Page 49 of My Favorite Holidate

His lips quirk up. “That so?”

I don’t think.I do. I step closer and run my hands through his perfectly combed, wavy brown hair.

It’s soft.

His hair feels so good.

And his breath seems to hiss out when I’m close like this. When I touch him. When I slide my hands through his soft strands.

“Your hair is…” I swallow the word but then find it again, meeting his gaze. “Nice.”

“Thanks,” he says, his voice raspier than usual. A little gritty too.

Mac’s footsteps rattle on the floor. We step apart, the moment breaking.

Seconds later, Mac flies down the stairs to stop in front of me, a paper snowflake in her hand. “She had a snowflake on her neckline. In the movie pics,” Mac explains.

Right. Of course. I looked them up, too, but I’d figured a red sweater would be sufficient for the costume. Maybe not for an eleven-year-old though.

“Then it’s a good thing you made one,” I say, then I bend so she can pin this makeshift addition to my costume to the neckline. Her tongue’s poking at the corner of her lips as she concentrates. Once she gets it just right, she says, “There.” She steps back, sizes me up, and says, “It’s perfect now. Right, Dad?”

He curls his hand around her shoulder and looks me over. “Beautiful,” he says.

Does he mean the snowflake or me?

Duh. The snowflake. He’s complimenting his kid’shandiwork. “Yes, thank you, Mac. It’s a beautiful snowflake,” I say.

“Thanks. I’m going to make sure we have popcorn,” she says. “So we can watch anything butLove Actuallyduring the shower.”

“Good plan,” Wilder says, and when Mac disappears, presumably into the kitchen, Wilder says to me, “I’ll show you around so it seems like you know the place.”

It’s make-believe, this holiday romance, but it’s not hard to pretend I’m in a fairy tale as he takes me through this castle of a home.

First, there’s the library on this level, which has a few detective novels scattered on a table near a plush green couch. A ladder rests against some mis-shelved middle-grade books, adventure stories, and time travel tales.

“A girl could get lost in here,” I say, admiring the wooden bookcases, then running my fingers across some of the spines.

“Yes, it’s been known to happen with a certain eleven-year-old,” he says wryly.

“Takes after you,” I say.

Stopping at the ladder, he smiles, proud and deservedly so. “She does. But she has an artistic side, too, like her mother.”

“I noticed. Her ornaments are top tier,” I say, then add in a conspiratorial whisper, “can’t help but love her crafty side.”

“You have one as well,” he says. “Our door is going to win.”

I wave a hand. “We’ll see.”

Resting a forearm on the ladder, he nods to my neck. “Your necklace. Did you make it?”

I lift my hand to touch the simple, delicate chain. It’srose gold, with a tiny bow at the throat. “I did. Recycled metal for the chain. And the bow comes from some vintage pieces I sourced at a cool flea market in Darling Springs.”

He lifts a brow, clearly curious. “You do that?”

“Go to flea markets around the state to source materials?”

“Yes.”

---