“Perfect,” he agreed softly.
“Ben?” she whispered, her voice shaky. It was the second time tonight he’d looked at her like that, spoken with that barely banked heat in his voice, the undisguised longing written all over his face.
The moment went on for what seemed an eternity, filled with yearning, but eventually he shook himself as if coming out of a trance.
“No distractions,” he muttered, as if to remind himself. “You tell me where your stand, decorations and lights are, and I’ll get those started while you fix dinner.”
It took Kathleen a moment longer to come back to earth and drag her thoughts away from the desire that had simmered between them only seconds before. “The attic,” she said in a choked voice. “Everything’s in the attic.”
Ben’s gaze clung to hers a minute longer, but then he looked away. “Just point me in the right direction. I’ll find my way,” he said as if he feared being alone with her an instant longer.
Kathleen sent him on his way and only then did she realize she’d been all but holding her breath. She released it in a long sigh, then headed for the kitchen…and comparative safety.
Of course, she wouldn’t be entirely safe until he was out of the house, but the prospect of letting him go filled her with a surprising sense of dismay. The man was getting under her skin, knocking down defenses as emphatically and thoroughly as a wrecking ball, no question about it. If he kept making these sweet gestures, guessing her innermost thoughts and doing his utmost to give her her dreams, she would be lost.
When Ben came down from the attic, Christmas carols were playing and some incredible aromas were drifting from the kitchen. The whole atmosphere felt so cozy, so astonishingly right, that warning bells went off in his head. In response, he set down the boxes of decorations and tried to remember the holidays he had spent with Graciela.
They’d been nothing like this. Graciela hadn’t been a sentimental woman. She was more than content to call a decorator who would spend a couple of days and a fair amount of Ben’s money to turn the house into a showcase. What appealed to her was the subsequent entertaining, assembling the right guests, doling out gifts that were more expensive than thoughtful, and drinking. Ben couldn’t remember even one holiday occasion when Graciela hadn’t had a glass of wine or champagne in hand from start to finish.
He tried to recall a single instance when her eyes had sparkled with childlike excitement as Kathleen’s had on that tree lot. He couldn’t think of one.
Once the memory of Kathleen’s delight stole into his head, he realized what it had reminded him of…holidays years ago when first his parents and then Destiny had worked to assure that there was something magical about the season. He’d lost that sense of magic, that undercurrent of anticipation somewhere along the way, but he was getting it back tonight.
By the time Kathleen announced that dinner was ready, he was feeling nostalgic, despite his overall lack of progress getting the lights untangled to put on the tree. He grinned as he recalled how many times his father and later Destiny had complained about the same thing. Richard had been the one with the patience to unravel them and get them hung properly, while the rest of them had drunk hot chocolate and eaten the cookies that Destiny had decorated with an artistic flair so perfect they could have been on the cover of a magazine.
“How’s it going in here?” Kathleen asked, then burst out laughing when she saw the tangled mass of lights. “Uh-oh. I guess I should have been more careful when I took them down.”
He gave her a wry look. “You think?”
“I’ll help you with them after dinner,” she promised. “Did you plug them in to make sure they still work at least?”
“Who could find the plugs? I’ve never seen such a mess.”
“Hey, you asked for this job,” she reminded him. “I didn’t ask you to get involved.”
“True enough, but if that dinner tastes even half as good as it smells, I’ll forgive you for every tangled strand of lights I’m expected to deal with.”
“The lamb chops might be a bit overdone,” she apologized when they were seated at her dining room table. “And I’m pretty sure I didn’t steam the vegetables quite long enough.”
He regarded her with curiosity, wondering at the sudden lack of self-confidence. “Is this something else your ex-husband criticized? Your cooking?”
She seemed startled by the question. “Yes. But why would you think that?”
“Because neither of us has even picked up a fork, and you’re already offering excuses.”