Page 25 of The Christmas Blueprint

“Certainly not,” he said shaken by those images.

“Are you disappointed, thinking I didn’t love Enrique enough because I’m trying to move on with my life?”

“Umm…no,” he said, not sure what he felt. “It’s just—” He huffed out a breath and pulled at his hair, a nervous habit he’d never managed to break. His mom had teased him that he did it to get the girls to notice his thick, tawny curls.

But he didn’t want Sophia to notice him in that way, though he couldn’t stop being aware ofherin that way, and his attraction was making him edgy.

Sophia had opened her mouth, no doubt to shoot him down again, but instead her pillowy lips pursed, and she raised both eyebrows, in an invitation to speak.

And he needed to. Soph was Riley’s best friend. The woman who had taunted and teased his memories for as long as he could remember, and now she was a colleague.

“I just know how hard it is to lose somebody,” he admitted. “When my mom passed…” His voice cracked into a whisper. “I didn’t let myself think about it or feel it. My dad checked out. I threw myself into school and making sure my brothers and Riley stayed on course. Of course my aunt and uncle helped, but I just went on autopilot. I didn’t want to remember her because I felt like I’d lose it, and then when I got ready to head to college, you know getting my apps out and everything, my dad was really laying on the guilt and the pressure for me to stay and join the business, and I just wanted to get away. Be my own man. Not have to fight so many memories.”

Sophia’s gaze was soft with sympathy, and he had the weirdest feeling that if she tried to hug him, he’d lose it. Heck, he was barely holding back the swell of emotion.

“And I did the same thing with Enrique. I try not to remember him. Think about all the things we used to do together. The camping trips when he was home on leave. Fishing trips. I just feel like if I remember, I’ll get trapped in the past. I’ll get stuck. And being back here in Bear Creek—” He felt helpless to explain. He’d never talked about his mom’s death or Enrique’s death with anyone—none of his friends or colleagues in Seattle had ever been a sounding board for him, and here he was spilling his guts to Sophia.

Her fingertips brushed his cheek. “So that’s why you stayed away,” she said softly.

He nodded, feeling like an utter coward. Worse, it wasn’t the full reason.

She nodded thoughtfully, not an ounce of judgment in her expression. Her soft midnight gaze searched his, and her fingers brushed his fingertips, but she didn’t hold his hand. Sophia was naturally touchy and affectionate, and it warmed him in a way he craved but knew he shouldn’t. He was leaving. She was staying.

“So why did you come back?”

Chapter Eight

“I’m doing somethingthat I should have done more than two years ago.”

Sophia winced at the pain in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Enrique came to me before he headed home after finishing up with the army. He wanted us to start a business together—ecological building.” Killian’s voice sounded hollow. “I loved the idea, but I didn’t want to do it in Bear Creek because…” He broke off, and she found herself on her tiptoes, leaning in to him as if to catch the rest of his sentence.

Guilt skittered across his face and he looked away from her. His attention snagged on the trailer.

No. No way. They were finally getting somewhere. She’d never dreamed that she and Killian would have a heart-to-heart conversation, and she felt like they needed to so that he could see her as whole.

But she’d had no idea that Killian might also need to heal.

“You couldn’t have saved him,” Sophia said. “Don’t even go there.”

“But if I’d come home with him, we would have started the business. He…”

“No.” Her voice bounced off all the hard surfaces of the building, and she sliced her hand through the air. “No. No. No.” All the shoulda coulda wouldas were a dangerous path to tread. “Enrique loved being a smoke jumper. He loved the forests and the land and wanted to protect them. He loved being a first responder. It was in his nature. The day he died…” She paused and sucked in a deep breath. “He did everything right. He and his team followed their training. The fire was just too hot.” There was terminology for it. The papers had been filled with quotes from the bewildered fire chief saying they’d never seen anything like it and physics professors jumped in to try to explain how the fire had created its own weather system.

“Enrique said fires had a feel, a force, a personality. He felt that they spoke to him, and that he could almost understand.” Then she told Killian something she’d never told anyone else. “He called me on a rare break the night before he died.” She could barely swallow, but she forced herself to go on. “He told me he loved me. He told me I was the best thing that ever happened to him, and that he was so happy and proud of me that I’d signed the lease on the space and was finally going to have my store on Main Street. I’d been saving for it for so long.”

She had his attention back now.

“I knew he was worried. I was scared too, but what is life without risk? Enrique risked his life to help others, to protect. We both risked our hearts with each other, and I don’t regret that. Not one second of the time we had together.”

Killian swallowed.

“You might be right,” Sophia said gently, not wanting to hurt him, but to help him. “You might be stuck. Reacting instead of acting.”

He nodded.

“And I think coming home is your first step forward to get unstuck,” she said, realizing that she was holding his hand. “And working on a new project, spending time with Riley, can be a balm to your soul. The first steps back into the light.”

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