Home for the Holidays Read Online Free

his grasp.  “Yes?”  She looked straight ahead into her room as she said it, not daring to meet those green eyes again.
    He let go of her arm.  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said.  “This is really shitty timing for you.  I’m sure you just want to be alone.  I swear I’m not trying to upset you.”
    At his words, she turned her face back to his.  Bad move.  
    He was so close she could reach out her tongue and lick him.  If she’d been the kind of woman inclined to do that sort of thing.  A Lizzie kind of woman.  But the woman who was Beth considered doing it anyway, just to see if he tasted as good as looked.
    She managed to pull herself back from the brink just in time.  She pushed forward into her room, trying very hard to look casual as she threw over her shoulder.  “Breakfast sounds good, Jim, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
    ***
    Breakfast somehow turned into a long, lazy brunch as Jim produced a mountain of food and they slipped into an easy detente.  Beth couldn’t remember the last time she had been this full.  It must have been a Christmas when her mother was still alive.  If there was anything Ma loved more than a good tablecloth, it was stuffing her guests so full to the brim they needed to sleep for a week.
    Beth stretched and yawned on the couch, wriggling her toes out in front of her so the fire could roast them a little more.
    That honey-dark voice pulled her back from the enticing drag of an early afternoon nap.
    “Beth?”  Jim had gradually improved at saying her name over the course of the last twenty four hours.
    She turned her face slightly so she could see him out of one eye.  “Mmmmm...?”
    “Storm’s clearing,” he said.  “If it holds off I might be able to get away later on tonight.”
    Something whiny and traitorous inside Beth rebelled at his words.  Going? So soon?
    “Oh,” she said, sitting up straight.  “Well...”  She searched for the right words.  “Well, that’s excellent.  You might still get home for Christmas.”  She tried to inject pleasure and relief into her words, but she wasn’t feeling it.  She mentally kicked herself.  When had she started liking having this enormous voyeur in her house?
    Jim came and sat beside her on the sofa, sitting awkwardly as though he suddenly felt like a houseguest on borrowed time rather than someone with a valid small-town right to be here during a snowstorm.  Someone comfortable enough to heat casseroles and cook breakfasts and barge into bathrooms where innocent women were drying off.
    H e was wearing his big jacket again, and Beth realised she hadn’t seen him for a while, and he must have been outside.  Probably chopping more firewood.
    Beth felt awkward too.  She assembled a question in her mind, something innocent and small-town-y, about who was home for Christmas and what the Canning clan would be doing over at their place.
    But Jim spoke first. “I made you something.”  As he said the words, he pulled something from his jacket pocket.
    A lump of wood?
    As he handed it over, the delicate curves and lines of the thing started to take shape before Beth’s eyes.  It was a sculpture.  A tiny, fragile wooden sculpture.  And it was perfect.  The little woman had shoulder-length hair, and a delicately upturned nose, a wide smile and legs that seemed somehow too long for her petite frame. 
    Beth stared at the legs, and the lines took on more form. Oh my God.   The sculpture was Beth.  In her pyjama top.  She looked like a cross between a goddess and a siren, sweet and tempting all at once.
    Was this how he saw her?
    She turned the thing over in her hands, steadfastly looking down at the sculpture rather than at the dark green eyes she could feel burning into her.  It felt smooth and warm in her hand and under her fingers.  Sensual.
    Jim cleared his throat and when she finally met his eyes, they were twinkling at her.  “Just a little Christmas present, by way of