Her Festive Flirtation. Therese Beharrie

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER SIX

      ‘WHAT?’ AVA ASKED, when the silence extended much too long for her liking. When the expression on Noah’s face went from easy to tight and the emotion rippling across his features made her stomach tremble.

      ‘Nothing.’ His voice was hoarse.

      ‘Are you okay?’ She dropped the ornament she held in her hands to the couch and moved forward. ‘Should I take you to the doctor? Back to the hospital?’

      ‘No.’ His voice was stronger now. ‘No,’ he said again. ‘I’m fine. I just got a little...distracted.’

      The air moved more easily into her lungs. ‘By what? I thought you were about to have a heart attack.’

      ‘Sorry,’ he said. Still, she heard the strain. ‘This looks great, by the way. You didn’t have to do it.’

      ‘I know,’ she said, and picked up the ornament she’d dropped, putting it with the others. ‘But it was the least I could do after you took such great care of me and Zorro yesterday.’

      He studied her, and as the seconds ticked by Ava tried not to wriggle under his gaze.

      ‘You couldn’t sleep, huh?’

      She laughed, but the words jolted her. How had he known? ‘I slept fine.’

      He arched a brow.

      She hissed out a breath. ‘Fine. I slept okay for the first bit, and then I woke up and my mind started thinking about everything that happened and everything that’s going to happen and I couldn’t go back to sleep.’ She forced a smile. ‘At least it’s the weekend.’

      ‘Hell of a time to have to think about your house burning down.’

      She shrugged, though sadness wove through her. ‘I haven’t had the heart to check.’

      ‘I’ll call the station.’

      Ava continued removing the ornaments from the Christmas tree while he went outside to make the call. As she did so, she wondered why she hadn’t told him that her house had been at the bottom of the list of things she was worried about. At the top of the list was whether Noah was okay and whether Zorro was.

      Because early that morning she’d realised again how much danger she’d put him in by having him go back for Zorro. The smoke could have had a worse effect than she’d imagined. Because, of course, as that thought had occurred to her she’d done an internet search on smoke inhalation and found out the most horrific things. Things even that TV show hadn’t prepared her for.

      Which had got her thinking about Zorro. And how, though she hated it that she’d put Noah in danger, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. She’d thought about all the times she’d cried and Zorro had curled up near her. Not anywhere close to her body—he was still a cat—but close enough that she’d understood he was offering her as much comfort as a cat could.

      She’d thought about how he’d helped her stave off loneliness when it had threatened to overwhelm her. When thoughts of how much she needed to change had kept her up at night. When the hopelessness that she wouldn’t be able to change had done the same. As had the fear that no one would ever love her. Zorro had kept her calm through it all.

      And then, of course, she’d thought about the wedding. And the fact that she was being forced to participate in it when it was the last thing—the very last thing—in the entire world she wanted to do.

      She was fully aware of the resentment that had come along with that thought. Fully aware that it had spilled over too many times during the planning of Leela’s bachelorette party, which—thankfully—was now behind her. She had worried that during these last two weeks her resentment would spill over in ways she wouldn’t know how to clean up.

      ‘Well, the fire is still ongoing,’ Noah said as he walked back into the room. ‘But the wind’s shifted, which means the direction of the fire has changed.’

      ‘Away from the estate?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said, and started helping her remove more decorations from the tree. ‘They’re waiting for the smoke to subside and then they’ll check everything out. It might still be a while before you can move back in, though.’