New Hope, Old Grudges Read Online Anne Malcom

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary Tags Authors: Anne Malcom Advertisement1

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I held up the bottle. It had a French label.

“Is this expensive?” I asked Brody, who was still watching me. Not giving him a chance to reply, I slammed it down on the sideboard. “I hope it is,” I said, tearing into it without looking at him.

There were wine glasses lined up neatly behind the glass door of the sideboard. I distractedly thought about how organized and nice it looked, wondering whether an old—or current—girlfriend had decorated. I couldn’t imagine Brody shopping for long-stemmed red wine glasses or lining them up just so.

I sloshed the wine into the glass, spilling a little and not caring.

“If you drink that,” he nodded to the wine, “I’ll have to keep my eyes on you for the rest of the night.”

My mouth went dry, and somewhere else got decidedly wet.

“What are you talking about?” I huffed, clenching the stem of the glass.

“You may have gotten mild hypothermia.” He walked toward me, getting another glass from the cabinet. His warm body brushed up against mine as he did so, his scent overwhelming and intoxicating.

Brody intentionally pressed his torso against mine, fingers brushing where I was still clenching the bottle.

I jerked, releasing my hold then stepping back so he could pour his own glass of wine.

“You’re not supposed to imbibe alcohol if you have hypothermia,” he continued. “But I can only guess at how me trying to take that glass from you would go.”

I held on to it harder. I wasn’t overly attached to wine, but I wasn’t about to let Brody tell me what to do.

I must’ve shown that on my face because he chuckled. The sound was warm and pleasing.

“Yeah, I thought so,” he murmured, a smile in his voice. “So we’ll drink together, and I’ll keep an eye on you.” He nodded to the living room. “I’m sure there’s a Christmas movie on in there, if you’re the kind of woman who likes that on Thanksgiving night. I figure your mom may be one for traditions, but I don’t know how traditional she is.” There was even more smile in his tone. More warmth.

I didn’t want to smile. But I couldn’t help it. He was talking about my mother with a fondness that should’ve pissed me off. He was right. My mother did not seem like someone who would go the traditional route on Christmas. And in a lot of ways she was decidedly more pagan.

But she was traditional in some ways. As was I. I loved Christmas movies. And it was a rule in our house that we always decorated the tree after Thanksgiving dinner, with music playing and one of our movies on in the background.

I thought of the empty tree in our living room, the box of decorations my mother had set down earlier today with a wide smile on her face.

Something sharp stabbed me in the stomach.

“A movie,” I relented. “No talking. Opposite sides of the sofa.”

Brody pressed his lips together as if he were suppressing a smile. “You’re the boss.”

My stomach didn’t hurt with those words. No, it dipped. All the way down to my panties.

I scowled at him as I stomped around the table in order to make it to the living room … Going the long way so I didn’t have to get close to him.

Except I had no choice but to be close to Brody Adams. I was stuck in this house with him. And I was getting more and more turned-on by him.

Chapter Eleven

WILLOW

Night had fallen. The bottle of wine sat on the coffee table between us. The fire was roaring, the dog curled up in her bed in front of it.

Home Alone was playing on his flat screen TV. I couldn’t help but notice Brody’s lack of Christmas decorations.

Then again, it was only just Thanksgiving. And he was a man presumably living alone—he wasn’t likely to decorate.

I thought about his father, wondered if he’d grown up in a home with Christmas traditions. With joyful Thanksgiving dinners.

Something told me he hadn’t.

I glared at the TV. I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Brody, his childhood, and I certainly shouldn’t have been feeling bad for him.

It seemed like the man at the other end of the long couch—not long enough with his large body folded into it—was having similar thoughts to me since he spoke for the first time since the TV had flickered on and he’d asked me what I wanted to watch.

“I’m sorry,” he broke the silence. “For what I did to you when we were kids.”

My heart stuttered. Another apology. A simple one. Spoken softly after a semi-dramatic rescue, after the warm bath, hot cocoa, the meal, the pie, the crackling fire, the cute dog.

“We’re not talking about that,” I stated firmly, staring at the TV.

Macaulay Culkin was no longer screaming on screen. I glared at the remote in Brody’s hand.


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