Hope for the Holidays: a Christmas novella (A Hope Springs Novel Book 6) by Kent Alison

Author:Kent, Alison [Kent, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Romance, high school reunion romance, family romance, first time romance, christmas romance, pregnancy romance, high school crush romance, beta hero romance, wounded hero romance, small town girl romance, craft knitting romance, reunion romance, hope springs romance, clean and wholesome romance, holiday romance, texas romance, old flames romance, friends to lovers romance, twelve days of christmas romance, Pregnant heroine romance, first love romance, small town romance, baby romance
Publisher: Rocks and Ink
Published: 2018-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

COOKING DINNER FOR Cary, with Cary, left Cilla feeling things she wasn’t sure what to do with. They should’ve been two friends preparing and sharing a meal—and they were. They had been. Except while they’d worked together in the kitchen, their friendship slowly and subtly had begun to shift into something deeper.

Something with roots solidly fixed beneath them years before.

She was pretty sure Cary’s coming to the same realization was what had sent him out the back door into the cold. At least that had been one of the reasons he’d fled.

They’d been cleaning up when she’d had to make yet another trip to the bathroom. They’d been laughing. Joking about her bulk being an obstacle course. Revisiting cheery pieces of the past. Enjoying themselves. Relaxed and comfortable.

Comfortable enough that Cilla hadn’t thought twice about kissing him.

She’d put her hand on his shoulder, stood on her tiptoes, and pressed her lips to his scruffy cheek. It had startled her, how coarse the scruff was, how warm his skin was, how right it felt to take that liberty without asking. The rest of what she felt...

Dizziness spun her as if she’d been on a theme park ride, not in Cary’s kitchen, not in Hope Springs. A quiver had risen from the base of her spine, tickling her ear lobes, her collarbone, her toes. Blood pressure, she’d told herself. Exhaustion, she’d insisted. She’d been wrong on both counts. What she’d felt was all Cary.

The gesture had been spontaneous. And she would’ve easily brushed it off as a momentary lapse and continued putting the kitchen to rights except that Cary had stiffened, going as rigid as the chair she’d sat in too long while preparing the stew.

That’s when she’d excused herself, needing to regroup as much as she’d needed to pee. Because the simple kiss hadn’t been simple at all. It had been as complex as the flavors infused into the meal they’d shared. The present had rolled into the past and been gathered up as if by a tumbleweed. Or a tornado. Until there was no separating what had happened between them years ago from what was happening now.

She sighed, thinking of Cary’s hands on the knife as he’d mangled the roast, as he’d torn off a chunk of the sourdough loaf from Bread and Bean and slathered it with butter, as he’d spooned up bites of the meat and vegetables swimming in the thick gravy.

She’d been back in Hope Springs less than a week. A matter of days, of hours. And she was still unable to shake the unexpected jolt that had hit her in that moment on the sidewalk outside the bakery when she’d looked up into his eyes.

The feelings were the same ones she’d suppressed in high school. Feelings she hadn’t known what to do with because Cary had been so hard to approach, so hard to read. She hadn’t had the maturity to appreciate him then. Now she felt equally ill-equipped.

They were both adults. It made no sense that she’d been struck by the jitters and butterflies of a teen with a crush.

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