Open Your Heart (Kings Grove #4) - Delancey Stewart Page 0,89
them laze on the porch for a few minutes while Tuck and I sat down.
“Gorgeous morning,” Tuck said, tilting his chiseled chin up to the sky and stretching his arms wide. The muscles on his biceps bulged beneath the fabric of the cotton henley shirt he wore, and I couldn’t help longing to curl myself against that broad chest of his, even though I’d been telling myself all morning to drop the ridiculous fantasies.
“It is,” I confirmed, forcing myself not to look right at him. “But warm still. I doubt we’ll get snow in time for Christmas.”
“Do you usually end up with a white Christmas up here?”
“Not anymore,” I said. “I feel like when I was a kid it snowed a lot at Christmas, but the last few years the drought has persisted, and we’ve been lucky to get any snow.”
Tuck kicked his long legs out and crossed them. “I bet it’ll snow this year.” His voice held a confidence there was no way he could actually feel. It wasn’t going to snow. It never did.
“Well, maybe,” I told him. “But we’ll have the festival either way. Think you’re up for helping a bit?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and watching me in a way that made it very hard to keep averting my gaze from those penetrating blue eyes. “Tell me about it.”
“Sure, uh.” Having Tuck’s undivided attention was making me nervous, and after him hearing me say he was hot this morning, I felt like I’d lost all my power in this situation. “Well, we generally do things over a three-day period, with the tree lighting a week earlier.” I risked a look up at him and saw he was watching me with interest. I took a breath and continued. “This year I’m going to have a cookie-decorating contest, some outdoor games at the clubhouse—pinecone toss, three-legged race, that kind of thing, with some crafts inside for kids to work on. And then a Secret Santa gift exchange. On Christmas Eve we’ll do an open house with carols and cider. The day after Christmas we used to do the dogsled race, but that was when we had snow.”
“Is that why you end up planning all this?”
“Because of the dog race?” I laughed. “No, I mean, I used to enter when I had five dogs of my own. But I ended up planning this festival a long time ago when my parents were both here. It was kind of our family tradition at the holidays, since we don’t have a lot of extended family. It felt right to celebrate with Kings Grove.”
“And you’re stuck with it now?” Tuck asked.
“Kind of,” I admitted. “But I enjoy it. It’s a good distraction, I guess.” I shrugged, darting my eyes to his face and then back down to my hands.
“What do you need to be distracted from, Doc?”
That did it. The warm understanding tone of his voice, the way he dipped his head to catch my eye. It was hard enough having a crush on Tuck when he was just a bright shiny blond Adonis strutting around the village, not noticing me. But this? Having him talk to me in that soft voice and look at me like I was an injured bird he might try to save? It was too much.
I jumped out of my chair and walked the length of the deck, trying to get a grip on myself. “Nothing, really.” I forced a laugh. “I mean, I’m alone up here, you know? That’s all, I guess. It keeps me busy.”
“I get it,” he said. “I’m alone up here too. So maybe you’re on to something. Maybe I’ll help you plan the festival, and I won’t even notice I’m on my own for the holiday.”
I risked a look at him again, and nearly sank into the warmth bubbling in his blue eyes. “That would be…” Words were failing me because Tuck was holding my gaze and smiling at me, like he knew something, something I hadn’t told him yet. I guessed he kind of did. “That would be good,” I managed. “And if you could film some of it during the first parts, I’d hoped maybe we could show the movie the day after Christmas when folks stop through the clubhouse for the race?”
Tuck stood. “I can definitely do that. But first, it sounds like there’s a tree we need to get ready to light?”
The tree lighting was a week out and I hadn’t done a thing.