Page 38 of Charlie Takes a Chance

“Just taking the time to contemplate murder,” I huff out as I tromp through the snow.

He chuckles as if my threats entertain him.

We reach the barn that’s lit up like a beacon, and I try to race past him up the stairs to the hayloft. He starts running up the stairs after me. There’s something slightly heart-pounding about someone running after you. I glance over my shoulder, and Max is right behind me. I trip over my own feet when I hit the top of the stairs.

Max reaches out and catches me around my waist, pulling me back against him. “Be careful. What if you fell off the side?” He grumbles as he moves us away from the edge. I could have easily tumbled off.

“Thanks.” I rest a hand on his bicep and give it a moment of appreciation. Because there are muscles, and then there are muscles, and this man has them both.

“Do you want me to roll up my sleeve so you can feel it better?” He asks with an evil grin. He’s wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt with a vest to keep him warm, making it easy to hold onto his arms.

I push out of his arms and hold up my arm. “I’d hate to embarrass you with mine, so no.”

“Hmmm, not sure that I’d be the one embarrassed…” He leans forward and wraps a hand around my arm, squeezing it through my puffy jacket. The gentle pressure of his fingers sends a tingle up my spine. “Yup, it’s a nice one.”

“Stop it. We’re getting weird.” My breath catches, and I point a finger at him. “No making it weird.”

“You’re the one who was petting my arm.”

“I was not petting it! I was stroking it.” I freeze. What am I even saying? Why can’t I keep a filter on my mouth? It takes too many detours on its own. “Okay, I’ll admit that didn’t make it sound any better.”

My face probably looks like a tomato at this point, so I turn around, slip off my coat, toss it onto the bales, and get to workcarrying the bales to the edge of the hay loft and dropping them into the feed bunks below.

“When are you leaving for Christmas?” Max asks as he tosses a bale, making it look so easy. Yes, I can move them, but it probably looks like a fight for my life for anyone watching me.

“I probably won’t be completely finished by Christmas. I’m going to get everything livable and nice, but there is some work to be done in the laundry room, and one of the rooms upstairs has several holes in the drywall. It's almost like someone punched it over and over again. I told Magnolia I’m going to close up those rooms while they’re here and finish fixing them once they go home.”

“Why aren’t you going to Christmas with your family?”

“I did Christmas with them last year,” I tell him. “Besides, this year it’s at Aunt Lisa’s, and honestly, it’s been kinda weird without Grandpa. I know we’ll eventually settle into some kind of tradition…but it used to be that we would go out and spend time at Grandma and Grandpa’s ranch every Christmas. It was laid back, special. I don’t know. I don’t think Grandma will even go to Christmas this year. She’s floundering without him.”

It’s easier to say that Grandma is floundering without him when, in fact, it’s me. Grandpa always made me feel safe. I could talk to him and Grandma about anything in my life, and they never judged me or made me feel strange. They were the ones I called and spoke to about my high school troubles. As an adult, I’d simply drive to their place and stay the weekend.

“Why don’t you tell your grandma to come here?” Max asks, interrupting my reverie.

I freeze with my hands tucked under the bale strings, ready to lift. Grandma is all alone now. And if I’m not going to drive there to spend Christmas with everyone, whyshouldn’tI bring her here? But it’s the fact that Max thought of it… and is theone suggesting it’s a possibility. “Really? You’d be okay with me bringing my Grandma here?”

“Sure,” Max grunts as he lifts a bale. “There’s that second bedroom in the bunkhouse. She wouldn’t have to climb any stairs or anything.”

“You’re serious,” I say in awe as I lift with my legs and shuffle-walk to the loft's edge to drop it into the feed bunk. Grandma would have no problem climbing stairs, but I think it’s rather sweet he thought of that possibility.

“Sure. I don’t know your grandma, but maybe she needs a change of scenery after losing your grandpa.”

“I—” I clear my throat. “Well, that sounds nice. I’ll call her.”

We work in silence, moving further down the bunk before I get up the courage to ask him, “So, areyougoing home for Christmas this year?”

I don’t know anything about his family. Is he an only child? The youngest of twelve?

“Nope.” He really expanded on that answer—a man of many words, that one.

“Nope? You can’t just leave me hanging like that.”

Max grunts as he picks up another bale. “My brother and his fiancée will be at my parents’ Christmas.”

“Yes, I can see why that would be terrible…” I say as I pause to stretch my back, locking my hands and reaching high in the air. “Why don’t you want to be around your brother and his fiancée?”

Max snorts. “I was dating her this summer.”

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