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“What are you doing?” Jace asked.
Clark jerked away at the sound of his son’s question, horror ripping through him. For the one brief moment, he’d forgotten his son was there. He’d been watching as Clark came seconds away from kissing Merry.
Jace stood on the other side of the fence, his head cocked to the side.
“I was just giving your dad a hug for helping me and he thought he saw an eyelash on my cheek,” Merry said easily. “You know you can make wishes on fallen eyelashes, right?”
Jace shook his head.
“Oh yes. Anytime you see an eyelash on someone’s cheek, just let them blow it off the tip of your finger and make a wish.”
“Do I have any?”
Merry walked over to the fence and peered closely at his face. “I don’t see any, but I’ll keep my eye out.”
“I didn’t know you were friends with my dad.”
“Sure, we’re friends. And we’re neighbors, so that means we’re even better friends.”
He stared at them for several moments and then shrugged. “Okay.”
Jace went back to playing. His son would probably have more questions for him later, but for now, he was content.
Merry dropped down and started gathering up the bags from the ground, her motions shaky. Clark kneeled to help her, lowering his voice. “What did you want to ask me?”
Merry met his gaze briefly, before turning away. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Clark’s heart fell, wishing he could see inside her head.
“Merry…”
“We can talk about it some other time, Clark. Right now, I’ve got ice cream melting in the back of my car.”
Clark stared at her as she climbed to her feet and walked back through the gate and into the house.
“Dad?”
Clark turned to Jace. “Yeah?”
“Were you really looking for an eyelash?” Jace asked, his face scrunched in skepticism.
No, I was about to kiss a woman I never saw coming.
“Yeah, buddy. What else would I be doing?”
“I don’t know but it looked weird.”
It hadn’t felt weird. Holding Merry had felt incredible.
And he wanted badly to do it again.
Chapter 12
Merry
Merry stirred the hamburger meat in her cast iron skillet, watching Clark and Jace play with the puppy in the yard. Jace’s upturned elf nose was cherry-red with cold, but he didn’t seem at all ready to come inside. Clark laughed as Jace ran past him, the puppy a streak of white behind him.
She smiled and set her wooden spoon off to the side of the stove and rummaged through a few of the plastic bags until she found what she was looking for. She stepped outside and held her hands out, a box in one hand and a squeaky hedgehog dog toy in the other.
