Page 13 of Love in a Christmas Storm
Carlos looked down at his lap, sheepish. “Hallmark movies.”
She choked on her cocoa.
“I swear, it started as research,” he insisted. “But now I can’t stop. They’re like emotional comfort food. There’s always a bakery in peril. A Christmas contest. A grumpy man who learns to believe again.”
She stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You just described me.”
He blinked. Then, slowly, “Guess that makes me the overly festive love interest in the flannel shirt.”
Lettie’s heart did something uncomfortable in her chest. It reached for something it shouldn’t have.
“Okay, Hallmark,” she said. “Favorite gift?”
Carlos leaned back, a fondness softening his expression. “Wooden train set. Myabuelitocarved it by hand. The thing barely stayed on the tracks, but I thought it was magic. Yours?”
Lettie hesitated. “I didn’t ask for anything that year. Just… didn’t feel like it. But on Christmas morning, my parents gave me this little red leather notebook. No lines. Just blank pages. I’d just started writing then.”
Carlos didn’t smile. But he looked thoughtful, as though she was giving him a hint to solving a difficult puzzle.
“They knew me so well,” she said, so quietly she barely heard it herself. “Or they realized I wanted to be just like them and tell other people's stories.”
More silence. But this time it felt… close. Not awkward. Not forced.
Carlos moved first, rising to throw another log on the fire. She watched him, watched the firelight dance along his features. He wasn’t her type. He was too good. Too earnest.
So why couldn’t she look away?
He returned not to his chair but to the bearskin rug in front of the hearth. Sat down and stretched out a hand to the cocoa still clutched between her palms.
“You coming?” he asked.
Lettie set her mug aside and lowered herself beside him, the heat of the fire curling around her spine. The rug was plush. The air crackled. And Carlos… Carlos was closer than she’d meant for him to be.
His thigh brushed hers. She didn’t move.
She was acutely aware of how long it had been since she’d sat like this with someone. Since she’d let herself.
His mouth curved as he watched the flames, his profile relaxed. A bit of cocoa lingered at the corner of his lips.
Lettie’s gaze snagged on it. Stayed.
She hadn’t been kissed in a long time. She hadn’t wanted to be kissed in a long time.
Now… she couldn’t stop looking at his mouth.
CHAPTER NINE
“Would you rather always have snow on Christmas… or always have someone to kiss under the mistletoe?”
Lettie made a sound that might’ve been a scoff or a laugh. It was hard to tell with her. “Snow. Obviously.”
“Obviously?” Carlos feigned offense, hand on his chest. “That’s the wrong answer.”
“Says the man who wears jingle bell socks in summer.”
