A Little Country Christmas - Carolyn Brown Page 0,65
the kitchen barstool while he got the fire going in the living room—the only part of the first floor he’d consider remotely finished even if the only furniture was his favorite recliner he’d brought back from Chicago and the floor rug he’d picked up at a discount home store in an outlet mall a couple of hours south.
He smiled to himself as the logs in the fireplace crackled and the golden flames licked their way up toward the chimney.
He’d come home to figure his life out. To restore the home his parents left to be closer to him. He’d come home to honor them. He’d come home to escape his own failure. He hadn’t come here looking for a reason to stay.
But now there was a deputy sheriff in his kitchen, one he hadn’t stopped thinking about since she wrenched his arm behind his back on a morning run went wrong. Dani Garcia found such joy in this time of year that it had started to rub off on him. If she hadn’t seen the urn—if he hadn’t told her about his parents, he never would have taken her to the evergreens. Hell, he wouldn’t have gone himself. But somehow he knew if she was there, he could get through it.
Baby steps, right? He wasn’t ready to let her all the way in. The restoration project had to be his alone. It was his home. His parents. His responsibility to put everything back the way it used to be as best he could. But he’d made it to the trees, and he hadn’t sulked once.
Peyton inhaled a steadying breath and let it go. He’d lost his parents and his job. He’d lost his way. And then he found Dani.
Maybe, just maybe, this was the start of his life actually going right.
The kettle whistled. He rose from where he was squatting in front of the fireplace and followed the sound back to the kitchen, to the woman who was unwrapping and dropping a bag of English breakfast tea into each of the mugs he’d set out on the island.
“I’ll get the milk and sugar,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.
She wrinkled her nose. “Can’t we drink it as it was intended? Like we should all be drinking our coffee?”
He laughed. “Suit yourself. You can have yours however you want. I’m going to have it the right way.”
He moved past her to the refrigerator, and he heard her groan behind him.
“Fine. I’ll do it your way, cowboy. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
He grinned, even though his back was to her.
“Cowboy, huh?” he asked. It had been a long time since he’d thought of himself as anything other than a politician who was hopefully on the rise.
He grabbed the box of sugar packets and turned back to face her, a jug of milk in one hand and the sugar in the other.
“You don’t have to like it, Deputy,” he said with a wink. “But you will.”
He set the items down on the island, then pressed his lips against her neck.
She shivered, which only made him smile more.
“Yeehaw,” he whispered in her ear, and she shivered again. “Still cold?” he asked, straightening so his gaze met hers.
She shook her head. “At least not the kind of cold that requires tea to warm me up.”
Her coat was off, as was the fleece pullover she’d had on underneath. She stood there in her button-down flannel, jeans, and a pair of gray-and-white polka-dotted socks, and Peyton swore he’d never seen anyone sexier.
“Maybe you need a blanket?” he teased, and she shook her head again.
“No. That’s not it. I think I need to be closer to the fire,” she said, then spun on her heel, ignoring the two mugs of tea as she moved into the living room.
Peyton stood there, speechless, wondering if he’d misread the entire situation until he heard her yell, “You coming, cowboy? The fire can’t do the job all by itself.”
He found her kneeling on the rug in front of the fireplace, rubbing her hands together in the heat radiating from the flames.
When she turned to him her golden eyes were ablaze, and he knew three things. One: The tea would go cold. Two: He couldn’t care less if it did. And three: Deputy Daniela Garcia could ruin him if she wanted to, but he couldn’t imagine a better way to go.
He knelt beside her and leaned back so he was balancing on his heels.