A Very Married Christmas: A Silver Bell Falls Holiday Novella(6)

Great. There went her gown excuse.

“I can get the list of all the shops we went to and email it to you,” she continued. “Marie’s a list-maker by nature and I know she’ll have those names handy for anyone who needs them.”

“Thanks, Lisa,” she said, smiling stiffly.

“So what else can I do for the two of you?”

****

It wasn’t as if he was going to do a victory dance just yet, but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that after seeing the barn and hearing of all the options for getting a wedding gown, Melanie would agree to getting married for Christmas.

The drive back to the house had been almost as quiet as the one to the barn. He knew when to hold his tongue and let Melanie think things through.

This was one of those times.

But the suspense was killing him. There were several times while they were walking around the barn when he saw the excitement in her eyes and how much she loved what she was seeing. He also knew she could be stubborn and would need time to reason it all out in her head before agreeing to anything.

“How about Italian for dinner tonight?” he asked as they walked into the house. “I think I can whip up a quick Bolognese sauce if you’re interested.”

Melanie shrugged.

He made his way to the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator and scanned the contents. “We can have a salad and garlic bread with it too.”

“Uh-huh…”

Okay, he’d hit his limit. For the last week he had done his best not to push his agenda on her, but he was getting tired of their stilted conversations. From the moment Melanie Harper had walked into his life, they’d had great chemistry, great banter and could talk for hours on end about everything and nothing at all. He missed that. And especially now when they were in their new home and should be happy and celebrating, he hated how things were strained between them.

And whose fault is that?

Yeah, okay, that one was totally on him. Josiah knew he wasn’t being reasonable about the wedding. After all, it wasn’t like they had to get married this Christmas. He just wanted to. If it had been up to him, he would have married Melanie that very first Christmas they were together—and they had only known each other for less than eight weeks! She was it for him.

Those light blue eyes, her long dark hair, her smile, her laugh…even her stubbornness all made her who she was and he loved her. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and wanted that life to start as soon as possible.

Closing the refrigerator door, Josiah walked across the room to where Melanie was sitting at their kitchen table looking at something on her phone. Without a word, he reached down and carefully pulled her to her feet.

She didn’t say anything—not out loud—but her eyes scanned his face and he read all of her questions there.

Slowly, he pulled her into his arms and rested his forehead against hers. “Hey,” he said softly.

A small smile pulled at her lips. “Hey yourself.”

“I’ve missed you.”

With a slight head tilt, she studied him. “I’m right here.”

“I know but…I feel like we’ve both been a little distant this week and…I hate it. I envisioned our first week in the house being much different.”

“Oh really,” she said as she pressed a little closer. “How so?”

“For starters, I envisioned us talking a lot more,” he explained. “And laughing. And having a lot more sex.”

That last one had her laughing quietly. “I’ll tell you what…”

He instantly perked up.

“How about you give me a few minutes head start and I’ll go draw a bath…”

“Go on…”

“And I’ll add lots of bubbles…”

“Uh-huh…”

“And you can join me and we’ll work on crossing all those things off your list, Sheriff. What do you say?”

His entire body seemed to harden. “I say I’m glad we got a tub big enough for two!”





Chapter Three



The next morning, they were lying in bed and Melanie knew last night had been the perfect—and sexiest—distraction for them, but they needed to talk about the elephant in the room.

Snuggled up beside him under the blankets, she kissed his chest before resting her head back on his shoulder. “We need to talk.”

His arm tightened around her and she felt a light kiss on the top of her head. “I know.”

Confrontation in any form was something Melanie tended to shy away from as much as possible, but this was important and as uncomfortable as she knew it could be, it still had to be dealt with.

So many thoughts tumbled around in her head and yet she couldn’t seem to organize them enough to speak. Luckily Josiah seemed to sense that and spoke first.

“Mel, we took a long time to plan and build this house and it’s everything we ever wanted, right?”

She nodded.

“We talked endlessly about the things we wanted and the details that were important to us. We looked at magazines and websites and watched home shows to get ideas and in the end, we were able to incorporate all the features that we had to have, right?”

She nodded again but had no idea where he was going with this.