Page 50 of Meet Me at Christmas
She put her hands on her hips. “You know why I’m here.”
He opened the door wider to allow her to enter. She walked in, the familiar scent of burning wood and cedar wrapping around her. The old wood stove flickered orange and sent out a wave of heat through the room.
“Have a seat.” Henry gestured to the sofa she’d picked out when they went furniture shopping at the second-hand store in town. The decision had been between this one in the muted burlap tan or a striped one with a stain on the middle cushion. “Want something to drink?”
“No, Henry. I want an answer.” She sat down, shrugging off her coat, the Christmas tree gleaming in the window opposite her. “Why did you quit therapy?”
He opened the door to the wood stove and threw another log on the fire. “I was following your advice.”
“What?” she asked, exasperated.
“You said that maybe I should just start over. Which means I don’t need that ridiculous therapy. It wasn’t helping anyway.”
“You didn’t give it a chance.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.” He clapped the log debris off his hands.
“Henry. You’re starting to remember. I’ve seen it, plain as day.”
“But if I don’tneedto remember because I’m starting over, then why should I go?”
“I meant with us.Weshould start over. Regardless of our past, we are different people now. That’s all I meant.”
“Done.” He sat down next to her.
“Okay,” she said, trying not to focus on those blue eyes. “Now, shouldn’t you return to therapy?”
“No.” He rubbed his hands down the thighs of his jeans, shaking his head. “Therapy wasn’t working. You are. So if you want to help me remember, all you have to do is come over.” He opened his arms wide, a grin on his face. “This is the new therapy location. Unless you want to get coffee. Then we can call the coffee shop in town the new location.”
“You’re not funny,” she said, half-heartedly.
His grin only grew—the spunky, mischievous boy he used to be peeking through and making her more flustered. He was a far cry from the Henry she’d found when she first arrived, and she didn’t want to think for one second that it had been only her presence that changed him. Because if that were true, it would only be a matter of time before she let her feelings slip and something more happened between them. Because she certainly didn’t trust herself with him.
“This isn’t like skipping school in tenth grade. This is important,” she said.
“No, it’s not. There are many ways to find peace and healing. I’d prefer to find those things here in my cabin with you at my side.”
“But the medical team has proven methods that work.”
“It’s a bunch of malarky.”
She grunted in frustration. He’d always been stubborn, and she knew full well that he wasn’t going to do anything he didn’t want to do. “You need to do this, Henry.”
“Why? For you and your article?”
“That’s a low blow. This doesn’t have anything to do with my work. Mr. Ferguson has agreed to be my new subject anyway.” Truth be told, she wasn’t sure how she would bridge the two cases to get a full article, and it would be even more difficult if Henry didn’t return to therapy. Her entire future with the magazine hung in the balance.
“Well, my therapy today is to go outside into the woodshed and mess around with that door. I think I’m gonna make something out of it.”
Her heart plummeted into her stomach, but she tried not to let it show. “Make something out of it?” she repeated, trying to keep her voice even. She knew the door would never adorn that restored farmhouse for the two of them, but there was something so final about cutting through the wood and turning it into something else. “What are you going to make?”
He pursed his lips in an adorable way. “I have no idea. But I feel like it’s what I should do. It sounds… fun.”
“That makes sense. The last year I lived here, you took up woodworking,” she said. “Maybe you subconsciously remember that.”
He blinked, his brows pulling together as if he were inwardly trying to validate her statement. “I do enjoy it. More than landscaping.”
She stood up, still frustrated that he wasn’t giving therapy a chance. She gritted her teeth. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
