Page 19 of A Cuddly Christmas
“Is this even real blood?” She narrows her eyes on the towel. “This was all part of your plan too, wasn’t it? How does this usually work on the dating app? Do you lure women here and then get injured so they take care of you? Well, I won’t be fooled.”
She tosses the towel at me and backs up.
“Tilly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fairly sure I have a concussion, so could you explain a little slower?”
“Molly told me,” she says, raising an eyebrow like she’s made her point.
“She told you what, exactly?”
“Don’t play dumb with me.”
“I swear I’m not playing.” I feel something running down the side of my face and assume it’s blood, so I press the towel to it.
“Oh shit, you’re really bleeding?” She comes back over and holds the towel to my head. She bites her bottom lip like she’s uncertain before letting out a long sigh. “Molly told me she found your dating profile.”
“I don’t have a dating profile.” I blink at her, but she seems skeptical.
“You don’t have to lie?—”
“I’m not. I swear I genuinely don’t. Here, you can go through my phone.” I take it out of my pocket and hand it to her. “I’ve never had a dating profile and don’t want to have one.”
“Then someone is impersonating you online. Molly said there’s even a picture of your tattoo.”
“That’s impossible,” I say, the fog of confusion combined with the head injury making my thoughts go slowly. “The only person that’s taken a picture of it was the guy in town. What’s his name at the tattoo shop?”
“Brian?” He owns the shop, but he wasn’t the one who did the tattoo. I nod, but that was a mistake because it makes my head swim. “Oh god, that sounds like something Brian would do,” Tilly muses.
“Pretend to be someone else?”
“Yeah, we used to call him Creepy Brian. He’s kind of known for being, well, a creep.”
“He didn’t advertise that on his shop window.” This time when I reach for her, she doesn’t back away. I pull her onto my lap, and the feel of her in my arms makes me forget about my head. “Tilly, I’m not trying to find someone else. There’s no one else I want.”
“There’s no one else I want either.” Her voice is soft, and it feels like she’s confessing a secret to me.
Maybe it’s time I confess something too. “I don’t care that you’re a virgin.” When she starts to speak, I put my finger against her lips. “I’m a virgin too.” I take my finger away, and her lips stay apart as her eyes widen like she’s in shock. “I wanted to wait for the right person. My forever person. It was important to me to wait. Not because of religion or anything, but because I wanted to experience all my firsts with the woman I would be spending the rest of life with.” You can call me a sap, but love and intimacy are hooked together for me.
“Paxton,” she whispers, and my chest tightens.
“This is a lot to put on you at once, but I know you’re not the kind of woman to give second chances, so even if this is the wrong thing to say, I want to tell you now so you know where I stand.”
She searches my eyes for a long moment. “Well, I think in that case?—”
The power flickers again and then snaps off, and she stops talking. “Hold that thought,” I say as she slips off my lap. “Let me go outside and turn on the generator. We should be good, and Dominick is…”
“Dominick is what?” she asks as I turn to look out the window.
“Tilly,” I say slowly as I step closer to the window. “When you came out to check on me, was the barn door open?” It’s swinging in the wind right now, and my heart begins to hammer in my chest.
“Yeah, I watched you go in, but when you didn’t come out, I pulled on my boots and went out there.”
“Did you see Dominick?”
“No, but didn’t you say he hides from new people?”
“Oh no,” I say as I rush to the door. “He’s on the run.”
Chapter Eleven
