Free Home for Christmas (Willow Park #5) by Noelle Adams

she asked, unsure of what the expression meant.
    “I’m thinking.”
    Realizing he was debating the merits of turning up the heat
and looking at her breasts, she choked on a laugh and wrapped her arms around
him. She didn’t feel like sex—not at barely four in the morning—but she wanted
to be close to him.
    And this silly conversation was the closest she’d felt since
he’d returned.

 
    Five
     
    They both dozed off again, and Mark
was still sleeping when Sophie woke up again, this time at about six-thirty in
the morning.
    She’d gotten into the habit of going to get a cup of coffee
and then climbing back in bed to drink it and watching the news headlines every
morning. She didn’t want to wake Mark up, so she turned the volume on very
soft.
    She was sliding on her slippers when she saw his eyes open.
    “Sorry,” she said with a sheepish smile. “Did I wake you
up?” She felt a happy chill at the memory of their sweet conversation earlier
that morning. Things were getting better. He was opening up. Today might be
really good.
    He shook his head, his expression calm, not quite as
expressive as it had been a few hours ago. “No. It’s fine.”
    “Do you want some coffee?”
    “Sure.”
    She left and returned a few minutes later with two cups of
coffee, and she felt a silly little thrill at the fact that she was getting to
drink coffee in bed with her husband this morning.
    He thanked her and propped himself up on his pillows so he
could drink it without spilling.
    She turned the volume louder, and they watched in silence for
a few minutes.
    “This is really good,” Mark said, after a little while.
    It was so close to what she was feeling herself that she
just murmured, “Yeah.”
    Then she realized he wasn’t talking about the whole morning
experience. He was just talking about the coffee. “I just bought it the other
day. It’s gourmet Columbian. They just got it in at the grocery store down the
block.”
    He smiled, the way he used to smile when he thought she’d
spent too much money on something but wasn’t annoyed by it.
    “You just said it was good,” she said, reaching over to give
his beard a little tug. “So you know it was worth the money.”
    He chuckled. “You’ve left me with no argument.”
    “Exactly.”
    They were both smiling when the commercials ended and the
weather came on.
    “I can’t believe we might have snow this weekend.”
    “It’s already the first of December. I can’t believe it.
Christmas will be here soon.” She swallowed the last of her coffee. “At least
you’ll be here this Christmas.”
    “Yeah. I guess so. It seems strange to think about Christmas.
It seems strange to think about a lot of things.”
    She tensed up internally but managed not to let it show in
her body. She didn’t want to make it seem like Mark’s words were significant.
    They were, though. At least to her. It was the first time he’d
said anything personal, anything about his feelings about being home again, on
his own initiative.
    “Yeah. I guess it would. Is there anything in particular you
want to do this Christmas?”
    “Were you going to your folks?”
    “I was originally, since I thought I’d be on my own. But we
can visit them either before or after Christmas. It might be more comfortable
if we just spent Christmas on our own. Unless you wanted to do something else.”
    “No. On our own sounds good. I’m not sure I’m ready to be
around a lot of people yet.”
    “Sure. We’ll spend Christmas just the two of us.” She smiled
and reached down to squeeze his hand.
    “Do you want more coffee?” he asked, pulling his hand away.
It wasn’t rude or abrupt in any way, but it felt like he wanted to get away
from her.
    “Sure. Thank you.”
    He got out of bed, and she watched him walk toward the
kitchen in just his underwear. He’d always had a very nice ass, and it was firm
and tight still, even though the rest of him was too thin.
    For just a moment, she felt like he