Page 32 of Stay this Christmas
I had to laugh at the silly expression on his face. I’d missed this, how Sam could take a bad day and turn it around. Just like the other night at Bella Italia, he’d flipped the script on my less-than-stellar evening.
“They did,” I agreed. “I’m happy for them. I’m glad they’ve found love.”
His shoulders shook, his laugh seeming to reverberate through me even though we weren’t touching.
“Sure sounds like it.”
“What?”
He dipped his head in a stern little look. “You said that like they’d caught some terrible disease.”
I sighed because he wasn’t wrong. Iwashappy for them. But I was also sad for me. And I hated that I would take their happiness and turn it into some kind of statement on my life. I loved my life.
Mostly.
“It’s just a lot of change to take in all at once,” I said.
“And you don’t like change.”
I didn’t. Not really. Which was why all week, I’d carried my New-Me list around in my purse but hadn’t actually tried anything else since the gentle yoga last Saturday. But at least I’d had it on me to read through whenever I wanted to feel even more overwhelmed about my upcoming birthday.
“You like change a lot.” Much rather shift the focus onto him than my sad-sack night out on the town.
Sam ordered a beer and turned to me, his smile dialed up again. “Guilty.”
“Why are you back here, really?”
He laughed again, and it seemed to loosen something in my chest. I’d always loved that laugh, and it was even more wonderful now, all delicious and rumbly. Why did the extra years have to make everything about him so much better?
“You’re not on the Magnolia Ridge welcome committee, are you?”
“You could be anywhere right now, but you’re here. It’s not the Rockies or New Zealand.”
His eyes lit up. “Harps, have you been asking about me?”
Ignore the nickname-shivers.
“I live in a small town. I don’t have to ask, I’m just told.”
“You forgot Hawai’i.”
I sipped at my bourbon. “I hadn’t heard that one.”
He hitched a shoulder as if living in a tropical paradise was nothing to get excited about. “I didn’t last long. It’s a lot more expensive than I expected. But those were a fun few months on the beach.”
I tried to imagine what that might have been like. I loved Magnolia Ridge, but Eliza had been right the other night—not much here to draw in someone like Sam, who seemed to live from one adventure to the next. Not much to keep him here, either. Not when so much more waitedout there.
I still couldn’t figure out why he’d come back. It couldn’t have been to volunteer at the retirement community, so what had prompted the big change of heart?
“Was it because of your grandpa?”
His eyebrows lifted at my half-formed question. The bourbon wasn’t helping my conversational skills tonight. Probably should have stopped at one.
“I mean, did you come back to spend time with your grandpa?”
He watched me way too closely, but seemed to consider. “He was one reason. He’d been asking for a while. And Georgia pretty much never shut up about me coming home to stay.”
Georgia reminded me a lot of Eliza, with her younger sister eager interest in everything Sam and I used to do. She worked at the local bookstore, and I saw her sometimes when I stopped in at Dogeared to pick up the latest rom-com release. We’d talk books, or about whatever latest festival or event was happening downtown. I never asked about Sam, but she’d drop hints about his latest whereabouts or job situation, little tidbits I’d filed away with the rest of the info I’d heard about him over the years.
