Page 60 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses

Behind her, Caleb fidgeted, his boots a faint scuffle on pine planks. His unease provided a tantalizing peek into the soul buried beneath slightly wrinkled clothing and a scowl that was weak around the edges if you looked closely. Incredibly, she had never met a man who secreted his accomplishments, his strength, his intelligence, in the way this one did. He was so much more than he believed and, somehow,he had no idea. She’d been in Pilot Isle long enough to appreciate the delicacy of his position. Stuck solidly between two brothers: one a prodigy, the other the magnanimous town leader. They’d had their places carved out for longer than anyone could remember.

Where did that leave Caleb?

She remembered what it was like to be lost amidst family. Where one should feel the most comfort and security…but simply didn’t. Hers had been ripped away. But there had been no one around to protect her.

“The drawing you’re studying like you have an exam coming up is a cutter. It’d be my biggest build, if—how would Noah say it—the project comes to fruition.” His arm brushed her shoulder as he reached, a whisper-light touch that made her breath catch. Caleb tapped the sketch in two places, and Macy tracked the movement like she’d stitched her gaze to his finger. “Double-masted, gaff-rigged. Designed for speed rather than capacity. Two headsails and a long bowsprit. It’s quite…” He stepped back, taking the warmth engulfing her with him. “It’s a magnificent design, if I do say so myself.”

Tilting her head, she found him studying her likehehad an exam. “I don’t have any idea what that means,” she said, laughing softly.

“It means it’s going to rip like hell across the waves and look gorgeous doing it,” he returned as his eyes politely but openly devoured her. Steady regard unlike any she’d experienced in her life. Steady enough to have her knees shaking beneath copious, ridiculous layers. To send an ache between her legs she was sure she’d answer the call for in her bedroom this very evening.

“I’m not good on the water, which I know is odd when I live on the coast. I’m not even a strong swimmer. I didn’t grow up, that is my parents—” She halted, gestured inanely.

“I’ll need to test this one in a week or so.” He jacked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the boat he’d been working on. “I could take you sailing. The next calm day. It’s not hard to find your sea legs.” His gaze did a slow roll to her feet and heat blew through her. “I guarantee they’re there somewhere.”

She directed her attention back to his sketch, imagined his fingers gripping the charcoal pencil. Sliding over her skin. Knotting in her hair. Dipping beneath her drawers and touching her as she’d touched herself while thinking about him.Sea legs, indeed. “I heard about your experiments with Elle,” she said with a voice gone as dry as the sawdust beneath their feet. “She ended up in the ocean.”

He made no reply, allowing the silence to settle around them. He was a patient man, unhurried and not absorbed with hurryingher. She liked it. His earnestness, his willingness to cede control when men usually felt they had to command the room,anyroom, made her feel…safe.

Imagine that?Safe.

“I’d never let anything happen to you,” he murmured. “Elle was a remarkably strong swimmer. A quick dunk wasn’t going to hurt her.”

She turned to find him stuck to the same spot, not having moved a muscle, his head tipped toward the floor. “I know. Somehow, even though we’re newly acquainted”—she pressed her hand to her belly, where a pulse thumped beneath her palm because her mind had started replaying their kiss—“I know.”

Heavens if she didn’t lose every thought in her head when he lifted his and agenuinesmile, full and beautiful, sat on his face, sending that recalcitrant dimple flaring to life.Ah, there’s the charming man I’ve heard about.Sly whispers across a crowded tea table at the women’s league meeting, over the clack and thrust of knitting needles at the sewing circle.The women in town had prepared her in a way: quick to laugh, always the first to volunteer, so in love with his family. She’d knownthatCaleb Garrett was in there somewhere.

Never one to ignore an opportunity, she seized on his delight and gestured to the lone stool in the room. Tapped her shoulder, indicating his. “May I?”

He gave her one of those easy laughs but with no explanation behind it. “Sure, Doc, do your worst.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Your best works, too.” Her breath caught as he unbuttoned his shirt, tugged down the sleeve covering his injured arm, keeping the other hanging from his shoulder like a sheet partially concealing a sculpture. He perched on the wobbly stool, material fluttering around his hips. With partial success, she kept her gaze from tracking the dusting of dark hair trailing between his pectorals in a straight shot to his groin. She cleaned the wound and assessed damage to her earlier repair, forcing her mind to medicine.Pectoralis major. Assists in creating lateral, vertical, or rotational motion. Pectoralis minor…

He sat through her ministrations with nothing more than one sharp intake of air that sent his lashes fluttering and her stomach sinking to her knees.No man should have lashes so long, she reasoned in mild disgust.

“Why the grunt of displeasure? The popped stitches? It was my fool brother’s fault, I’m telling you.” He palmed the wall to hold the stool steady. “I’d share the story, but it’s a painful retelling.”

“Ladies do not grunt,” she informed him as she went through the steps of applying a clean dressing.So, he wanted to know, did he? She decided, right then and there, to tell him. “My modest token of protest was because you have the longest lashes I’ve ever seen on a man, and as a woman who has somewhat stubby ones herself, I find this terribly unfair.”

A crinkle formed between his brows as his hand left the wall, before he caught himself and dropped his curled fist to his lap. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous for a man to have such long lashes, I agree,” she replied as she bound his arm with a bandage she hoped he protected this time. As she finished tying off the length of gauze—and she could not say exactly why she did it, perhaps it was because he smelled of spice and sunlight and she wanted to bathe in the scent—she trailed her index finger down his forearm to his wrist. Then she stared at him as she kept it there, over his pulse, which skipped and fired into a swift beat.

She knew her actions were unseemly. Knew she should not want to touch him,knowhim, inside and out, in the powerful way she did. Knew he likely foundherridiculous. Too serious. Quiet. Uninteresting.

The things she’d always been.

But she also knew she’d never felt this way about a man—and her heart had sealed itself off thinking she never would. So, she took it a step further and circled his wrist, confirming her request. Because she had a feeling, a very definite one, that he was too much a gentleman to do so himself.

“Why me?” he asked as his blood danced beneath her fingertips. “When you could have any man in this town? In any town?”

A tremor shook her; they were leaving the dock and entering deep water. No going back now. The music paused as the wax cylinder in his phonograph skipped, then Joplin glided back over them like a tepid breath.If you only understood how your kiss revived me.“I…” She swallowed and stepped back, into the table.Dorian Grayhit the floor with a thump. Nonplussed, she went to her knees to pick it up, and he followed.

As they crouched in the muted sunlight, he slipped his knuckle beneath her chin, tipping her head until her gaze met his. “I’m not a caretaker, Macy Dallas. That’s why I’m alone. Zach’s the Garrett for that job. Or Noah. I’m the brother who goes off half-cocked. A bull set loose in the china shop. Destructive and thoughtless. I know how to build boats, but I don’t know how to build what you need. I never have.”

“I don’t believe—”