Page 50 of Meet Me on Christmas Eve

I didn’t want to. I mean, I did want to. But it was the last thing I should do.

So, of course I did. Because this newest Mariana doesn’t listen to reason, apparently.

He helped me rise to my feet and led me over to a set of double doors to the right of the large window. “Sit outside with me. I’ll go get us a hot chocolate. Yours with caramel, right?”

It was tempting. Oh, it was tempting. We were looking through the doors onto a 4-season porch with wall-to-wall windows showing a beautiful view of his snowy backyard. I swallowed with difficulty. “Um…”

“We don’t even have to talk. Just sit with me, Mariana. We’ll just pass the time.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I just nodded. He must have noticed, as he stepped back. “Go make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right out.”

When he came back, my breath hitched a little when he sat on the loveseat next to me. There were other seats, but this one looked so soft I couldn’t resist. As much as I could see in the dim lighting back here, anyway.

“Your home is lovely,” I said, still a little surprised he could afford such a beautiful place on a retail worker’s salary. I’d done enough retail work to know how hard it was to make ends meet, unless you were fairly high up the management chain. “How long have you lived here?”

His eyes swung over to meet mine, and he handed me a steaming cup. “I bought this place three years ago.” He paused to take a sip. “It’s great. But it was an abandoned piece of crap then, so that’s how I bought it cheap.”

“Oh, so … you fixed it up? You’re … wow, the Terry I remember wasn’t the do-it-yourself type of guy.” I paused, softening my tone. “Not that I knew you very well.”

Dammit, why did I bring up the past, especiallythatpart of the past? I needed to shut up. I took a sip of the hot drink, which was pure delight on my taste buds and delicious warmth down my throat. I groaned and closed my eyes, savoring it.

Terry coughed. “I guess you like the hot chocolate?”

I smiled as I looked over at him, staring back at me.

My smile wilted though. Too much eye contact. Not a great idea. Especially in ultra-romantic settings.

Once again, what am I doing here?

“So, what brought you back here, to Shipsvold?”

Was this a safe question? I wasn’t even sure anymore. I wanted to know what he’d been doing in the past few years. We couldn’t avoid it forever. But only for a few years, not far enough back to touch on—

“Needed work, a place to stay, somewhere to get back on my feet after … well, you know.” He looked down.

“No, I don’t know,” I said gently.

“We made some bad investments. Blair’s ventures looked really good on paper, but … well, I won’t get into all the awful details. It blew up in our faces.”

My brow crinkled as I thought about this. “Your sister’s ventures? What about yours? You don’t strike me as being irresponsible.”

A flash of annoyance crossed over his face as he looked at me briefly and then stared out the window. “Aren’t we all a bit irresponsible when we’re young?” He paused, enough for me to hear the double meaning. “But they were hers. Blair inherited their money. I only got the properties.”

“What? Why?”

He sighed. “She was older, and she was always interested in the finance stuff. I had other interests, or maybe I didn’t really know what I wanted. In any case, we ended up in debt, so we had to sell the properties too. Leaving us with precisely … nothing.”

I mulled this over. “You said ‘we’ were in debt, but don’t you meanshewas in debt? You sold your properties to clean uphermess?”

His head whipped around, and he scowled. “It wasn’t like that. She’s my sister, the only close family I had … we were a team.”

I had clearly struck a nerve. But I pressed on. I had never liked his sister, and I knew she never liked me. She’d always glared at me when he wasn’t looking. “But she was older and wiser, so she should’ve been taking care of you, not the other way around.”

He looked out the window again and then sighed. “She did, in some ways. She was there for me when no one else was.” He looked at me then briefly, frowning. “During the most difficult times of my life.”

I swallowed with some effort. I knew his parents died the same year we met. Was he suggesting … somehow I wasn’t there for him? As though I hadn’t triedeverythingto get in touch with him? I felt my defenses rise.

And then … I looked over, saw the tilt of his head slightly downward, and I felt his pain.

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