Page 3 of Stay this Christmas
“Sam!” Still gripping my hand, Diana pulled me into the exercise room behind her. “Do you have a minute?”
After seeing one of the chair yoga residents off, he turned to us. Our eyes locked, and my breath got lost somewhere on its way to my lungs. Lucky I didn’t stumble over my own feet like I had the first time I’d run across him here. I’d looked up, seen him standing five feet away from me, and promptly tripped like some klutzy romance novel heroine. If my director hadn’t been there to grab my elbow, I would have wound up on the floor. Not the high ground I might have hoped for in a first interaction with my ex-boyfriend.
I’d gotten used to his presence since then, but not by much. Seeing him made me feel like I’d just stepped off a merry-go-round—dizzy and a little nauseated. I positively hated that he still had that effect on me, but time had been oh so good to Sam Donnelly.
Five-foot-eleven, wavy blond hair mussed to perfection, those pale green eyes full of mischief—it all spoke of the boy I’d once known. But the man—oof. His body had filled out with glorious muscles stretched across wide shoulders down to abs scandalously defined by his workout clothes. Golden scruff covered his jaw, the beginnings of lines traced the corners of his eyes, and I didnotneed to see that hint of chest hair peeking out from the vee of his T-shirt.
He was supposed to be gross and disheveled, a pathetic heap of a man without me in his life, and instead, he’d turned into a freaking cover model. Not fair that the guy who’d broken my heart had come barging back into town to flaunt his gorgeousness. He could at least wear looser shirts.
Tone it down, buddy. You’re hot, we get it.
I cringed over my stupid thoughts. This right here? This was why my PT routines now faced the wall instead of the exercise room on Mondays and Fridays. You don’t get burned and then admire the beauty of the fire. No matter how sculpted that fire had become in the last decade.
Sam put the yoga mats in a plastic tub before approaching Diana and me. “What can I do for you ladies?”
She moved us even closer. “Harper was just telling me the benefits of yoga.”
He turned to me, and I swear the light in his eyes twinkled.Twinkled.
“Did she, now?”
I shook my head, wondering why I had followed Diana in here at all. She didn’t need me with her to ask Sam about yoga. “I only said—”
She squeezed my hand twice, a silent signal to shut my mouth.
“She said I should give it a try, but I don’t know. I’ve got arthritis in my knees, and I can’t stand for a long time like some of the others in your class.”
“We can do whatever modifications you need,” he said. “You can sit in a chair as much as you like, and follow along from there. I won’t ask you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable or causes injury, I promise.”
He gave her his full attention, his warm smile like a little sunbeam just for her.
I used to think his interest in people genuine, but after the way he’d treated me—not to mention the eleven years apart—now I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just snowing her, a smiling conman pitching the wonders of yoga.
“Oh, that sounds like a good idea, I’ll try that.” Diana urged me forward, practically shoving me against him. “Do you know Harper, Sam?”
I managed to avoid slamming into his chest, but then he almost knocked me down with the grin he flashed. This close, it proved a deadly weapon, murdering my pride at point-blank range.
“I do know her.”
I forced a smile even as that four-word summary of our history resurrected my pride just to strangle it into oblivion again. Diana sure didn’t need to know the details, but Sam and I had grown up side by side, been inseparable best friends through high school, and eventually each other’s first loves.“I know her”felt like a pretty shoddy sum-up.
“Are you a rock climber by any chance?” she asked.
Oh, no. No, no, no. Dread barreled through my stomach like a train going straight off the rails. She wasn’t about to do what I thought she was about to do, right? I squeezed her hand, telegraphing my own desperate pleas to keep her mouth shut.
“I am,” he said. “Are you looking to learn?”
“Oh, not me. Harper.” Diana nudged me even closer to him, like playing with dolls and sayingNow, kiss. “She’s the one who wants to learn. You two should have a chat about that. I’ll run out and sign up for Monday’s yoga class and give you a chance to talk.”
She turned and shimmied her way to the door, flashing a quick wink—at me? at Sam?—before disappearing down the hall.
Well. It could have been worse. She could have invited the resident retired pastor over to ‘have a chat’ with us, too.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Residents here had tried to play matchmaker for me several times, to varying degrees of awkwardness. From eager introductions to indifferent grandsons, to blundering conversations with the new security guard, not a single person had ever been subtle about it. Kind of sweet they wanted me to find love so badly, but this particular love had already gone down in flames.
“Should we talk about rock climbing here, or over drinks at The Broken Hammer?” he asked, the dimples in his cheeks on full display.
Too much to hope Diana literally throwing me at his feet would have escaped his notice. His rakish grin did something stupid to my insides, but I stomped on that like a cockroach. His personality had always been 105% flirt. Like everything else he did, this meant nothing.
