Page 12 of Love in a Christmas Storm
She stared at him like she didn’t quite know what to make of him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lettie didn’t realize how long they’d been talking until her laptop dimmed itself into sleep. Across the cabin, Carlos’s had already gone dark, half-forgotten on the arm of his chair.
She should’ve gotten up. Shut the conversation down. Stoked the fire and curled into the comfort of solitude like she always did. Instead, she stayed where she was. Legs curled under her, heart strangely unarmored, listening to the sounds of Carlos Nowell humming off-key as he poured water into the coffeemaker to brew… hot chocolate.
“I’m telling you,” he said with the solemnity of a man confessing a federal crime, “the key is using the hot setting, then adding the mix after. Keeps it creamy.”
“Creamy,” she repeated, dry as salt.
He glanced over his shoulder with that boyish grin that had probably sold a thousand subscriptions to the magazine just by accident. “Trust me. I’m something of a cocoa scientist.”
Lettie rolled her eyes, but it lacked heat. Somehow, they’d gone from an icy standoff to swapping childhood stories like something out of a vintage holiday radio show.
She didn’t do nostalgia. It made her soft. And soft never survived the fall.
But when Carlos handed her a steaming mug—complete with a lone, half-melted marshmallow—and returned to his seat, she didn’t retreat. She leaned back, sipped, and let the silence stretch.
“My mom used to sew ornaments,” she said eventually, the words slipping out like a cough she hadn’t meant to let loose. “One for each of us every year. Felt and thread. Crooked stitching. Hideous, honestly.”
Carlos cradled his mug like it was spun glass. “Bet they looked perfect on your tree.”
“They looked homemade,” she said, then paused. “Which is what made them perfect.”
He didn’t smile or nod or launch into a matching anecdote like most people did when faced with something vulnerable. He just held her gaze. A few moments later, he said quietly, “We were carolers. Not good ones. My dad insisted on going door to door, anyway. Claimed it built character.”
“Did it?”
“Oh no. It built embarrassment. I still flinch when I hearFeliz Navidad. But... the neighbors always came out. No one slammed a door.”
Lettie stared at the fire as she offered up another confession. “Christmas used to feel... Safe. Like we were a closed loop. A world apart from everything else. Now it feels like a showroom for performance art and capitalism.”
Carlos didn’t argue. He just nodded like he understood. And maybe he did. That was somehow worse.
“I’m trying to rebuild that feeling with the magazine,” he said. “Not the spectacle. The feeling. Even if it’s just one person at a time.”
Lettie sipped her cocoa again. He set his aside, shifting his weight in the chair like he was gathering courage.
“What’s something you secretly love but pretend to hate?” he asked, the corners of his mouth twitching.
She narrowed her eyes. “Is this a trap?”
“Only if your answer is fruitcake.”
“Ugly Christmas sweaters.”
Carlos lit up like a tree.
“They’re ridiculous,” she added quickly. “And itchy. And I keep buying them, anyway.”
“I knew it,” he said, pointing. “You’re the reason the thrift store downtown always has empty racks in December.”
“Confidential sources, Nowell.”
He laughed—loud, real, and completely unguarded. It filled the room. Filled her.
“And yours?” she asked, needing the spotlight off her before she did something wildly unprofessional, like smile.
