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“Sorry,” Claire muttered as his silence continued. “I guess I just needed to vent or something.”

He eyed her rosy cheeks, made all the redder by her blush. Why was it so important for her to ensure that he knew this evening wasn’t a date?

“If it helps,” he began, “she did clarify that we’d just be hanging out together.”

Her shoulders visibly relaxed. “Okay. Good. I just wanted to be sure.”

Liam nodded. Alright, so Claire was happier now. But what about himself? “You know, if you didn’t want me to come here today, you could have messaged me yourself.”

Honestly, it would be easier not to be there. Never mind that he was only trying to help her. If she didn’t want him there, he’d just as soon back out.

Claire’s blue eyes landed on him in an instant, and she frowned. “What? Why wouldn’t I want you here?”

“You just said you told Melody not to invite me.”

Understanding lit her eyes, and she instantly shook her head. “No, no, no. I’m more than happy to have you here. Honestly. I’d much rather talk to you than the back of Melody’s head or Dean’s glazed-over eyes. I just felt bad asking you to give up another one of your days off, you know?” She ended in a shrug. “I just didn’t want to put you out again.”

Well, blast. Not only did she balm his pride, she’d also somehow convinced him to want to be there with her, too. Everything would have been so much easier had she just told him to leave.

Melody’s laughter bellowed toward them, and they both turned as she neared the front of the line, hopping up and down as she clung to Dean’s hand.

In an effort to distract them once again from his cousin’s ridiculousness, Liam shifted his body toward Claire. “For the record, you aren’t putting me out.”

She gave him a dubious look. “So you were just more than happy to stop whatever it was you were doing with your spare time to hang out with some rando from America?”

“Well, I was rather sad to step away from watching my saved clips of the royal weddings…”

Her eyes shimmered as a barely restrained grin lit her expression.

“Really, though,” he continued, “I was happy to come today. If only to save you from having to spend more time alone with Dean and Melody. They really are a bit much together.”

Claire nodded with a heavy sigh. “Well, thanks for agreeing to share in my misery. They are nauseating. But, for what it’s worth, I’m still having a nicer time here than I would’ve been having home alone at Christmas.”

Liam paused, wondering if he’d heard her right. Her parents were on a cruise over the holiday, but was there nowhere else for her to spend Christmas?

“You really would have been home alone?”

Claire’s mouth hung open like a nutcracker’s. Obviously, she hadn’t meant to let that slip. “Yeah, but it’s not that big of a deal. I’ve done it before, and it’s actually really peaceful. But this year, I dunno, it’s nice to be somewhere other than home.”

Liam nodded, his heart reaching out to her, if only to cloak his own pain. Spending two Christmases by himself in a hotel room, drowning himself in production after production, may have numbed his pain for a time, but it was also very, very lonely and anything but peaceful.

“So what do you do for Christmas normally?” he asked gingerly. He didn’t want to impose, but a fraction of him wanted—needed—to know she had some happiness at Christmas to fall back on.

She seemed to hesitate for a minute, then pulled on a tight smile. “I used to stay with my grandparents through all of December when I was a kid, then after they died, I was invited to go with my aunt and uncle up to their lodge for Christmas.”

“That sounds nice,” he said, praying that it was.

She nodded, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “It was nice. They always had this huge tree they cut down themselves set up in the center of the front room. We’d stay up late every night, playing games and eating fudge and peanut brittle around the tree. It was always really fun.”

“So did they not get together there this year, then?”

Her expression fell, but she picked it straight back up with a shrug. “No, they did. Their family is just getting so big now with their kids marrying and having children of their own. There’s just not much room for me anymore.”

Liam’s chest burned. Really? Her uncle had no room to invite his one niece to stay at his massive holiday home for a couple days? It wasn’t Liam’s place to judge, but how could all of the adults in this woman’s life be so selfish?

Before he could respond—though he still didn’t know what to say—Claire pointed abruptly to the carousel. “They’re finally getting on.”

Liam glanced to where Dean and Melody rushed past children to mount two horses situated side-by-side. They laughed together as they held each other’s hands across the aisle, preventing anyone else from moving past them.