He couldn’t be.And yet, his eyes were a lot warmer than I'd ever seen them.
The effect was annoyingly hypnotic, and I leaned forward, drawn into his gaze.
But then, just in time, I caught myself. With a mental slap, I straightened in my chair and tried again. "What Imeanis…" Desperately I searched for something intelligent to say. "Boy that soup sure was delicious."
Great.Now I sounded like a freaking soup commercial.
And Cole looked ready to laugh.
I demanded, "What's so funny?"
He chuckled. "You."
As I stared in righteous indignation, his chuckle grew into a laugh. And, as if this weren't bad enough, I felt my own lips twitch liketheywanted to laugh, too.
Why, I had no idea. I should've been angry. And maybe Iwouldhave been, if only his laughter wasn't so warm and wonderful, like peppermint hot chocolate on Christmas morning.
Soon, I couldn't help it. I was laughing, too. By the time our laughter faded, the warmth in my stomach had spread throughout my entire body.
Oh, yeah. This guy was definitely dangerous.
Chapter 10
Cole
I had to give her credit. For someone who'd just swallowed something too hot, she was being a surprisingly good sport about it.
I shouldn’t have laughed.But she'd looked so cute that I'd been unable to stop myself.Or maybe I hadn't wanted to.
This year had been filled with a lot of things, but laughter hadn't been one of them.
Already we'd been sitting at the deli for nearly twenty minutes. It didn't feel like twenty, but the clock on the wall said otherwise.
Now we were back to eating again, not saying anything important, just enjoying each other's company.Or at least, I was enjoying hers.
Some might say I was enjoying it too much, because I found myself steering the conversation away from potential minefields, like her old job ormyold attitude.
Yeah, I'd been a hard-ass. But I'd had my reasons – reasons I might explain if things ever got friendly.
I wouldn’t call them friendly now, but I wouldn't call themunfriendly either.
While we ate, I learned that she liked cats, enjoyed snowy weather, and had a real thing for Christmas. This last bit I'd known already from the short time she'd been my employee.
About this, I made no made comment. The last thing I wanted now was to get her thinking about her final day at the office.
Instead, I explained that I had no pets because I wasn't home enough to do them justice and told her that any weather was fine by me because every season had its high points.
But even as I said it, it wasn't lost on me that it had been a long time since I'd actively enjoyed any kind of weather.
For years now, I'd been focused on other things.Too focused? Maybe.
Either way, the point remained. During all of those hours at the office, it hadn't much mattered whether the day was snowy or sunny. It had been all the same to me.
But now I took a subtle look around. Outside the deli, snow was drifting downward over the narrow downtown street, softening my view of the old-fashioned candy store that dominated the scene.
It looked like something out of a classic Christmas movie, the kind I'd loved as a kid, back when I'd had time for ice-hockey, for making snowmen, and for other wintery things that I'd given up along the way.
I'd never felt the lack of them.
