Page 56 of The Lie That Stole Christmas

So many things had changed, but some things stayed exactly the same.

He had taken his suit jacket off, the sleeves of his white button-down rolled up his forearms.Heat rushed to her core at the sight, her insides doing sinful things.

This version of him was even more relaxed than the version of him in a sweater.It was more dangerous, too.Dark hair dusted those strong forearms, and his shirt stretched across broad shoulders as he lifted another box from the floor and carried it toward the fireplace.

As if sensing her presence, he looked up, catching her eye through the window.A slow, sexy smile spread across his face.He set down the box and pushed open the front door.“You planning on standing out there all day?”

Ashley forced her feet to move, her eyes to stay anywhere but those forearms.

“I was admiring the decorations.I almost forgot how spectacular it all is.”

“There’s nothing like Winterridge at Christmastime.”

“No, there isn’t.”She stepped inside the guesthouse and unwrapped her scarf, taking in the space she hadn’t seen in too long.“It hasn’t changed a bit.”She scanned the sea-foam green paint her grandfather called a color for a beach house, not a prestigious estate, but Grandma Lily loved it, and he wouldn’t deny her even if he did despise it.

“We’ve touched up the paint here and there, but your grandfather refuses to change the color.”

“But he hates it.”

“With a passion.”

“While we all put Winterridge behind us, Grandpa seems to have frozen it in time.”She looked around the guesthouse.“It’s sad, really.You meet the love of your life and have the world in front of you just to lose it all.”

Carter moved a box aside and straightened.“Maybe.”

Ashley frowned.“Maybe?”

He shrugged.“I don’t think Bill would see it that way.”

“How else is there to see it?”

Carter leaned against a cabinet, his arms crossed over his chest, his sleeves stretching tight across his biceps.“Most people spend their lives searching for what they had.A love that lasts.A family.Knowing the good and the bad about each other and loving each other despite it or because of it.It might have been shorter than either of them hoped, but it was real.”

“He still lost her.”

“He got forty years with her, Ash.Forty Christmases.Forty anniversaries.Forty years of inside jokes, arguments, and memories.I’m sure if you asked him, he would say he’d rather have had those forty years and lost her than not had them at all.”

Ashley looked away, eyes drifting to the window.Snow clung to the branches of the evergreens, the world painted white and still.

“I don’t know,” she finally said.“Sometimes I think losing someone like that would hurt too much.”

She swallowed as visions of them flashed in her mind.They didn’t have forty years, but losing him nearly killed her.

“Of course it would,” he said, his eyes locking with hers.Tension crackled between them, the room seeming impossibly small.

“Then why risk it?”The question slipped out before she could stop it.

Carter’s body went rigid.They weren’t talking about her grandparents anymore.

“Because sometimes the risk is all you have.Without it.You have nothing at all.”

He snapped his attention from hers and walked toward the window.He stared out for a few heartbeats before inhaling deeply.“I think people are so afraid of losing something that they convince themselves it’s better not to have it at all.”His fingers brushed the windowsill, checked it for dust, and slightly smiled when his finger was clean.“But all they’re doing is grieving something before it’s even gone.”

The words punched her deep in the gut.Is that what he did?Did he end things with her because he convinced himself it was better not to have it at all?Her heart broke at the thought.If that were the case, it changed everything.

“I spent a long time angry with my grandfather.”

“I know.”