The knowledge alone has me falling back several steps to watch as Dom guides her along the slope in the direction of the arched opening. Her dark hair gleams under the dull light hanging down her back. Her shoulder bumps his with every step they take maneuvering between the neat rows lined with every type of pine.
“Mom nearly had a heart attack,” Dom’s saying when I tune into their conversation.
Isla’s laugh shatters through every cavity of my being, a tinkle of windchimes on a warm, summer afternoon. A brook deep in the forest. It’s such a startling thing to hear, I falter mid-step.
Have I ever heard her laugh before?
Why does it sound so unfamiliar?
“Did you get it?” she asks, peering up into my boyfriend’s face with a shimmer in her eyes that seizes around my stomach.
“Oh, hell no. I packed my shit and I left the house.”
Her pretty mouth hangs open in silent horror. “You left your mom there with that thing?”
“Listen, she was fine, okay? Dad was there,” Dom justifies, lips turned up in one corner. “They had it handled.”
Her stream of sweet giggles fills the space, and I inhale deep like I can somehow pull it all into my chest.
“I would keep it,” she states, calming slightly. “I’d build it a little nest and feed it nuts. Knit it booties.”
Why does the thought of her sitting in a rocking chair, slender fingers working knitting needles sound so fucking sexy? There is something seriously wrong with me.
“Can you knit?” Dom asks.
Isla hesitates. Tiny crinkles form across the bridge of her pert nose. “Not well. I taught myself a few years back but didn’t really have a reason to keep doing it.”
Baby blankets, I think stupidly. Baby booties. Baby hats. We could give her a reason to keep knitting.
Christ, I’m fucking losing it.
Infuriated at my single-minded train of thought, I veer off. I slip through to the next row of trees and then another. I put nearly three between us. Far enough away that her laugh can no longer sink its claws into me.
Instead, I focus on finding this damn tree. Dad has always been wildly picky when it came to just the right one. It needs to be plump along the bottom to cover all the presents and thinner towards the top to hold the star. The branches need to be full and layered. No holes or large gaps. The base needs to be thick, wide enough to stand on its own without a stand.
I eye a blue spruce, gauging its adequacy when I hear a squeal. It’s followed by a tumble of laughter that grows louder, closer. I barely have a chance to turn when a figure darts out from between the rows and collides straight into my chest.
Her scent of cinnamon hits me like a train. It fills my senses a full second before I realize who my arms are holding in place.
Isla, eyes bright, cheeks pink, stares up at me with such an unhampered expression of happiness I suck in a breath. She’s panting and smiling, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile like this.
Not at me.
Not at all.
“Sorry.” She giggles. “I was…”
Dom rounds the corner after her, hair wild and windswept. Eyes dark with mischief. He grabs her sides with all ten fingers and Isla shrieks and flails in my arms. Her face collides with my chest. Her fingers fist in my jacket like she’s expecting me to save her.
“Where do you think you’re running off to?” Dom taunts, hooking his arms around her middle, over mine and attempting to drag her from me.
My arms tighten.
Instinctively.
Possessively.
I grip her to me and Dom realizes and stops pulling. He doesn’t let go either and we have her pinned between us. Held in place where she fucking belongs.
