SUSAN MEIER - Bride Under the Mistletoe - The Magic of a Family Christmas

“I’m guessing you don’t have any aunts or uncles?”

He shook his head.

Though he hesitated, half afraid of the answer, Cullen asked, “Where’s your dad?”

Harry shrugged. “He’s around somewhere.” Then he flapped his arms in exasperation, as if this is what he’d seen and heard adults do when they talked about his dad. “We’ll find him eventually.”

The kid was just a tad too observant.

The light from the window in Mr. McCoy’s office thinned as Wendy walked farther into the building, but when she reached the main corridor, emergency lights were lit. She scrambled to the door and into the plant. At Benny Owens’s workstation, she snatched the radio and quickly made her way back to Cullen and Harry.

The second she stepped into the office, Cullen caught her gaze. His normally bright eyes were soft, sincere.

“Harry was telling me about his mom.”

“Oh.” She glanced at Harry, who looked up at her with a smile. “You okay, little guy?”

Still smiling, he nodded.

Whatever had happened between the two of them, Harry was okay. He might have even gotten afraid in the dark again and Cullen had taken care of him. Surprising, but good. She turned to smile at Cullen in thanks, but when their gazes caught, that funny feeling happened in her stomach again. Only this time, her chest also tightened. It became hard to breathe. She sort of felt as if she were drowning in the deep pools of his eyes, once again overwhelmed by the strange instinct that deep down he really was a nice guy—

The church bell across the street rang twice, jolting her back to reality.

“Must be two o’clock,” she said, brightly, trying to pretend nothing had happened because nothing had happened. So they’d looked into each other’s eyes? It wasn’t a big deal.

Setting the radio on her boss’s desk, she said, “I forgot about the emergency lights. The corridors are well-lit. The plant has emergency lighting, too.”

She turned on the radio and slowly moved the dial until she found the local station. The announcer said, “The mayor is telling everybody to just sit tight—”

She glanced at Cullen. “Either I have perfect timing or this is an emergency broadcast that’s repeating.”

“To repeat…Trees and power lines are down all over town. Route 81 has been shut down due to accidents.”

Cullen cursed.

She faced him. “What?”

“That’s the only highway out of town. The only way to get to my hotel.”

“I’m sure it will be open before you want to go back.”

“Since I can’t work without a computer, I want to go back now.”

“Good point.”

They both glanced at the radio.

“I’m sorry to say, folks,” the announcer said, “the power company is warning that this is going to be an all-nighter. Get out your candles, light your fireplace, and be careful.”

The announcer stopped talking and a song floated from the radio. Wendy shifted away from the desk. Technically, she and Harry could leave. They could even bake their cookies. She had a gas stove. And a fireplace. They could roast marshmallows and sleep in sleeping bags on the living-room floor.

This could actually be the most fun day of his stay with her.

She put her hand on Harry’s shoulder, took another step back, easing toward the door.

It almost seemed wrong to leave. Almost. The truth was she didn’t know Cullen Barrington. And she was attracted to him. The first man since Greg. That left her feeling odd enough. When she added that he was a playboy, out of her reach, the man who owned the company she worked for, in front of whom she’d prefer to be on her best behavior, not walking around a dark old house with a flashlight…Well, it was for the best that she not invite him to her home. She shouldn’t feel guilty for leaving him to figure out what he’d do for the next twelve to twenty-four hours—in the dark—when she not only had light and warmth, she could also cook dinner.

While he sat in the dark? Slept on the floor with his jacket for a cover?

Damn it!

Why couldn’t her conscience just shut up long enough for her to get to her car?

“Do you want to come with us?”

His head jerked up. “Where are you going?”

“As you said, we can’t work in the dark. So Harry and I are going home. I have a gas stove and a working fireplace in the living room. Even my hot-water heater is gas. We can be without power for a week and the only thing we’ll miss is television.”

“I don’t watch television.”

“Then you should be fine.”

He growled as if annoyed with the inconvenience of humbling himself to go to the home of an employee, and she said a silent prayer that he’d be stubborn enough—or maybe independent enough—to decide he’d rather sit alone in the office, maybe reading files by the emergency lights in the corridor, than go with her.

Please, God…

He pulled in a breath. “Okay. Fine. Let me get my coat.”

THEY stepped out into the parking lot and Cullen motioned to the right. “That’s my rental car.”

“And it’s a fine car,” Wendy said, “but with power lines down, we can’t drive. We don’t want to become part of the problem.”

Cullen ignored her sarcasm in favor of more pressing concerns. “Part of the problem?”

“We could get halfway home, come across a tree that’s down and either have to leave our cars in the middle of the road or drive back here and walk anyway.”

She faced him. Sunlight sparkled off the thick ice on the trees surrounding the parking lot, encircling her with a glow that made her look like a shimmering angel. He shook his head to clear the haze, but there was no haze. She truly sparkled in the icy world they were caught in.

“So what do you say we skip the first few steps we know might not work, and just walk?”

Great. Maybe a little exercise would help him get himself back to normal around her. “Fine.”

“Good. You can carry Harry.”

He gaped at her. “Carry Harry?”

“It’s a ten-minute walk. And he’s a forty-pound kid. Are you telling me that rich guys are too soft to carry forty-pound kids?”

He snatched the little boy off the ground and hoisted him to his shoulder. Not that he took her bait about him being soft. He liked Harry. Who wouldn’t? The kid had suffered the kind of loss that would flatten most adults, yet he was taking it like a man. He deserved a little special treatment.

“You have a smart mouth.”

She grimaced. “Not usually.”

He didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to know that she was behaving out of character in his presence. It was confirmation that she was attracted to him, too. If they were attracted to each other and about to spend the night together that might be trouble. Of course, if she was being smart with him it could be because she didn’t like the attraction any more than he did—which should make them perfectly safe.

Occupied with his thoughts, Cullen slipped on the ice and bobbled Harry, who squealed with delight. “This is fun!”

“Always happy to oblige,” Cullen told Harry, before he leaned toward Wendy and whispered, “Italian loafers weren’t made for walking on ice.”

“It’s a very short walk. Ten minutes tops.” She pointed to the grassy strip beside the sidewalk. “But if I were you I’d walk in that.”

He stepped into the bumpier grass and found the footing a little more solid. Harry groaned. “Darn.”

With his hands on Harry’s thighs, holding him on his shoulders, Cullen shook his head. “Kids. You think the weirdest things are fun.”

Harry giggled. Cullen’s spirits unexpectedly lifted, but he told himself to settle down. He might want to make Harry’s life a little brighter, but he wasn’t here for fun and games. He had to work with Wendy Winston for the next few weeks. He had to be nice to her, but he also had to keep his distance. He didn’t want to accidentally start a relationship that would have to end when he left.