Page 18 of Holiday Hideaway
When he was standing upright, she wrapped an arm around his waist. “Lean on me,” she commanded. “No weight on that ankle, okay?”
George leaned into her warmth, and it was all he could do not to lower his head and nuzzle the top of her still-damp hair.
Slowly, she steered him back to the sofa, where she propped up his ankle on the pile of pillows, then covered him tenderly with a blanket.
“What on earth were you trying to do?” she asked, returning to the wing chair.
George stared up at the ceiling, wishing he could make himself invisible. “You’re a terrible sleeper, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“You’re like a rotisserie chicken, or the spin cycle on a washing machine. You thrash around, throw off the covers ...”
“Denny actually told me that’s why he cheated. He needed a woman who could do more in bed than wad up the covers.”
George winced. “I was afraid you’d be cold, so I was just trying to fix that quilt ... and then that vicious dog of yours ...”
“Smoosh,” Tilly said, holding out her arms so that the dog could leap up into her embrace. “Were you trying to save me from the bad man? Were you gonna lick him to death?”
“I’m sleeping now,” George announced, closing his eyes. “And tomorrow? This never happened.”
DAY 5
Tilly stood in the kitchen, looking out the window. The snow was still falling, and icicles hung from the gutters overhead. A fat red cardinal was perched on the lower branch of a holly tree, and Smoosh, who had been gamboling about in the snow, stopped to watch the bird in rapt fascination.
Christmas was only a few days away. Her first since the divorce. So she’d be alone. Which she could do, because alone was better than unhappy, right?
Her mind kept returning to the expression on George’s face the night before, as he was leaning down to cover her up. Such a sweet gesture. Was it her imagination, or was there something ... some spark?
She sipped her coffee. Absolutely not. He was involved, and he was just being kind. Anyway, the very last thing she needed was to strike up a relationship with a guy who was headed back to his fancy life and fancy fiancée in Boston just as soon as he was mobile.
A moment later she heard a car horn honking outside. Dooley and Theo were back, in their mom’s truck.
The brothers were a blur of activity. By five, the dining room wallpaper was completely stripped and the wallsprimed, and most of the downstairs rooms had been cleared of the generational clutter.
The doorbell rang, and Tilly peered out the wavy-glass insert. “It’s a delivery guy—with what looks like a load of groceries. And a fully decorated live Christmas tree?”
“I was getting tired of cold cuts, and no offense, but I love a real tree,” George said. “So I ordered DoorDash.”
“You can do that? In Piney Point?”
“Even in Piney Point,” he assured her.
Tilly served their dinner on trays, in front of the fire. “Some kind of fancy-looking pâté with mushrooms? Coq au vin and poached asparagus? And a bottle of Veuve?”
“What about the chocolate mousse cake?” George asked, craning his neck as he looked around.
“I’ll bring it in with the coffee. I’m thinking this stuff didn’t come from the Stop ’N’ Shop.”
“Not even close,” he said.
After she’d cleared the dishes and George had uncorked the champagne, Tilly stretched her legs out toward the fire, admiring the fresh pine scent of the tree and the exquisite taste of the Veuve exploding in the back of her throat.
“I could get used to this,” she said. “But it’s probably old hat to you.”
“We order in a lot,” George admitted.
“Tell me what Christmas was like when you were a kid. Did you spend it here with your grandparents and mean ol’ Great-Uncle Gus?”
