Page 22 of The Holiday Gift

He was so right. “It’s easy to simply look at the surface and think you know a place, isn’t it?”

“Right.” He sent her a sidelong look. “People are much the same. You have to dig beneath the nice clothes and the polite polish to find the essence of a person.”

She knew the essence of Chase Brannon. He was a kind, decent,goodman who so deserved to be happy.

She sighed and could feel the heat of his gaze.

“That sounded heavy. What’s on your mind?”

She had a million things racing through her thoughts and didn’t know how to talk to him about any of it. She couldn’t tell him that she felt like she stood on the edge of a precipice, toes tingling from the vast, unknown chasm below her, and she just didn’t know how much courage she had left inside her to jump.

“I’m feeling bad about taking you away from the party,” she lied.

“You didn’t take me away. Leaving was my idea, remember?”

He reached up to loosen his tie. Funny how that simple act seemed to help her remember this was Chase, her best friend. She wanted him to be happy, no matter what.

“It was a good idea. Still, if we had stayed, maybe you could have danced with Ella Baker again.”

He said nothing but annoyance suddenly seemed to radiate out of him in pointed rays.

“She seems very nice,” Faith pressed.

“Yes.”

“And she’s musical, too.”

“Yes.”

“Not to mention beautiful, don’t you think?”

“She’s lovely.”

“You should ask her out, since you suddenly want to start dating again.”

He made a low sound in the back of his throat, the kind of noise he made when his tractor broke down or one of his ranch hands called in sick too many times.

“Who said I wanted to start dating again?” he said, his voice clipped.

“You did. You’re the one who insisted this was adate-date. You made a big deal that it wasn’t just two friends carpooling to the stockgrowers’ party together, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean I’m ready to start dating again, at least not in general terms. It only means I’m ready to start datingyou.”

There it was.

Out in the open.

The reality she had been trying so desperately to avoid. He wanted more from her than friendship and she was scared out of her ever-loving mind at the possibility.

The air in the vehicle suddenly seemed charged, crackling with tension. She had to say something but had no idea what.

“I... Chase—”

“Don’t. Don’t say it.”

His voice was low, intense, with an edge to it she rarely heard. She had so hoped they could return to the easy friendship they had always known. Was that gone forever, replaced by this jagged uneasiness?

“Say...what?”

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