Annie Jones - Somebody's Santa

“That’s why I need your help. I need someone who isn’t from Mt. Knott to help me pull this off. Because as a Burdett I can’t do anything in Mt. Knott in secret.”

“Including taking me out there to manage this for you,” she reminded him, switching swiftly into organizational problem-solving mode. “How would you ever explain that?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He scowled. “Unless…”

“Yes?” She needed him to come up with this solution, not because she didn’t have one to offer, but because it was his project. She had no intention of investing in it emotionally or even mentally unless he could find a way to win her over to it. Which meant she wasn’t getting involved.

“Well, you were out there all last summer and no one questioned that.”

“I was in negotiations to buy into your business then.” She folded her arms and clamped them down tight. “I don’t suppose you want to revisit that?”

“There’s a lot about last summer I’d like to revisit.”

And a lot of memories she wanted to send packing. She shut her eyes. “Burke, I…”

“Just come out and stay at the family compound, Dora.”

“What?”

“We won’t have to say why you’re there. People probably wouldn’t believe anything we told them anyway.”

“I can’t just leave work.” It was the first thing that came to her mind. Not a lie or a means of deceiving him but just a gut reaction, telling the man the kind of thing he’d expect her to say.

The crooked grin returned. He shook his head slowly. “You save up all your vacation time all year and take it in December.”

“How did you know that? Did Zach tell you?”

“Who?”

“Zach, the…” The closet thing she had to an old friend. She sighed. “Never mind. Just tell me how you knew that.”

“Because you told me.”

“I did?”

“One night when we talked about the future. You said if you ever got married you’d want it to be in December.”

Her cheeks grew hot. She found it hard to swallow. Marriage? The future? She remembered that night, but not the things they had said—just the way it felt to be near Burke, to sit out on the porch beneath a blanket of stars. Had she really let her guard down so completely? “Was I under the influence of Carolina Crumble Patties?”

“Maybe.”

“Sugary foods get to me, you know. Make me say things I don’t necessarily mean.” As did certain men.

“You meant this.”

“You said a lot of things I thought you meant, Burke.”

He did not say a word in his own defense.

He couldn’t, she realized. And just that quickly she also understood that she could not help him, even with this worthy cause. She could not allow herself to be that vulnerable again, especially not at Christmas.

She looked out at the doctor’s office building again. “Just because I don’t go into my office most of December doesn’t mean I don’t have things to do.”

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