Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

H utton

I never did find out what Rae's ex said to her to make the light dim in her eyes, but I remain determined to get it out of her. Along with providing an incredible holiday for my son and a mental vacation for myself, I want to leave Snowhaven knowing I've made some small thing better for Rae too. But I'm also not going to pry something out of her that she doesn't want to talk about. I have no right to ask her to bare her soul when I'm not doing the same in return.

Henry is up with the sun, bouncing into Rae's bedroom and declaring himself today's chef. Pancakes are his specialty, and if he doesn't burn the house down first, he will provide us breakfast in bed. I allay Rae's fears by following him out of the bedroom and helping him make breakfast, turning the kind gesture into providing Rae breakfast in bed. There's not one flower blooming in her yard this time of year, so I make do with a dusty silk arrangement in the living room, plucking out a single flower, blowing off the dust, and sticking it in a bud vase. With Henry delivering the tray of food with the flower, Rae claps her hands and looks overjoyed.

I distinctly remember doing something similar on Mother's Day several years in a row with my own mother. She acted just as delighted with my half-cooked eggs and burnt toast. Perhaps that's the mark of a good mother. Sadly, I can't imagine Holly doing the same thing.

"Pancake for your thoughts," Rae interrupts, holding out her fork as I sit on the bed next to her, coffee cup in hand. I open my mouth and let her feed me, pleased Henry and I made something not only edible, but downright tasty. Kind of hard to mess up pancakes.

I look over at her, taking in the blonde beach waves, bare face, and my old T-shirt swallowing her shape as she leans against the headboard. She's effortlessly beautiful in a way I can't describe.

"You'd make a fantastic mom," I say quietly.

She stills, and instead of taking my compliment the way I intended it, her eyes glaze over and the edges of her mouth tip downward.

I put my coffee cup down on the bedside table and reach over to swipe my thumb against the side of her mouth where there's a small drip of maple syrup. "Hey," I mutter softly, kissing her briefly. "I'm sorry. I meant how incredible you are with Henry. Anyone looking in would assume you're his mom. You have this innate ability to connect with children. It's impressive."

Her head tilts further into my hand as I cup her jaw. "Thank you." It's barely a whisper, and while there's a whole mountain of sadness behind those eyes, she doesn't explain and I don't feel like I have any right to pry. We agreed to keep things casual between us, and I leave in a matter of days. Which gives me just enough time to stop sticking my foot in my mouth and do something that'll make her smile instead.

"Morgana texted while Henry and I were making breakfast. She invited Henry over for another Snowmass activity with the girls this morning. She suggested we could take a few hours to ourselves." I pull back and try to inject some fun into this conversation I've clearly botched. "Figured we could go into town and do our Christmas shopping together. I think the ladies call it retail therapy?"

Rae huffs amusement, and while it's not a true laugh, I'll take it over the haunting sadness. "Excellent. I have to buy a few things for my homemade gift."

I gasp. "You remember you owe me?"

She drills a finger into my side. "You owe me a gift too, mister."

I hold up my hands. "I've already started making your gift."

Her mouth drops open. "Since when?"

Getting off the bed, I go to clear the tray off her lap so we can get ready. I've started working on her gift in the middle of the night when I can't sleep. When lyrics and tunes start filling my head, I pull out my guitar and put in some time there, followed by the making of her gift. "Worry a little less about me and worry more about what you're going to make me , sugar."

She shakes her head, then throws the covers off to get dressed. I can't help but eye her long legs as they emerge, still amazed how much this woman turns me on. And not just in a sexual way—though I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a huge part of this attraction. The other part—the growing part—is just her . I have a keen interest in seeing her happy, hearing her interact with Henry, watching her direct all the kids at the theater, the artwork she hides in her guest room.

I snap out of it when she slides into yet another pair of ripped black jeans and props her hands on her hips with a raised eyebrow.

"Take a picture. It'll last longer," she snarks.

"Okay." I whip my phone out of my pajama pocket and snap a blurry picture before she rushes me and tries to swipe the phone out of my hands.

I'm laughing and having a great time, all before I've finished my first cup of coffee. I finally relinquish the phone and bring her in for a kiss instead. She surprises me by lifting the phone out beside us and snapping a pic of us kissing. Then she hands the phone back to me and walks to the bathroom, throwing a sexy look over her shoulder.

"Better eat some breakfast, choir boy. You have no idea how much I love to shop." She slams the bathroom door closed and I stare after her. And not like a choir boy, but definitely like a schoolboy with his first crush. Henry snaps me out of it, entering the bedroom dressed in sweatpants and a Bluey shirt on backwards. He has shoes but no socks and his underwear are on his head like a helmet.

"Ready!" he sings confidently.

After dropping Henry off at Havenkirk and receiving assurances that Aksel had a handle on the snowman-building activity and no children would be harmed in the making of the traditional Norwegian Christmas meal that Dagny would supervise for lunch, Rae and I headed back out to downtown Snowhaven.

After only three shops, we're already loaded down with bags. Most of it is my fault, as I felt that showering my parents with gifts might help Mama stop from throttling me at my no-show this year. Then I saw things for Henry that I knew would make him shout with excitement and suddenly my credit card was out.

"I'll take the bags to the truck. Do you have another shop you want to go to?"

Rae points to the hardware store. "I have to get a few things there. Meet me?"

I shoot her a wink and take her bags, most definitely looking ridiculous as I head back for the truck, the load of bags making me wider than the sidewalk. Everything gets stored in the back seat and I head back for the hardware store. Several people nod or say hello, which I reciprocate. Nobody asks for a selfie or whispers behind their hands while trying not to be obvious while they take a picture on their cell phones. It's nice. Comfortable, even.

The little bell rings over my head as I push the door open and go inside. A guy behind the counter gives a noncommittal "hey" and goes back to helping the old lady with at least a hundred different-sized bolts on the counter. Row after row of tools, supplies, and packages span the entire store. I look for Rae's blonde head and think I spy her at the back, in the paint section. I head over, stopping to check out the display of Christmas decor. Most of it is picked over, but there's still a decent supply of wreaths, ribbons, and wrapping materials. An idea forms in my brain. I tuck it away for later and go to find my woman.

Rae stands in the middle of the back aisle, teeth biting into her bottom lip as she debates between two tubes of what looks to be paint.

"Hey." I slide up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist, eyeing the paint over her shoulder. "Is that oil paint?"

She tosses one into her cart and picks up another tube from the display. "Nope, acrylics."

My heart rate picks up, wondering if she's thinking of painting something. "Got a project you're working on?"

Rae finally quits studying the paint to spin in my arms, hands finding the back of my neck. "So what if I am?"

My eyebrows wing into my hairline. "I'd want to know all about it. What you're painting. What inspired you. Everything." I glance down at her cart, seeing at least ten tubes of acrylic paint and even a few small buckets of some other kind of paint. Brushes of various sizes and a box of rags take up the rest of the cart. This must be a big project.

Rae gives me a challenging smile. "You know much about oil painting?"

I wrack my brain for one tiny detail I retained from high school art class. "I only remember one thing from high school art," I confess.

Rae snorts. "What's that?"

I slide my hands from her waist to her ass, pulling her further into me. "My teacher loved Georgia O'Keefe and her labia flowers."

Rae barks out a surprised laugh so hard, I jolt away from her, not wanting to be covered in spit.

"I'm serious, sugar. She had her prints all over the art classroom." I frown, recalling all us boys staring up at those prints like they held the answers to the murky world of girls. "Really disturbing, now that I think about it."

Rae pats my chest and tosses another tube of paint into her cart. "Georgia O'Keefe painted flowers , Hutton. For a choir boy, I'm pretty concerned where your brain went."

Now it's my turn to sputter. "Those were surely labia."

Rae, a smile tugging hard on her lips, shushes me and pushes me further into the back corner of the store. The average age of the two other people in this store has me fairly confident they won't hear me talking about labia, even if I shouted it.

"You can't just yell out that word," she reprimands, though her cheeks are pink and she looks so lovely, I can't help but be proud of myself for removing that shadow of sadness from her eyes.

"Why not? Labia isn't a curse word." I may have said it even louder this time, just for Rae's benefit. "Come on. Try it. It's very freeing."

Rae is fully laughing now, shaking her head at me. "You're impossible, you know that?"

I wave my hand in a motion. "Come on. Let me hear it."

Rae huffs, but still has that hint of a smile. "Georgia's flowers may have looked a teensy-tiny bit like labia."

"Ah, there it is. Doesn't that feel good?"

Rae lifts an eyebrow. "You know, Georgia's pretty famous. Maybe I should paint labia flowers."

I cup her face with both hands and steal a kiss as indecent as talking about labia at the hardware store. When we finally come up for air, I press my forehead to hers.

"Please don't. I like your work just the way it is." I pull back. "Which is why I'm taking you to lunch, and you're going to tell me all about your project."

She doesn't argue, but she does put up a fight when I try to pay for her cartful of paint. I trick her by pointing out a Christmas ornament on an endcap of a paintbrush we should really buy and put on her tree. I slap my credit card down on the machine. The beep echoes in the store before she can snap her gaze back and see what I've done.

Jerry, the old guy who owns the store, gives me an approving look and double bags all the tubes and buckets of paint. "Glad to see you painting again, Rae."

That comment stops her from grousing at me about paying for her haul. She looks almost embarrassed when she replies. "Yeah, sorry for taking so long."

We leave with four bags between us, heading for the truck to stow the bags before I take her to lunch. There're still so many things I don't know about Rae, and I feel a desperate need to understand her better.

"Why did you apologize to Jerry?"

Rae puts her bag in the truck and shuts the door, waiting for me to stow the other bags and come back around. I reach for her hand, sliding our fingers together as we walk down the sidewalk.

"Jerry keeps the store stocked with acrylics for me. I'm the only one who buys them since I'm the only artist in town. I felt bad that I hadn't bought paint in awhile. He's wasting shelf space."

I stop her right there in front of a laundromat, my hands cupping her jaw again. She looks up at me with startled eyes. "He's not wasting anything. He believes in you. Like I believe in you. All it takes is one look at your creations and it's clear you were meant to be an artist."

Rae reaches up to circle her fingers around my wrists. Her brown eyes go soft. "Thanks. But you don't have to build me up with falsehoods. I'm not rich off my art pieces and it's okay. I don't have to be some famous artist to enjoy creating."

I nod, but my heart aches hearing the defeat in her voice. "Agreed. But I'm not lying, Rae. Your art is amazing. People just haven't seen it yet."

Rae stares into my eyes as the seconds tick by. Someone rushes by on the sidewalk and still we don't break apart. I want her to hear me. I want my words to be the ones she hears in her head, not the bullshit her ex and his wife say to her.

"What are we doing, Hutton?" she asks quietly.

I could pretend I misunderstood her. I could drop my hands and steer her toward the diner. I could laugh and remind her we're on our way to lunch. I could sidestep her question entirely. But we'd both know that's not what she meant with her question, and I have a feeling that not answering would pile on more harm to the boatload her ex has already caused. Causing Rae any amount of harm is something I simply can't do.

So I tighten my grip and don't let her look away when I answer truthfully. "I don't know. But I do know I like you and I'm enjoying my time here together, more so than I have in years. Can we agree to just enjoy the next few days?"

She swallows hard, her eyes searching mine. Then she nods.