Falling By Firelight (Christmas Romance) Page 5

  Before she could, the woman’s eyes met hers. Any pain she’d felt before was dwarfed by this. In one swift motion, Kate stepped back over the threshold of the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Moving so quickly that no thoughts could register, she threw her clutch down on the sink and spun in a circle, looking. Within moments she’d chosen. Kate straddled the bowl of the toilet, clearing the essential oil diffuser from the top of it, moving it to the side. She unlatched the small window over the toilet and pushed it open. The biting cold hit her like a wave does a small child, taking her under. The frigid air filled her lungs, traveled up her nose. Left her body sputtering in a way normally reserved for the salty tide.

  Kate grabbed her clutch from the sink, mounted the toilet, and swung a leg out the window. The sill cut into her thigh, but she barely noticed. Over she went, careening into the branches of the tree waiting outside. Unsteadily, she came onto her feet. As soon as both were planted on the ground, she bolted.

  In her velvet dress, artfully cut off the shoulder, she clopped along the pavement. Why today, why today of all days, did I have to take an Uber? She kept on, running even as her calves and thighs began to burn, the muscles exasperated by her elevated heels. Not until she had rounded the corner, fled the block, put as much space between herself and the house as she could, did she come to a stop. Immediately, the shivering took hold. A heavy, full-body shaking.

  Fixing her arms to her waist, she opened the app and called for a ride. She crossed one leg over the other, keeping them tightly wound. The sheer black tights might as well have been left at home, from how easily the wind tore at her jittering flesh.

  There on the curb, finally and truly alone, the tears came. This time Kate made no effort to hold back. Not that she would’ve been very successful if she’d tried. The sobs wracked her body, quaked through her shoulders to the most tender reaches of her core. The tears were loud. Unwieldy. Cathartic. Every ounce of hurt worked its way out of her, offering some semblance of relief even as she devolved into a whimpering mess.

  It was a relief to be standing alone in the dark, only the dim highlight of the streetlamp illuminating her pain. The solitude was a balm. Only when the black SUV pulled up, and she took in the alarm on her driver’s face, did she realize how fully she’d crumpled.

  “Kate?” he asked in a voice so tentative, she knew what he wanted the answer to be.

  “Uh huh,” she replied apologetically. Sniffling, she pulled open the door and slid onto the cool leather seat. The older man eyed her in his rearview mirror. She avoided his gaze. Thankfully, he got the hint.

  “Just the same address you requested, is that right?”

  “Mhm.” She nodded, keeping her eyes trained on the darkness beyond the rear window. The engine purred to life and they pulled away. With every added bit of distance, her breathing calmed. Her pulse found a steady, measured pace.

  “You ladies, going out without coats in this.” Kate turned to face the driver, who was shaking his head. “I’ll never understand it, but from what I can tell, you’re a tougher lot than we are.”

  The corner of Kate’s mouth curled up. She hadn’t gone out in a winter cocktail dress without a coat, either for the sake of fashion or not wanting to deal with storing it, in years. Almost 10 years. But she said nothing of the sort. Instead she cleared her throat and formed her first full word since running the night’s emotional gauntlet.

  “Thanks.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “NO, YOU AREN’T seeming to hear me.” Kate struggled to keep the frustration from eking into her voice as she paced back and forth through her kitchen. “I paid for full delivery and setup.”

  “I know ma’am. I have heard you.” The woman on the phone was doing a much poorer job of veiling her frustration, if she was making an effort to veil it at all. “I’ve heard you say that several times. And I’ve apologized. But the fact remains that when open-door delivery is not possible, the loading team have to get back on the road.”

  Kate moved to her window, looking woefully at the massive cardboard box that sat at the heart of her driveway. It was already blanketed by a good two inches of white powder. “I understand that, but I really don’t think that they rang the doorbell. Or even knocked!”

  “According to the report, ma’am, they did.”

  “I have been up for hours.” She winced at her own edgy tone. “I’m sorry, I’m really not trying to cause a problem here. It’s just that I truly believe that if they had attempted to get my attention, I would have heard them and let them in. And to be frank, I wasn’t expecting you yet. The delivery estimate was for well after the holidays, and this is Christmas Eve! Is it normal for your employees to be working on Christmas Eve?”

  A heavy silence carried over the line. Kate bit the corner of her lip, waiting for her sentence. “On behalf of the company, I apologize, ma’am. But unfortunately, what’s done is done.” Oh fuck me. “Of course we will deduct the fee for delivery and assembly of your couch. That money should be returned to your credit card within the next three to five days. Well, three to five business days. As you pointed out, the holidays do factor in.”

  “Right,” she replied, the light gone from her voice.

  “Is there anything else I can help you with today, ma’am?”

  “No,” she stared at the package, the hulking weighty package, “no, I’m sure there’s not.”

  “Then you have a wonderful day.”

  “You too.” Clicking off the phone, Kate let the deep groan she’d been repressing rip out from her throat. Ruefully, she pulled her plaid blanket scarf down from the hook by the door and wound it several times around her neck and shoulders. She shoved her arms through the sleeves of her heaviest coat, thought for a moment, then shrugged it off and selected a slightly lighter alternative. This will just have to count as my workout for the day, she thought. Or the week.

  The snow had started a little over an hour ago and it was falling with remarkable speed. As much as she’d like to leave the couch outside, Kate had to catch a flight in just six hours. If she left it out in the storm, she knew that by the time she’d be back in Seattle, her elegant new furnishing would succumb to all manner of mildew and muck. Just the thought sent a chill down her spine. A buttery leather statement piece like this was a treasure. So she’d just have to get the treasure safe indoors on her own.

  Kate trudged out into the swirling snow. She approached one side of the box, sizing it up with grim expectation. Slowly, she lowered herself into a deep sumo squat. She grasped at two low corners of the box, attempting to get a firm grip on the slick combination of cardboard and duct tape. OK, she readied herself, three…two…one!

  Kate thrust up, attempting to straighten her legs, but got the box no more than an inch off the ground. The force of her rise was so great that she went toppling backward, sprawling against the hard chill of the asphalt. Moaning into the wind, she covered her face with both gloved hands. At a loss, she remained there. Let her body splay. Let the wind whip over it. Waited for inspiration, for the answer to come.

  “Kate?” The deep voice tore her back from her telenovela moment. She sat up so fast that her head rushed with blood, making her wilt at the waist. Hands grasped her shoulders, held her up and in place as she evened out. Kate blinked her vision into focus and found herself looking deep into Nolan’s concerned eyes. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  “What? Of course I am.” She leaned to the side and pushed herself up to standing, casually shaking his grip from her in the process.

  “I saw you from my front window. It looked like you’d thrown out your back.”

  She scoffed, planting a fist on each of her hips. “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Can you blame me for thinking so? I mean,” he gestured to the box and her cheeks went scarlet, “what were you even thinking?”

  “Excuse me?” Her voice dripped with disdain even as she found herself leaning closer, arching up toward him. Vision drawn to the snowflakes that already clu
ng to his thick lashes. “What was I thinking? I was thinking that I had to get this inside. Which is true.”

  “By yourself?”

  Rage rolled up through her, jerking her head up toward his. She’d kept her feelings mostly bottled with the woman on the phone, because she firmly believed that people who took out their anger on customer service messengers were the lowest of the low. Now that frustration burst from the pressure cooker it’d just called home, igniting a fire in her eyes. “I’m sorry, is there another way you’d suggest that I get the box inside? Because if you couldn’t tell, I live here alone. And in addition to that, in the, the,” she flung her arms around, gesturing for the words, “in the larger sense also, I am alone. Generally alone. OK? And before you say, well little lady why didn’t you hire the kind of delivery men who come into your house and pretend to be your husband and take care of everything for half an hour before leaving you equally alone to how alone you were before? I did.” She clenched her shoulders up in the caricature of a shrug. “But they flaked. They screwed it all up. Clearly. And now I am alone, and everyone is busy because it’s Christmas goddamn Eve, and I have to be on a plane in just hours. Just hours! Which means I have to be at the airport much sooner. And there’s this giant, egregiously expensive couch sitting in my snow-covered driveway. So what I was thinking,” she pulled herself straighter, more together, even as her tone remained frenzied, “what I was thinking was that I had to get the fucking thing inside. Which is still fucking true.” Winding down from her tirade, she could once more register things outside of herself. Like the sheer bafflement that was plastered across Nolan’s face. “Fuck,” she muttered.

  “Well,” he cleared his throat, shaking his head in wonder, “that was interesting.”

  Kate’s hands curled into fists. “Don’t condescend to me, Nolan. It’s not endearing.” Turning from him, she lined herself back up with the end of the box.

  “You can’t be serious,” he said. She glanced up from her squat to take in his defiant stance, khaki boots spread wide on the pavement.

  “I told you,” she replied, “it has to go inside. So I’m going to move it inside.”

  “Are you really that stubborn?” His question, and more than anything the patronizing tone with which he’d asked it, made her shoot up from the waist.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re really too proud to accept my help?” He raised his light brown brows just slightly, furrowing them so that his honey eyes shone right to her core. Kate’s knees threatened to buckle, but she remained firmly upright.

  Hiking her chin higher, she fired back, “I’m sorry, I was unaware that you’d offered your help.”

  “And I’m still confused as to why you haven’t asked for it.” His quick reply took her off guard. Nodding slowly, Kate turned her focus back to the magnanimous cardboard box. It’s not like you can get this thing inside on your own. You know that. Rationally, you know that. So it really can’t hurt, can it?

  Kate knotted up her face, meeting Nolan’s eyes with clear tepidness. “Will you please help me with the box, Nolan?” she choked out. “I could really use a hand.”

  A warm smile spread across his smooth cheeks. Though she’d never seen him give in to a real smile before, at least not one directed at her, the expression seemed natural on his face. Right, somehow. “All you had to do was ask,” he replied. Nolan moved around to the other end of the box. He dropped down into his hips, matching her exaggerated squat. “Want me to count us down?”

  “If you think that would help,” she said, the chill in her voice perfectly tempered to fit the whirling snow around them.

  “Alright then. Three, two,” he met her gaze, looking deep into the green of her eyes and in an instant turning her to jelly, “one.”

  Nolan hiked upward and Kate haltingly followed. From her zombie-like movement and loose limbs, it was clear that he was doing the majority of the work. If anything, it seemed she was there for balance alone. Either not noticing or not seeming to mind, Nolan turned his head back over his shoulder and began the slow sidestep to Kate’s front door. She followed, gripping the cardboard so hard that her arms shook and her knuckles went white. It wasn’t an effort to steady the package. With a new hurricane of emotions, feelings, and urges that she hadn’t had in years, Kate was doing her best to steady herself.

  After five minutes, they managed to maneuver the unwieldy piece of furniture indoors. Both panted, wiped sweat from their brows. Without quite choosing to, Kate smiled at her athletic partner.

  “What?” he asked, a smile of his own spreading quickly. His was of a much different quality. She could almost call it…wicked.

  “Thank you,” she replied. She nodded, more to herself than to him. “Thank you for helping. And I’m sorry that I thought you were such a dick that I couldn’t come over and ask.” Nolan let out a large laugh. The joyful noise shot another wave of intrigue through her. “Well, you can’t exactly blame me.” She shrugged, playing aloof. “Plus, I didn’t want to get in trouble. Most women don’t take too kindly to that kind of thing.”

  Some of the mirth fell away from his face, his gaze. “What kind of thing?” he asked.

  “Oh you know, the single woman coming to another woman’s husband for help.” She wiggled her shoulders, committing to the part. “That sort of behavior can get you quite the reputation.”

  Nolan took a heavy step toward her and Kate’s jesting came to a swift halt. He took another step, closing the space between them. In the warmth of her living room, the twinkling lights illuminated the strong bones of his face. The structure that almost seemed too perfect. Like an artist’s ideal rendering. Now that structure shifted to convey a new intensity. One that made Kate feel decidedly woozy.

  “Another woman’s husband?” he asked, his voice soft.

  “I wasn’t implying either way,” she sputtered. “Of course, I noticed that you don’t have a ring, because, of course I did.” A glint came to Nolan’s eye, making Kate even more flustered and quick to go on. “But then there’s Maggie. And all the mom talk. And then there’s also the way that you’re standoffish and a little bit rude,” his brows arched up at this, “but in my experience, often married men are rude because they don’t want you to get the wrong idea about them. Or about their intentions toward you, anyway. And, so, anyway,” she was sputtering out, becoming dangerously close to aware of her second case of word vomit in ten minutes, “would you like some tea?”

  Kate blinked expectantly at her neighbor. Waiting. Nolan searched her face, then glanced around the room at the elaborate decor. The soothing atmosphere. Rubbing his hands together, he turned back to her and she immediately shrank. Went small. She didn’t move, but she felt the change. He loomed over her, her back arcing up to him by degrees. “Kate,” he began, “are you a part of some kind of cult?”

  She blinked hard, several times, trying to process his question. “Wh-what?”

  “It’s just that all these rules you have about how single women are treated. They sound like they’re rooted in your own experiences, clearly, but they also sound completely mad. When exactly did single women become lepers?”

  Dazed by this turn of events, she could only lift one shoulder in a loose shrug. “Not sure. I think they always were, maybe? Not for good reason, but—“

  “What it sounds like, to me, is that you’re listening to a few mad people. And they have no idea what they’re talking about.” He was so close now that if Kate so much as bent her legs at the knees, she’d be brushing up against him. Her breath had faded, become smaller and smaller until it seemed she didn’t breathe at all, just stared up at him, waiting. “If you insist on taking direction from someone, or on running your life based on someone else’s bullshit perceptions, then you need a different mark. Someone impartial, at the very least.”

  Kate cleared her throat, finding it unbearably dry. He was pulling her up like a magnet, her mouth tilting further, spine arching upward. His pull was so strong, she could bar
ely keep her feet flat on the ground. “What’s yours then?” she asked, her voice a whisper. “Your perception?”

  Very slowly, Nolan shook his head. “I said someone impartial.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  At this, something new painted his gaze. It was raw, molten, so intense that Kate’s legs took on a near imperceptible shake. She couldn’t have pulled away from his gaze if she’d wanted to. And now she found that she really didn’t want to. Nolan reached up one wide hand, moving with devastatingly slow intent. Relinquishing control, letting her body take charge, she inched toward him as he did. The hand came close to her face, his rough knuckles turning under. So lightly that she almost doubted that it happened, Nolan trailed his knuckle up over her cheekbone. The contact lasted just seconds, but that was enough to turn her inside out.

  Sparks flew across Kate’s skin. She shuddered, pinned in place by his fiery gaze but longing to be nowhere but here. If anything, a few inches forward. She edged upward, getting ever closer, their breath synching in a steady, heavy yearning. Just as she almost reached him, as he bent for his lips to hover just an inch from hers, the light extinguished. Suddenly his eyes were cool, almost cold. It was as if he were another person. Changed from the one he just was, all in a matter of seconds.

  Nolan stood up straight, leaving Kate dangling in the air before him. “Is there anything else you need?” he asked.

  Kate blinked up at him, baffled. “Um,” she swallowed, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Around the house. If there’s something, I’d be happy to give you a hand. I’ve got the time today.”

  Still fighting to process what was happening, Kate fell back on her heels. Her eyes fell to the ground, searching it for whatever had dropped away from their moment. “You’ve got a lot of time today? On Christmas Eve.”