She’d never said a word to Becky. Never tried to matchmake or encourage their relationship in any way. She’d never commented on Becky’s relationships at all, and Becky had always been grateful for that because her relationships had mostly been brief and unsatisfactory and definitely not something she wanted to put under the spotlight.
But it seemed that hadn’t stopped her mother from conjuring up her own scenarios.
The thought of her mother and Audrey enjoying a coffee together while discussing her and Will made her want to bolt from the room.
She was contemplating doing just that when she felt Will’s hand rest on her back, firm and reassuring.
“We’ll leave you to your reminiscing,” he said. “It’s Christmas. Becky and I are going to dance.”
Dance? Was he kidding? And what did Christmas have to do with anything?
True, other people were dancing (and she might never forget the sight of Mrs Everly using tinsel in place of a feather boa), but Becky didn’t dance.
“I don’t—”
“Tonight you do.”
“Off you go, the pair of you!” Audrey waved them away, not even pretending to be subtle in her approach. “We can see you’re struggling to keep your hands off each other.”
Becky chose the lesser of two evils and let Will tug her into the middle of the room.
“I hope this idea of yours turns out better than the last one,” she muttered. “Joining them wasnota good idea.”
“Agreed. Sorry about that.”
“I’m not sure if dancing is the frying pan or the fire,” she said, “but just remember I really don’t dance, so if you’re not careful you might spend Christmas wishing you’d specialized in broken bones rather than hearts.”
He smiled and pulled her against him, picking up the rhythm of the music. “I know you don’t like dancing. But I thought you’d prefer this option to listening to my mother planning our wedding.”
She looked up at him in despair. “I had no idea my stupid announcement would escalate in this way. They’re unstoppable. It’s horrific.Nowcan I dig a hole and lie down in it?”
“No.” He steered her to the left to avoid colliding with someone. “It’s below freezing out there and the ground is too hard to dig. Do you know how many people have heart attacks from clearing snow in low temperatures?”
In other circumstances she would have laughed and they would have had a fun conversation about statistics, but she was beyond smiling. “This isawful. Do you think they’ve really been talking about us for all these years?”
“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.” His hold on her tightened. “What they want, or don’t want, is of no relevance to us.”
“Easy for you to say. When I break up with you, they’re going to hate me.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
What was he talking about? Of course it was going to happen.
“Also they’ll assume I’ve gone crazy.” She rested her hand on his shoulder and felt the curve of hard muscle under her palm.She kept thinking of the moment the night before when he’d emerged from the shower and the image was so distracting she missed his next question. “Sorry? Did you say something?”
“Why will they think you’re crazy?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Because no woman with a brain would—” She stopped, and felt her cheeks heat.
He raised an eyebrow, waiting. “No woman with a brain would—?”
“Be in a relationship one minute, and break up the next,” she said lamely.
“Right.”
He watched her for a moment, his gaze lingering on her flushed face, and she kept thinking about that kiss and hoping deep down that he might find a reason to do it again. And thinking about the kiss made her think of other things and suddenly she could picture them together, and she knew exactly how it would feel.
She had a horrible feeling he could read her mind and to cover the awkward moment she tried to spin him closer to the Christmas tree. Unfortunately Percy chose that same moment to join them on the dance floor, and he had less of a clue about dancing than she did. He inserted himself between them and Becky stumbled. She would have lost her balance if Will hadn’t anchored her firmly against him.
