Page 92 of Mistletoe All the Way

I tense. My hackles go all the way up. “Okay?”

“It’s not bad, Eloise,” he says, vulnerable, as if he’s stripping himself bare. “I want the farm. I have a vision for it. And yes, tonight it hit me that I want to win it fairly. Not simply because Stephen is the wrong guy.” He exhales, perhaps girding himself to say something hard. He places his hands on the counter, makes sure he’s looking right at me. “But I really want this for you.”

I swallow roughly, and emotions rise up in me. Terrifying ones. Wonderful ones. They twist together like a braid. My throat tightens. “What do you mean?”

“I want you to have everything you want. I want you to have this chance. I know your parents didn’t make things easy for you. Even if I don’t win the farm, I still have my brother, and my gramps and grams. I have my dad and his wife. I have this whole family rooting for me. Not Stephen, of course,” he says with a Who cares quirk of his lips. “But everyone else.” He drags a hand through his messy hair, perhaps sorting his thoughts. “And when I watch you work, and I see how much you care about the people around you, and the town and your friends and the holidays and spreading cheer,” he says, like it costs him a part of his soul to say those words out loud without irony, without grumpiness, “I just want it… for you.”

I swallow past the knot in my throat. “Thank you. That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.” Though that feels like an understatement. His words are so… lovely.

“Don’t tell anyone I was nice,” he says wryly.

“Your secrets are very safe with me.” But is it wrong that I still want to know what that might mean about… us? I don’t have to press though, since Noah reaches for my hand and keeps going.

“I don’t know if this is a distraction. All I know is I have a life in Colorado. A practice. A rescue I help with. And I’m a little obsessed with the work,” he says. Curling his fingers through mine, he gives me an apologetic look. “My last relationship?”

I’ve kind of been dying to know about his romantic past. “Yes?”

“Audrey said I was too focused on work, cared too much about the animals. I tried to explain that I was trying to do something meaningful. To make a difference for them. To take care of them especially when people let them down. But to her, my work was just someplace I went from nine to five.” He scratches his jaw with his free hand, as something like hurt flashes in his eyes. “Though seven to seven is more like it. Point being, she didn’t accept that it was—” He stops like he can’t bring himself to say the next words.

“Your heart?” I supply.

His smile is faint and relieved. “Yeah. Does that sound ridiculous?”

I squeeze his hand tighter, nodding my head in reassurance. “It sounds perfect. It sounds like you. And I understand completely. Your life is there. Your practice is there. It means the world to you.” I pause, debating if I should even say the next thing. But this is a time for honesty. “My last boyfriend and I were long-distance. We didn’t start that way, but we had to when he got a job in Chicago. We tried to make it work for two years.” I pause since this part is hard, and it makes me look foolish—maybe weak too. “But I held on for too long even while we were… disconnecting. He wasn’t a jerk. He didn’t hurt me or cheat on me. All those missed calls, canceled trips, time zones that didn’t line up?” I swallow roughly. “His feelings just faded.”

Noah growls, like he wants to rip Bryan to pieces, but for what? The crime of falling out of love with me? “Asshole,” he mutters.

“It was hard for both of us. Not seeing each other.”

“Don’t make excuses for him.”

“Noah. It wasn’t a relationship after a while. It was just a series of phone calls and text messages. What else was going to happen but one of us falling out of love with the other? It was bound to happen. He just got there sooner than I did, I suppose.” My shoulders slump from the memory of those empty days and nights. The way I missed him. The way I berated myself for having needed those calls, those texts, those visits that became less frequent over time.

Noah’s quiet for a beat, then with some reluctance, he admits, “Fine. Sure. I get it. It’s hard not to be in the same place.”

“Exactly,” I say, not quite wistful, but definitive. I don’t want to experience that hurt again.

At least Noah and I are on the same page when it comes to the miles between us. That’s something of a relief, I suppose.

He moves behind me once more, sweeps my hair to the side, and presses a kiss to the back of my neck.

“You need this.” He slides a hand down my spine, resting it on my hip on the paw tattoo. “Don’t you, sweetheart?”

My throat aches so much. Tears sting the back of my eyes. It’s too early to be crying. But I’m not crying over the inevitable end. I’m choked up from finally being understood. “I do.”

I need the closeness, the connection, the touch.

He wraps both arms around me in a warm, tender hug, and kisses the top of my head like I’m precious.

Holds me for a beat.

Then he spins me around. “It seems we don’t need to do more stakeouts and spying. Why don’t we just enjoy each other while I’m here? Just you and me.”

Sometimes you take what you can get even if it’ll end.

I roam my hands up his bare chest. “Well, you’re a good cook. You’re good in bed. And I guess we’ve got some time around the contest activities.”

“Let’s make the most of it.”