Page 35 of Carpenter's Christmas Bride

“Absolutely,” she called back to Aidan.

The door opened all the way, and Aidan stepped in, his neutral expression turning into a frown when he spotted Mal on the sofa beside her.

“I didn’t want to make you get up,” he said defensively.

“I’m the one that told you to just knock and come in,” Kenzie reminded him with a friendly smile. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m excited to be able to get back to training.”

“We won’t finish today,” Aidan warned her, his frown still firmly in place.

“I know,” she told him. “But we’ll be one day closer, right?”

“Hey, I grabbed your tools,” another male voice said from outside.

“Bring ‘em in,” Aidan said, stepping inside to make room for the other man to come in with what he was carrying.

Kenzie could feel Mal tensing up beside her. She turned to her friend to see what was going on.

“Declan Hawkins,” Mal murmured, as if she were in a trance.

“Hey, Mallory,” Declan said lightly as he entered with two massive tool bags, his muscular arms straining the limits of his red and black flannel.

Mal looked like she was melting.

Kenzie tried not to smile at her friend’s obvious crush.

“Hi,” Mal squeaked, leaping up and scrambling for the door before seeming to remember her best friend was still on the sofa. “See you tomorrow, Kenzie.”

“Oh,” Declan said, looking after her in a confused way. After a moment, he shook his head with a little half smile and crouched over one of the bags, looking through it for something.

Declan Hawkins had been the head of the popular crowd in high school, but a little before Kenzie’s time. Back then, he was on the football team and the honor roll, and he’d been voted the head of the student union. Even now he carried himself like a leader, though he had taken over his father’s local roofing business when the older man got hurt, instead of going off to conquer the world like everyone expected.

And the fact that Kenzie knew that much about him ought to have clued her in to Mal’s crush. Mal had been catching her up about people in town, but why a roofer who they hadn’t even been in school with?

Kenzie figured Declan and Mal had something in common, with both of them sticking around when others had moved on. And they both seemed really happy running their own businesses right here in town.

“We’re going to start carrying in the mirrors,” Aidan said, interrupting her train of thought. “You can stay in here if you want, but you’ll have to stay really still and try not to distract us. Those big sections of glass are heavy and dangerous.”

She noticed he was being gentler than before, and making eye contact too.

“Uh, I’ll just go in the kitchen for a while,” she told him, feeling her cheeks heat as she scrambled for her crutches and tried to grab the small stack of books.

“I’ve got them,” he told her brusquely, grabbing the books from the table.

She died a little inside as he looked at the cover of the one on top. It featured a holiday scene with a man and a woman embracing, a little boy standing beside them, holding the man’s hand, with a big smile on his little face.

Seriously, Mal? I get it that you’re trying to tell me something with this book. But how could you leave me with it when he’s right here?

Clearing his throat, Aidan wrapped a big hand around all of the books in an obvious ploy to make it look like he hadn’t noticed that cover. But the truth was written all over his face.

Kenzie swung herself off to the kitchen on her crutches, feeling grateful for once that Aidan kept up such a firm wall between his thoughts and his conversation.

When she reached the kitchen, she headed to the little window seat overlooking the front yard. She had spent plenty of time here curled up with a book over the years while her mother cooked or talked on the phone with her friends, sipping endless cups of hazelnut coffee and sounding alternately like an advice columnist and a gossip columnist. Kenzie was never sure if she learned more about life from the books she was reading, or her mother’s frank revelations.

At any rate, scooting into the pleasant space now made her feel more relaxed again. After all, she was free to read what she wanted and it was unlikely that Aidan would say anything about it.

“You like these books?” he muttered as he handed them to her.

Gobsmacked, she stared at him for a moment, wondering what had gotten into her stoic new friend.

---