A Husband In Her Stocking. Christine Pacheco
one extravagance this year.”
“All this for the measly price of setting the table and washing the dishes?”
“I hate doing dishes.”
Slowly, she’d revealed several aspects of her personality. Kyle wanted each stripped and laid bare before him. And he had a few thoughts about what to do once they were. “Lady, you’ve got a deal.”
Kyle hadn’t been in a kitchen like this for years. It covered at least three hundred square feet, huge, rambling and, by today’s standards, a waste of space.
But he remembered a similar kitchen, always filled with the scent of spice. Kyle also recalled helping his grandmother, Grandma Aggie, in that kitchen, begging for the honor of cracking the eggs against the ancient metal strip surrounding the counter.
“Something funny?” Meghan asked.
Startled at her perception, he looked up from setting bowls and silverware on the table.
“You’re smiling,” she added.
“My grandmother had a kitchen like this. Brings back memories.” His own designer kitchenette didn’t look anything similar to either. Meghan’s kitchen didn’t have a microwave; his was built in above the stove he’d never used. Nor did she have a dishwasher. But she had something he didn’t: a feeling of home.
Kyle realized he wouldn’t have been as comfortable in her home if her kitchen had resembled his. That thought gave him pause, made him question, again, his reasons for deciding to return to Chicago and accept control of Murdock Enterprises—his father’s business—in the New Year.
Snowflake entered the kitchen, toenails clicking on the worn floor. He curled beneath the table, apparently anxious for handouts. Judging by the extra few pounds on the mutt, Meghan was an indulgent mistress.
A soft heart.
No surprise there. He wouldn’t be shocked to learn Snowflake had shown up on her doorstep—much like Kyle—and that she’d kept the animal.
Meghan poured two cups of coffee, then joined Kyle at the table. Their knees brushed. Their glances collided. And then she slammed him in the solar plexus by licking her lower lip.
Longing. And an urge to possess.
Neither feeling was welcome. But there they were, raw and honest. Trouble was, there wasn’t a thing he could do about them.
Kyle had promised she was in no danger from him. In that instant, he wondered if he’d lied.
He wanted Meghan Carroll with an intensity that stunned him.
And he wouldn‘t—couldn’t—have her.
He was merely passing through town, not intending to stay. His life lay elsewhere, much as he hated that fact. So far his search for answers had revealed only one thing—you were who you were.
No escape.
Exerting the iron control for which he was famous, he tamped down the flare of wanting and picked up the ladle.
“Don’t scoop any from the bottom.”
He paused.
“The bottom part is burned.” She gave a little shrug. “I got carried away with my work. Forgot about dinner.”
Judging by her size, she forgot often. She needed a keeper, Kyle realized. But he couldn’t fill that role.
He envied the man who would.
Taking stew from the pan, he filled her bowl, then his.
She met his eyes, and for a few seconds, silence shrouded the empty house. Did she feel it, too, this tug that was as undeniable as it was real?
And what the hell were they supposed to do?
She raised a spoon to her lips and sipped. Kyle’s gut tightened. Desperate to distract himself, he followed suit. He allowed that first bite to linger, enjoying the flavor. Realizing he was close to a sigh, he swallowed. “My grandmother used to make stew like this.”
Wistful sadness dropped her tone. “I never knew my grandmother.”
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. His grandmother had been the single bright spot in a bleak childhood. He didn’t remember his mother—he was too young when she died. His father had thrown himself into building the business Kyle’s grandfather had started. Precious little time had been left over for either Kyle or his older sister, Pamela.
Yet Grandma Aggie had tried to fill all the voids. She’d given them birthdays and holidays, given them love and hope.
Meghan broke off a piece of her bread, then fed it to a vigilant Snowflake.
Kyle had a sudden insight into his own lonely life-style. No one cared if he came home at night. No one noticed.
It didn’t matter. Never had. Maybe never would.
Ruthlessly shoving aside the sober feelings, Kyle said, “This is a fabulous farmhouse.” His skilled eye had noted the solid construction, along with the repairs the house cried out for.
Yet there was something else... He drummed his fingers on the table. Something bothered him about the farmhouse, as if it were lacking a detail just beyond the obvious. Try as he might, Kyle couldn’t put his finger on the missing element.
“I fell in love with the house the first time I saw it.”
“How long have you been here?”
She set down her spoon. He’d done it again, pushed past the impersonal to the personal. He stopped his motions and waited for her response. When he’d given up, convinced she’d change the subject, she said, “Three years.”
“You’ve lived out here all alone for three years?”
“Well, not alone, I have Snowflake—”
“And a shotgun,” he added.
That brought a slight smile. He relished the victory. “Do you ever get lonely, Meghan?”
“I enjoy my own company,” she hedged.
Why did it matter to him, anyway? In less than a day, he would climb on the back of the Beast and continue home to Chicago. Meghan would be a comfortable memory, one that would fade once the routine set back in.
A lie.
He’d told himself a lie. Meghan Carroll wasn’t a woman easily forgotten.
After dinner, while she straightened up, he washed the dishes, as promised. Suds foamed everywhere, since he didn’t have a clue how long he should have squirted the liquid under the running water. To her credit, she didn’t say a word.
“Shall we finish our coffee in the living room?” she offered.
Grateful for an excuse to exit the kitchen before she assigned him another task he wasn’t up to, he agreed. While he attempted to wash the white bubbles down the drain, she topped their coffee.
He thought he caught a mischievous glint in her eyes but, since she didn’t say anything, dismissed it as a trick of the lighting.
Snowflake curled up on a rug, and Meghan took the high-backed chair near the crackling fireplace. Kyle tossed another piece of wood on the fire, poked at the still-burning log, then closed the safety grate.
He stood, looking at the blowing snow through the ice-encrusted window. Wind whipped flakes against the pane, making him shiver. Yet a cozy fire licked at dried timber. Outside was frightful, but inside, was so...
That’s when he realized it.
What was missing.
Christmas.
No sign of Christmas—not a single one—existed anywhere in the old farmhouse.
By this time of year, only four days before Christmas,