“Mrs. Kent!” I called, throwing my arms around the woman with the stunning black hair that two of her sons had inherited, hanging over her shoulders in thick, shining waves.
“Lucy Oliver, if you haven’t become one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, then I must be blind,” she said, wrapping her arms around me just as tightly.
“Back atcha, Mrs. Kent. You look amazing. I bet wrangling those five is keeping you young.”
“It’s Alice, love. We’re all adults now. And I’m serious,” she said, pulling back and reaching over to touch my cheek. “You’re absolutely gorgeous. Utah did some great things for you.”
I laughed. “It really did. You know, like a veterinary degree.”
She laughed too, reaching forward and taking the pie from me. “I was just getting there. You’re gonna have to tell me all about school and catch me up. It’s been way too long.” She looked over my shoulder, calling down to my mother. “Margie, why didn’t you tell me how gorgeous your daughter is?”
“Alice, you’ve always known how gorgeous my daughter is,” my mother responded, following us up the steps and reaching around her shoulders as she pulled her in for a hug. “She’s just come into herself, is all. You weren’t lying when you said that Utah was good for her.”
I blinked rapidly as my mother’s words settled into me. She might get on my nerves, but at the end of the day, I really freaking loved that woman. She was truly the greatest mom.
Alice then pulled my dad in for a hug and shepherded all of us inside into the warmth. I started shrugging off my coat, heading immediately for the hall closet that I remembered so well from my high school days.
“I’ve got that,” I heard a voice say, and I turned around to see Adam right behind me. I couldn’t deny that my heart had made its way into my throat at the sight of him in his black button-down, with the sleeves rolled up just enough to show the defined muscles of his arms, sculpted as they had been for years of hard labor on the ranch. I felt a curling in the lower muscles of my stomach as he leaned forward to take the coat, draping it over one of the spare hangers that they kept in the hall closet for their guest coats.
“You know, I actually could’ve managed that part,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Yeah, I know,” he said as he shut the door. “But I never would’ve heard the end of it from my mom if I’d forgotten to be a gentleman on Christmas Eve of all nights.”
“Is Christmas Eve a better night to be a gentleman than any other?”
“I have no idea,” he said with a shrug. “It just seems like something that she’d call me out on.”
I laughed. “Fair enough.”
He paused, seeming to take me in. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
I couldn’t help the heat that began to crawl its way up my neck, and I knew that my skin was being stained the same deep crimson as my top as I saw him looking at me.
No, it wasn’t quite that. I’d been looked at by a few guys in my time. It was just that I wasn’t used to being seen, and Adam was seeing me.
After a good second of silence, Alice poked her head out from the living room. “Come on, guys. Come join us. Lucy, I don’t think I’ve ever fixed an actual drink for you. You’re going to have to tell me what your poison is.”
I blinked away from Adam and turned toward the living room, striding down the hall with purpose. “I’m a bourbon girl, Alice. Always have been. If there’s no bourbon, I’ll just have a beer.”
“Well, I’ve fixed some festive hot toddies for us, and I used bourbon” she said. “Will that be all right?”
“That sounds wonderful,” I said, following her into the living room
Once I entered, I felt like the attraction I’d felt for Adam was magnified to a supersonic level as I looked around.
Andy was the next of the brothers to come greet me, and I had to take a second to look him over. The dark green Henley he was wearing suited his coloring to an insane degree, seeming to highlight the blonder coloring of his hair when compared to the rest of his brothers’ darker hair. “Hey, Luce. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” I responded, returning his hug just as tightly.
“You’re looking suitably festive,” Austin remarked, looking more handsome than I’d ever seen him in the crisp white sweater that seemed to sit around his shoulders, suiting him to the nines. The glint in his warm blue eyes told me that there wasn’t any acid in what I might’ve otherwise considered to be a pointed comment. One could never tell with Austin; he was known to be just as sarcastic as I was. But one thing that I couldn’t misunderstand was the spark that seemed to shine from behind his gaze as he leaned forward and gave me a soft peck on the cheek.