Lydia's Pine Harbor Christmas, стр. 5
Marco took a more direct route by pulling out his band saw and cutting off some low-hanging branches. As if sensing her judgment, he said, “Don’t worry. A little pruning won’t hurt them.”
They settled into a quiet routine of gathering branches and filling the bags on their shoulders then carrying them back to the car. As they emptied their second load, Marco said, “One more trip ought to do it, don’t you think?”
Lydia thought for a moment. The last thing she wanted was to come up short and have to come back for more. If that happened, she would come back alone. “Yes, just one more bag each to be safe.”
They headed into the woods in a new direction. To keep her mind from straying to Marco, Lydia concentrated on the rhythm of their boots crunching over the shallow coating of snow on the ground. When they had nearly filled their bags, Lydia bent down to pick up the last few branches she needed while Marco sawed off a few branches nearby.
With her bag completely stuffed, Lydia turned and headed toward Marco. “Are we ready to—oof!” Her foot caught on a tree root, and she went flying. Falling was an odd process. The bag took flight on its own while she grasped at the air as if it had the power to reroute her flight. It did not. She landed on Marco with enough force to take him down with her. Stunned, they both lay on a blanket of snow for several moments.
“Are you okay?”
“Sorry.” Lydia scrambled off to the side, freeing Marco from the full weight of her body. She had almost forgotten a similar scene in her bedroom when he had climbed the tree outside her window to save her from herself, or so he’d thought at the time. Why does this keep happening? Am I so desperate that I subconsciously created opportunities for full-body contact? She couldn’t really blame her subconscious. “I tripped.”
“Yeah.” He looked at her as if she had just said the most obviously ridiculous thing, which she had. Then he burst into laughter, and she joined him.
When the laughter subsided, she asked, “Did I hurt you?”
“You could never hurt me.”
He’d meant it as a compliment. Lydia knew that. But it had another truth in it that caused a pang in her heart. She couldn’t hurt him because he didn’t feel enough for her to hurt. You are reading way too much into this.
Marco stood and held out his hand to pull her to her feet. “I think we’ve gathered enough for one day. I’ll just top off my bag on the way to the car.”
As they walked, Marco held on to her arm. “Just in case,” he assured her, grinning.
That was the part that she hated. He was just being her pal Marco. Why can’t that be enough?
The drive home was uneventful, unless one counted pining for the driver for a half dozen miles as eventful. He pulled into her driveway and parked.
“Thanks for the ride.”
For some reason that Lydia couldn’t quite pinpoint, Marco found that slightly amusing. But when he put the car in park and turned to her, the smile faded. Lydia had grown used to her tendency to blow every expression and gesture out of proportion where Marco was concerned, but that time, it was different. It was so slight that it was barely perceptible, but as he tilted his head, Lydia had the strangest sensation that he was seeing her differently. Whether that was a positive thing wasn’t clear.
“What?” Speaking would break whatever spell seemed to have fixed his gaze on her, but she couldn’t bear it any longer. That much uninterrupted attention was a powerful thing for a vulnerable heart to endure.
He smiled gently. “Bye, Lydia.”
“Bye.” She got out of his car and walked into her home, feeling as though something had changed. She didn’t know what it was. That fact scared her a little because it made her feel closer to Marco, and closeness to Marco meant heartache.
Four
Lydia walked out of class into the gray haze of an early-December sunset. It was her birthday. When Marco had picked her up that morning, her mother invited him for some birthday cake after class. It was such a mom thing to do. At first, Lydia was embarrassed, but the idea grew on her as the day progressed. By the last class, she’d begun daydreaming of celebrating her birthday with Marco along with her mother and Dylan.
Her feelings toward Marco were like a pendulum swinging from avoidance to yearning. That day was the latter. She was glad to be spending time with him for her birthday. They had been through so much together that she hated to think her unrequited feelings would eventually cost her their friendship. She could only bear so much. But for the moment, time with Marco was always well spent with great talks and laughter. His friendship was almost enough, so having him join her for her birthday meant a great deal to her.
As she headed down the sidewalk, she searched for his old black SUV in the parking lot. It wasn’t where he’d parked it in the morning, so she stood at the parking lot entrance and scanned the lot. Halfway down the first row of cars, she spotted his car. Smiling, she quickened her pace, but she stopped abruptly when a pretty young woman got out of the passenger side. Marco had a type—pretty, popular girls. They must have had other distinguishing features aside from their stunning good looks and starry-eyed gazes, though she’d never seen any. She wondered if he knew that women didn’t flock to other men the way they did him. After all, that was his normal. He had an innate magnetism that drew women to him. She’d never seen anything like it.
Marco bounded around the car