Wrapped Up In Christmas

“That best being the ornament hunt?”

“The ornament hunt, the parade, the tree-lighting ceremony, the booth sales, the games, the sleigh ride.” She let out a happy sigh. “I’m glad you came with me. Very glad.”

“Me, too,” he surprised her by saying and by moving his hand over hers and giving a gentle squeeze.

Sarah’s gaze dropped to where his hand held hers, then lifted back to his eyes, seeing that something more she’d been searching for earlier.

That something that said he felt the connection between them just as she did.

That maybe she wasn’t the only one struggling to pull the cold December air into her lungs.

“Sarah, I—”

“Wow. You two have been busy,” Rosie exclaimed, coming back to the booth and breaking up whatever magic had been stirring in the air. “The trees are the prettiest I’ve ever seen.”

Immediately, Bodie’s hand dropped and he stepped away from Sarah and the tree.

“I was just telling Bodie the same thing,” Sarah said as she rearranged the ornament where their hands had been and fought disappointment at how quickly Bodie’s gaze had become shrouded, at how lonely her hand felt without his near.

At how much she wanted to know what he’d been about to say, to do.

Internally, she groaned at Rosie’s timing.

But maybe it had been for the best. For a second, she’d gotten caught up in the moment. She had actually been wishing she and Bodie could become something more than what they were. That he’d choose to stay in Pine Hill, to date her and see what developed between them. But that was ridiculous. Of course Bodie didn’t want to stick around. There was nothing in Pine Hill to draw someone so worldly.

She already knew she wasn’t reason enough for someone to stay.

Catching on that she must have interrupted something, Rosie looked back and forth between them. Sarah prayed her friend would use discretion with what she said.

Rosie just smiled and talked about the tree and how all the other booths were coming together.

Maybelle and Claudia came up, both of them carrying a cup in each hand.

“We brought hot chocolate to keep you warm during the ornament hunt.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said, taking the steaming cup although she couldn’t say she felt cold, thanks to the outdoor heater running beneath the booth checkout table. Anyone visiting their booth that evening would get a reprieve from the outdoor chill.

Or maybe it was the memory of Bodie holding her hand that warmed her insides.

“Harvey Farms is doing sleigh rides again this year,” Ruby informed them unnecessarily as she joined them. “Charlie’s over with them now lining up a ride for us later in case they sell out again.” She sighed. “Cuddling up next to him in the sleigh is my favorite memory from last year.”

Sarah loved the addition of sleigh rides to the On-The-Square Christmas Festival. For the past few years, she’d wanted to go, had always thought a sleigh ride as something super romantic and straight from a fairy tale. Richard had thought the sleigh rides a silly waste of money and had refused to go even when Sarah had offered to pay. She should have known right then and there that he wasn’t the man for her.

How had she ever thought he was?

Thinking back, maybe she had known all along that she and Richard weren’t really meant to be. She just hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that Richard hadn’t been right for her.

Why? For fear of being alone?

No, she wasn’t afraid to be alone. Maybe it was more that she’d been so anxious to have what her parents had had before her mother died, what Ruby and Charlie had enjoyed for fifty-plus years.

But maybe that life wasn’t for her. Maybe she was meant to live alone, as Aunt Jean and Maybelle had done.

She glanced toward Bodie, wondering what he thought of sleigh rides. He was leaving. Soon. Yet the idea of a going on a sleigh ride with him, with him looking at her the way he’d been doing moments before, appealed far more than it should.

Sliding an empty box that had held ornaments under a table, Bodie didn’t seem to be thinking about sleigh rides or their moment at all.

When he straightened, he slid his hands into his jean pockets. “Anything else you need me to do before we head to the ornament hunt?”