Page 28 of Ghost of Ex-mas Past
Charlie isripped. His pecs are solid and firm, the soft-looking patch of chest hair between them is thicker, and he has a V-cut.
A V-cut.
What happened to the nerdy boy I fell in love with?
When I snapped out of my shock, I realized that Charlie was jealous. It wasn’t just stranger danger and concern for my well-being with an unknown man in the house. It was anExcuse me, she’s mine.
The moment I’d fallen into Kit’s arms I’d thought,Wow, he’s hot. It may not have been sexy or graceful on my part, but itwasa fantasy come true. And now I have his number.
I should call Kit. This is exactly what I want, right? A small-town guy to sweep me off my feet?
And yet...
I hate myself for even thinking of it, but Charlie, even after breaking my heart all those years ago, still pulls me to him like a magnet.
And now that I’ve seen most of grown-up Charlie, I’m even more attracted to him than before.
I realize I’ve been staring into space with my headphones on and I haven’t even hit play yet on my audiobook. Charlie is thumping around upstairs, maybe throwing a tantrum, but that’s fine, whatever.
I hit play and pull up a game on my phone.
I make it through a few rounds of Sudoku on the hard level and another chapter of my audiobook in which the characters have a very hot round in the locker room shower before movement catches my gaze again. Charlie stalks through the living room, a determined glint in his eye. He’s dressed now, wearing jeans and a hoodie.
I pause my audiobook and sit up. “What are you doing?”
“You’ll see,” he says, disappearing into the kitchen, and a few seconds later the door to the backyard slams. I scramble to my feet and hop over to the big picture window, the one Kit was just looking out of to check on the firewood pile.
Charlie tugs his shoes on and walks out to the shed, opening the door and disappearing inside.
“What in the world?” I wonder under my breath.
Holding the door open, I shuffle out and onto the porch. I have a sweater on already, and it’s sunny out, so the nip of cold in the air is dulled.
Charlie reemerges from the shed with an axe.
My hands go to my hips. “What the hell are you doing?”
Charlie walks toward the pile of logs, points the axe and his gaze at me. “I’m going to chop you some wood.”
That intention in his eyes and the handling of the weapon make me shiver. Yowsa.
Except this is ridiculous. I shake myself and make my voice even sterner. “You are going to lose a finger. You’ve never chopped wood before in your life.”
There’s a big stump by the log pile, crisscrossed with notches from the axe. Charlie lifts his weapon and with athunkdrives it into the flat top.
My heart flutters.
“I watched some videos.”
I take a minute to parse the words. “Youwatched some videos. Charlie! This is ridiculous!”
He ignores me and picks up a log from one end of the woodpile. I hadn’t looked closely at it, but one side of the pile has big round logs, literally just chunks of tree, and the other has wedges of wood ready for a fireplace or pit.
So I guess this is happening. The log is on his shoulder and he takes a few steps and bends down to set it on the stump. It’s short and fat. Like, really thick. But, wait. It’s not as thick as the stump.
What is thick for a log? I don’t know! I’m a city girl!
Once the log is stable, Charlie grabs the handle of the axe, pulling it from the flat top, and hefts it over his shoulder with both hands. Before I can even blink, he’s swung the axe down and hit the log.
