Wrapped in Red: A Three Rivers Romance Novella by Meghan M. Gorecki

Author:Meghan M. Gorecki [Gorecki, Meghan M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Northern Belle Publishing
Published: 2016-12-16T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“Good work, everybody. See you next week. Sam, Merry—hang back a second?” Kristin Daniels may be barely five-foot, one of the most soft-spoken women Merry knew—but her tone of voice never broached any argument. Knees protesting, she rose from the stage floor where she had been marking tape down for the amateur actors, actresses, and chorus to stand on the play. She’d rather be doing this, however, then having a bit role in the thing.

“Never again.”

“Now what’re you mumbling?” Sam’s dark head poked through the set’s window and Merry tripped over the roll of tape on the ground. Why had her parents cursed her with the ironic middle name of Grace? Now twice as embarrassed, she bent to pick it up the tape and rolled her eyes.

“You’re an eavesdropper, you know that?”

“Window-dropper. But seriously—what will you never do again?” The man clad in red, well-fitting flannel came around the set to stand beside her. And stood so close Merry picked up his Old Spice aftershave and her heart rose to her throat before his question registered.

Never again. She would never again…what? Get her hopes up? Think there was something there that clearly wasn’t?

“Earth to Merry.” Sam waved a hand in front of her eyes—which snapped her out of whatever ridiculousness her heart was stringing together. Ridiculousness that, for a brief second, wondered what his arms would feel like wrapped around her—except this time not just catching her when she fell in the snow.

“I was just thinking about the last time I’d been involved in one of these plays.” She really needed to reform her fibbing. Warmth crept up along her neck and onto her face—she’d blame the stage lights if any overly observant sibling would decide to grill her on it later.

“Aw now this I want to hear about. I have already had the privilege of seeing the baby pictures. All the pictures, actually.” He widened his eyes and twisted a grin to the side, referring to the cocoa and movie night where her mother had decided to take the poor man on the tour of the upstairs stairwell, the hallway, ancestry room and flip through her oldest scrapbooks. By the time they started the movie, he had looked so adorably bemused—and dazed—that Merry forgot her embarrassment and actually enjoyed the movie night beside him.

Laughing, Merry shook her head at the man. He hadn’t actually seen all the photos—she had made sure to shove the most incriminating deep in the bowels of the attic years ago. “You haven’t seen them all. Trust me. You don’t want to see my parents’ attic.” Good grief, but he was still too close. Merry tossed the roll of painter’s tape between her hands to focus on something other than how good he smelled while Kristin gave departing instructions to the kids’ parents who were finishing pick-up.

“Well, maybe one day. You were a pretty cute kid.”

One day? She waited for those words to inspire dread or even a caustic “Yeah right” to spring into her thoughts.

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