Lucy Monroe - The Complete Christmas Collection

“Really?” She peered inside. Sure enough, there were enough treats inside to compete with an especially good Halloween haul. And the soup was the boxed kind.

She loved the boxed kind with the little flat noodles.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He started the car and put it in Reverse. “You haven’t met my sisters? There are three of them, all older than me. They’ve been to the restaurant several times.”

“I don’t think I have.” She would have remembered. His parents had been to dinner, though. She’d seen them in the lobby but hadn’t met them yet. “You grew up here. Why did you come back?”

“My family owns Vitelli’s.”

“I know.” Vitelli’s was a large brick restaurant in the center of town. Famous for its pasta dishes and pizza, it was hugely popular with locals and tourists alike.

“I have a very large family,” he said.

“You’re lucky.” She thought about Aunt Ellen, so far away in Arizona this holiday. She’d texted photos of the new baby, a little girl with yellow fuzz on the top of her perfect little head.

“Yes,” Nico agreed. “I am.”

She fumbled in her purse for her cell phone and called Patsy. If she couldn’t haul herself up the outside steps to her condo, then a cozy room at the lodge was the next best thing.

“Sorry, honey,” her friend told her after Grace gave her the medical report. “Every single room is booked. You know how it is over the holidays.”

“That’s okay. Nico will help me get up the stairs at home.”

“No,” her driver said. “Nico won’t.”

“You’re not going home,” Patsy said, using her best motherly voice. “I went to your place and packed up some things for you and I gave them to Nico. He lives right down the street from the lodge, so it’s convenient.”

“It’s not convenient,” she protested.

“It is,” Nico said. “I have a very large, very empty house.”

“It is,” Patsy agreed. “Everything you need for overnight is in a suitcase or on hangers. By the way, you have an impressively organized closet. I’ve never known anyone who organized her outfits for the week and hung them on hangers labeled Monday, Tuesday, et cetera. It was quite amazing. Did you see that on Pinterest or invent it yourself?”

“Pinterest,” Grace admitted. “Every Sunday I organize my clothes. It saves time in the morning.”

“Someday you will have children and all of this will be a thing of the past.”

“What about putting a rollaway in my office? There would be room if we moved some of the boxes.”

Patsy sighed. “And have you limping back and forth to the ladies’ room? Wearing your flannel nightgown?”

“Well...”

“Did you get crutches?”

“Yes. And a boot I can take on and off.”

“Okay, then, sweetie. Are you on speakerphone?”

“No.”

“Go home with the handsome, sexy TV star. Let him cook you dinner and carry you around that big, glorious house he just bought. He’s a good guy, you know. Everyone likes him. He feels badly that you fell in his kitchen, so let him make it up to you.” With that, she clicked off, leaving Grace holding a silent phone.

“All set?” Nico drove past the lodge without slowing down.

“I can’t go home with you.” She actually heard herself whimper, for heaven’s sake.

“Why not?”

“It’s too...personal. I don’t even know you. Not really.”

“No time like the present,” he declared. “It’s not like we’re sharing a bed. You’ll have your own room. On the first floor. And you’ll have a private nurse.” He grinned.

“You.”

“Yep. Me. I’m going to bring you ice packs and hot tea and, if you’re lucky, I might even read you to sleep.”

She leaned back against the cushioned seat back and closed her eyes. “I do not believe this is happening. This morning I thought I had everything under control.”

“You have another option.”

“I do?” She kept her eyes closed. She didn’t believe it for a minute, especially since his voice held that thread of humor she had begun to recognize.

“I can, somehow, with enormous brute strength, haul you up your stairs and get you inside your home.”

“Sounds good to me. What’s the catch?”

“Then I stay with you. I can fetch and carry and dispense medication and sleep on the couch. You have a couch, don’t you?”

“Nope,” Grace lied, finding the idea of this almost-stranger poking around her home embarrassing. “I only have an antique rocking chair. Oak. Hard as a rock.”

“No big brown recliner with cup holders?”

“Not even a lumpy futon.”

“Well, that settles it, then.”

She reluctantly opened her eyes. They were well on their way out of town, heading away from her place and toward Mirror Lake Road. Her foot throbbed. She was hungry and thirsty and sleepy. She reached into the plastic bag and pulled out the M&M’s. It only took a few seconds to open the candy and self-medicate.

“YOU REALLY DO have a ramp.”

“Yeah. You thought I would lie about a ramp?” Nico carried Grace from the neatly plowed driveway toward his house. “The previous owners were a hundred and ten years old.”

“You didn’t have to carry me,” she said, protesting once again. The woman was extremely hard to spoil, he thought. Here he was doing the knight-in-shining-armor routine and she’d rather be limping downhill in the cold, dark night. He wished he could have pulled the car into the garage, but it was filled with a boat, six kayaks and two Jet Skis, all of which belonged to his sisters and their assorted husbands and children.

“It’s fifteen degrees out, in case you haven’t noticed. This is faster.” Plus, he got to hold her in his arms. He shook his head at the sappy thought. He hadn’t held anyone for over seven months, which, of course, no one would believe. His sisters had offered to fix him up with their friends and their friends’ younger sisters, cousins and coworkers, but he wasn’t interested.

He’d been waiting. He was thirty-five and he knew what—and who—he wanted. Maybe he’d get lucky and get his wish.

“I’ve driven past this house so many times,” Grace said. “I always liked how it sat on the hill and looked over the road to the lake. I like all of the houses around here.”

“Yeah, me, too.” He was grateful for the automatic lights that lit the walkway to the back door and bathed it in a light bright enough to help him find the right key. “I’m going to set you down for a second, all right? But hold on to me. I just need to unlock the door.”

“I’m okay.” She clutched the plastic shopping bag and her purse in one hand, his sleeve in the other.

Al’s excited barking began. The mutt didn’t believe in barking at strangers, only people who had keys. The sound of a key in the lock sent him into raptures of joy.

“You have a dog!”

“I do. Does that surprise you?”

“A little,” she admitted. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“I don’t think you know what type I am,” Nico replied. “Brace yourself. He might wag you off your feet.” Al, his aging yellow Labrador mix, blocked the foyer. He woofed and wagged, torn between greeting Nico and his curiosity over the visitor. Nico noticed that Grace properly held her hand out for Al to sniff, but anyone could see that the dog wasn’t the least bit aggressive.

“Hi, Al.” Grace stroked the dog’s head, but she kept hold of Nico’s arm. “Are you glad to see us?”

“He spends most of his days, when I’m working, with my oldest sister. She lives farther up the hill, not far from here. She spoils him rotten. I hired my nephew to take him for walks after school.” Very slow walks, since the dog had grown lame from arthritis. He preferred to hang out by the gas stove and sleep on his heated dog bed. “They bring him home after dinner and he spends his evenings sleeping.”