Page 58 of All I Want For Christmas

Grabbing a handful of loose snow, she tossed it at him, but it just blew back all over her, coating her hair, her eyelashes, her lips. “Crap!”

“Ah, poor baby.” She looked so cute and cold, Christian squatted down and brushed her hair and shoulders clean. He leaned in to kiss her.

And ate snow instead. Her eyes danced as she laughed, and Christian blinked at her, a mass of snow crammed into his mouth.

“It was just too easy.”

Christian spit out snow and shook some off of his nose. Damn, he loved her sass. “Good one. Now get in the car before I throw you in the snow plow pile. You’ll sink to the bottom and no one will find you for a week.”

As he helped her to her feet, she said, “Liar.”

“Only on Christmas.”

She laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I’m pretty ridiculous.” Christian smacked the bottom of Blue’s jeans.

“Hey.” She swatted at his hand.

“I’m getting the snow off.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We should make a snowman,” Blue said, glancing around the parking lot.

Christian didn’t want to make a snowman. He was suddenly understanding her earlier sense of urgency. If this was it, it almost seemed better to walk away now, before it got worse. He was afraid the more time he spent with her, the more he was going to argue with her about why she should spend the night with him.

“We should go.”

“I’ve never made a snowman before,” she said, looking back even as she obediently started following him to the car.

Shit. “Never?”

“No.”

Christian fell just a little bit harder for this beautiful badass woman who had never gotten presents and had never made a snowman.

“Then let’s make a snowman. But first…

Christian reached into his car and pulled out some gloves. “Put these on. Your hands are beet red. Then we’ll make a killer snowman.”

Blue was constantly amazed at Christian, how thoughtful, kind, easy to be with he was. She had expected he would ignore her request, given that she had been rushing him out before, but he just gave her one of those searching looks then agreed. Just like that. Even dredging up gloves for her. Maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was more than anyone had done for her before.

As she followed his lead as he rolled a ball of snow across the parking lot, accumulating more snow with each roll, she blew her hair out of her eyes and promised herself she would just enjoy the moment, not feel sorry about the past or for the future. Right now, she just wanted to feel the snow on her face, and appreciate what Christian had done for her, that she hadn’t spent the night alone.

“By the way,” she told him. “Thank you.”

“For what?” He brought his ball to a stop. “Here, roll yours over. It’s about the right size.”

As she struggled to maneuver the ball of snow three feet, her shoes slipping, she told him, “For everything. For not leaving me on the side of the road. For driving me to Lexington.”

“You’re welcome.”

Her ball of snow reached his. She stopped and looked up at him from her awkward half-bent position. “And for last night.”

But he shook his head. “You don’t need to thank me for that. It was definitely my pleasure.” He worked his jaw, glancing out at the road. “Blue, are you sure you don’t want to come to dinner?”

She wasn’t sure at all of anything, really. But she knew it wasn’t fair to him to pretend that they could be something they weren’t. It wouldn’t be fair to disrupt his Christmas with his family, and God knew, she didn’t want to feel like the holiday orphan everyone felt sorry for.

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