Page 48 of Not Home Alone

“Take that hand out of your pocket and hold my hand,” Grant mutters.

“No. My hands are cold. You made me forget to bring my gloves.”

“I did no such thing. My hands are warm.” He reaches inside my pocket, pulling my hand out, lacing his fingers with mine like a jerk. His hand is warm. Warm hands, cold heart. Isn’t that the saying? “Merrily Tucker, you will hold my hand, and you will appear to like it. Mr. and Mrs. Schoeffling are watching us.”

I toss my head back, pretending to laugh giddily as I say, “I can’t believe I agreed to this!”

He chuckles. He is so not a chuckler, but he’s chuckling for Mr. and Mrs. Schoeffling. “I’m gonna get Conrad fired for bringing you back into my life.”

Sweetly, while digging my fingernails into his flesh, I remind him, “His name is Colin and it was your fault for buying my favorite house. Why on earth would you do such a thing?”

Before he can answer—if he was ever going to answer—Mrs. Schoeffling rolls down the window of their SUV as her husband slows down beside us. “Can we give you two young lovebirds a ride home?”

“That would be great,” I say. “Thank you!”

“That is so nice of you,” Grant says, louder than me, “but we were just saying how romantic it is to walk in the snow. You drive safe, now. Happy holidays!”

“Happy holidays! See you at The Notcracker, if we don’t see you before then, Merrily!”

I wave with my free hand, cursing Grant through a forced smile. “I just want to go home and get in bed.”

“Buy a guy a drink first, will you?” he says. “Oh wait, I bought us both drinks.”

“Oh my god, you are even more annoying when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk, you’re just happy to see me.”

“What? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Nope. None of this makes sense. That’s why you’re so tense. You should still hate me, but you don’t.”

“Trust me, I still hate you.”

“You hate that you don’t hate me. I don’t blame you.”

“For hating it?”

“For not hating me anymore.” He grins, cockily. “I’m irresistible.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m the irresistible one.”

“And yet, here I am, resisting you.” He lets go of my hand and snakes his arm around my waist as we walk down Evergreen Lane. There are two inches of down, recycled polyester, cotton-blend fleece, and a mesh cropped camisole between that hand and my bare skin, but I feel it. I feel the warmth and strength of his big hand, and I want that hand, his other hand, and every part of his body on every part of my body. And then I want several parts of his body inside a couple of parts of mine. For starters.

And he’s right. I hate how much I want it. In my rather underwhelming romantic history, I have been attracted to other men, but never like this. There’s an ache. A need that I can’t seem to eliminate or control. It fascinates and aggravates me, like a reality show about a rich asshole who despises Christmas that I can’t stop hate-watching.

He’s humming the tune to “O Holy Night” and it’s almost cute.

As we turn onto the path up to the front porch, I tense up, expecting him to let go of me since no one can see us anymore. But he doesn’t. And that makes me really angry between my legs. I wriggle away from him, about to hurry up the steps so I can get away from him. My Santa Claus toy is going to go town hard tonight. But I come to a lurching halt at the bottom step, because what if he hired someone to hose down the stairs while we were out so I’d slip and fall?

“Don’t run, it’s probably slippery,” he cautions me, holding me back, and slowly takes the steps first to make sure they aren’t icy.

It’s thoughtful of him, which is annoying, so I stomp up the stairs. Crossing my arms in front of my chest, I wait for him to find the right key on his key chain. “Oh my god, will you hurry up and open the door, I’m freezing.”

“Why are you so eager for me to open the door? Did you hire someone to use an electric coal starter to heat up the doorknob so I’ll burn my hand?”

Cocking an eyebrow, I say, “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

He stares down at me while sticking the key in the lock, turning it, pulling the key out, and then pushing the door open without having to place his hand on the doorknob. I don’t know why that’s hot, but it’s so hot. Not the doorknob—what Grant did. “How is it possible that the people in this town used to like you more than me?” he muses.