Page 10 of Jingle Bell Flock
His fingers stilled on his sleeve. He looked up, brows lifting. “Why what?”
My free hand curled into a fist at my side, my fingernails cutting half-moons into my palm. I moved toward him until I could smell the sweet and spicy notes of his cologne mixing with the earthier scents of the barn. “Six months of me treating you like dirt. Six months of me picking fights and throwing verbal punches. And today’s the first time you’ve ever said ‘boo’ back.You never tell me to go to hell. Never tell me to take my attitude and shove it. Why not?”
Harrison’s eyes widened slightly, like I’d caught him off guard with a question he wasn’t prepared for. I watched as the surprise melted away, replaced by something softer, more vulnerable. The set of his shoulders tightened, and his gaze dropped to the hay-strewn floor for a few beats before finding mine again. When it did, the sadness there made my chest tighten in a wayIwasn’t ready for.
“Because,” he said quietly, his voice barely audible above the wind rattling the barn doors. “I earned every bit of your anger. I deserve it.”
The thing was … he wasn’t wrong.
Hehadearned my anger.
He’d broken my fucking heart.
But I’d been holding onto that hurt like a damn security blanket. I’d made hating him my full-time hobby, and it hadn’t made me feel any better.
Maybe it was the snow. Or the lights twinkling on my house in the distance. Or maybe it was just plain old exhaustion from carrying around a grudge that had long since stopped protecting me and started poisoning me instead.
I didn’t want to forget what he’d done all those years ago, but maybe … maybe I could stop letting it define me.
I blew out a long breath, watching it fog the air between us. “Yeah,” I said finally, my voice rough. “Maybe you did. But I think I’ve made you pay interest on it long enough.”
Harrison’s head lifted, surprise flickering across his face before his mouth split into a wide, happy grin. It was unguarded and bright in a way I hadn’t seen since he’d moved back, and for a second, it hit me right in the chest.
I didn’t know what to do with that kind of joy aimed at me.
My throat went tight. I scratched at the side of my nose, cleared my throat, and tried to find somewhere else to look. “Come on,” I muttered gruffly, hitching my camera strap higher on my shoulder. “Let’s go inside and get some pictures of your damn cheese.”
four
. . .
JEREMY
I shouldn’t have been surprisedby Harrison’s kitchen—a man who wore thousand-dollar cashmere sweaters to frolic with goats would, of course, have a space worthy of a design magazine.
The last time I’d been in this room, I was eight years old, and Mrs. Abernathy was sliding a plate of chocolate chip cookies across the old red Formica countertop that had scorch marks on it. Now, my fingertips coasted over soapstone that felt like black velvet beneath my calluses. Quarter-sawn oak cabinets gleamed beneath a span of three leaded glass windows that looked out over our eastern field of trees. A massive black La Cornue range that probably cost more than my truck dominated the opposite wall, its brass fixtures catching the light from a set of glass pendants.
The space was somehow both grand and welcoming at the same time, the type of understated elegance someone who’dwalked away from a lucrative career in finance could afford to create.
It was the exact opposite of my own kitchen, a cramped galley-style space where a person could touch both walls at the same time if they stretched, and I couldn’t open the fridge and the oven at the same time, or else the doors would bang together.
A few of his cheeses—including my favorite, a tangy, creamy chèvre rolled in lavender—were arranged on a slate platter, alongside a handful of shortbread cookies, a few sprigs of rosemary, some candied pecans, sugar-dusted cranberries, and a decorative jar filled with what I assumed was jam from the apricot trees that lined his driveway based on its color.
“For the photos, is this arrangement okay?” Harrison asked from the far side of the island, his fingers twisting together as he spoke. “I can rearrange things if you want. Jemma wasn’t exactly specific about what she needed.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “But get in the frame.”
Harrison blinked. “What?”
“You heard me. Eli told me people don’t just want to see the cheese. They’ll want to see the man behind it. Or maybe that’s just him. He thinks you’re hot.” My nephew wasn’t the only one, but Harrison didn’t need to know that. “Make it look like you’re about to cut a piece or something."
He moved into position, and I immediately knew this was the right call. With him in the shot, the whole vignette came alive.
“Okay, now actually cut a piece,” I directed.
He picked up the knife, and I started shooting. Click. The blade pressing into the soft cheese. Click. His strong, capable hands guiding the cut. Click. The slight furrow of concentration between his brows.
“So.” Harrison pressed the knife through another section of cheese. “When did you get into photography?”
