty boxes by the front door, ready to head out to the garbage.
“Well, I guess I decided to embrace the fact that all of my plans I had have gone away, and it’s time to get on with life.” Though moving away from Mrs. James was appealing now.
“And now you’ve got new plans?” Claus asked.
“Actually, no. Not at all. I think the one thing I learned from all of this is that you can’t plan too much because the universe has a way of making its own plans.” This might explain why Claus was on my couch again because I hadn’t planned for him to come over, and yet here he was. “Don’t you work?” I asked.
Claus smiled. “I do, sweets, but I managed to clear my schedule through Christmas. A perk of being my own boss.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Well, then, don’t you have something better to do than sitting on my couch and hooking up my neighbor with your uncle?” I shuffled through my mail, looking for anything interesting, but it was nothing but bills and junk.
“There are a few things I could be doing right now, but none of those things were as appealing as spending some more time with you.”
I glanced up at him. “I can’t tell if you’re patronizing me or actually serious.”
