Read Home for Christmas (Willow Park #5) for Free Online

she’d just gravitated toward
him. He was always toasty warm, and she was often cold.
    It felt so nice—so familiar—to curl up beside him in the
cool hotel room. He was still asleep, and he made some wordless mutters under
his breath and slung an arm around her, the way he’d done all the time before
he’d left on his assignment.
    She exhaled in pleasure. It felt like she had her husband
back, the way they both wanted. And maybe it would change again once he woke
up, but at least his sleeping self wanted to be close to her.
    Then she felt guilty for feeling sorry for herself. She had
nothing to be disappointed about. She had Mark back. That was more than enough.
    She still enjoyed his scent, the warmth of his body, until
he started to move against her. He made some more mutters—these clearly
indicating that he was waking up.
    She wondered if she should roll away, give him some space,
but she hadn’t made up her mind when he opened his eyes.
    They stared at each other across the few inches that
separated their faces.
    “Morning,” he said hoarsely, his eyes softer, less guarded,
than she’d seen him since their reunion.
    She smiled, so relieved by his tone and expression that she
felt something joyful starting to spill out of her. “Good morning.”
    “How long have you been awake?”
    “Just a few minutes. I was cold.” She said that last to
explain why she was all nestled up against him.
    “You’re always cold.” He was almost—almost—smiling.
    “That’s because you keep the temperature so low any normal
person would be freezing.” They’d had variations on this conversation many
times before, and the familiarity was immensely comforting.
    He chuckled, very softly.
    The joy kept rising in her heart at his soft mood, but she didn’t
want to call attention to it or make him self-conscious, so she said with
playful force, “So it’s either raise the temperature in the room or put up with
me huddling against you. Those are your choices.”
    “Those are my choices, huh?”
    “Yes.” She nodded vigorously to emphasize her answer.
    He laughed and tightened his arm around her. “All right.
I’ll live with the huddling.”
    Her arms were bent up and trapped between their chests, but
she managed to squeeze one hand out so she could touch his messy beard, smoothing
out a tangle and a few kinks. His eyes still looked too large for his face, and
his cheekbones were too prominent.
    She desperately wanted to know what happened to him while he
was captured, but she didn’t want to pressure him to open up. Everyone had told
her not to push him too hard. Instead, she asked gently, “Are you going to keep
this?” She stroked the coarse hair on his face.
    “I don’t know. Do you not like it?”
    She’d rather see his whole face, see him the way he used to
be, but she certainly wasn’t going to tell him she was disappointed in anything
about him. “It’s fine. It’s just different.”
    “I know.” There was a hint of poignancy in his tone, his
eyes.
    Afraid he was going to pull away, when she’d just barely
gotten him back, she gave him a teasing smile. “But it must help to hold in
your body heat, so I’m not going to complain.”
    He chuckled again and raised one of his hands to cup her
cheek, the way she was cupping his. His expression changed again. “You never do
complain.”
    She didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t even true.
    Before she could think of a response, he added, his voice
slightly thick, “You’re so beautiful.”
    He was gazing at her now, as if he’d never seen her before.
    She swallowed hard. “I look the same as always.”
    “Do you?” He used his thumb to caress her skin, and then
slid it over to rub gently against her lips. “You are so incredibly beautiful.”
    Her cheeks warmed with pleasure at his words, at the almost
awed look in his eyes, and in response to his touch. He still didn’t feel quite
like the Mark she remembered, but she loved him anyway,