Page 32 of Run, Run Rudolph (Fairy Godmothers and Other Fiascos #2)
~ Haden ~
F amily. That word didn’t feel right coming out of Tamara’s mouth, or even in this context.
Not when I had my arms around her, craving desperately to kiss her.
Her lips were in a pouty frown, and I could sense their gravitational pull.
I let out a shuddery breath and focused hard on her words and on what her expression was telling me.
It wasn’t good. I’d hurt her somewhere along the line tonight. She doubted me and my sincerity.
I kept catching hints of her recently reapplied lip gloss. Coconut. I wondered if kissing her would make my lips taste like coconut, too.
I needed to concentrate on her feelings, not her lips and the desire dragging my mind places it shouldn’t go. I couldn’t let this moment pass us by before I fixed it. We’d spent years avoiding each other, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
“Family,” I whispered, willing my brain to focus on the problem, to bring it into clarity so I could understand it, remedy it.
She was chewing on her bottom lip, and for an instant, I could read her again. She wanted me here. And not just for my medical skills. But there was something else I couldn’t quite reach.
She was hurt, but what had wounded her?
“I’m not family.” Tamara blinked hard, cheeks flushed. Her delicate, slender hands had been resting on my pecs, and she dropped them, stepping away from me. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking as if she didn’t want me touching her.
“Not officially, no,” I said carefully, holding myself in check.
It was like a cold, giant rock had formed between us, the lightness gone, and in its place a giant, spiky boundary of wrong words.
Did she no longer want to be a part of the Powell inner circle?
Was that why she’d been avoiding me around town for so long? She wanted out?
“But you’re family to me,” I said. She was part of my life. She could call me any time, and I’d come running. And my parents would, too.
“Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“I know you’re not charging me because you feel like you can’t. But you can. Okay? I’m not family.”
“Do you want out?” My voice felt small, my tone level and emotionless, even though her answer had the power to devastate me.
“It’s not that.” She tipped her head to the side, her expression pained. “If you think of me like a sister, just charge me your usual fee tonight.”
She had such a sorrowful look I wanted to scoop her into my arms and kiss away every doubt she had about what she meant to me, and where she placed in my life.
She was brave, kind, and generous. She offered lifelines to people I’d have cut out of my life.
She gave people a second chance to rise to the occasion, and to her expectations of them.
And if they failed, she still continued to be kind.
She received the best of everyone, but sometimes their best just wasn’t enough.
I wanted to be my best. I wanted to be enough for her.
But I didn’t know how to get from here, to where I wanted to be. I’d resisted any romantic feelings or attraction toward her for so long that I no longer knew how to clear the invisible hurdles I’d put up to block myself.
“I’m not charging you. And it’s not just because I don’t have a line in my accounting software for magical flying reindeer,” I said gruffly.
“So, you do think of me as a sister?” she asked.
“I would never…”
I screwed my eyes tight, realizing this was the watershed moment for us. The moment when I could make her understand.
I opened my eyes and stepped close, our bodies tight together. She lifted her chin defiantly.
“I would never… ever …”
My voice was almost a growl.
I scooped my hands into her hair, loosening her ponytail as I lined up our mouths, prepared to release the storm of pent-up longing battling inside me.
“…kiss a sister.”