A Copper Ridge Christmas Page 4

  He swallowed hard, doing his best to get a hold of his wayward thoughts. That’s all they were. They weren’t even real, fully-formed desires. Just, rogue, errant thoughts. Some kind of problem with synapses, and blood flow and shit.

  Maybe he did spend too much time on the ocean. He needed to make more time for women. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Holly women liked his boat. An evening at Ace’s, a little conversation and an offer of a fishing boat tour often ended very well for him. But he hadn’t bothered in a while.

  He needed to bother, obviously, because he was starting to entertain illicit Holly thoughts, which meant he’d left his sex life dormant for too long.

  He wasn’t entertaining anything. No, he’d had a moment of checking her out, because she was a woman and he was a man and they had been in proximity lately. But that was it. That was all it was. Nothing more.

  “I’ve been texting you,” she said, climbing up into the truck.

  “I don’t text.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “But you’re still texting me.”

  She lifted one mittened hand to her mouth to wrench it off with her teeth, revealing slim, elegant fingers that he could easily imagine trailing over his skin. He needed his head checked. And he needed her to put her mittens back on.

  Then she reached into her purse, pulled out her phone and tapped away at the screen before dramatically making one final keystroke as she made eye contact with him. His phone flashed a message on the screen.

  You suck.

  “That’s very mature,” he said.

  She smiled broadly, pulling the little red mitten back into place. “See, you do read your texts.”

  “Did you pick up a permit for the tree?”

  “Yes,” she said, digging into her purse again to produce a long, bright orange strip.

  “You know we’re not going to find a pretty tree out in the wilderness.”

  “We might.”

  “Feral Christmas trees tend to look a little worse for wear.”

  “I hope you brought a gun. In case the Christmas tree decides to attack.”

  He put the truck in reverse and started to back out, the none-too-gentle acceleration making the truck jolt as the tire hit a pothole between the road and driveway.

  And if it jostled Holly a little bit, and he enjoyed it, it was merely accidental. Holly’s house was on the outskirts of town, and it was a short drive past a parkland and to a winding dirt road that led to an area where cutting down trees was legal. It was a cloudy day, the mist pushing its way through the canopy of evergreens, hanging low, blotting out the weak, faded winter sun and leaving the forest nearly as dark as dusk.

  “How far do you want to go?” he asked.

  “I want to go high enough to get a Silvertip.” That variety of pine that grew at higher elevations. “And to see some snow.”

  Oh, good. She wanted to extend their time together. Fucking perfect. “This isn’t a joyride. We are on a mission.”

  Holly waved her mittened hand. “Don’t be such a drill sergeant.”

  “I’m not being a drill sergeant. But I do have other things to do today.”

  “You are a drill sergeant. A seagoing, barnacle-encrusted drill sergeant.”

  He turned to look at her, raising both of his brows. “I guarantee you nothing on my person is encrusted in barnacles.” He snorted and before he could stop himself added, “I haven’t been out of commission that long.”

  A faint blush of rose tinged her cheeks, and he knew that she’d gotten the underlying meaning in his words. “Well,” she mumbled, “good for you.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “I, uh...didn’t know you were out of commission at all.”

  Heat spiked through his veins and he kept his eyes very carefully glued to the road. “Not officially or anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s just been a while. That’s all.”

  “Uh-huh. Okay.”

  He happily let the conversation die after that. They continued on up the dirt road without speaking, allowing the sound of the tires rolling over the gravel to fill the cab, and take the place of any awkward words. There was something about Holly that made him feel a good fifteen years younger than he actually was. Maybe it was the fact that he’d known her about that long.

  Of course, she’d been thirteen when he’d first met her. A girl. While he’d been nearly nineteen and hadn’t given her a sideways glance. Until her birthday. Until that night he’d thought about kissing her. But she’d still been a girl, even if she’d looked a lot like a woman.

  Now, however, she was unquestionably all woman.

  That made things a bit more difficult.

  The ice crystals on the ground grew more numerous as they went to a higher elevation, binding together to create a soft, thick blanket of snow.

  They drove on for a while longer, before he pulled the truck off to the side of the road. “We better stop here. I have four-wheel drive but I don’t exactly want to pull out of a snow bank. Not if I have a choice.” He killed the engine and she scrambled out of the truck, almost as if she was in a hurry to get out of the enclosed space. Well, that made two of them. She’d probably felt that same strangeness between them last night.

  She established a quick pace, walking up ahead of him on the road, craning her neck to look up the side of the mountain and examine the trees.

  “Do you see anything you like?”

  “I like that one,” she said, gesturing to a tree halfway up the steep hill. “But I think it might be too big. Oh!” She stopped in her tracks. “I like that one.” She pointed to one even farther up, covered in snow. “Oh, it might be too small.”

  “Come on, Goldilocks, are you going to choose a tree or not?”

  She reached up and took a lock of her hair between her thumb and forefinger, turning to face him, holding a bright red strand out. “Goldilocks?”

  “Yeah. This tree is too big, this one is too small. Next thing you know you’ll be eating my porridge and sleeping in my bed.”

  A jolt went through Holly’s body, her eyes going wide. And he wanted nothing more than to reach down his throat and cram the words that had just come out of his mouth back in. But it was too late. It wouldn’t accomplish anything anyway. The words had been spoken.

  “You know that’s not what I meant.” He figured he’d better say something instead of just letting her stand there, turning redder than her namesake berry.

  “Right,” she said. “Of course. I knew that. I didn’t think... I mean, I didn’t...”

  “Don’t get your mittens in a twist.”

  She held her hands out, and looked at said mittens. “My mittens aren’t twisted.”

  He leaned forward and took hold of one knit-covered finger, wiggling it gently. “Metaphorically. Which is how I meant the other thing too.” He released his hold on her and walked on ahead of her, taking a deep breath of the sharp, cold air.

  He was just going to do his best to pretend that he wasn’t affected at all by what had just transpired between them. He needed to get a handle on himself. He wondered if before yesterday saying something like that would have read like a double entendre. Or if it had to do with what had happened.

  “That tree will be great,” Holly said, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a rush.

  He looked ahead and saw a tree that would probably have an extra foot cut off the bottom before it could fit in her house. Clearly she had become a whole lot less picky since being out here with him had become a bit more uncomfortable.

  Thanks to you.

  Obviously he needed to do something about the sexual frustration that was building inside of him. He hadn’t realized he was sexually frustrated until yesterday, but now it was apparent. But if he w
as starting to feel serious attraction for Holly, the kinds of attraction he’d managed to keep under wraps for years, then he definitely needed to address the situation.

  For now, though, he would just get a grip. Metaphorically speaking. He’d known her for years, and he wasn’t some animal at the mercy of base lust. He was a man, dammit.

  And if he had to expend some sexual frustration chopping down a tree, he would. Because he was a man, and that was how a man handled a situation like this.

  He certainly didn’t act on the feelings. Nope.

  He wasn’t worthy of her. Not even to touch her. Not even for a moment.

  “Okay,” he grunted, “let me go back to the truck and get the ax. I’ll only be a minute.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AT LEAST SHE had a tree. That was the glittery lining to this strange little afternoon. It hadn’t been entirely unpleasant, spending time with Ryan. It hadn’t been entirely unpleasant being subjected to the small moments of unintentional flirtation. But it would’ve been better if they were intentional. Or if they were moments she could respond to.

  Had she been on a date, complete with a walk in the snow, hot cider and a beautiful Christmas tree, it would have been a lovely afternoon. One full of banter and naughty jokes that made her feel warm and excited. That heated her from the inside out.

  As it was, it had just been awkward, with a side of awkward, rolled in awkward and flash fried in oh dear God why.

  At least the drive back into town was uneventful. They stopped for gas, chatted with the station attendant, and then she talked him into making a stop at the store for apple juice because her earlier thoughts about cider had made her crave some.

  By the time they pulled into her driveway, she had almost forgotten his words up in the mountains. Almost.

  Every so often they replayed in her mind. Deep, rough, sexy. Next thing you know you’ll be sleeping in my bed.

  He had no idea that was one of her most cherished fantasies. Still. Yes, now that she was being honest with herself, she could admit that it still was.

  That’s probably why you’ve never slept in anyone else’s bed.

  She winced at her own line of thinking. She did not need to go thinking about sex again in his presence. Particularly her lack of experience. Her stomach sank when he turned off the engine, and she realized she needed his help getting more than one thing into the house.

  “Can you help me with the tree?” she asked.

  “Of course. I’m not going to leave you to struggle with a giant pine.”

  Giant pine. There was another one. She was getting kind of prurient. All she needed to do was not say anything about wood. “Thank you,” she said, the words stiff, cautious.

  “I assume you need help getting those bins into, unless you wrangled them in yesterday.”

  “No, no wrangling was done. They’re still sitting in the back of my car.”

  “Okay, I guess I can put my muscles to use for you. No one else is using them.”

  She closed her eyes and tried very hard not to think about how many uses she could find for his muscles. “Yeah, we...we established that. And I’m happy to. Make use of them. To carry heavy things...not...Right.”

  “You can go ahead inside the house, get the tree stand set up. I’m going to have to cut off some of the bottom for the stand up in your living room, I’m almost sure of it.”

  And she was going into the house. She was not going to stand outside and watch him, engaging in Ryan-based lumberjack fantasies that she had no business having.

  Anyway, she’d already done that earlier when he’d chopped the tree down in the first place.

  “Okay.” She got out of the truck, holding her grocery bag with the juice in it. “I’ll go put the cider on.”

  “You have booze for that?”

  “I’m not a Philistine, Ryan. It isn’t the holidays if you can’t get pleasantly sauced around the tree. Or, in my family, people just got drunk and skipped the tree.”

  “Sounds like my kind of Christmas,” he said.

  She swallowed, trying to suppress the unpleasant memory. It was her own fault for bringing it up. “Yeah, not really. Trust me.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “No, don’t be. I made the joke. But hell, we all have baggage. No need to dwell on it.”

  “Why is it that airlines never lose emotional baggage?”

  “That is a good question. I’ll go...do the cider.”

  She walked inside, kicking her boots on the edge of the doorframe to knock off most of the mud. She left it cracked so that Ryan could push his way in easily when he was ready. She looked around her living room, imagining how it would be when it was full of friends and surrogate family, decorated for the holidays and smelling like cinnamon and cranberries.

  Her house was another thing Margie and Dan had helped her with. She wondered if Ryan even knew that. They’d given her the down payment on her beautiful craftsman style home. It was modest, but it was the first thing she ever owned. She was almost certainly the first person in her family to own a house.

  What she owed them was endless.

  She set to work, putting a blue and white speckled pot on the stove and dumping the jug of cider in, then adding a few cinnamon sticks and some nutmeg. She turned the burner on high and covered it with a dented lid.

  A few moments later, Ryan appeared with the tree. “You can set it over there, where the stand is,” she told him. She’d moved it into place last night.

  He grunted, and she was powerless to do anything but stare as he carried the tree through the living area, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floor. She cursed winter yet again, because it necessitated him wearing all those layers, and covered up what she was certain was a pretty darn good show.

  Get a grip. You’re supposed to be dealing. Not pining like the idiot you’ve been for all these years. When you leaned in toward him yesterday, he jumped back like you growled at him. He does not want you.

  Part of the problem was that she’d never moved on. It was easy to convince herself that what she felt for Ryan all those years ago was a crush, but the proof was in her actions. She’d never gone on more than two dates with anyone. She never let anyone get past her front door, never let them get into her heart or her body.

  It was easy enough to dismiss all that. She had trust issues. A dad who had never bothered to be faithful to her mom, a mom who had abandoned her because of a mistake she’d made.

  She happily blamed her lack of love life on all those things. The Ryan factor was a lot less comfortable.

  She gritted her teeth and headed back over to the stove to needlessly stir the cider and try to get a handle on herself.

  By the time she looked up again, Ryan was walking out the door, probably headed out to grab the bins. Then he would bring them in, then leave. She could decorate her home in peace and quiet and not think about all of the old feelings that were stirred up inside her.

  He appeared a few moments later with two bins, one stacked on top of the other, dropped them just inside the doorway and headed back outside for the third. When he came back, he surprised her by closing the front door and pulling the lid off of the first box. “Do you need help with any of this?”

  “Well, I’ll need help with the outdoor things, but it’s too dark to do that now.”

  “What about the stuff going inside? Need any help with the garlands, or anything?”

  “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “Because I’ve been distinctly not nice. And I’m sorry. Holidays have never been a big deal for me. And I was insensitive. So let’s just get back to the way things were.”

  She had an awful feeling that this had nothing to do with his grumpiness, and everything to do with the strange sexual tension that had wound itself around all
of their actions for the past couple of days. He wanted to get rid of it. He probably figured he had two options: go back to his boat and hide from it, and do battle with the next time they saw each other, which was a bit more frequently right at the moment, or try to make things normal again.

  Obviously he had taken option two.

  Her disappointment was a bitter pill. It shouldn’t be. She should be thrilled. She’d just been trying to talk herself into not acting like a sex-starved idiot.

  But you are a sex-starved idiot.

  Okay, she had a point with that one.

  But no more. Her New Year’s resolution would be to put an end to all of that. She would get a kiss, from someone she didn’t know maybe. A handsome stranger. Too bad there were nothing but handsome acquaintances in Copper Ridge. Such were the hazards of life in a small town.

  Maybe she would celebrate the holiday in Tolowa. Or in Portland. She could get a fancy dress, and drink fancy drinks, and in general be fancy. And make out with someone.

  “You’re frowning awfully deeply for somebody who’s just stirring juice.”

  She blinked and returned her focus to Ryan, who was standing there looking at her like he was afraid she was going to bite his hand.

  “I was just thinking,” she said.

  “About Christmas decorations?”

  “Coordinating events is my business, I take it very seriously. I have a whole idea in my head.” That much was true, though thinking about party decorations didn’t make her frown. It made her happy.

  “Okay. So you say what you need, and I’ll do it. I’m your slave for the rest of the evening.”

  She swallowed hard, biting the inside of her cheek. She did not need that mental image. “Thanks. Well, some of the Christmas lights and garlands are wound in pretty heavy bundles. If you could help get that sorted, that would be helpful.”