Free Winter's Wonder: Pine Point, Book 2 by Allie Boniface

down?”
    Rather than answer, she tiptoed her way to the couch and collapsed at one end. “I thought you’d never ask.” She pulled off her shoes and tossed them aside. “These things are killing me.”
    He laughed. “I can imagine.” Another long drink. Another appreciative look at the woman sitting at the other end of his couch. “Why the getup, anyway? I mean—” Shit, he sounded like an idiot. “Don’t get me wrong, Becca. That is a very, very sexy outfit, and a lesser man than I would already be getting you out of it.”
    She turned three shades of red.
    “But it’s so not you,” he finished.
    She crossed one leg over the other and shook her hair over her shoulders. “Is that a bad thing?”
    Then he realized what she was doing, why she looked all dolled up like her sister, why she was playing coy and batting her lashes like the housewives over in Mountain Glen. He set down his beer and wrapped both hands around one knee. “That’s not why I asked you here. It’s not why I asked you out the first time, or why I came to the school yesterday.”
    The tight little smile around her lips vanished.
    “I like you. I like your company. You’re…” different , he wanted to say, but he didn’t know if that would come out wrong. “You’re cool,” he said instead.
    She bit her bottom lip. “I like you too.” But the word but hung over the end of her words, and he couldn’t blame her.
    “Listen, I know what this town is like, what people say… I was a shitload of no good when I left eight years ago, and back then, yeah, I was pretty much down for drinking and screwing and having a good time with whoever would go to bed with me.” The words came out almost before he could stop them. Huh . Hadn’t planned on a confessional tell-all tonight, but the simple honesty in the way she looked at him kept him talking.
    “I’m not the same guy I was back then. I left because I was screwing up everything I had here, which wasn’t much to begin with. But down in Georgia, I got it together. Not right away, but eventually. Got my GED and held down a job for the first time in my life.
    “And I didn’t ask you out because I wanted to sleep with you.” He cocked his head. “Though I won’t argue if that’s what you’re in the mood for.”
    She shook her head with a smile. “Why did you come back to Pine Point?”
    He cleared his throat. “Missed my roots, to be honest.” He pointed one finger at her. “Don’t tell anyone that.”
    She smiled and crossed her finger over her heart. “I promise.”
    “Wasn’t just that anyway. I was renting a room at my mom’s place, but then she got a new boyfriend, and he didn’t want me living in the house. My sister was shacked up with a guy, and I didn’t really have the money to rent a regular place on my own. I’d kept in touch with a couple buddies up here, and one of ’em told me about the security job at the Glen, and—” he spread both palms wide, “—here I am.”
    Her glance moved across the room, but he didn’t expect her next words. “You don’t have a single Christmas decoration in here.”
    He laughed in spite of himself. “Ah, doll, Christmas has never been one of my favorite holidays.”
    “Why not?”
    He jumped up as the timer on the oven beeped. Because that was the day dear old dad walked out on us when I was eight . Rather than answer, he placed the rolls in a basket, settled the pork chops on a serving platter and motioned to the tiny table he’d set for two.
    “Dinner’s ready.”

Chapter Eleven
    Becca might actually have tasted the chops, and the rolls, and whatever else was on the table, if Zane hadn’t kept looking at her with those steady eyes. That half-grin. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that beer . Her head spun, but if it was the man and not the alcohol as she imagined, she was in a whole lot of trouble.
    “So tell me more about Georgia,” she said, searching for conversation. Good Lord, they had to at least get through