Page 33 of Tinsel & Timber
“Soup?” I echo.
“Don’t sound so suspicious. It’s good. Rustic tomato. With grilled cheese.”
I blink. “You made grilled cheese from scratch?”
Her lips curve. “I toast the bread and melt cheese, Graham. I’m not performing culinary miracles.”
I take a long sip of coffee to hide my grin. “Still sounds like a miracle.”
“I think you need to raise your expectations.”
After lunch, we decorate.
The process is messy and loud and perfect. She unwraps ornaments with the kind of care most people reserve for heirlooms, humming along to the Christmas playlist she’s queued up. I string the lights while she tells me stories about her worst renovation projects—clients who argued about paint colors, plumbing disasters, once even, a possum living in a kitchen wall.
“You’re kidding,” I laugh.
“I wish I were,” she says, hanging a snowflake ornament near the top of the tree. “I screamed so loud the poor thing fainted. Had to call animal control to get him out.”
“You scared a raccoon into fainting.”
She grins over her shoulder. “I have that effect on men sometimes.”
I almost drop the string of lights. “Mara.”
“Easy,” she teases. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation as Mistletoe Bay’s resident grump.”
“I’m not a grump.”
“You aresoa grump. You just hide it under all that historical pride. The first day you walked in here, I wanted to kill you. So grumpy and…and…rude!”
“You talk too much.”
She arches an eyebrow. “You like it.”
“Maybe,” I admit.
We fall into an easy rhythm—her laughing at my meticulous light spacing, me pretending not to care that she hung three ornaments on the same branch. The tree starts to glow, soft and golden, and I realize I haven’t felt this kind of peace in years.
Then she finds the hand-painted house ornament.
Her breath catches. “This one’s beautiful.”
“I thought it looked familiar,” I say quietly.
She turns it over in her hands, tracing the tiny red door with her thumb. “It looks likethishouse.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She swallows, voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you.”
“It’s just an ornament.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s not.”
She hangs it near the center of the tree and steps back, and for a moment neither of us says anything. The glow of the lights reflects in her eyes. It’s too easy to imagine this scene a year from now. Or ten. The two of us, same house, same tree, same quiet warmth.
Dangerous thoughts.
