He must have seen something in her face that night when she’d had that bizarre and troubling desire to kiss him. He must have recognized it and was now trying to make sure it didn’t happen again.
He probably believed she was some sort of needy, pathetic object of pity—getting a ludicrous crush on an utterly unavailable man.
Belinda hated that thought—more than anything else—so she made sure to never initiate contact with him or even accidentally meet his eyes. He wasn’t going to think she was pining for him. Not if she had anything to say about it.
So all in all, Charles’s reluctance to ask her out was the least of her worries. She could think about him without wanting to curl up in a ball and cry.
On Christmas Eve, Belinda went to the service at the church her family had always attended. It was a lovely, quiet service with the candle lighting at the end. She sat next to Ria, Jacob, and chubby little Luke and enjoyed seeing her nephew, although Ria had to take him out twice when he started to cry.
Maybe because of that—or maybe because she’d be going home alone that evening—Belinda felt strangely isolated, even in a pew next to people she loved. Everyone else there was in large family groups—spouses, children, parents, cousins.
Everyone except Fitz. He was sitting alone in the back, which was where he always sat. He wore his Army jacket and hadn’t trimmed his hair or beard for the occasion, although it looked like he might have made some sort of effort to comb them down.
Belinda glanced back at him a couple of times during the service—despite her resolve not to give him any indication she cared about his comings and goings. Every time she looked, he seemed to know. He’d meet her eyes across the crowded sanctuary.
He saw her for the first time in weeks.
Ria and Jacob left a few minutes early because Luke started crying again. And when people started filing out of their seats, Belinda was so listless and lonely that she thought about going back to talk to Fitz. He was by himself tonight too. On Christmas Eve. He might appreciate someone saying hi to him even if it was only her.
But when she turned in his direction, she saw other people had had the same idea. Fitz was surrounded by others in the town, greeting him, wishing him a merry Christmas.
He didn’t need her. No one needed her. Charles and his sister weren’t even there tonight.
So Belinda just slipped out and went home.
She cried a little bit on the short drive back, but she pulled it together pretty quickly. She had nothing to feel sorry for herself about. She was cooking Christmas dinner tomorrow, and Ria, Jacob, and Luke were coming over so they wouldn’t have to worry about meal preparation in addition to their new baby. She wasn’t by herself for Christmas, and even if she were, it wasn’t the end of the world.
When she got home, it was just after eight. It was dark and wet and windy outside but not cold enough for snow. In an effort to feel better, she took a bath and got into her favorite soft fleece pajamas. Then she made hot chocolate, picked out the best of her Christmas cookies, and curled up on the couch to watch an old Christmas musical.
It was a perfectly nice evening. It didn’t matter if she was all by herself. For almost an hour, the only interruption was a brief texted conversation with Ria, who was worried about her being alone and wanted her to come over to hang out. Belinda refused. Ria and Jacob would want to spend their first Christmas Eve with their son on their own, and they didn’t need the hassle of company. So she insisted she was having a great time by herself until Ria seemed to believe her.
If her mother and father were still alive, Belinda could have spent the evening with them. They’d only been in their fifties when they died. They’d had decades longer they should have lived. So many more Christmases they’d been cheated out of.
Belinda was tearing up again, despite her attempts not to, when there was suddenly a knock on her door. Startled and flustered by the unexpected sound, Belinda jumped up and turned toward the front door.
Then she realized who it probably was.
With a groan, she swung open the door, saying as she did, “Ria, I told you I’m perfectly fine on my—” She broke off midsentence when she saw who was standing on her front porch.
Not Ria.
Not anyone she would have expected.
Fitz. With his jacket pulled tight and his hair and beard all in disarray from the howling wind.
Belinda stared, completely incapable of speaking.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt your Christmas,” he began as soon as she’d gotten the door open, his eyes giving her an automatic assessment from the messy bun on top of her head to her fuzzy slippers. “But did you know that—?” He stopped and frowned. “Have you been crying?”
“No!” She swiped a stray tear away since it was offering evidence to the contrary of her claim. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” He was still peering at her face with disapproving concern, as if he had a problem with her current mood. “Did you know that you lost a tree branch out here? It took out part of the picket fence.”
“What?” Her droopiness completely forgotten, she hurried out to the porch steps to look. She whimpered as she saw one of the large branches from the big oak tree in the front yard had broken off and crashed down onto the low picket fence that lined the sidewalk. “Oh no! It wasn’t like that when I came home.”
“It must have just happened. Some of these gusts have been pretty strong. You want me to take care of it for you?” Fitz sounded laid-back. Matter-of-fact. It was strangely comforting. “I can haul off the branch and fix the fence.”
“That would be nice. Not tomorrow or anything. No need to mess with it on Christmas. But maybe a couple of days from now.”
“I can do it now. Won’t take long. I probably won’t be able to get the fence perfect, but I can rig something until I get all the materials.”
“Fitz, it’s Christmas Eve!” Belinda hugged her arms to her chest, suddenly conscious that she was wearing her soft red pajamas. They covered her as much as any clothes would have done, but she still felt very undressed.
“So what? I’ve got nothing else to do. No need to have this mess in your yard, bothering you all through Christmas.”
It would bother her. A lot. No matter how much she would have told herself not to worry about it. In fact, it would probably bug her to such an extent that she’d go out tomorrow morning and try to clean it up herself. She hated for anything in the house to be so completely out of order.
“Are you sure?” she asked, peering up at Fitz’s bland face. “You really don’t have to. I’m sure you’d rather... do something else.”
His blue eyes met hers without wavering. “Belinda, seriously. I’d rather do this for you than anything else I have available.”
She swallowed hard, strangely touched for no reason she could understand. She nodded and gave him a little smile. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Won’t take long. I’ll just use the tools in your shed if you don’t mind. Now go on in. You look like you’re about to freeze to death.”
She wasn’t really freezing, although the wind was chilly. She was mostly hugging her arms to her because she wasn’t wearing a bra and she was afraid Fitz might notice even beneath the thick material of her top.