Wrapped Up In Christmas

“You think I’m afraid of you?”

“Terrified,” she teased, waving her brush at him. “You know if you come closer, I’ll have you wearing Seafoam Green all over.”

He shouldn’t have done what he did next. Lord knew he’d been taunted in the past with lots worse than wearing a shade of paint. Taunts he hadn’t given in to.

But he gave in to Sarah and grabbed hold of her arms, gently removing her paint brush from her hands while she squirmed, squealed, and tried to keep him from doing so.

Amidst laughter, hers and his, he got the brush from her.

“You wouldn’t,” she accused when he wielded the brush toward her.

“I’m going to.”

She backed up, bumping against the bare wall they were supposed to be painting. Her eyes were big, but not with fear. Excitement shone brightly in them.

Her lips parted. “I have really sensitive skin. I’ll probably break out if you do and then be all rashy during Christmas. Please don’t.”

Bodie hesitated, studying her. Was she telling him the truth?

Just as he was deciding she might be, she grabbed the brush out of his hand.

“Ha. Gotcha,” she claimed, doing a little happy dance while hiding the brush behind her back.

“I guess you did.” He laughed, acknowledging that he’d been played. “You know, I’m not sure you helping paint is getting me closer to being done.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it’s a lot more fun this way.”

“That it is.”

Chapter Six

“Oh, Christmas candy canes!”

At Sarah’s good-girl substitute for swearing coming from somewhere else in the house, Bodie glanced up from where he was sealing the tile in Aunt Jean’s suite.

Grateful his hip and leg held up after his extended time squatted on the shower floor, and that his body was getting stronger and stronger each day, he straightened to check out his work. When he had made sure everything was up to par, he went to see what had frustrated her.

“Please answer,” she said, while flipping through a stack of mail on the kitchen island countertop. Was she talking to him? To Harry?

The dog might have stayed constantly at his side at Lukas and Kelly’s, but Harry had a thing for Sarah. These days, the dog was as likely to be found lying at her feet as at Bodie’s.

He didn’t blame him. Sarah was entertaining.

Like her jolly expletive moments before.

Cellphone to her ear, she turned toward him as he entered the kitchen, which was where she spent most of her time. Whether cooking or crafting, working on her special projects or poring over the internet for bed and breakfast ideas, she preferred the room she’d made into her dream kitchen.

No

wonder. The room was an extension of her. Warm, cozy, inviting, functional, productive, happy.

He wasn’t exactly sure how a room could be happy, but this one was. Although he found the room uplifting, it was also a stark reminder of just how much he contrasted with everything about Sarah.

“Oh, sorry,” she lowered the cellphone and pushed a button to hang up on whomever she’d been trying to reach. She set the phone down on the kitchen island. “You heard that?”

He nodded.

“I forget how good your hearing is.”