Luke’s mother, in particular, seemed to track Rachel’s movements everywhere she went tonight. The extra attention made her uneasy. She had won allies this week for sure. But trust was going to be difficult for a lot of people who’d felt abandoned by Chris Chambers and deceived by his vision for Yuletide. She didn’t want to think about any of that tonight though.
“The Harrises still wield a lot of influence around here,” Gavin admitted as the song came to an end. “But now that Luke has welcomed you back, I think everyone else will too.”
She hoped so, for her mother’s sake more than her own. Rachel hated to think about all the years of saving and worrying that had gone into her mom’s effort to redeem them in the town’s eyes over the last eight years. At least now she could spend her money on something fun for herself.
The music changed tempo again but Gavin didn’t move off the dance floor. They stood together, arms still twined lightly around one another, the glow of a thousand tiny icicle lights raining down on them.
“People are starting to leave the party,” she whispered up at him, hypnotized by the flecks of gold in his green eyes. “I should probably get going.”
Still, she couldn’t will her feet to move. She’d driven separately since Gavin had attended the wedding rehearsal with the rest of the bridal party first. They were all spending the night at the Hearthside Inn, where the wedding would take place tomorrow afternoon.
After that, Gavin would be on a plane to Austria. The idea of being separated from him hit her like a physical hurt.
“I don’t want tonight to end.” His words were her thoughts. For a moment, she wondered if she’d said them aloud.
She swayed on her feet. Stay or go?
Then a pair of children raced past them, a boy and a girl, darting toward the table full of after-party favors to pocket bags of candy.
“Will you walk me to my car?” Her suddenly dry throat scratched over the words, but with an effort, she stepped back. Pointed her feet toward the door.
She was grateful when he moved with her.
“I hope you’ll let me drive you home.” Gavin only paused long enough to sign their names in the register as they walked toward the closest exit. He seemed as eager as her to avoid talking to anyone else before leaving.
She wanted to savor the feel of his hand holding hers. His shoulder strong and square if she decided to tip her forehead to rest there for a moment.
“I don’t want you to make the trip all the way to Yuletide and back when I have a car in the garage downstairs.” She paused by the coat check table while Gavin retrieved her cape.
Her heartbeat quickened as the parting became more real. More final.
Panic made her belly cramp. What was she thinking chasing him away when, more than anything, she wanted to be with him tonight?
“Rachel.” He whispered her name into her hair, his temple resting on her head for a moment. “I can’t let you go yet.”
She closed her eyes, feeling the same desperate need. The same unwillingness to say goodnight. Heat flared like an oil lamp someone turned to the highest setting, a sudden bright flash of warmth. She recalled the most memorable kisses of her entire life had been with this man. How could she not take just one more?
“Another kiss might make it easier to say goodbye.” She wasn’t the sort of woman to say flirtatious things she didn’t mean. She wanted to feel that connection to him one more time.
Gavin’s hand closed around her shoulder, gripping her tight as he seemed to gather his own composure. “Or a kiss could make it impossible to walk away.”
Rachel appreciated that he would look out for her. That he cared how she felt. Around them, the bride and groom’s relatives streamed passed them to find their way home while Gavin and Rachel stood unnoticed in a shadowed nook where a phone bank used to be.
“It’s impossible to walk away now,” she pointed out reasonably, even though her breath felt thin and insubstantial, not nearly rich enough to sustain the heady swell of feelings inside her. She hadn’t even kissed him yet, and her knees went wobbly from just the idea of it. “So we can’t be any worse off for trying.”
His jaw flexed, the angles of his face stern. He was exercising restraint, she realized with more than a little feminine satisfaction. And from the dark scowl of worry settling over his brow, it wasn’t easy for him.
“We could be much worse off,” he warned her, tension radiating from him.
She knew because she’d planted her hands on his chest at some point to make her appeal. She smoothed one palm down the front of the silvery-gray tie, the hard planes of muscle endlessly intriguing. When she glanced up into his eyes again, the easygoing, charming snowboarder was gone, replaced with a man of starker emotions.
And a need even more intense than her own.
He’d been abandoned by too many people, she realized, remembering his words that night on the playground. I don’t want my heart trounced either, he’d told her. He didn’t take risks in relationships after the way his parents had checked out on him. Her own father’s disappearance had hurt him too, since he’d looked up to Chris Chambers like a father.
Then, she’d left town as well and hadn’t looked back.
Gavin didn’t need to explain the scars those hurts left. She understood the feeling and, more importantly, she was beginning to understand him. She’d started falling for him a long time ago and had stopped herself as a protective measure. But tonight, she didn’t want to protect herself anymore.
She wanted to be there for him. For Gavin.
She would take the risk with her heart for this man because she loved him. It occurred to her now that she hadn’t come to Yuletide to make peace with Luke—or the town—at all. Her need to return had been tied to this man from the start.
“I know you’re leaving after the wedding.” She gripped his lapels lightly while inside the ballroom the violinist played the final notes of a last song to end the night, stretching out the refrain in a bittersweet ending. “But that doesn’t change anything for me. I want to be with you tonight, Gavin.”
Not giving him time to think about an answer, a denial, or a reasoned argument, Rachel found her courage. Arching up on her toes, she pressed her lips to his.
*
The need to be with her roared in Gavin’s ears. Low and insistent at first, like the rumble of an oncoming avalanche. And then, as her soft lips made a sweet, unspoken promise to his, the rumble turned to a ground-shifting, seismic quake.
He crushed her to him, caught up in the moment and the delicate gift of her bare arms wrapping around his neck, her body pressed thoroughly to his. Chivalrous notions took flame, burned away by the words that had torched over him.
I want to be with you.
He could still hear the echo of a statement that turned his world upside down faster than any aerial jump. And they hadn’t even left the shadowy nook off the hotel lobby.