Elkin Brothers Christmas The Complete Series - Leslie North Page 0,80

open the top of the box, and her eyebrows went up. For the first time, Anna saw the cookies the way the older woman would see them—chunky, a little misshapen, and obviously homemade. “Oh, thank you, Gabe.” She pulled him down into a hug.

“Did you do that yourself?” Jonas asked, a slightly suspicious look on his face. “I think this is the first time you’ve ever baked anything.”

“Anna and I worked together,” Gabe answered.

His grandmother lifted a cookie from the box and bit into it, her eyes fluttering closed. “This is delicious.” She finished the cookie quietly and offered some to the others.

“Cute.” Chase grinned. “Nice gift.”

Gabe shrugged in response, but Anna could see the color darkening in his cheeks. He angled his body more toward his grandmother who’d managed to eat the entire cookie without getting so much as a crumb on her sweater. “I’m sorry I couldn’t host a dinner for you tonight.”

“That’s okay.” Jonas spoke first without hesitation. “If you need to rest, you can rest.”

Anna had noticed the tension in the woman’s body the whole time they’d been there, so it was nice to see her relax a bit. It was, she supposed, a family tradition for their grandmother to host many meals throughout the holidays, each lovely and elegant. The mood in the room shifted, and each brother set out to reassure their grandmother it was more than okay to take it easy.

Tana moved to sit on the couch beside Elin as they chatted, but Anna couldn’t do it.

It didn’t matter, though, because she was never going to be a genuine part of this family—the thought causing a lump to form in her throat. She’d told Gabe some of her past, and so far, he didn’t act differently toward her. But that was way more than she could expect from the rest of his family. Or deserved, for that matter.

Anger swelled, heating her cheeks and making her mouth go dry. Her father could have been a decent man who led a normal life, and then she wouldn’t have any secrets. They weren’t really her secrets, either, but no matter what she did, they seemed to cling to her like a second skin.

Gabe appeared at her side and put a hand on her back, his thumb tracing a slow path over the fabric of her dress. “She likes the cookies,” he murmured into her ear, but she could see that he wasn’t sure the gift had been good enough.

“She definitely did,” Anna agreed. “I saw her face when she took the first bite. You can’t hide joy like that.”

He relaxed. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” He leaned in and kissed her temple, and just like that, all her frustration melted away. A kiss on the temple in front of his family didn’t mean anything, but the words he spoke only for her benefit were different. Those meant something. So did the way he pulled her in close to his side and held her there for a few moments. “We’ll let you rest, Grandmother,” he called. “Let us know if you need anything at all.”

Everyone said their goodbyes, and Anna and Gabe led the procession back out of their grandmother’s rooms and to the elevator. They exited, Gabe still holding her hand as he led her to their rooms.

“Home sweet home,” she said as Gabe paused outside the door.

His eyes met hers in a flash of heat that still managed to surprise her even though they’d already been intimate. Gabe smiled. A genuine, open, and filled-with-relief smile. “That’s right.”

10

Gabe woke to the sound of a hair dryer running, and for a minute, he didn’t know where he was. He kept a hair dryer in his penthouse apartment in Vegas, of course, but these didn’t feel like his pillows. He turned over and opened his eyes. Ah—the Elk Lodge. Home. And the person with the hair dryer was Anna.

He closed his eyes again and indulged in the fantasy of her for a few more moments. Home—with Anna. It sounded right in his head. But it was the stuff of dreams, not reality.

No matter how much he wanted to keep her in bed, they sometimes had to leave the suite.

The hair dryer went off, and she emerged from the bathroom, snugly wrapped in a bathrobe, her dark eyes lighting up at the sight of him. “Sorry if I woke you.” A sheepish blush came to her cheeks, layered on top of the pink from the dryer’s heat.