Love You Like Christmas by Keri F. Sweet

Author:Keri F. Sweet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hallmark Publishing
Published: 2018-10-03T02:38:07+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Kevin walked into the diner at his usual time and quickly took a seat at the bar. He flipped the mug over for Holly and waited. Not for coffee, but to see if Maddie would appear. Based on her usual arrivals, she should be walking through that door any moment. There wasn’t much else he had going for him today.

The bank was taking the farm.

He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t save it. His last three attempts to find a buyer had netted him nothing. He’d called every tree lot in the county—and the surrounding counties. All had given the same response—no. Not one sale to a lot and he had nothing left to mortgage, no savings to empty. Nothing. There was nothing. The land had been taken for collateral first, and then in cleaning up the damage from the flood, he’d been forced to gamble the house too. There’d been so much sludge and muck coating parts of his land, but he’d never anticipated that the cleanup would eat into all his funds or that the lots would turn him away when he needed them most.

He clenched his hands, aching to grab anything, but then relaxed them. He hadn’t done enough to stop this. For the morning, he didn’t want to think of anything. Or do anything. He wanted to see Maddie, who seemed to be the only person he could talk to. For a moment, he wanted to be able to forget this nightmare.

He couldn’t tell Jo. Not yet. He didn’t even know how to tell her. So here he hid, waiting for a woman he could never have. In this moment, he found himself desperately needing comfort. The farm was Jo’s home, the place where she had memories of her mother, the only life she knew.

Roy snapped his paper open. “Heard you and the missus made up.”

Ah, right to the gossip this morning. Kevin turned on his stool and leaned against the bar, wishing more than anything that was true. “She’s not my missus.”

“She’s not going to be if you don’t get more direct with her either.”

“You know she’s not staying.” He said it as much for himself as he did for Roy. Okay, more for himself. If there had been anything he could’ve done, he would’ve done it, but Maddie wasn’t staying.

“Then why do you keep sitting at the counter?” Roy asked.

Kevin laughed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Roy lifted a shoulder. “Just an observation.”

Luke tapped the dinner bell. “What he means is that you always used to sit in a corner booth, but ever since my omelet special walked in the door and sat at the counter, so have you.”

Holly walked by and clamped her hands down on his shoulders for a friendly shake. “Stop denying it and accept it.” She patted his arm then continued around the end of the counter and got coffee for him. “We all know this is happening.”

And he’d like it to be happening, but how could it? It was hard to convince a woman who was bent on leaving.

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