“They’re just for reading.”
“They suit you.” She pauses, then laughs at herself.
I reach up self-consciously. “My eyes get tired otherwise.”
She covers her eyes with her hands. “Oh dear. Listen to me, I just said ‘They suit you.’ I sound like I’m in a Victorian drawing room. This is what happens when you write historical romance—you start talking like your characters.” She plops onto the couch beside me. “Next, I’ll be swooning and clutching my pearls.”
I can’t resist a grin … or this woman. “Do you have pearls to clutch?”
“No, but I’d buy some just to complete the dramatic effect.” She seems as if caught off guard with how easily we fell into joking, rather than poking at the fictional hatred she seemed to believe existed between us for so long.
“I was afraid the glasses make me look old.”
She shakes her head as her eyes spark. “Very distinguished.”
“Distinguished? So I look old?”
She laughs. “No, you look ...” She pauses, her lips swishing from side to side as she searches for the right word—or a synonym for old. “Handsome.”
What shifted between us earlier grows, takes shape, gives way to a new warmth, a deeper understanding, and far more intense attraction. I’m starting to truly believe we might have a future beyond our thirty-day arrangement.
The dog doesn’t stop wagging his tail, sensing the happiness blooming between us, and Bree reaches down to scratch behind his ears. As I watch them, I picture many more evenings like this—the three of us, warm and content while building a life together.
However, the one I see takes place in a newly renovated Victorian. Only in this vision, Bree’s ring finger isn’t bare and our hearts are full.
After dinner, with a bowl of popcorn, we settle in to watchIt’s a Wonderful Life,which is, hands down, my favorite Christmas movie of all time. I’m surprised when Bree says she hasn’t watched it before.
About halfway through, she leaps from the couch. “I’ve got it!”
Somewhat alarmed, the dog and I both straighten, sitting at attention. Then I realize she probably means she figured out a passage she was stuck on in her story.
Crouching in front of the dog, she says, “I have the perfect name for you.”
Oh, that. I lean in, eager to know.
She simply says, “Bailey.”
The dog pants and pats his front legs on the couch cushion.
“Bailey?” I repeat.
He turns to me, ears perking.
Bree explains, “For George Bailey.”
The dog lets out a happy yap.
“I think we have our name, Bailey, boy.”
“I like it.”
“He seems to as well,” Bree says as the dog slobbers her with kisses.
I can’t help but hope that both Bree and Bailey feel very much at home because I cannot imagine one without them.
COBBITON DAILY CALLER
CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN CORNER
