Page 132 of The Twelve Months of Christmas
“Well, good luck to him,” Alden said. The poor guy would need it.
As he moved on to the next patient, he couldn’t help marveling over how miserable he’d been after they’d broken up, how often he’d thought about her, how often he’d questioned his own worth and veered away from relationships, not wanting to get hurt again. He’d let a reality TV caricature do that to him.
He’d almost let her get inside his head and mess him up again. Stroking his ego (for a second), looking at him with those big blue eyes filled with terror.
A pair of hazel eyes came to mind, set in a round face with sweet kissable lips. Yep, fate had sent Cynthia to the emergency room all right—to remind Alden how lucky he was to have found Arianna and what a fool he’d be not to make what they had permanent.
Except, with everything she had on her plate, would she be ready?
CHRISTMAS
IN OCTOBER
27
The neighborhood was decorating for Halloween, and it seemed everywhere Arianna looked, she saw skeletons or sheet ghosts hanging from trees or tombstones on lawns. When she was a kid, she’d loved all that stuff. Even as a grown-up, but this Halloween all those grisly symbols of death depressed her. She and her mother had danced on the edge of the River Styx and it hadn’t been pleasant.
She forced herself to concentrate on the less gruesome aspects of fall—autumn leaves and pumpkins, yummy fall foods. She spent a lot of time coming up with healthful recipes and fall fitness tips for the website. She’d picked up a new sponsor, a fresh meal delivery company, and she had done a couple of videos making dinner from their boxed offering as well as posting pictures. It all helped her turn her focus away from what she saw every time she drove down her street.
“When are we going to carve pumpkins, Mommy?” Sophie wanted to know as they passed the pile of pumpkins on their way into the supermarket.
Jack-O-Lanterns. More Halloween ghoulishness. Ugh.
“Soon,” Arianna promised.
“Can Alden come over and carve them with us?”
“We can ask him.”
Alden seemed to be game for just about anything. It was one of the many things she loved about him.
Love, what a funny word it was. One minute you could be talking about loving pizza or chocolate cake and the next using it to describe how you felt about a person. Arianna smiled. Alden was not only pizza and chocolate cake, he was also starry nights, rainbows and a perfect sunny day all rolled into one. She was sure he had feelings for her, but were they strong enough to move their relationship forward?
She’d been tempted to ask on more than one occasion but had always chickened out. What if he said he wasn’t sure? Maybe he didn’t want to commit for the long haul. Wyatt had already said no to forever. She didn’t think she could risk that kind of rejection again, not on top of the year she’d had. Better to walk around with her eyes wide shut, in happy ignorance. Enjoy what she had with Alden—whatever that was—and not expect it to last.
“I’m an expert pumpkin carver,” he bragged when he stopped by the house the next day and Sophie offered her invitation.
Sophie let out a whoop. “Can we get our pumpkin now, Mommy?”
Mia wasn’t feeling well and was in bed and Mommy was in the middle of making chicken soup for her. “A little later,” she said, which pulled out Sophie’s lower lip. “No pouting,” Arianna said.
“Yeah, pouting’s not good,” Alden said, backing her up, and tousled Sophie’s hair. To Arianna, he said, “If you’re okay with it, I could take her. I need to get some stuff from Safeway, anyway.”
This was a first and felt somehow very important, a step toward a new level of trust. Arianna hesitated.
“Let’s go, Alden,” Sophie said, racing to get her coat.
“I’ll drive carefully,” he promised.
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said and sauntered out the door after Sophie.
Arianna letting him take her girl to pick out a pumpkin—it was as if they’d crossed a threshold of sorts. Definitely a sign that they were getting closer. How close would she let him get?
At the store Sophie had a hard time picking the perfect pumpkin.
“How about we take home more than one,” he said. “Let’s get three. One for you, one for your mom and one for your Grammy. Then you can have a whole pumpkin family on the front porch.”
