A Cliché Christmas(11)

An immediate reply: Going to bed. Don’t rush back. :)

Sinking into the couch, I closed my eyes as I took in a big whiff of masculinity: sawdust, leather, and—

“Georgia?”

I jolted awake, heart galloping.

“Were you just drooling on my couch?”

I wiped my mouth, embarrassed by the moisture left on my hand. “Um . . . I was just admiring your sofa. It’s nice . . . for a bachelor, I mean.” Wait, is he a bachelor?

He placed the coffee mugs on the side table and sat in the recliner next to me. “You interested in my personal life, Georgia?”

“No.” The heat creeping up my neck felt like it would set my hair on fire. “Let’s just get this over with.” I picked up the highlighted script and handed it to him. He began reading it immediately.

“This new?” he asked.

“What?”

“This play. Did you just write this?”

How does he know that?

I shrugged, unwilling to tell him more than he needed to know.

“I haven’t seen this one.” He flipped through the pages.

What was that supposed to mean?

Something sparked to life around us—something I wanted to pound until it begged for mercy and died a slow and painful death, but my curiosity won out.

“You’ve seen more than one of my movies?”

“I’ve kept tabs on you, Georgia Cole.” His eyes pierced me through, and I turned my head quickly.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve done the same for you.”

“You knew I moved to Boston.”

“Everyone knew you were headed there after graduation.”

His smile was bold, unyielding. “You’re hardly ‘everyone.’?”

Was he flirting with me? Somehow I didn’t think that was possible.

“Why are you in Lenox anyway?” I pulled my legs underneath me and anchored my elbow on the arm of the sofa. My head felt like it weighed two hundred pounds, and it was getting heavier by the second.

I knew I was getting off topic, but the fogginess in my brain made it nearly impossible to think clearly.

“I moved back after Chad died.”

Leaning my head toward him, I searched his eyes. Such a simple statement, yet I knew it wasn’t. Chad Hart was Willa’s high school sweetheart. They were newlyweds when I left town for LA. They were also the Barbie and Ken of Lenox—molded to love one another.

It was all coming back now, like an old dusty memory. Nan had called me years ago while I was in college to tell me that Chad had died of an aneurysm. But did I know Willa was pregnant at the time? No. Somehow I hadn’t realized that the little girl Nan raved about for the last year was Willa and Chad’s daughter.

“You came home . . . for Willa?” A dull ache radiated in my chest.

He nodded, his face solemn, not a trace of humor or amusement to be found.

“And you never went back?”

“I finished up school in Bend, at Central. I teach shop at the high school.”

If shock didn’t require so much energy, I would have fallen off the sofa. But as it was, Weston’s head was starting to blur into multiples.

“You gave up your scholarship? What about architecture?” I asked, yawning. The steam from my coffee cup had stopped billowing minutes ago, and I hadn’t taken one sip.

He studied my face, and this time I couldn’t break the sleepy trance that washed over me. Or the feeling of calm. My eyelids grew heavy again as my head slid off my hand to rest fully on the padding of my arm.

I felt my hair being brushed away from my face, and then I heard him whisper, “Some things are more important than ambition, Georgia.”





CHAPTER FIVE

I snuggled deeper into the blanket and rolled over, savoring the last few moments of sleepy bliss. Something sweet and familiar was in the air. I breathed it in, my stomach growling in response. Did Nan bake something special for breakfast?

And then I heard a hum.

But it was not a Nan hum.

My eyes snapped open. Oh my gosh . . . Oh my gosh . . . Oh my gosh.

The blanket slid to the floor as I assessed my current surroundings, nausea meeting my gut like a head-on collision.

Weston’s living room.

Please, oh please, let this be a really bad dream.

“You’re awake.”

I wiped under my eyes frantically, trying to remove any trace of raccoon-eye smears before working to right my twisted shirt.

“What time is it?”

“You sound like an old man in the morning.”

“Morning?” I looked out the window. Sure enough, it was dawn. “How could you let me sleep here?”

A freshly showered Weston sauntered toward me. “Hey, calm down Miss Grinch. It’s a little before seven . . . and because friends don’t let friends drive asleep. But let me tell you, you were doing a lot more than sleeping. You were snoring and—”

“And you couldn’t have just woken me up like a normal person? What is wrong with you?” I yanked the hair tie off my wrist and gathered my matted mane into a ponytail. “Nan is probably worried sick.”

“I called her. She’s fine.”

I snorted at his nonchalant response. Typical. Sure, maybe somewhere deep down I could see how this act might seem sweet, or maybe even noble, but not here . . . not with him.