A Winter Wish (The Read Family Saga #1) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,31

to be the man she took him for.

“Come with me,” he said, jumping up so quickly his stool toppled over.

He might as well have brandished a pistol for the shock that filled Merry’s eyes as she gazed at the overturned chair. “Luke?

His garland in one hand, Luke took Merry’s fingers with his other. He gave a determined tug that brought her to her feet. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” she asked as he pulled her along, deeper and deeper into the greenhouse, bypassing vibrant shrubs and fragrant blooms as they went. Merry stole a look over her shoulder. “There’s still more to be done.”

“Yes. Yes, there is.” Just not the work she referred to.

“We cannot simply leave.” Merry dug her heels in, forcing them to a grinding stop. “There’s the garland, and then we have just the afternoon to organize the games for your family’s guests.”

His family’s guests. That was precisely who the expected parties were, and yet, that also delineated a separation between him and Merry, and fury and outrage blazed a path through him.

But it’s true. It is the way of the servant. Always be working.

His mouth hardened.

Not on this damn day.

“To hell with the games.”

Her eyebrows crept together. “That is… quite contradictory.”

“Indeed,” he allowed and gave her hand another pull.

She reluctantly followed him to the pair of glass doors that led outside.

The moon still hung in the sky, and with the fresh, untouched snow that blanketed the earth, it cast a vivid brightness over the grounds.

Luke reached for the handle.

“What are you doing?” Merry blurted, freezing him in midmovement. “It is… freezing.”

Yes, she was right on that score. Just as she was correct on so many scores. And yet, he’d be damned if they didn’t quit that blasted workstation and make their way outside. “Come,” he scoffed. “It’s not that cold.”

As if Mother Nature relished in making a liar of him, a gust of wind battered against the glass panels. They shook and shuddered under the force of that blast.

Merry winged a well-formed eyebrow up.

“Yes. Yes. Well, perhaps it is a bit cold.” Luke proceeded to unbutton his jacket.

Merry made a peculiar choking noise.

“Are you all right, love?” he asked, struggling with one of the gold buttons.

“Are you all right?” she countered, glancing up at the glass ceiling.

His lips twitched. “Ah, and here I’d not expect that the same woman who’d ring a bell over my drunken self would turn shy on me.”

“I’m not shy, per se.” Rising to the challenge he’d put to her, she slowly brought her gaze back down to him.

He widened his smile. “That’s better.” With a wink, he shrugged out of his jacket.

Merry nearly dissolved into a paroxysm and found that spot overhead that held her so fascinated. “That is not better. If anyone enters, well, it would be scandalous. It would…” He draped the cloak about her shoulders. She was taller than most women, but still several inches shorter than he was, and the heavy wool garment hung past her knees. “What are you doing?”

Starting around her, he grabbed for the brown wool garment hanging nearby.

“Luke, are you… wearing the gardener’s jacket?”

He drew on the slightly snug jacket better fitted to the smaller, reed-thin Mr. Whitely. “I am.”

“Why?” she asked slowly, like one trying to puzzle through a complicated riddle.

“Well, I cannot very well have you wearing it,” he said as he made his way back over to her. Reaching past her, he pushed the door open and motioned her outside. “Merry.”

She hesitated, glancing from him to that gaping exit to the grounds. “You’ve gone mad,” she said and took a tentative step outside.

He grinned. Indeed, he had. Decorum and straitlaced living were highly overrated. How much he’d missed. How much emptier and lonelier and… miserable his existence had been until she’d opened his eyes to accepting happiness in his life. Closing the door behind them, Luke joined her.

The snow crunched under his boots, loud in the early morn quiet.

Hugging herself tightly, Merry rubbed at her arms. Small puffs of white escaped her full lips as she breathed. “Wh-what are w-we doing out h-here?” she asked, her voice trembling from the cold.

“I thought it should be obvious.” He spread his arms wide. “We’re simply having fun.”

“Fun?”

He nodded once.

“You have gone mad. Come, Luke, there’s work to do. Your family will awake soon in anticipation of the arrival of their guests.” As she went on with her very lengthy argument, he bent down and gathered up a ball of snow. “G-guests