He looked up. The line of his mouth softened as he nodded. “Yeah. It’s always felt wrong not decorating Barrington Lodge. It upsets the guests, but that’s not it. Or not all of it. I like Christmas. It reminds me of my mom.”
Julie nodded. “I can see that. I’m sorry your family won’t budge about the decorations.”
The smile he gave her wasn’t deep enough to show his dimple. It felt a little sad. “It’s fine. But that’s why it’s nice to be here with you. It feels like I’m actually contributing to the cheer of the season instead of taking it away.”
Before she thought better of it, Julie reached out to touch his hand. She didn’t look away from his face. “I like that you’re here.” The tension between them built until, embarrassed, she pulled away. She cleared her throat and cracked a joke. “I’d probably have never untangled those lights without you.”
He smiled. Although the air between them was still charged, it was easier to ignore it when she returned to pulling out the ornaments. But with their various confessions, the dynamic between them had changed. It became easier to relax with him, to laugh at the way Snowball chewed on the end of the garland when she unwittingly trailed it across the dog’s nose. To chase Kringle away from the box of ornaments before he made off with one. And yes, to tell Nolan about all the small memories contained in each of the ornaments they put on the tree.
Until, at last, there was only one left. The tree topper. When Julie removed it from the box carefully, Nolan got a strange look on his face.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. I’ve seen that before, that’s all.”
Julie nodded. “It’s the same one that Gram puts on the tree every year. You probably saw it at one of the parties.”
Or in a picture his dad had destroyed. She didn’t want to say that out loud, in case it soured the air again.
“Maybe,” Nolan said grudgingly. He said nothing else but placed the stepladder in front of the tree for her to climb up. She’d brought it out anticipating having to do all the high branches herself, but Nolan had decorated the ones out of her reach.
When Julie looked down at the delicate angel tree topper, she couldn’t help but smile. “This was always my favorite part,” she confessed. “When I was a kid, Gramps used to lift me up so I could put the angel on top of the tree myself.”
Nolan raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Is that your way of asking me to lift you up?”
She laughed. “No, of course not. I’m not a little kid anymore.” But Nolan, with his hands on her waist… that was an image she couldn’t shake from her head.
Holding the angel to her stomach with one hand, she climbed the stepladder. Nolan stood on the other side, bracing it so she didn’t fall off. His hands on the metal were loose, his attention fixed solely on her. Although she was high enough now, she didn’t look away from him. She was taller than him now, for once. And he was close enough to touch. If she leaned forward just a little, he was close enough to kiss.
Woof!
Snowball’s bark was followed by Kringle’s hiss. And then—pandemonium.
Julie didn’t know what had happened. Logically, she knew the dog must have chased the cat toward the tree and the stepladder. But she was thinking this after she’d lost her balance. After Nolan had wrapped his arms around her to keep her from falling.
After she heard acrash!
She gripped Nolan’s arms, still trying to get her bearings. The cat, she noticed when she looked down, was huddled on top of the wadded-up tree skirt. Snowball was next to Nolan, sniffing him as if wondering what had happened. The stepladder was on its side, though it had thankfully fallen away from the tree, leaving it unharmed.
And the crash? That had been Gram’s ornament. Pieces of the angel had been flung halfway across the living room. Julie stared, numb, at the shards.
“I’m so sorry,” Nolan said, turning to Snowball and giving her a disapproving look. The dog flattened her ears to her skull and lowered herself to the ground, contrite.
“It’s… it’s not her fault,” Julie heard herself say. Her voice was a bit distant, barely heard over the thump of her heart. She still didn’t let Nolan go, and he didn’t try to release her either. “It’s just an ornament.”
“Right. Just the ornament your grandparents put on the tree every year for as long as you can remember.”
Julie shrugged. She pulled away from him, reluctantly. She still felt a little numb, and colder without his arms around her. “I can buy another one. I should clean this up before someone gets hurt.”
When she reached for the biggest of the glass shards, Nolan crouched down next to her. His fingers brushed hers and lingered as he gently pulled the sharp piece away. “Let me help,” he whispered.
Maybe it was for the best. If she had to do it all herself, she thought she might cry.
The moment on the stepladder when she’d almost reached for him had been wiped clean from her mind in the aftermath.
Chapter 24
Julie was getting used to waking up to the quiet sounds of winter in Vermont. The first few nights at the Cozy Holly Inn, she’d woken with a feeling that something wasn’t right. No blaring horns, sirens, or traffic. But now she thought the muted silence broken only by the chirp of an occasional bird was much more pleasant.
