Christmas Curveball Page 2

  Even though he still had his townhouse in Winston, if he was spending any kind of time at a mountain house this winter, she could see why he needed a truck to get around.

  The trees disappeared and in front of her was what looked like an open meadow, laid out before a beautiful one-and-a-half-story house. The meadow masqueraded as a front yard, and there were small green plants lining a small raised path from the front steps to the driveway. Lining the length of the front porch were even more plants, tucked against the trellis that dropped from the base of the porch to the ground. Unless Kevin had been in town a lot longer than she realized, he must’ve hired someone to work on the landscaping.

  The driveway came up on the left side of the house, and a two-car garage sat before her. The front porch wound around the right side of the house and disappeared from sight. The left side ended at the garage, which jutted toward her.

  The house used a mixture of stone and rustic wood to make its walls, with the wood making up the outlines of the house frame. Four windows on the top floor faced the front, while the right side of the first floor was lined with windows. Two chimneys rose above the roof line, one on the left of the house and the other on the right.

  It was beautiful.

  She parked her car in front of the garage and started up the path toward the front steps. As she got closer to the porch, the gravel nearest the porch had been replaced with stone pavers, which she couldn’t see when she was in her car. It looked like progress on placing the pavers had been halted due to the weather, as there was a gap of a few feet between where the gravel stopped and the pavers began.

  The design in the stone path was intricate and some of the plants were more mature than she’d realized. Was he going to use this as a mountain retreat for himself? Rent it out during baseball season? Whatever he decided to do with it, the outside—both landscape and house exterior—worked well together to form the perfect getaway.

  After hopping over the gap, she noticed the front porch was even wider than she’d originally thought, and a double swing hung at the left corner of the house, placed diagonally to view everything from the driveway across the length of the meadow. The swing was tucked back just enough that the garage wall provided protection from strong winds. So cool.

  The door swung open in front of her and she jumped.

  “What are you doing here?” The words were practically growled at her, but the man behind the words was just as good-looking as he’d ever been.

  Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt hanging open over a henley tee, Kevin stretched his left arm along the door frame he leaned against. The man was sex on a stick. Of course, too many women knew he was sex on a stick and had gotten to experience—yeah, that was part of the problem. She pushed any jealous thoughts she may or may not be having aside.

  “Wow. I think I need to tell your mom she’s got her work cut out for her with your manners. You seem to have forgotten all of her lessons.”

  “Why are you here?” This time the words came out through gritted teeth and she hid the smile that threatened to give her away. She loved getting him all riled up.

  “And a fine howdy do to you too. I just got here. I can’t possibly be on your nerves already.” Of course she could, but she wasn’t going to admit that to anyone but herself.

  “Did Tim tell you I was here?”

  “No. The dumbass kept your secret like a good best friend.”

  “Then how’d you find out—”

  “There’s only one vehicle in the state that has the license plate BASEBALL. The fact that it’s on a truck now instead of a car confused me for just a few seconds. You outed yourself.”

  “I knew I should’ve gone a different route.”

  “Please. You couldn’t possibly have known I was at Gary’s getting new windshield wipers.”

  “What were you doing out there?”

  “I work in Boyle’s Chapel now.”

  “You’re not still teaching?”

  “I am, but I got a first-grade position at their elementary school.”

  “That’s great. Glad that worked out for you.” Uh-oh, was he actually going to drop the annoyed act?

  “Yeah, I’m pretty happy.” She tilted her head to the side. “See how easy it is to be nice?”

  “Hmph.”

  “Why are you home and why don’t you want your family to know?”

  “You haven’t answered my original questions, why should I answer yours?”

  “You mean the rude ‘Why are you here?’ question?” She crossed her arms and gave him the look she gave her school kids when she was fed up with their mess.

  Kevin groaned and dropped his head and arm. Haha, the look seemed to work on men as well as students. Or at least this man. Good to know.

  “I need some time to work through some things.”

  “So I heard. Now I’d like the non-baloney answer.”

  “Why do you care?”

  He had her there. She couldn’t exactly admit to being obsessed with him for too long, to being in love with him long before he became the Kevin Ganlin.

  “You’re Tim’s friend. I followed the news about your injury—” he winced, “—and your mom really missed you at Thanksgiving.” That had him turning away from her.

  “Let it go, Rach. Please.”

  He sounded defeated. That wasn’t her Kevin. Not that he was ever her Kevin, but the Kevin she knew had never been defeated, at least not personally.

  Seeing him like this pushed every protective instinct she had to the forefront. He was hurting, which in her world meant she had to do something.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean no?”

  “Just what I said. Get in your car and go back home.”

  No way, no how. He wasn’t acting like himself, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with his behavior.

  “I just drove an hour getting here. I’m not going to turn right back around and go back home. Forget it. Why are you being so rude? Is it just me in particular, or are you hiding here because you’ve lost all knowledge about how to act in a civilized manner?”

  “You never did answer my question. How did you find this place?”

  Chapter Two

  Kevin couldn’t wait to hear her answer. If her brother hadn’t told Rachel, then how the hell had she found him?

  “And I have to answer this before I’m allowed passage inside?”

  At least. If he’d let her in at all. Dammit. It’d been months since he’d seen her and he’d hoped by not being in Winston-Salem proper, he wouldn’t have to run into her often. And when he did have to see her, she’d be around her brother, aka his best friend.

  “Yes.”

  She sighed. “Fine. That day you sat out on the dock at the lake with my brother, freezing your butts off telling tall tales, I heard you tell him you’d found the perfect house, but it needed to be fixed up.”

  What the hell? Was she covering for her brother? “You weren’t anywhere around there.”

  “Actually, I was under the dock.” She looked down at her feet as she scuffed her shoes into the porch. “I’d been collecting things along the shore for my class and wanted some shelter from the wind. I hunkered down under the dock and was drawing scenes from the lake and bigger pictures of some of the items I’d collected. I was working on a collection of coloring sheets I could make copies of and hand out.”

  She looked up at him, her tone changing from defensive to accusatory. “You guys came out there, dragging your chairs, disturbing the peace and quiet with all your talk.” Her eyes held mischief, not matching the accusation in her voice.

  “You should’ve said something.”

  “No way. I was there first. You should’ve checked to
see if you were truly alone.”

  Kevin racked his brain, trying to think of everything he and Tim had talked about that day. Too many things, most likely. Half the stories they told each other were made up. Did Rachel know that? She’d called their talk tall tales. But did she know which parts were lies? Doubtful. But the mischief-making look in her eyes had spread to her slight smile and he knew she was still playing with him.

  “How were we supposed to know we needed to check under the dock on a day with that kind of weather?”

  “TBFY.” Too bad for you.

  Ah, Rachel. They fell so easily into their usual, familiar patterns, like squabbling siblings. Except what he felt for her was anything but brotherly. Lord, if her brother knew what Kevin thought about Rachel sometimes, Tim would kick his ass. Or he’d try, at least. Though with Kevin’s arm in its current state, Tim probably had a slightly better chance than usual. But if he let her into his house, then he’d forever have the image of her there and he wouldn’t be able to wipe that from his thoughts, or fantasies.

  “You didn’t tell me how exactly you found this place.”

  “Seriously? I have to tell all my secrets before I’m allowed in?”

  “If you want to be warm, you can always get back in your car and go back home.”

  “Who elected you Mr. Grumpypants?” She shifted her stance and looked uncomfortable. Good. He shouldn’t be the only one uncomfortable. “I, well, you described the place pretty well to Tim, and later I went online to check out some of the houses for sale.”

  Ugh. She hadn’t. She had. Why did she even care where he lived? Why would she go to this much trouble? Other than that she could never leave a mystery unsolved. That had to be it.

  “And, well, I sort of kept an eye on the ones that ended up sold and found the address of this one when I did a property search about a month later. It was listed under your super-duper secret corp name that I might’ve overheard that particular day. But I haven’t told anyone else. I promise.”

  “You little stalker, you. I can’t believe you did that.” The more pressing question was why, but he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to that yet.

  “I’m not really a stalker when I waited till now to use the info I got.”

  “Whatever puts your mind at ease and lets you sleep at night. Rachel the stalker. What a ring that has to it.”

  “I’m...” She stopped and turned partially away from him. “Fine, I’ll go. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  All of a sudden, the most important thing to him was not letting her leave yet. Not like this. Although it would help in the long run, he couldn’t let her drive home after all this. He had to be an idiot for wanting to spend more alone time with her when he couldn’t have her.

  “Wait. Come on in. I’ll fix you something warm to drink and put another log on the fire.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, come on.”

  “You don’t happen to have tea, do you?”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding me. No, I have coffee, coffee and more coffee. Oh, and I might have some hot chocolate I can make for you.”

  “Oh my God, I’d love a mug of hot chocolate.”

  Of course she would. She’d loved anything and everything that had the word chocolate in it for as long as he could remember. He wasn’t going to admit to anyone, not even himself, that he immediately thought of her when he passed by the boxes of hot chocolate in the store.

  She pushed past him, giving him an extra shove in the stomach with her elbow as she passed him, and stepped into the foyer area. In the past when she’d touched him for whatever reason, it’d always felt sisterly. Why didn’t this shove feel that way? How could the same touch feel different?

  Stopping in her tracks, she breathed, “This is beautiful.”

  Indefinable warmth filled him. “I kinda like it.”

  “Kinda?”

  “Eh, maybe a little more than kinda.”

  “The windows really open the house up to the outside. I love the vaulted ceiling. You get to have such tall windows with it. And look at that view of the back. Holy cow, it’s amazing! I didn’t realize you were so close to one of the vista peaks. I’m all turned around. Which direction is that?”

  “You’re looking southeast at Hanging Rock State Park.”

  “That’s so cool. I can see why you told Tim you’d found the perfect house.”

  He didn’t want to think about her liking his house. Not when he thought back to the reasons why he’d picked particular things in the house.

  “Weren’t we going to get you some hot chocolate?”

  “Yeah, yeah, in a minute. Why don’t you have a Christmas tree up right there?”

  “It’d block the view.” That and he really wasn’t in the mood for Christmas, decorations included.

  “You should set the tree up over there, then.” She pointed to the left of the windows. “That way you can still see it and the outside at the same time.”

  “You’re assuming I have Christmas decorations.”

  She yanked her gaze from the panoramic view and turned to look at him with mock horror. “How can you not have Christmas decorations? Hello. Best time of the year.”

  “There might be something here. I’d have to check.”

  She narrowed her eyes, studying him. “You’re lying. The decorations you had in your townhouse are already here.”

  Busted.

  He shrugged and she turned back to look out the windows again before beginning her study of the rest of his house. She made more comments about the wood and furniture he’d picked out. Each of her compliments filled him with a combination of pride at having her like his house, and dread at knowing he’d think of her each time he admired the view or relaxed on one of his couches.

  She finally made her way to his kitchen, and Kevin followed her.

  He had to get her out of there as quickly as possible. Why had he given in and let her stay? The best friend code made her off-limits. There were times like now that he wished he’d never come to the realization she was the one he’d always wanted. He’d been forced to confront his feelings for her when she was going through her divorce, and he’d never been the same again.

  He loved food, and seeing the one woman in the world who was completely off-limits to him moving around his kitchen pained him. He wanted her there. She moved around like the kitchen was made for her. The look in her eyes when she’d taken in the upgrades he’d installed in the kitchen was enough to make him beg her to stay with him. His healthy appetite could handle having someone in his kitchen who’d learned to cook like Rachel’s mom did. It’d been a long time since Kevin’d had the chance to taste Rachel’s cooking, but according to her brother, she was rivaling her mom. And that was saying something.

  Yeah, he was hiding out from his family, and hiding from the world that would soon enough find out he was old and unable to heal properly. He also hadn’t wanted to see Rachel. Of course he wasn’t going to tell her brother that, so Kevin had come up with the excuse of not wanting to let his family know what the team had decided. He didn’t think he’d see pity from his family members, and even if he did, it wouldn’t be as painful as seeing pity in Rachel’s eyes. That would kill him.

  She looked up from mixing her hot chocolate. “What do you want to drink?”

  He wanted a beer, but it wasn’t even noon yet. “I’ll fix some coffee.” She made a face.

  “Talk about manners. Does your mom know you make that face?”

  “Only when she makes something disgusting like coffee.”

  He pulled the coffeemaker out from where he’d tucked it away.

  “Oh, you have one of those single-brew things. Do you like it?”

  “I do. You still haven’t developed a taste for coffee? Really?”

  �
�Really. Oh! Does this mean you have the single-brew hot chocolate cups?”

  “No, but I can let hot water run through it into a coffee cup with the hot chocolate mix in it.”

  “Ew. Is the water going to taste like coffee?”

  “No, Miss I Can’t Let Coffee Come Near My Lips, it won’t taste like coffee.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Woman.” He would not drop his eyes to see just how much of a woman she really was.

  “Fine, fine. I believe you. Maybe.”

  She watched as he got everything ready. “You could totally get some of the single-cup hot chocolate things, as well as some tea, for me.”

  “Ew. Does that mean my coffee will taste like tea?”

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  He really didn’t want to think about what it might mean if he was getting K-Cups of drinks she liked. Needing to yank his thoughts from going down that road, he refocused on the task at hand.

  “How do you even know they make hot chocolate and such in the individual K-Cups?”

  “Is that what they’re called?”

  He nodded.

  “Because the teachers’ lounge didn’t have a coffee machine, only a soft drink machine. Then they got in one of those fancy machines that’s like yours except even bigger, where you can bring your own little cup thingies and make coffee. One of the teachers was talking about placing an order for cider, tea and hot chocolate.”

  “I wonder if they should change the name from K-Cup to ‘little cup thingies.’”

  She swatted at him.

  “Shut up. Get me some hot chocolate little cup thingies.”

  She made him smile, and that was an unusual occurrence these days. This was why he’d always liked her, and deep down inside, probably loved her for so many years. It hadn’t really been until her divorce that he’d put a name to what he felt for his best friend’s little sister. And that right there was why he couldn’t do anything about it.