“I need time with you,” she answered, her heart mellowing as she looked at him. “So, yes. Let’s have dinner.”
He leaned in, brushed a light kiss to her temple and then turned off the engine and got out, circling to open her door like the gentleman he was.
As she stepped onto the snow-packed drive, she lifted her eyes to the darkening sky. Snowflakes danced in the porch lights like confetti from heaven. For one dizzy instant she could almost hear George’s chuckle, that warm baritone she’d loved all her life.
What was he trying to tell her? She couldn’t give any hope to Matt until she figured that out.
Gracie had never expected tonight to feel this…right.
The original plan had been a sweet, grown-up sort of evening when she and Marshall would decorate his tree together while sipping wine, listening to classic Christmas carols, maybe sharing a kiss under a string of lights. Aholi-date,as he’d so cleverly named it.
But plans changed, and Gracie was not mad about that.
Bianca had suddenly announced she had a mysterious errand in town and couldn’t take Olivia, which probably meant she was Christmas shopping. Olivia had jumped on the opportunity to stay with her dad instead of alone at the Snowberry Lodge cabin.
When Marshall relayed that to Gracie, apologizing that it changed the vibe of their holi-date, she suggested that she bring Benny and they make a pizza night of decorating the tree. Of course, everyone was happy.
To be honest, the idea of the four of them decorating that tree together made her just as warm inside as the thought of being alone with Marshall.
Maybe even a little more because it felt so natural and the kids were utterly hilarious in their approach to tree decorating.With Benny and Olivia, ornament placement was somehow a science, an art, and a challenge—and those two never backed down from any of those things.
So here she was, standing in Marshall Hampton’s living room with the fire crackling, a beautiful evergreen standing near the window, and two kids giddy with sugar-fueled excitement—Marshall had caved on the cookies she brought.
Newt lay sprawled dramatically beneath the lowest branches, apparently confident that everyone needed his furry moral support. Kat sat primly beside him, tail wrapped around her paws like a Victorian governess ready to supervise the children’s behavior.
The whole evening, from arrival through pizza to the opening of the ornament boxes, Gracie could feel her massive crush slowly take baby steps toward something far more significant.
“Tinsel?” Benny pulled out a bag of wavy silver threads. “This is so retro.”
“That was my mother’s, as many of the ornaments are,” Marshall told him. “We put the tinsel on one strand at a time at the end or you’ll hear the wrath of Germaine in your sleep tonight.”
Olivia snorted. “Wrath? She’d smother you with hugs and kisses.”
Benny put the tinsel down, either not willing to risk that or not interested in something that took that long. Then he snapped open another box of ornaments.
“Do we have a plan?” he asked.
“A plan?” Gracie blinked.
“A decorating plan,” Benny explained. “Color coordination, size and scale, quality in front, junky school art in the back.”
“Hey, I like the school art,” Marshall said.
“Of course we have a plan,” Olivia replied, sounding a little put out that he’d even ask. “Alternate colors, don’t put the sametoo close to each other, put the best ones in the front, and I will hang the tinsel one at a time because my Grammy G showed me how.”
“Perfect,” Benny said, clearly happy with that plan. “Should we draw a diagram to follow?”
“Oh, Benny!” Olivia exclaimed. “Even I don’t need a diagram for this.”
“Just don’t drop an ornament, Benny,” Gracie reminded him.
Marshall came up beside Gracie, leaning close enough to whisper, “They’re not all heirlooms, I promise. And anyone who has a plan does not break an ornament.” He brushed her hand with his. Just a tiny touch. Just enough to make her stomach do a quick flip. “You want an adult beverage while there are still a few hours before you have to drive home?”
She didn’t need anything to make her any more lightheaded than the man in front of her. “I’m good with my apple cider, but thank you.”
Marshall’s eyes softened. “Then let me try it this way…there’s a kitchen emergency.”
She frowned. “What’s wrong?”
