Page 42 of The Holiday Clause

“My relationship with each of you has always been different, but I love each of you equally.”

He glanced at her under a firm brow. “Now, who’s in denial?”

“Soren and I are just?—”

“I’m talking about Greyson.”

She couldn’t argue that she and Grey had always had a complicated relationship, but that didn’t make them more than friends. “He doesn’t see me that way.”

He laughed without humor. “If you really believe that, you’re blind.”

CHAPTER 7

“Meet the Stranger Who Has Saved Your Life”

Greyson slammed the ax down,splitting the log in two. Breath gathered into vapor as steam rose from his shoulders. The prior night’s events played like a loop in his head, and he couldn’t figure out where things went wrong.

He’d gone to The Chowder House. Run into Sarah. Had a few drinks. Bought her a round. The chemistry was good and still familiar enough that they knew where the evening would lead. All systems were go, until he paid the tab.

“You wanna get out of here?” she’d asked, leaning in as if to show him the offer on the table. “I’m free all night.”

With a nod, he threw some money on the bar and grabbed their coats. Once outside, he walked her to her car.

“Meet you at my place?”

Where else would they meet? He never brought women back to his cabin because he preferred an exit strategy.

She’d leaned against her car door, waiting for confirmation. He needed to work out his tension, so he was ready to go. Butwhen he kissed her, something felt off. She was too tall, and her hips didn’t fill his hands the way he wanted. Her lips weren’t soft enough. Her perfume was all wrong.

“I can’t. Not tonight,” he said, and she stared up at him in confusion.

Greyson wasn’t one to explain his decisions, but he couldn’t if he wanted to. He needed to get laid. He and Sarah had been down this road several times before. There was no reason not to go home with her. He didn’t even have to stay the night.

But she wasn’t Wren.

Another log split and clattered to the frozen ground. The snow had melted. The storm was a bust. Bodhi was right about the snow predictions. They got three inches, and it melted shortly after it stopped coming down. Crazy old coot.

This was the nonsense that drove him nuts. Science had a purpose, but not to the Wildes. No. They relied on nature’s vibrations, the phases of the moon, and how a leaf might curl when clouds rolled in.

Perhaps Greyson was more like his father than he wanted to admit. Wren’s mother, drove Magnus insane. She’d change vacation plans because Haven pulled a worrisome card from a tarot deck.

Some days, they’d come home from school, and the entire house would be filled with smoke because Haven convinced his mother that negative energy filled the walls.

They were kids back then, so these strange tendencies didn’t concern him, but his father would become enraged, threatening their mother with ultimatums if she didn’t cut off her friendship with Haven.

But no force could come between the women. They had been best friends since childhood. And the more his mother chose Haven over his father, the worse their marriage became.

Greyson set up another log and split it in two, recalling how loud their fighting became at the end. Wren didn’t have any of that at home.

Bodhi loved Haven. She was his entire world. And when she died in the same accident that took their mother, he was never the same. Wren not only had to deal with her own confusing grief as a child, but take care of her father as well.

Giving his muscles a break, he set down the ax and carried the split wood to the woodshed. Despite how different the Wildes were, there was something to envy about their closeness.

Wren never complained about taking care of her father. She’d been a kid—just fifteen—and become responsible overnight. After Haven died, Wren took over cooking and shopping while Bodhi disappeared for days to sleep in the woods, alone with his grief. He used to tell Wren that’s where he felt the most connected to her mother.

Greyson understood. While he felt no presence of his mother anywhere, he took a great deal of peace from the woods. He enjoyed the silence and preferred keeping his distance from the rest of the world. Very few people knew where his cabin was located, since it didn’t come with a traditional address and all his mail was sent to the post office. Only a select few knew how to get there, which was exactly how he preferred it.

Maybe he and Bodhi were more alike than he wanted to admit.