Page 20 of Welcome Home for Christmas
“You’re not shopping with me,” she protested.
“Why not? Were you going to get my gift next?” His brown eyes were twinkling when she looked at him.
“Your gift is that I won’t kill you before this is all over with.” Her shoulders sagged and she heaved her shopping bags at him. “Fine. A little help would be great, actually.”
He pretended to be loaded down with the weight of the bags as he took hold of them. “Damn, baby. What the hell did you buy?”
Allison shook her head, but couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you ever serious?”
He straightened and walked normally beside her. “Sometimes.”
“Good, because next Saturday I’ll need you to be serious.” Allison veered into a little toy shop. She wanted to get Kat and Micah’s children, Ben and Ella, something. Kat brought the children to the Veterans’ Center routinely to help out with things. Baby Ella mainly helped by lifting everyone’s spirits. Ben did the same, but he also got along great with the visitors and often helped out with Julie’s yoga class even though he was confined to a wheelchair.
She walked straight back to the Lego section and grabbed a kit for Ben. Even with his cerebral palsy and limited use of one arm, he was a master at constructing these things. She grabbed a bear for baby Ella.
Troy grabbed a bear, too.
Allison turned to him. “Who’s that for?”
“I have a niece. She’d like this.”
Allison nodded. “Why aren’t you going home for Christmas?” she asked again.
“I told you, my mom is coming here.”
“That’s not the answer to my question.” She waited for his answer. People didn’t live less than a half-hour drive from their family and not go home for Christmas. It didn’t make sense.
“My brother David and I don’t see eye to eye these days, all right? We fight like cats and dogs, and my mother deserves a peaceful holiday. So do I,” he said finally.
Her mouth opened to ask another question.
“And that’s the end of this conversation. I don’t think this’ll be on your mother’s pop quiz next weekend.”
Allison followed him to the register. “Actually, she probably will want to know if you’re going home for Christmas and where home is. I should warn you, my mother can seem like she’s interrogating people sometimes.”
Troy laughed. “I know how to handle an interrogation, although I’m usually the one asking the questions. I can handle her. I promise.” He gave the cashier his credit card and lifted the toys from Allison’s hands. “I’ll get these, too.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Allison argued, trying to snatch them back off the counter.
He blocked her. “I want to.” He looked at her. “I’m not the one likely to screw up this farce at your parents’ house next weekend. You are.”
Her mouth fell open.
He took the bagged toys from the cashier and smiled at her, then tilted his head for Allison to follow him back outside.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked.
“You want me to be serious for your family. Fine. But you need to relax. A woman in love doesn’t act like every act of kindness is a crime.”
“I don’t act like that.”
Troy stopped walking and faced her.
She stiffened as he leaned in toward her. Her heart pounded in her chest. “What are you doing?” she asked, a little breathless at the close proximity.
He continued to lean. Then he lifted his hand and brushed a flyaway hair off her cheek, slowly, so slowly that she forgot to breathe as she waited for him to pull back.
“This is what I mean. A woman in love wants to be touched. If your mother notices anything, it’ll be the way you freeze when I draw close.”
