Drew took it all in without much reaction.
When she finally paused and took a few deep breaths, he nodded. “And what's the plan now?”
Well, that was a great question. She honestly didn’t know. She’d been in solve-this-problem-in-this-minute mode since Roger had showed up.
“This”—She waved her hand at the sleigh with the gifts—“is just my plan to buy some time to figure the rest of it out. If I can get him the money to bring the controllers back, then we’ll be okay. Or…” She took a breath and shook her head. “No, I really don't have any other plan.”
“You could turn him in.”
She closed her eyes. “I know. I should. The thing is, if I do that, then they’ll know something happened. And Zander has to get involved. And they’ll all realize that their sweet town and their charming Santa’s Village and their wonderful charitable event isn’t as safe and perfect as they think. Because of me.” She focused on Drew again. “They're going to want to know how I know him and how I know what he did. Even if I make an anonymous tip, he’ll tell them who he is. Who I am. I just…” She sucked in a breath and worked on not crying again. “This is all my fault. I should have thought about the possibility that I was putting this project at risk by getting involved. I guess…I wanted to believe I could do something good, have something nice, without him messing it up. But I should have known better.” She shook her head. “Now I need to fix it. There’s no reason to stress anyone else out, or upset them, or get them involved. I need to clean up the mess I made. And keep them happily oblivious to the idea that bad things might happen to their petting zoo at Christmas time. Or any time.”
Drew had tucked his hands into his pockets and Rory felt a stupid sense of loss. As if with his hands in his pockets there was no chance of him reaching out and touching her or hugging her again. She would really like him to touch and hug her again.
“Okay.”
That was all he said to all of that. He just accepted her feelings about it.
“So what are you doing with Lucy right now?”
She looked at him for a long moment, trying to process what he just asked her. Then she glanced at the reindeer. Oh, this was Lucy, not Donna.
“I was going to move the carriage to the side yard with the Santa house and everything. We’re doing some photos tomorrow for flyers and the website and the newspaper is going to come by and do a little story. I was thinking that if the gifts and everything are already set up, no one else will be moving stuff around and no one will notice that it's fifty empty boxes instead of boxes with game controllers in them.”
“And Lucy?”
“Normally we move the carriage around using horses but the horses are way out at the other barn and Lucy was right here and I thought maybe the reindeer could pull the sleigh…” She gave a heavy sigh. “Honestly, Drew, I'm exhausted. Nothing I'm doing is making any sense. And I realize that. But I have no better plans.”
He didn't say anything to that. For just a moment she thought he was actually going to reach out and hug her again and she couldn't remember wanting anything more in a very long time. But instead, he stepped past her and took a hold of Lucy's lead. Then he hooked Lucy to the front of the carriage and proceeded to pull the carriage around the side yard. Easily. Without question or argument.
“Where do you want it?”
Rory followed him. And because there is nothing better to do, she told him where she needed the sleigh positioned for the photo shoot tomorrow. Drew made sure it was all set up, then unhooked Lucy and put her back into her stall in the barn.
When he came back out, he didn't stop walking until he was standing directly in front of Rory.
“Time for bed.”
Her eyes widened.
“I'm taking you home and putting you to bed. Alone,” he added as he seemed to read something in her expression.
Yes, she was thinking exactly what he thought she was thinking when it came to him putting her to bed.
“I have a lot more to do.”
“It's two thirty in the morning.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, and this is the situation. I don't have a choice.”
“Maybe you don't have a choice. But you have something else.”
“What's that?”
He gave her a little smile and he finally reached out and took hold of her upper arms. “A friend.”
She started crying again.
His smile fell. “Dammit,” he muttered.
She smiled and shook her head, lifting a hand to dash the tears away. “No, no. That was the perfect thing to say. Thank you so much.”
“What else needs to be done?”
“I can't ask you to stay here without me.”
“Nope. I'm going to bed too. But we'll get this done together tomorrow.”
She looked around. “The painting and the…” She trailed off as her eyes landed on the front of Santa’s shack. “Oh my God.” The front of the shack had been painted. It was done. And it looked amazing. Her heart sunk. “Oh crap.”
Drew frowned. “What's wrong?”
“Someone finished painting the shack.”
“Yeah. Does it look okay?”
“It looks awesome. But I didn't do it. And obviously whoever did do it knows that. That means one of the Landrys came up and realized they needed to pitch in. That means that they know that I got behind and over my head and they're trying to bail me out, but that's just pathetic, and—”
“Rory.”
Drews firm tone stopped her and she looked up at him.
“The Landrys didn't do it.”
She studied him and then the realization dawned.
She looked down at him and realized that he had streaks of red and white paint on the t-shirt he was wearing and a streak of green on one forearm.
“You did it.”
He nodded. “It didn't take long and it was no big deal. But I wanted to give you a hand.”
Rory had no idea what to do with that information. He’d helped without being asked. He'd helped so that she can keep the secret that she was actually failing at this entire project. He’d helped so that she wouldn't fail. And now he was up here learning about her father, her worst secret of all, and he was going to keep that secret too.
Looking into his eyes, she thought for the first time that maybe all of this could work out somehow. She had no idea how she was going to replace fifty special edition advanced game controllers, but being here with Drew, knowing he was on her side, made her feel so much better. So much less alone.
And because she really had no idea how to express all of that to him, or to even begin to help him understand what that meant to her, she did really the only thing she could to let him know that he'd absolutely come in as her knight in faded blue jeans.
She took the front of his shirt in her fist, pulled him down, and pressed her lips to his.
She’d kind of intended it to just be a thank-you-you’re-awesome kiss. Not exactly a peck on the cheek, but just a quick meeting of their lips. She just needed to do something more than say thank you.
But the moment their lips touched Rory realized she'd been lying to herself. She didn't want anything short or sweet from this man. She wanted everything with Drew to last as long as it possibly could. And there was nothing sweet about what she was feeling. She wanted raw and emotional and deep. And not just in the sexual way, though certainly that as well. But she wanted him to wrap her up and pull her in and to…be a part of her.