Already, she and Emmitt had breezed through two games of Battleship, one round of Sorry, and a dozen rounds of Slap Jack—a game that had her laughing so hard her stomach hurt.
Now, as they sat by the fire, the well-worn games piled beside the mantle, Sloane realized something. “You do not have a Christmas tree in here. It is tradition to have one inside your home, no?”
“Yeah, but I’m just a bachelor,” he said. “Why bother putting it up when I’ll just have to take it down? Besides, I see the one at The Homestead all the time. That’s enough for me.”
Sloane gave that some thought. “Don’t you want to do like they do in the movies? Go pick a live tree from the woods and bring it home?”
Emmitt held her gaze, flames from the fire reflected in their depths. “Doyou?”
A blush moved over her cheeks. “No.”
But Emmitt only grinned. “Yes, you do. You want that, don’t you? Like on all the Hallmark movies out there.”
Sloane lifted her chin and pinned her lips closed. “That is not what I said.”
“Not directly, no.” Emmitt nodded in the quiet pause. “You know what? We’ll do it. One of these days after our flight, or maybe eveninsteadof our flight, we’ll gear up and go find us a tree. I’ll chop it down with an axe like the manly man I am—”
“I am good with an axe too,” she reminded, thinking back on the axe throwing event at the restaurant.
“That you are,” he agreed with a lifted brow. He cleared his throat, seeming to redirect his thoughts. “But yeah, we should do it. What do you say?”
“I say yes.”
“Abigyes?” he asked, his eyes looking like a puppy dog’s suddenly.
She grinned. “A big yes.”
“Nice,” he crowed.
It felt as if the fire had traveled straight to her heart, the crackling, delicious heat of it pumping through her blood.
Your job, Sloane.She was there to do a job, and she couldn’t neglect that.
“We still have that whole pie chart game to get back to,” she said, dropping her gaze to the fibers of the rug beneath her. She shifted so that her back was directly toward the fireplace.
Emmitt opted for a different position by lying flat on his back beside her and resting his sock-covered feet on the mantel. Sloane couldn’t help but note how this caused his thigh to rest slightly against her folded legs. It was an informal sitting arrangement, him looking up at her, sounds from the crackling fire making it all the more cozy and intimate.
“You’re right—the pie chart game.” He tucked one arm beneath his head for support and rested the other across his stomach. “Where should we start?”
Her mind drifted to the subject she needed to bring up—the business side of running an inn. If she was careful, Sloane could lead him to things like tallies, taxes, and the stress of dealing with those details. But the mere idea of broaching that topic caused knots to gnarl in her gut.
“Is your family close?” Emmitt asked, pulling her from her musings.
Sloane set her gaze back on him. “I am not sure how to answer that,” she admitted. “Gabe and I are close. We were both closer to our dad than we are with our mom. We ate family dinner together most of the time. Went on summer vacations. But my dad always took more of a personal interest in our lives. He was the one going to games, asking us about our latest crush, sharing his favorite music with us. My mom, she approached parenting as more of a duty. We were fed, clothed, and cared for where physical needs were concerned. But she was not one to get personal with. It is not how she is designed.
“Gabe and I have talked about it, which has helped either of us from taking it too personally, I think. We understand that Mom is Mom, and she will never be anyone else.”
Emmitt seemed to muse on that for a bit. “Huh. Did she remarry after your father died?”
Sloane nodded. “To a guy named Elroy who owns a private protection agency.”
“You mean, like, bodyguards?”
“Exactly. He is a retired bodyguard himself. Anyway, he and my mom travel over three hundred days of the year. They are essentially perfect for each other in that way. No one tying them down to one spot.”
“Does Elroy have kids?”
“No.”
