The spark of excitement in her eyes went out. She pulled her hand from his, then rolled to her side again and patted the bed near the laptop. “Come over here and show me how smart you are. I really want to see what you can do with this software.”
He stood there, at a loss, while she opened the laptop again. He’d never known a woman who didn’t want to talk when she was upset. It was hard to fathom his need to actually illicit the kind of conversation he’d spent his life avoiding, but he cared about Faith. He cared about her life. He cared about what was upsetting her. And he definitely cared if it involved him.
He sat on the edge of the bed and stretched over her, pressing a hand to the mattress. With his fingers, he pushed the laptop out of reach, threaded his fingers with hers and brought her palm to his lips.
“Are you mad about me going out with Patrick?”
She cut a look at him “No. Of course not.”
Phew. One down. “Did I do something else that made you mad?”
She hesitated. “It’s not your fault.”
But she broke his gaze and tried to pull her hand back.
Bingo.
“Tell me what it is so we can talk about it.” Good Lord, he couldn’t believe those words were coming out of his mouth.
“It’s nothing. It’s petty, stupid small-town bullshit. And it certainly won’t matter to you.” She lifted her gaze to his again and dragged her hand from his to thread her fingers into his hair and pull him toward her. “I really just want you to make love to me so I can forget all about it.”
Make love?
That phrase hit him sideways. He’d never thought about sex in that context. But he didn’t get a chance to think more about it before she opened to him with that hungry kiss again. And the way she used that delicious mouth of
hers made Grant forget everything else. Sweet, sensual, sexual, she’d become one white-hot luscious erotic masterpiece at the speed of lightning.
When she released his hair to pull at his shirt, Grant put the brakes on. He straightened, breaking her grasp. “Talk first. If it’s important enough to upset you, then it’s important to me. I don’t care if it has to do with Aunt Pearl using chicken wire to fence her pigs, talk to me.”
She didn’t even twitch a smile at his chicken-wire joke, and unease fluttered in his gut.
Sighing, she brushed her hand across the bedspread, picking at invisible fuzz while Grant stroked her forearm. “It’s about the Winter Wonderland Festival. I don’t know if you remember much about it when you were a kid, but my dad started it about forty years ago, and he’s run it ever since. Even when he was sick, he got out there...”
She trailed off and blinked back tears. Then shook her head. “Anyway, I was all set with the supplies downstairs, and then Natalie came into the store after I’d closed.”
Grant listened to Faith’s carefully worded, politically correct account of what transpired with Natalie while he’d been enjoying root beer with his brother a block away. But no one knew how to read between the lines like Grant. And he saw Natalie’s visit for exactly what it was—an attempt to wedge her way between him and Faith. A way to make Faith feel inferior. A way to bully her way into a judging position beside Grant. And his teeth were grinding by the time Faith finished the factual details.
“You don’t have any obligation to me,” she said, now tracing the pattern sewn into the solid comforter with darker thread. “We went into this knowing it was temporary. Neither of us was—I mean is—looking for anything long term. So, you know, if you want to date Natalie, that’s up to you.”
“Baby, I don’t—“
“I know it probably seems ridiculously small-town minded to you,” she said, cutting him off with a shake of her head, indicating she didn’t want to talk about his relationship—or lackthereof—with Natalie, “but this is my first Christmas without my dad, and this was his favorite h-holiday.”
Her voice cracked and a surge of tears glistened in her eyes again.
Grant’s throat grew thick. His gut ached. He couldn’t stand to see her hurting.
“I know the town is dressed up for Christmas all year, but Dad truly spent all three-hundred-sixty-four days preparing for both the festival and the ice-carving contest. The way most kids think about Christmas morning, I think of judging that contest with my dad.”
The tears finally slipped over her lashes and slid down her cheeks. Faith sniffled and wiped at one cheek, but Grant rubbed at the other with his thumb before she could get it.
Grant bent over her, collecting her into his arms and cradling her as she cried. With nothing adequate to say, he pressed kisses to her hair instead.
“I’m just not ready to let him go yet,” she said, her voice flooded with tears.
“You don’t have to,” he said quietly, his own throat thick with emotion. “You don’t ever have to let him go, baby. You two shared more love in a year than I’ve had with either of my parents in our entire relationship. Some people just aren’t cut out to love the way you and your father could. Letting go of that, of all those amazing memories, of who you’ve become because of that love, it would be just…tragic.”
For the very first time in his entire life, Grant thought he might have the capacity to love like that, too. If he connected with the right woman. And he was pretty damn sure that woman was curled in his arms.