Page 23 of Holly Jolly Heresy
Too late.
By the time the bottom step creaked as Molly descended, her long brown hair hanging around her shoulders and her robe tied tightly around her waist, Caleb was nearly done tightening the screws on the tree stand proudly displaying the tree. It had been harder than he expected to chop it down, and harder than that to drag it through the snow. The path from the back door to the living room was a mess of melted snow and pine needles, but he’d done it. He was struck by a wave of masculine pride, as though he’d felled a dangerous beast and not a sad-looking tree.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
“I thought we could use a little Christmas spirit.” He braced his hand against the tree trunk. It wobbled in its stand and he quickly pulled his hand away, willing the tree to stay upright.
“Where’d you find this…this?”
“It’s a Christmas tree,” he said, admiring his handywork.
Molly stifled a laugh. “That’s not a Christmas tree.”
“Charlie Brown would beg to differ.”
“Can that thing even hold ornaments? It looks like it might droop under its own weight.”
“Let’s find out.” He reached into the cardboard box of Christmas ornaments he’d hauled from the hall closet and pulled out a delicate green and silver glass ball, holding it out to Molly.
She plucked the ornament from his hand, her fingertips grazing his palm, and carefully hung it from one of the sturdier looking branches. Her delighted laugh sent ripples of joy through his body, a fizzy, floaty sensation coursing through his limbs. When she turned back to meet his gaze, her eyes roamed over him, stuttering on the thin black frames of his glasses.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
He self-consciously brought his finger to the frames, adjusting them. “I don’t usually. I didn’t have any contact solution.”
“But you had your glasses?”
“I always keep a pair in the car. I’m glad I remembered to grab them before we came in last night.” The mere mention of the night before making his cock twitch with interest, and he rushed to change the subject. “I was about to make breakfast. Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.”
She followed him into the kitchen, but kept a careful distance between them, as though she was giving him space to decide how this morning would go. Caleb opened the refrigerator door and stuck his head inside, hoping the cool air would calm his racing hormones. “There must be at least five packages of bacon in here.”
“I wouldn’t recommend cooking all five,” she teased as she dropped into a chair at the small kitchen table.
“Of course not. We’ll want to save at least one package for breakfast tomorrow.” He took a package of bacon and the carton of eggs and set them on the counter before rifled through cabinets in search of a pan.
“You think we’ll still be here tomorrow?”
He nodded as he cracked eggs into a bright purple Fiestaware bowl. “More than two feet of snow fell in the last twenty-four hours and, according to the news this morning, there are drifts of up to four feet in some places. We’re lucky the power came back so quickly. I think it’ll take the town all day to plow enough that we can safely get out of here. Should be clear by tomorrow morning, though.” He glanced over his shoulder at her and tried to look reassuring, calm, like he wasn’t such a mess of guilt and lust he couldn’t even begin to worry about something as mundane as snow. “It’ll be another night, but we should be back in Aster Bay by Christmas Eve.”
“Is that why you put up a Christmas tree?”
He shrugged as he poured the eggs into the pan on the stove, suddenly self-conscious about his decision to drag a scraggly tree through the snow first thing in the morning.
“How did you even get it in here? Did the storm knock it down?” she asked.
“There was an ax in the hallway.”
She gawked at him, her confused expression so freaking adorable he wanted to kiss it off her face.
No. Bad priest.
He leaned against the counter beside the stove and crossed his arms, unable to contain his amusement. “Did you have something you’d like to share with the class, Ms. Proulx?”
“An ax,” she repeated. “Like for chopping wood.”
“That is generally what tree trunks are made of, yes.”
