26

Darcy lifted a blank circle cookie from the open container and began piping overlapping hunter green buttercream leaves, covering the entire surface. Dotting the green frosting with silver dragèes, she set the cookie beside its twin and reached for another blank. In about an hour, she would layer on a gold ribbon in royal icing on the wreath cookies. Her technique wasn’t LAS member level, but the cookies wouldn’t be placed in the recycle bin or worse, put out for the youth group kids to eat.

Reaching for another cookie, she stifled a yawn with the back of her piping hand. After the foursome resigned themselves to a slumber party, she set Harper up in the fourth bedroom while Finn opted for the couch in her uncle’s study. No one felt comfortable sleeping in Aunt Lulu’s bedroom. Despite the physical, mental, and emotional drain the past forty-eight hours had been, Darcy tossed and turned. At four in the morning, she shoved herself into a spare pair of snow pants and her aunt’s fur-lined boots.

Over the next two hours, she hand-shoveled the front steps and sidewalk surrounding the old Victorian. The streets of Gibson’s Run were often eerily quiet, but with the town blanketed, she felt as if she had stepped into a delicate snow globe and one rough shake would disturb the crystalline beauty. The trees were heavy with white. Several branches hung low enough to brush her knit cap, encapsulated by glistening ice. Streetlights created a hazy glow against the thick piles tucked along the curbs and enhanced the ethereal loveliness. The only sound breaking into the cocoon was her shovel scraping against the concrete. With each push, Darcy felt coils unwind through her body. The strain of her shoulders and back against the weight of the nearly foot of snow seemed to counter her worry.

By the time the sidewalk, porch and steps were clear, she was dripping with enough sweat to rival her last exercise class. She gave the cold surfaces a healthy covering of ice melting salt, before she stomped through the side yard to the house. A quick shower and a mismatched set of sweats had her ready to tackle the next project.

Settled onto her aunt’s favorite stool, she reached for another blank. Her hand moved through the motions of icing as her mind drifted back to the wide yard and the smooth blanket of snow. The world Finn described of Shelby and Guard-Ann the Snow Angel was easy to imagine on a day like today. Pillows of icy snow waited for down covered arms and legs to swoosh and swivel an angel to life. Lifting a set of baking tweezers, she began tucking the half dozen silver, round dragèes in the buttercream leaves.

How many yards of white batting would she need to replicate the snow mounds in the sanctuary? If she and Finn could get the snow right, they just might be able to make the play a success.

Finn.

She released a slow hiss as she stood to refill her coffee cup. Draining the carafe of her second pot, she refilled the water reservoir and the coffee basket, and flipped the machine to brew. Blowing across the top of the mug, her thoughts filled with all things Pastor Finn Tarrington.

She couldn’t quite understand why his comment about his lack of romantic skills bothered her. She wasn’t interested in romance or entanglements. Her mission was to help heal Aunt Lulu. And then figure out what she could do with her half million-dollar education. She didn’t have time for distractions, even in the form of dreamy former attorneys turned small town pastors.

Oh, but he was dreamy.

A blind nun in her nineties could recognize the dreaminess of Pastor Finn. He was also kind, and annoyingly intuitive. Did he even realize how momentous her time in the sanctuary had been? Without his shift from casual to cathartic, she likely would have continued to mask her fears and worries behind project “Rehab Lulu.”

She did thrive in a good project. However, the exquisite Finn Tarrington was a temptation; a detractor from her mission, not an enabler. He was a diversion from her number one and number two priorities. No matter how often her fireflies tempted her, she would not stray.

“Who cares about perfect blue eyes?” she asked on a whisper.

“What’s that about perfect blue eyes?”

Darcy jerked upward, locking her gaze with the warm clear depths filling her waking thoughts. The thump of her heart pounded in her ears, blocking the faint sound of Christmas music wafting from the portable radio over the kitchen sink.

Finn stood in the wide frame of the doorway, stretching his arms long above the doorframe. The worn sweatshirt rose high revealing the slightest hint of a flat waist against his low-slung knit pants. Wayward dark locks fell haphazardly around his perfectly chiseled face. And yet, coupled with his day’s growth of beard he somehow appeared even more camera ready.

“Umm. What?”

“You might want to watch…” he said, dropping his arm to point.

She looked down. “Oh, golly.” She dropped the piping bag with half of its contents spilled onto the island and the rest looped over the blank cookie she’d been decorating. How had she not realized she had been squeezing the piping bag?

Finn.

Distraction. Big distraction

“Let me help.” He met her at the sink.

She scrubbed the sticky, green colored icing from her fingers. Finn grabbed a cloth and wiped the remnants of her distraction from the island. Darcy dried her hands on a towel as Finn scraped the broken cookie pieces into the garbage can.

Darcy squeezed his shoulder. His lean muscles were warm. “Thank you.”

He stretched tall−only a slice of air separated them. Short staccato breaths pressed against her ribs. Her fingers sizzled with the lure of touching him.

He cupped her cheeks, tilting her face up towards his. A soft tilt curved his full lips. “You’re welcome,” he said, lowering his mouth to hers.

She melted into him. Her fingers stretched wide against his back, clutching him to be fully enveloped in his embrace. The zip of electricity zoomed through her frame. Fear matched want as the kiss deepened, cleansing her mind of anything but his mouth on hers. Her hands on him. His hands caressing her.

With gentle pressure, he lifted his mouth. The cold air burned the heat of her lips. Resting his forehead to hers, a long sigh shuttered through his lips. “Hello.”

Biting the inside of her check, she lightly pressed her hands against his chest and turned from him.

Get it together Darcy. You are in no condition for “a this” to happen. Especially not “a this” with “a him.” You two are directing the church Christmas pageant, for Heaven’s sake.

The responsibility of the Christmas program, her aunt’s health, not to mention her annihilated career squeezed out the oxygen in her brain. The fireflies transformed to a swarm of hornets stinging in every soft place in her spirit.

Moving to the back counter, she uncovered her bowl of white butter cream and dolloped three large spoonsful into her green mixing bowl. Eight drops of forest green to the smooth surface combined with one swiftly spinning spoon and she would have her replacement icing. She made quick work of refilling her piping bag, securing the end with a rubber band. She picked up another blank, and tried to ignore the long, lean treat staring her down from the other side of the island.

“Darcy…”

She shook her head. “Don’t want to talk about it. Shouldn’t have happened. Let’s just chalk it up to the storm and stress.” Spinning the circle cookie in her hand she leafed the surface in under sixty seconds. Lightly laying the cookie beside its mates, she lifted the tweezers and repeated the decorating process.

As she reached for another cookie, Finn’s long fingers wrapped around her hand. Forcing her to meet his gaze, he stepped around the end of the island.

“Darcy. We didn’t do anything wrong. I’m extremely attracted to you. And I think…thought you felt the same.”

Darcy dropped her focus to their hands. She couldn’t ever remember feeling quite the same—this feeling of soft light sliding under her skin. Her nerves zipped with the electricity of a live wire and the serenity of a Sunday afternoon on a porch swing.

He lifted her hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles. “Do you feel the same, Darcy?”

Her gaze locked with his. Every cell in her body screamed to touch him. She scooted closer, rising on her tip-toes, and cupped his face in her palms.

“Do we have any coffee?” The sound of Ben’s voice acted with the power of a firehose on a five-alarm scorcher.

She jumped, breaking the tender connection with Finn, as her brother padded into the kitchen. She met Ben at the coffee maker and shoved a cup into his waiting hands.

“You are godsend, Darc.” He took his cup to the breakfast nook. “Did I interrupt something?” he asked as he lifted the mug to his lips.

“No. Nope.” Darcy and Finn spoke over each other.

“OK...” Ben shifted his focus between Darcy and Finn. Raising a single brow toward her, Darcy felt the middle of her chest break into flames. He knew. Stupid twinning.

“Hey Finn,” Darcy said, turning her back on her brother. “I know you have church stuff to get to today, so why don’t we just meet up later to umm…”

“Talk about the Christmas play?”

“Yep. That’s a great idea.”

“We rescheduled yesterday’s cancelled practice for this evening. Why don’t we just talk about the play then?”

“Great. Perfect. Couldn’t have thought of a better idea.” She put both hands on his back and began to push him towards the doorway. “Your dry clothes are in laundry room. Don’t want to keep you.”

Over his shoulder, he gave her a wink. “I thought Ben and I could clean off the walk before I left.”

“No need. Already done.” She patted his shoulder and turned back to the kitchen. “I’ll get you a to-go cup so you don’t need to linger.”

Finn chuckled as he shuffled down the hall to the study.

“Darcy, you got some ‘splaining to do,” Ben said.

She gobbled the steps between them in three long strides. “Shut up. You’re one to talk, mooning all over Blondie-locks.”

“Uh, sorry to interrupt.”

Ben and Darcy swiveled together.

Harper stood under the doorframe. Darcy stared. Harper somehow woke up looking more beautiful than Sleeping Beauty. Her curly locks were tucked neatly under a knit cap and the heavy wool scarf she wrapped around her neck was in perfect messy twists. Her face was clean of make-up, and her naturally thick black eyelashes framed her eyes and made them pop. Darcy hated jealousy but she was green all over with one glance at the petite beauty.

“I hate to slumber and run, but I really need to get to the office today before they send out a search party.” She crossed the kitchen to the corner table. “Thank you so much for the hospitality and strangely fun evening.”

She tugged Darcy into a hug. Somehow, despite nearly a five-inch height advantage, Darcy felt like an unfilled ragdoll, her head lolling to the side and arms dangling.

As quickly as Harper hugged, she released, causing Darcy to stumble toward the table, for her own personal viewing of the good-bye.

“Thanks again, Ben.”

Ben stood, banging both knees and a shin as he stood. “Oww.”

Harper closed the minute gap between them. “Are you all right?”

He nodded. “I should be thanking you. We never would’ve made all the cookies without your help.”

Darcy caught a not-so-subtle squeeze of Ben’s thick hand in Harper’s delicate fingers. “I was delighted. And I insist on taking some of the blanks with me.” She shifted her focus to Darcy. “Between my mom, my sisters, and me, the cookies will be no problem.”

Darcy made up a box, including the decorating instructions for each of the cookie shapes in Harper’s box. “I really appreciate your help. All of it.”

“No problem.” Harper turned toward the front hallway. “Well, I’ll be off.”

The door opened and shut in her wake, followed quickly by Finn’s exit.

Darcy poured a cup of coffee and sat down across her brother. “So, anything new?”