Page 16 of Embattled Ever After

Alex wanted to lean over and kiss the hell out of him. If anything would give her information, a kiss would. There was no hiding an elemental response like a body’s reaction in such close proximity.

But she didn’t want to rush anything either. She could already tell that Duncan was a little spooked about relationships. He was in his mid-forties and wasn’t attached to anyone significantly, other than the men he worked with. Had he ever been married? Did he have kids? She had a feeling she would learn a lot at the family dinner tonight.

After the talk in the living room when he’d completely shut her down, they’d surfed the net on their tablets for a while. Duncan seemed to be aware he’d kind of derailed the day, so he made up for it by introducing other subjects and trying to keep her distracted. They watched TV and found that they liked a lot of the same things, although he cringed when she stopped at a surgery show.

“I prefer not to see it if I don’t have to,” he admitted.

Alex nodded and they’d moved on to a home rehab show, which they both seemed to like. Duncan had eventually excused himself to go work in his office for a while, and Alex had headed back to her bedroom. She was still a little tired. She wanted to be fresh when she met Duncan’s family, so she set her alarm to wake her up in an hour.

Alex woke refreshed and ready. She took a hot shower and blew her hair into tighter curls, fluffing them to frame her face. Surprisingly, her nerves nibbled at her usual self-confidence. These people didn’t mean anything to her, but she wanted to present herself nicely, just in case something did happen between her and Duncan. Pawing through the clothes she brought, she pulled out a hunter green tunic sweater with gold thread woven through part of the cable. Then a pair of black fleece leggings. They shaped her body nicely and would keep her happy ass warm when they went outside.

Was it too casual? She could put slacks on but they wouldn’t keep her as warm. And she would wear snow boots for this expedition, just in case they ended up in a ditch or something. She slicked on some gloss and penciled on some eyeliner then exited the room, carrying her snow boots to the front door. Duncan looked up when he heard her and Alex was struck again by that feeling that he could be someone important to her.

She’d felt it when Aiden Willingham had denied Duncan’s help, and Duncan had been forced to leave him in the hospital. As he’d been walking away from the hospital room, she’d felt like something was about to go seriously wrong in her life. And now, as she looked at him across the expanse of living room and they got ready to go out together, it felt seriously right.

Duncan had taken care with his appearance as well. He wore a burnt orange quarter zip pullover, a pair of crisp, dark blue jeans and a heavy pair of boots. It looked like he’d just gotten out of the shower too because his hair seemed darker than normal. The silver still shone on the sides, but the darker hair seemed almost black. His glasses were perched on his nose. She walked closer, trying to gauge the mood of the emotions in the room. He seemed a little nervous. Was that because he was taking her to meet his family and he didn’t want them to infer something that wasn’t there?

Stepping toward him, she reached out to straighten the little tab on the pullover. It had twisted. She set it to rights and let her hand rest on his chest for the barest moment. “I wanted to thank you for taking me to your family. Especially on Christmas. This is a treat I don’t get to experience very often.”

His dark eyes softened and he gave her a slight smile. “You may not thank me in a couple hours. My family tends to be…boisterous. And they will infer that we, uh…”

She nodded and stepped back. “They’ll assume we’re a couple? I’ll be sure to set them straight right away.”

Stepping back, she could have grinned when she saw the unsettled frown on his face.Can’t have it both ways, big guy.

“I’ll go out and start the truck and load up the presents. Come on out when you’re ready.”

Planting his cane, he leaned over to grab the big gift bags beside the door and headed toward the kitchen and the garage access door. Alex watched him go, biting her tongue to keep from offering to help. That would only aggravate him.

When Alex had been planning her trip out here, she’d wanted to be prepared, so she’d gone shopping, which had been a thrill in itself. She had a present for Duncan as well as several little generic things that could go to men, women or kids. Glad she’d had the foresight, but hoping she had enough, she settled the bag over her shoulder and grabbed her coat. Glancing out the window she was happy to see that the snow seemed to have finally stopped.

Slipping her snow boots on by the back door, she pulled it shut behind her as she slipped on her coat. The garage wasn’t as cold as outside, but Duncan had opened the overhead door to let out the exhaust from the truck. She was dismayed to see how much snow had piled up against the big door, and now fell in on the clean cement. “Are we going to be able to get through this?”

Duncan glanced at her over the truck. His eyes were glinting with excitement. “Yup. We should be able to. We don’t have too far to go.”

Alex stowed her bag behind the passenger seat of the red truck and climbed in, pulling the seatbelt tight across her body. Then she pulled on a pair of gloves and watched Duncan get into the truck. He pushed the button that shifted the truck into four-wheel drive and backed out of the garage. The truck barely even hesitated as it went up and over the bump of snow and onto the driveway. Duncan backed out into the street, hit the remote to close the garage door, and shifted into drive.

The snowplows had already been through to blade the streets, but everything was still pristine white. The snow-laden Rockies loomed in the distance, a perfect Christmas backdrop.

Duncan pointed out a few landmarks as he drove but Alex doubted she would remember them all. Then he pointed to a long, gray building with a handsomely printed wooden sign out front. Wilde Designs.

“This is your family’s print shop? Very cool.”

Duncan drove past the building and down a couple of side streets, then pulled into the driveway of a dark blue split-level home. Several other trucks and SUVs crowded the driveway, but Duncan managed to squeeze in. Alex worried that the slight incline might be treacherous going for him. Scrambling out of the truck, she grabbed her bag of presents as well as Duncan’s, and circled to the front of the truck. Duncan eyeballed her but didn’t say anything. He looked up the driveway and she could tell it worried him as well.

Obviously the concrete had been scraped, but the residual snow had started to melt as the day warmed. And now, as the sun was going down, things were freezing again.

Alex had no idea how to offer help other than to stand with the bags and follow along behind as he made his way slowly up the drive. At one point his cane slipped and she thought for sure he was going down, but he managed to keep his feet. By the time they made it to the front door Alex was a frightful mess, and not because of meeting the family.

Pushing open the door, he called out a hello. Immediately, a chorus of greetings rang through the house and people started to converge on the two of them.

Alex stood against the wall and tried to stay out of the crush. An older woman with short, curly, steel gray hair was the first to take Duncan into her arms. She gave him a big hug, a kiss on the cheek, then started clucking over him. “You shouldn’t have come out on this, Duncan. We could have waited to see you when the roads cleared.”

“It wasn’t that bad, Mom. The plows have been through.”

“Yes, but your father cleared the driveway and he didn’t do that great of a job.”

“He did fine, Mom. Hey, I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Alex Hartfield. Alex, this is Meredith Wilde.”

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