Christmas Getaway Griffin by Zoe Chant

Author:Zoe Chant [Chant, Zoe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zoe Chant
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

The next morning, June woke up to heaven.

Toby had convinced Laramie to let him in the Ladybug’s kitchen, and he’d made June a heaping stack of fluffy chocolate chip pancakes smothered with whipped cream.

June was going to die. But it was going to be a good death.

She tucked into the pancakes, loving the contrast between the cool, melting whipped cream and the hot, rich chocolate.

“So what’s on the tour docket for today?”

Toby cut off a bite of his chocolate-free (and therefore less interesting and delectable) pancakes. He slipped another piece down to Sylvester, who was in doggy paradise right now. “How do you feel about ice skating?”

About the same way she felt like the pancakes: it would probably kill her, but it would also be worth it.

“I haven’t done it before, and I haven’t roller-skated since I was around twelve. But if you don’t mind repeatedly helping me back up after I fall down, then I’m game. It always looked like fun.”

“I don’t mind picking you up,” Toby said.

It was his usual sincerity, the kind that reduced her to emotional rubble.

Some part of her couldn’t help thinking, Never mind the ice-skating and the obligatory holiday overeating and all the Christmas tourism. All I really want to see today is you, naked in my bed. All I really want to do is kiss you.

But there were a few baby steps they would have to cover before she could say anything like that, if she would ever be brave enough to say it at all. She had to tell him the truth about Steve. It wasn’t fair to let him go on believing that she was the heartbroken widow he probably imagined. As much as it hurt to wonder if he had only signed up for all this because he felt sorry for her ... if that were true, he deserved to have a way out.

Ultimately, though, June suspected that she wanted to tell Toby the truth because, well, she wanted to tell him the truth. She had had enough of lies, even necessary and well-intentioned ones, and she valued Toby’s plain and simple straightforwardness enough that she wanted to give it back to him.

And more than anything else, she just knew, right down to her bones, that she could trust him even with an admission that made her feel vulnerable.

Sylvester seemed to sense that she was gearing up for something big, because he nobly abandoned Toby’s pancake scraps and went to curl up by her feet for moral support.

“I need to tell you something,” June said suddenly.

It was the kind of dramatic statement that almost never went anywhere good, so she couldn’t blame Toby for freezing up.

But before she could even apologize for how it sounded, he had braced himself. “I’m listening.”

Yes, he was. He always listened. And she was starting to think that she could look at the rugged lines of his face and the steady, kind attention in his eyes forever.

“I told you about Steve,” she began. She’d never had to explain any of this before, and it was hard to think of how to put it.

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