Page 26 of The Holiday Gift

“If that’s what you want,” he said.

“It is,” she answered tersely.

A few moments ago she had wantedhim.

She was attracted to him. Lately he had been almost sure of it but some part of him had worried his own feelings for her were clouding his judgment. That kiss and her response told him the sexual spark hadn’t been one-sided.

Nice to know he was right about that, at least.

She was attracted to him but she didn’t want to be. How did a guy work past that conundrum?

The task suddenly seemed insurmountable.

He put the pickup in gear and focused on driving instead of on the growing realization that she might never be willing to accept him as anything more than her oldest and dearest friend.

Maybe, just maybe, it was time he accepted that and moved on with his life.

* * *

Though his features remained set and hard as he drove her back to the Star N, Chase carried on a casual conversation with her about the new horse, about a bit of gossip he heard about cattle futures at the stockgrowers’ party, about Addie’s Christmas presents that still needed to be wrapped.

Under other circumstances, she might have been quite proud of her halfway intelligent responses—especially when she really wanted to collapse into a boneless, quivering heap on the truck seat.

She couldn’t stop remembering that kiss—the heat and the magic and the wild intensity of it.

Her heartbeat still seemed unnaturally loud in her ears and she hadn’t quite managed to catch her breath, though she could almost manage to string two thoughts together now.

She felt very much like a tiny island in the middle of a vast arctic river just beginning the spring thaw, with chunks of ice and fast-flowing water buffeting against it in equal parts, bringing life back to the frozen landscape.

She didn’twantto come to life again. She wanted that river of need to stay submerged under a hard layer of impenetrable ice forever.

Knowing that hollow ache was still there, that her sexuality hadn’t shriveled up and died with Travis, completely terrified her.

She was a little angry about it, too, if she were honest. Why couldn’t she just resume the state of affairs of the last thirty months, that sense of suspended animation?

This wasChase. Her best friend. The man she relied on for a hundred different things. How could she possibly laugh and joke with him like always when she would now be remembering just how his mouth had slid across hers, the glide of his tongue, the heat of his muscles against her chest.

She didn’t want that river of need to come to churning, seething life again.

Yes, her world had been cold and sterile since Travis died, but it wassafe.

She felt like she was suffocating suddenly, as if that wild flare of heat between them had consumed all the oxygen.

She rolled her window down a crack and closed her eyes at the welcome blast of cold air.

“Too warm?” he asked.

Oh, yes. He didn’t know the half of it. “A little,” she answered in a grave understatement.

He turned the fan down on the heating system just as her phone buzzed. She pulled it from the small beaded handbag Celeste had offered for the occasion.

It was a text from her sister:Girls are asleep. Don’t rush home. Have fun.

She glanced at the message, then slid her phone back into the totally impractical bag.

“Problem?” he asked.

“Not really. I think Celeste was just checking in. She said the girls are asleep.”

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