Page 31 of Wintertime Love (Holiday 2)

He grins. “Yes, Ma’am.” And he puts on the mitten.

We walk together like that, our free hands in our pockets and our mitten covered hands held together loosely. I try not to think about it. I try to prevent my self control, my determination from eroding, but my barriers are slowly crumbling and I’m scrambling to fix them.

If he had been arrogant and haughty, hating him would have been so much easier. Yes, Finn can be arrogant but sweet, dominating but tender. He looks at me like he wants nothing better than to devour me whole and yet, he holds my hand, kisses my cheek, teases me, playfully. He makes me laugh and he acts foolish to get a reaction out of me. And under all that lies a man with sharp instincts and who’s going to drive me out of business.

I can’t hate him but I could have tried harder in staying away from him. But he tracks me down like a bloodhound with a scent, popping up when I least expect it, forcing me to spend time with him, time that I genuinely enjoy.

I sigh, quietly.

This is a losing battle and there’s a good chance that my heart will be torn to shreds by the time this is over.

“How do you spend Christmas now?” I break the silence that is making my heart hurt with all these painful thoughts.

His hand tightens on mine as he answers, “Traveling, mostly. I still attend the Annual Ball that my grandmother throws; I have to. But I just move around. Last year, I went to Sydney, enjoyed the sun and waves for a few days.”

“You went alone?”

He glances at me, smirking. “I can hardly drag my grandmother there. She’d be scandalized by the half naked women and men on the beach.”

“I meant, did you go with a girlfriend? It was Christmas.”

Finn stares ahead of him, studying the lit pathway. “No. The women I usually date,” he hesitates, shooting me a look. “I don’t think you’d approve of them very much.”

I raise my brows. “I don’t think I’m in a position where I can be approving or disapproving anybody in your life.”

His lips tug up in a boyish grin. “I meant they weren’t like you. I was never friends with them.”

I stop in my tracks, giving him a bewildered look that is laced with a hint of happiness. “You consider us friends?”

Finn studies me. “Well, no. Not just friends. But definitely friends first.”

I smile slowly as I say softly, “Yeah. We are friends at the very least.”

Finn gives me that odd look again. It makes me feel like he has something to say but he’s not quite sure how to put it into words.

“What about you?” He comes to stand in front of me, looking down at me. His cold naked hand brushes back an errant curl from my face. “How did you spend your last Christmas?”

“Like I always do,” I murmur, very much aware of how close to me he’s standing. “There was a Christmas Eve dinner at our house. Danny and his family came as well as Lucia with hers. Jerry showed up. People kept dropping by through the night. We sang carols, although we were quite drunk at some point and somebody started singing Taylor Swift and we all thought it was a carol.” I snicker at the memory. “Danny kept following me around with mistletoe because he had bet Lucia that he could kiss me one hundred times and she had paid me ten bucks to keep it less than that. We had Christmas lunch together, me and Aunt Helen and Aunt Vee. I made pancakes for breakfast and we opened gifts. People dropped by and we went visiting. It’s how it always is.”

A wistful look appears in Finn’s eyes that he quickly masks. “That sounds lovely.”

Recalling how lonely and miserable his Christmas used to be, I’m suddenly grateful that I’ve always been surrounded by family and friends. “What about the rest of your family?” I ask, curiously.

Finn curls his hand around mine and we begin walking once again. He’s quiet for a moment and I wonder if I’ve touched upon a sensitive subject.

“My dad passed away when I was thirteen and it was just me and my mam till she got cancer a few months later. My paternal grandmother took me in after mam passed away. It’s just me and her now.”

His story makes me sad. At least when my parents passed away, I was too young for it to have much of an impact on me. He had been older. I can imagine a wild amber eyed teenager, filled with grief, forced to move away from his home, lonely and scared, missing the presence of his parents.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, gripping his hand tightly, wishing I could go back in time and wipe the tears off of the face of the young heartbroken boy. “It must have been horrible.” My voice sounds a little thick.

He gives me a startled glance. “Are you crying?”

“No!” I protest, trying to discreetly blink away the wetness that had gathered in my eyes. “It’s just the wind is too cold. That’s why—”

“There’s no wind.”

“Well, there was, a few minutes ago,” I say, stubbornly.

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