her eyes widened. “What is this?”
“It was in the matchmaker box.”
She scanned the page, eyes inevitably landing on the phrase Heart otherwise engaged. “I don’t understand.”
“I guess Noni Rose tried to match you,” he said.
If she was angry about this, Pru didn’t let on.
“You never mentioned anything to me about seriously dating anyone,” he said.
She folded the paper and handed it back to him. “Because I didn’t seriously date anyone.” She pulled her legs up underneath her.
“Oh.” He studied her. Was she in love with someone she shouldn’t be? Someone married? “You don’t have to tell me. I was just wondering.”
She turned toward him. “I don’t know what Aunt Nellie thought she knew, but my heart is as unattached as it’s always been.”
“Oh,” he said. “Okay.”
But something told him she wasn’t being honest. She was holding back.
He thought of the several times she’d asked him why he wasn’t sleeping. He was holding back too, and he didn’t want to anymore. Not here, not with Pru.
The white light from the Christmas tree glowed behind them, and the coziness of the fire enveloped them in peaceful comfort.
“I saw someone die,” he said now, certain talking about this wasn’t going to end well.
Pru stilled.
He hadn’t told anyone what had happened on his trip through the Middle East. In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have gone. He’d been doing a series on finding beauty in unlikely places, and it had been very well received—it turned out a lot of people want to travel to countries that aren’t known for being tourist destinations.
In hindsight, he’d been foolish and arrogant to think he could leave there unscathed.
But if there was anyone in the world who would listen without judging him, it was Pru.
And he wanted her to know.
So he told her the whole story. He told her how he went to Egypt, against the better judgment of everyone in his professional circle. How he was walking through the market, minding his own business, when across the street, a man got into a car and started the engine.
“I can still see his face,” Hayes said. “He was young, maybe early twenties. I don’t know what he was mixed up in or if he was one of the good guys, but he turned the ignition and there was this horrible sound—an explosion, then screams throughout the street.”
Hayes felt the blast of the car bomb from where he stood. It heated his face. In the commotion, someone pushed him down, but he couldn’t get the man’s face out of his head. Hayes had watched him walk out of a nearby restaurant. They’d made eye contact before the man got in his car.
And now he was dead. Just like that.
He spilled the entire story, surprising even himself, and now sat, mesmerized by the twinkling white lights they’d strung on the mantel behind Pru.
She didn’t say anything. She simply moved closer and held him, perfectly still, as the sadness oozed out of him. He didn’t like to be that guy—the one with issues. He was Hayes McGuire, life of the party. But not with Pru. With Pru, he could be whoever he was and feel whatever he felt.
He was tired of pretending, and she was his safe place.
They sat for a long time, and Hayes tried not to relive the horror over and over again. The fire flickered and Jimmy Stewart’s still face stared at them from the paused movie on the television screen.
It was quiet and peaceful, and Pru smelled so good, like cookies and cinnamon. He wrapped his arms around her and lay back, her body nestled between him and the back of the couch, her head on his chest. This wasn’t weird, right? They were friends. This was perfectly normal.
He’d stopped thinking about Pru as anything else when she turned him down—twice—confident he could be the friend she needed. That didn’t stop just because they were practically cuddling on her sofa.
She clicked the movie on and they watched till the end, but as the credits rolled, he
discovered she’d fallen asleep on him.
Heart otherwise engaged.
He knew why he didn’t want that to be true. He knew it, but he’d never admit it out loud because admitting it meant that his feelings for Pru had changed, and he couldn’t let that happen—not if he wanted to keep her in his life. But as he drifted off to sleep, he tried not to think about waking her up and kissing her. It wasn’t easy, he was overcome with the desire.
He needed his