“I meant just now. Your office door was closed.”
His mouth slanted. “You’ve been checking up on me?”
“No.” His suspicious tone annoyed her. “Jamie’s spending the day in town. Sophie thought you might want to take a walk, but when I saw the closed door, I figured you were working.”
“I was on a call.”
“And now?”
He inhaled. “I’m enjoying the snow. You?”
“Same.” She shoved her gloved hands into her pockets.
“Cold?”
“I should start walking.” She headed down the stairs toward the garden and heard footsteps behind her. Gill was following her.
She glanced over her shoulder. Snowflakes clung to his hair. He looked so adorable.
Wait. Adorable wasn’t a word she should use to describe Gill. She faced forward and kept walking. Her boots crunched through the layer of snow on the path.
“You’ve been keeping busy,” he said.
She focused on putting one foot in front of the other without slipping on the snow. That might help her avoid the temptation to look back at him. “The wedding is a week away.”
“So I keep being reminded.”
She walked through an archway to enter the garden. “You don’t sound happy about that.”
“Everyone seems to have forgotten Christmas is coming.”
The snow gave the garden an artsy feel with the bare branches. Too bad she wasn’t a photographer. “Not forgotten, but the wedding is first up.”
He walked next to her. “Yes, and the date was selected to allow guests to return home in time for their Christmas Eve festivities.”
The concern in his voice surprised her. “You really care about the holidays.”
“It’s my favorite time of the year.”
“Why is that?”
Three snowflakes landed on his nose, but he didn’t brush them off. “The castle is so big it can feel more like a museum than a house. But whenever I came home from school for the holidays, the trees and decorations made the castle feel more…homey. Every December, the place feels that way again.”
“I’m fortunate to be here during Christmastime then.”
Though she imagined this garden—dead during winter—must be beautiful with flowers blooming in the springtime.
“Especially now that it’s snowing,” he said.
Kat turned onto a narrower path. Her foot slipped. Her leg slid forward, but her upper body went the opposite way.
She held out her arms to regain her balance.
Oh, no. She was going down.
Gill grabbed her. “I’ve got you. You won’t fall.”
One of his hands held onto her arm. The other was around her waist. He held her close. His warm breath blew against her head. The scent of his aftershave surrounded her.
