Page 14 of The Holiday Gift

“Louisa. Barrett,” she called. “I’m leaving. Come give me a hug.”

All the children, not only her two, hurried down the stairs to join them.

“You look beautiful, Faith,” Addie exclaimed. “What a cute couple you guys are. Wait. Let me get a picture so I can show my friends.”

She pulled out the smartphone he didn’t think she needed yet and snapped a picture.

“Oh! What a good idea,” Celeste said. “I want a picture, too.”

“We’re just going to a Christmas party. It’s not the prom,” Faith said. Her color ratcheted up a notch, especially when Aunt Mary pulled out her phone as well and started clicking away taking pictures.

“I’m posting this one,” her aunt declared. “You both look so good. In fact, you better watch it, Chase, or you’ll have about a hundred marriage proposals before the night is over. My friends on social media can be a wild bunch.”

Faith’s cheeks by now were as red as the ornaments on the tree. This was distressing her, and though he didn’t quite understand why, it didn’t matter. His job was to protect her—even from loving relatives with cell phone cameras.

“Okay, that’s enough paparazzi for tonight. We’ll really be late if this keeps up.”

“You don’t want that. You’ll miss all of Jenna McRaven’s good food,” Mary said.

“Exactly.” He hugged his daughter. “Be good, Ads. I imagine you’ll still be up when I bring Faith back but if you’re not, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Bye, Dad. Have fun.”

He waited for Faith to hug and kiss her kids and admonish them to behave for Aunt Mary and the Delaneys, then he held the door open for her and they headed out into the cold air that felt refreshing on his overheated skin.

Neither of them said anything as he led her to his pickup and helped her inside. He wished he had some kind of luxury sedan to take her to the party but that kind of vehicle wasn’t very practical on an eastern Idaho ranch. At least he’d taken the truck for a wash and had vacuumed up any dried mud and straw bits out of the inside.

It took a little effort to tuck the soft length of her coat inside. “Better make sure I don’t shut the door on Celeste’s coat,” he joked. “She would probably never forgive me.”

He went around and climbed inside, then turned his pickup truck around and started heading toward the canyon road that would take them to Pine Gulch and the party.

“My family. Ugh. You’d think I never went to a Christmas party before, the way they carry on.” Faith didn’t look at him as she fiddled with the air vent. “I don’t know what’s gotten into them all. I mean, we went together last year to the exact same party and nobody gave it a second thought.”

A wise man would probably keep his mouth shut, just go with the flow.

Maybe he was tired of keeping his mouth shut.

“If I had to guess,” he said, after giving her a long look, “they’re making a fuss because they know this is different, that we’re finally going out on a real date.”

Chapter 4

At his words, tension seemed to clamp around her spine with icy fingers.

We’re finally going out on a real date.

She had really been hoping he had forgotten all that nonsense by now and they could go to the party as they always had done things, as dear friends.

She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t stop thinking about that moment when she had started down the stairs and had seen him standing there, looking tall and rugged and gorgeous, freshly shaved and wearing a dark Western-cut suit and tie.

He had looked like he should be going to a country music awards show with a beautiful starlet on his arm or something, not the silly local stockgrowers association party withher.

She had barely been able to think straight and literally had felt so weak-kneed she considered it a minor miracle that she hadn’t stumbled down the stairs right at his feet.

Then he had spotted her and the heat in his eyes had sent an entire flock of butterflies swarming through her insides.

“Every time I bring up that this is a date, you go silent as dirt,” he murmured. “Why is that?”

She drew in a breath. “I don’t know what to say.”

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