Page 8 of Jingle Bell Flock
I stepped inside, grateful for the blast of heat, and tried not to notice how good his house smelled. Like cinnamon and pine from the tree in the corner of the room, and something else that was uniquely Harrison. Probably some fancy cologne he’d picked up in Paris last year.
The fact that I knew he’d been to France last autumn was something else I lied to myself about.
“Light’s fading fast,” I said, keeping my tone even. “We should get started.”
He cocked his head to the side, giving me that old, probing look I recognized as him trying to read me. God, I hoped he’d forgotten how. “Yeah, okay. Let me just grab my coat.”
He disappeared into a closet near the stairs, and I used the moment to collect myself. To remind myself why I was here. To absolutely not think about the way that sweater clung to his shoulders, or how his hair looked freshly brushed, or the fact that he'd clearly cleaned up for this.
For me.
For the photos, I reminded myself. Definitely not for me.
He came back wearing a canvas barn coat that was too damn light for the weather, but would photograph well, and we headed outside into the twilight and into the goat barn.
The space was warmer than outside, heated by the goats’ bodies and a few strategically placed heat lamps.
“So,” Harrison said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Where do you want me?”
My brain immediately supplied about fifteen inappropriate answers to that question. I shoved them all down and pointed to the far corner.
“By the stalls,” I said. “Bring Sugarplum out. We want that wholesome, family-friendly vibe people were posting about earlier.”
Harrison turned to me with a smile that was magnetic and triumphant, making my stomach flip. “Aha! So you do know their names.”
Heat crept up my neck. “I might have seen it on your Instagram,” I muttered, hating that he now knew that I followed him. “Are you going to get the fucking goat or not?”
His smile widened, like the knowledge was a prize he hadn’t anticipated winning. “Yeah, I’m getting the fucking goat,” he said with a smirk that bordered on gloating as he moved to Sugarplum’s stall.
She came right to him, like he was her favorite person in the whole wide world. I knew the feeling.
There was a time in my life that all Harrison had to do was crook his finger my way and I would have followed him anywhere—right into the depths of Hell if he’d asked me to.
Come to think of it, I had.
And look what I had to show for it.
I was a thirty-five-year-old, washed-up hockey player living in a small, ramshackle cabin on my family’s land, and I’d only ever been in love with one person.
During my time in the AHL, I’d gone through my share of puck bunnies, plus a few curious guys who knew I could be counted on to be discreet, but that was just sex. A way to release tension when my hand wasn’t cutting it anymore.
Then, after I hung up my skates and moved to California to work at a vineyard, I had a … thing, I guess you could call it … with one of the guys who worked in the tasting room. I’d cared about him, sure, but when he broke up with me after just four months, accusing me of being an emotionally closed-off asshole who never let anyone get too close, I couldn’t help but acknowledge he might have had a point.
I didn’twantto be like that, I just … was.
I’d learned it was safer not to trust people. Easier to keep them at arm’s length than to hand them the knife and wait for them to use it to stab me in the back. To leave before they could leave me. To never let anyone close enough to matter.
Because if my best friend wouldn’t choose me, wouldn’t put me first the way I’d put him first, what was the point?
So yeah, basically, hell.
Through my camera’s viewfinder, I tried to be objective about my subject. Tried to view him not as the guy who’d shattered my heart and more like someone I once knew who’d defied his familial expectations to pursue his passions instead.A man who belonged here with these ridiculous animals in this warm barn while snow fell outside.
“That’s good,” I told him, snapping a few shots. “Can you get down on her level now?”
Harrison dropped into a crouch, his jeans pulling tight on his muscular thighs, and placed a hand on Sugarplum’s neck. The low light from the barn’s overhead fixture caught the gold in his hair, the strong line of his jaw, the way his mouth curved when his goat nuzzled into the curve of his neck.
Click. Zoom. Click.
