Free His Holiday Heart by Jillian Hart

stubbornly—or more accurately, she glared at his left shoulder because she apparently couldn’t look him in the eye after what he had said.
    He wouldn’t be able to either. He had never caused such harm before and that he had done it in self-defense brought him no comfort and no peace. He stepped away, tossed the paper in the can and searched for the right thing to say. Nothing came to mind. So he walked away and hooked his coat off the back of one of the bar chairs at the end of the counter.
    The munchkins were outside making angels in the snow. He had promised to play with them. As he opened the sliding glass door, he watched Lucy. She was still at the sink, rinsing with her left hand, her shoulders as straight and as tense as a board.
    At least he had accomplished his mission. She was never going to speak to him again. He stepped outside and let the cold wind blow through him. The guilt remained.

Chapter Six
    T he image of the big bear of a man playing with his little nephew and niece remained with her through the long drive home. John and Dorrie had taken pity on her and offered to take her out in their four-wheel drive, bless them, and as she sat safely in the backseat of their SUV, she did her best to keep Spence from her thoughts. But was she successful?
    No. Not even a little bit. How could the man who had bitterly and hurtfully said what he did be the same one who tended to her cut with such care? Who held her hand with tenderness? Who had made snow angels and then a snow man family with little Tyler and Madison, amusing them while they clapped and laughed and helped?
    “Lucy, it’s a pity you’re not interested in Spence.” Dorrie turned in the front seat as they bumped down the compact snow on the rural county road. “I have to say, you were our very last hope.”
    “Surely not your very last hope.”
    “No, there isn’t anyone else. Is there, John?”
    “No,” John confirmed as he kept his eyes on the road. “I think our boy has scared off every other eligible lady in these parts.”
    “And it’s a pity, too.” Dorrie looked truly wounded, sad for the son she must love like her own flesh and blood. “He’s such a fine man, responsible and strong of character. Why, you can always depend on him. He never lets one of us down.”
    Those were exactly some of the traits Lucy had found herself admiring about the difficult man. But she couldn’t forget what he’d said to her. She closed her thoughts, trying to keep those hard words silenced so they couldn’t hurt her. “He’s a little embittered.”
    “A little?” Dorrie twisted around again, “Dear, he’s flat out the most bitter man I know. It was his mother. He never got over her abandonment. He drives women away on purpose, and I think it’s so he won’t have to risk being abandoned like that again. Don’t you think, John?”
    “That’s what I think,” John replied and lifted one hand to gesture to the road ahead. “Is that where I turn, Lucy?”
    “Y-yes.” She had to lean forward to peer between the seats out the windshield. She didn’t want to give John the wrong directions. Dorrie’s words were spinning around in her head. He drives women away on purpose.
    “I don’t know what we are going to do with him.” Dorrie held up her hands helplessly, as if there was nothing more to be done for her son. “No one will have him. He’s going to wind up alone and unhappy, and he will have done that all by himself. He doesn’t listen to me. John, you have to talk to him.”
    “I’ll talk to him,” John agreed, but he sounded grim. “For all the good it will do.”
    “We have to try.” Dorrie reached across the console and laid her hand on her husband’s arm. “He’s our boy.”
    “Yes, he is.”
    It was love, as deep as the heavens and as wide as the sky—for one another and for their son who tried so hard to be unlovable. Anyone could see it. Lucy looked away, feeling as if she were intruding on a private moment. She