Sophie winced, and for a brief second, Cole wished he could take back his blunt words, that he could give in to the desire to be his friend shining so clearly in her lovely eyes.
“I, well, I thought…never mind what I thought. If that’s how you feel—” She paused, swallowed, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she was fighting back tears.
Yeah, he was a real piece of work and deserved the guilt shredding his insides. Guilt that he’d allowed today to happen without realizing what it meant to her. He’d been trying to get their obligations over with, and instead Sophie had thought they were becoming buddies.
“Then fine, we won’t be friends. But for the record,” she lifted her chin, “you are missing out, just like that silly cat is, because I’m a great friend.”
Cole suspected she was, but he was determined not to find out firsthand. Just like the cat, he didn’t need her to come along and try to rescue him. Some things were beyond rescuing.
Sophie couldn’t fix the parts of him that were broken.
Chapter Six
The Friday before Thanksgiving, Sophie backstitched her seam, clipped the thread, then pulled the material from the sewing machine and looked at what she’d sewn. Perfect scant quarter-inch seams bound the two pieces of fuzzy red material together. There. She was done with the Santa suit.
She shook the material and smiled at how well it had turned out. The pants should fit him perfectly, as should the coat. He’d be a dashing Santa.
Cole was pretty much a dashing everything.
Groaning at the thought, Sophie changed the thread in her machine over to navy, then picked up two pieces of precut navy material. Over and over, she sewed pieces together, adding them to a growing stack. Soon, she’d press the pieces and start combining them together into a quilt of stars and stripes—the best design she’d ever created. Every block needed to be perfect, as she’d likely use it for a prototype block-of-the-month at some point in the future.
The bold colors and design would have been perfect for Cole if he’d ever let her award a quilt to him. She still held out hope that one day, he’d accept it.
Even if he didn’t want to be her friend.
What a mix the man was. Dark and deep, but with a sense of humor that would come out at the oddest moments. During the times he’d dropped his guard, she’d enjoyed delivering the boxes with him and had been thoroughly disappointed he’d rejected her friendship. Again.
She knew why, of course. He was embarrassed that she’d pried into his personal thoughts without his permission. Not that she could have gotten his permission beforehand since she’d only read the journal in the first place to find out whose it was.
Sophie had a sewing machine in her bedroom; an old-fashioned Singer model that had belonged to her grandmother. It had seen many hours of use over the decades. Prior to the shop closing, she’d started sewing on the Santa suit, then the quilt, and hadn’t wanted to quit to go home even long after Isabelle had locked up and headed out.
She stood, stretched her arms over her head, then behind her back, rolling her shoulders several times. She should’ve stopped to stretch more. She tried to maintain good body mechanics and habits, but sometimes, she got so caught up in what she was doing she didn’t notice how much time had passed and would sew to the point of all her joi
nts going stiff.
Like tonight. It was nearly eleven. She’d have to be quiet when she snuck into the house.
She packed her supplies and stowed them in their bag. No need to bring it home with her as she wouldn’t be doing any more sewing tonight.
Her gaze fell on the Santa suit. She’d leave it here, as well, and have Cole pick it up. After all, he’d insisted her repairing it was a business transaction. So she’d be all business.
She set the alarm, stepped outside the front of the shop, then locked the deadbolt. The night air was brisk, and she wished she’d brought a heavier jacket with her that morning. Thankfully, her walk home would take less than ten minutes.
Despite the chill and her rumbly belly from being too busy sewing to remember dinner, she paused to admire the courthouse across the street, majestic as the center of the square and the town. The entire square was well lit, displaying picturesque lampposts and streetlights and Christmas decor, but the courthouse always seemed so grand with the lights shined upward illuminating the flag whipping in the wind.
Pride filled her at the sight of her hometown. She loved Pine Hill so much.
Unable to resist, she pulled her cell phone from her bag and snapped a photo of the building with its haloed-in-light flag, planning to post it on the shop’s social media page the following morning, then slid the phone into her back pocket.
She was still thinking about how pretty downtown looked when it was decorated for Christmas as she exited the commercial district and rounded the corner to the residential street where she lived. As with the square, her neighbors took Christmas seriously and almost every house already boasted festive lights. A few had big, blow-up decorations filling their yards, and Christmas trees twinkled from inside windows.
Despite the chill nipping at her, Sophie smiled at the pretty scenery around her. All that was needed was Santa to make the night complete. Santa Cole, that is.
“Meow.”
Oh, no. Guilt hit Sophie, and she stopped walking and looked around for the yellow cat. Her belly wasn’t the only thing she hadn’t fed that evening. No doubt the poor thing wondered why she hadn’t given him dinner yet.
But where was he?