He tickled me mercilessly for that one before taking my face in his hands and kissing me speechless. I was about to fall off my precarious perch on the handrail, so of course I had to cling to him. For my safety. My hands roamed up past his shoulders and into his hair. His hands eventually moved to around my waist. I gasped as his thumbs brushed against my ribs before wrapping his arms around me, squeezing me tight against him. When he finally released me to come up for air, he pulled me in close. Our heartbeats drummed wildly.
“What about your Kindle?” Miles asked. “Any secret copies on there?”
“I told you, I’m taking that information to my grave.”
His warm lips kissed my jawline, pulling me into such a state of euphoria that when he nipped at my earlobe, it caused me to pant and flinch away, laughing.
“I don’t have anywhere I need to be the rest of the day, so if you think your family will start missing you, you’d better speak up now,” he said.
I wanted to tell him I was perfectly content to stay here as well, except for the fact that my butt was starting to go numb on the small handrail. I nestled in close to his neck and whispered one last truth, my lips brushing ever so softly against his ear.
“You’re on my Kindle. And I’ve read your books more times than Jane Eyre.” His reaction was instant, and for several long, LONG moments, we stood under the red covered bridge, wishing each other a very Merry Christmas.
But then, I pulled away, remembering something terrible. “And by the way, I’m so sorry, but I didn’t get you anything for Christmas.”
He snickered, leaning in for another kiss as though I had stopped too abruptly. “You being obsessed with me and my books is enough, trust me.”
“I feel like obsessed is a strong wor—”
Miles rudely interrupted me, though I felt his smile against my lips. Okay, okay, maybe I was a little obsessed.
TWENTY SIX
“The ledge of the cliff was within my grasp. With rasping breaths, I summoned the fortitude to leap upward to freedom. When my hand clutched the root of a tangling vine, I breathed the first sigh of relief in days. That is until the pirate wench, Rita, peered over the ledge and stomped on my hand. Laughing while I plummeted back down the mountainside.”
Miles Taylor - Landfall
The lodge held one last dinner on Christmas night. From my seat near the door, I spotted Mom and Russ sitting by the Fosters at their table. With Glenn gone, there was no awkward, avoiding-of-the-eyes thing, which was nice. I waved to Chloe and Ben at the table next to them. Miles had wanted me to meet his sister, Lainey, so I found myself across the room, seated next to his family.
Lainey was twenty-three and worked as a wedding photographer in Boston. I couldn’t help but notice the family resemblance in her lean build. Her eyes also frequently lit up in laughter, crinkling down the sides.
“So, let me get this straight,” she said, leaning forward across the table, her long brown hair falling across her shoulder. “You both hated each other at school?” She glared at Miles. “How could you not like her?”
Miles drew his arm around my chair, brushing against my shoulders. “That wasn’t ever my problem.”
Lainey’s green eyes widened in understanding as they focused on me. “Oh, you didn’t like him. That makes more sense. Miles can be very annoying.”
“So annoying. Right?!” I said in solidarity, turning to grin at Miles who frowned playfully. His hand moved to my side in an attempt to tickle me, but I grabbed it with my right hand, which was now crossed over my stomach, and held it there.
Lainey eyed our hands. “Well, it looks like you figured out how to live with each other.”
I gave Miles a warning look before slowly releasing his hand. I really wanted to finish my prime rib and mashed potatoes. He didn’t tickle me. Instead, he removed his arm from around my chair and dropped it onto my leg.
“Speaking of living, I heard you’re staying in his cabin,” Lainey said as I took a bite of mashed potatoes. “I hope he cleaned it for you.”
My body froze at her words. After a moment, I remembered to swallow the potatoes stuck like glue in my mouth. I turned to Miles to see him issue a warning look at his sister. He met my eyes somewhat guiltily.
“Your cabin?” I asked.
“Lainey,” Miles whined.
“She didn’t know?” his unrepentant sister countered. “Why wouldn’t she know that?”
I cocked my head to the side as I stared up at him. “Why am I staying in your cabin?”
He sighed. “It’s technically still my parents’ old cabin. They haven’t updated it at all, and they don’t have any plans to rent it out just yet. I just stay there most of the time when I come for visits. If I need a change of pace or different scenery, I come here and get some writing done.”
“It’s also close enough that he can freeload meals off of our parents,” Lainey said with a smirk, taking a bite of her roll drenched in maple butter.
Jack and Sandy tapped on the microphone from their spot on the stage a moment later. Lainey and Jett’s attention turned toward the stage, as did everybody else’s in the room.
I turned to Miles, whispering, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He leaned over, his mouth brushing against my ear, sending chills up my spine. “I needed a bargaining chip, and you’d have never stayed there if you knew it was mine.”
“You’re right,” I said. “So all that stuff downstairs? That’s yours? You just, what? Chucked everything down there the minute I agreed to stay?”
He grinned sheepishly. “I threw most of my personal stuff in the second bedroom and just locked it. The stuff in the basement is stuff my parents left when they moved.”
All this time, I had been sleeping in the bed Miles slept in when he visited. I don’t know why that felt so different to me, but it did. Very much so. I had been imagining this place as a cabin people rented. Comfortable and cozy, but not belonging to anyone. It felt much more personal knowing it was the cabin Miles used. It was a mixture of mortification and gooey sweetness, and I wasn’t sure which would win out.
“That was…so freaking sweet of you,” I choked out.
Again, his lips brushed my ear as his voice whispered, “Well, I’m definitely not a saint. I got you where I wanted you.”
My eyes narrowed. “In your old house?”
He gave me a roguish grin. “In my bed.”
I smacked his arm, which only made him laugh and pull me closer, planting a kiss on my head. Eventually, we focused on the stage where Jack regaled the crowd with funny anecdotes and old Christmas stories before relinquishing the stage to a band for some Christmas music. When Miles’s hand dropped back down onto my knee so casually, squeezing gently every so often, a warm glow made an appearance like it always did. But this time, anxiety began to bubble up where it had laid dormant for a while—the chew-on-my-fingernails-and-stare-off-into-the-distance kind of anxiety.
This was our last night.
Tomorrow, we’d pack up and head back to New York. We’d drive back to our respective houses alone. The bubble would officially burst. It frightened me how quickly I had done a complete one-eighty in my affection for my coworker. It happened both slowly and quickly, as we were literally here for only six days. Our time together under the covered bridge, whispering secrets and sharing kisses. Our night cuddled on the couch, watching Home Alone. The teasing and flirting. Jumping into the pond together. The sincerity in his eyes when he looked at me. All those kisses. My heart wanted to lean into all of it. Believe all of it. But it was too good to be true–the kind of stuff that just doesn’t happen to me. Not in real life, anyway. And as I looked around at the cozy lodge covered in mistletoe and garland, sitting next to Miles Taylor as his hand on my knee drummed to the beat of the local band performing “Little Drummer Boy,” it didn’t feel like we were in real life.