Missing Christmas - Kate Clayborn Page 0,13

brand-new; the love seat and coffee table only look gently used.

And the bed—yeah, it’s also brand-new, not even made up, which is why I’ve got an armful of snow-dusted sheets and blankets when I step farther into the room behind Kristen. We’d insisted on coming out here alone after the meal, assuring the Dreyers we didn’t want them facing the wind unnecessarily. It’d been a good decision—not just because the wind was, in fact, worryingly powerful, Kristen’s body leaning into mine as we’d walked, both of us trying to shield her face from the whipping snow, but because it’s better that none of them see the way Kristen and I seem newly frozen in place by that bed.

I think it’s a full-size.

“I could take the love seat,” she says.

“Oh, sure. Let’s have this argument again,” I deadpan.

And for the second time in a week, she surprises me.

She laughs.

“Oh my God,” she says through a gust of it. “This is really ridiculous. We’re snowed in.” She laughs again. “We’re snowed in and I—I kissed you!”

“Kris,” I say, still standing there with those blankets, watching her laugh and feeling my heart lurch happily in my chest at the sight of it. “Are you all right?”

She’s braced herself on the love seat as she nods, leaning forward slightly with her laughter, her hair dusted with snowflakes, her cheeks flushed pink again, and I feel myself smiling too.

“There’s only one bed,” I say, and she practically howls.

“Gil thought we were married.” She presses a hand to her chest. “What would Carol say?”

“She’d probably plan an office party. She’d wear a wedding-themed sweater. She’d put ‘Going to the Chapel’ on her computer speakers.”

She has to sit on the arm of the love seat after that, wiping her eyes. It’s the best part of my day, seeing her laugh like that. I should set down the blankets, but I can’t. If anything, I hold them tighter to my chest, the wet of the melting snow sinking through the fabric of my coat.

But after a few seconds she quiets, her face falling at the same time she moves to the side, sitting fully on the cushion now. Her eyes drift to the window—it’s nearly nine, full dark, but the drifting snow, combined with what I worry is some fresh snowfall on its own—gives the outdoors an almost eerie lightness.

“It doesn’t look good for tomorrow, does it?”

I move on instinct, setting the stack of linens on the bed and stripping off my coat before coming around to sit beside her. It’s a small piece of furniture, suited to the space but not so much to either one of us, who’re both above average in height, and definitely not so much if we’re trying to avoid more of the physical contact that had seemed—at least to me—to fill up the Dreyers’ living room with pheromones.

“Maybe it’ll clear.” I watch the space where the cream wool of her coat presses against the starched blue cotton of my shirt.

She purses her lips, her expression doubtful. She sits forward, takes off her coat, and tosses it over the arm before settling again. Back at the house, she’d been the one trying to cheer me, to contain my frustration about my having gotten us into this mess. But now that she doesn’t have to put a face on for anyone, I can see how upset she is. It hurts to see her this way, but it’s also a reminder. Kris can show me this because—even in spite of the way it’s been between us since that kiss—we’re friends. We’re that close; we know each other that well.

“Hey.” I nudge her lightly with my shoulder. “Tell me what you’d be doing. If you were with your family right now, I mean.”

She rolls her head my way, looks up at me through dark-lashed eyes, her mascara a little smudgy. She gives a halfhearted shrug. “The usual stuff.”

“What’s the usual stuff?”

“You don’t like Christmas. I saw you drink that hot cider. You made this face.” She pulls her lips to the side, scrunches her nose slightly. This time, I laugh.

“I didn’t.”

“You did. You only kept drinking it to wash down the cookie.”

“It was dry!” I nudge her again, and the missing, it’s less now, the way it always is when we spend time together this way. As more than colleagues. “Anyway, I want to know. The usual stuff.”

Kris takes a deep breath, and the action sinks her closer to me, her head almost resting on my