Sweetly Isolated (The Swallow Barn Cottage Series, Book 1)

It's Beginning To Look Like...

"What are you doing?" he asked behind her in an irked tone, and Tina froze like a racoon dragging a stolen paper bag with leftovers.

"I promised my nieces to put up my Christmas tree," she said.

He looked at the box in her hands.

"Is that the tree?" he asked.

"It's the top part of it," Tina said bashfully. "It's big."

"Blimey," he said and stepped into the hallway. "Let me help you."

"It's OK, I do it myself every year," she started mumbling, and he jerked his hands away from the box. Ooph, just look at that frown. "Sorry, I didn't mean to–" Oh, and his lips are pressed in a stern line. "Yes, please, help me with it. I'll take this one to the lounge. The rest of the boxes are in the shed."

She pointed behind her at the backdoor.

"And how many are there?" he asked, walking to the closet for his jacket.

"Um–" Tina cowardly looked away. "Quite a few."

He threw her a slightly less dischuffed look - is that a small amused twinkle in his eyes? - shook his head, and went outside.

***

"Blimey," he said in, maybe, the tenth time, and Tina looked up at him from the box of lights she was opening.

"Did I mention I like Christmas?" she said with an apologetic smile.

"Once or twice," he said and chuckled. "How tall is this monster?"

He was carefully lowering the middle section onto the bottom part of her John Lewis' Peruvian Pine.

"Seven feet," she said. "Wait, wait, don't put the top yet! I need to fluff and shape it first."

"Fluff and shape it?" he repeated in disbelief.

"Of course. The branches get all squished in the box," she explained. "And I can't reach when it's assembled, even if I stand on the ladder."

"How do you reach to decorate it, to think of it?"

He gave her a measuring look over, and Tina blushed.

"I'm not that short," she grumbled. "I'm almost five three."

She saw his lips twitch.

He said you were 'small' while rubbing your back, which almost gave you a crisis. Do you remember it, you knobhead? That was just before you arsed up all your chances with the man.

"Right, I'll go fetch the ladder for you," he said and left to the back again.

And now he's never going to kiss your neck in that special way that turns your legs into Barratt Nougat's.

Tina sighed and started working on the top third of the tree. He came back, they assembled the tree in silence, and he stretched his hand to one of the boxes.

"No, no, lights go first!" she exclaimed, and he looked up at her from where he was squatting in front of the box.

Her cheeks started to burn.

"Sorry," she whispered.

He shook his head again and picked up the lights.

"I assume you want to do it yourself, so it's done properly," he said, and Tina nodded shyly. "Alright, I'll hold your ladder then," he said. "Since I'm not trusted with any other job."

He might have sounded rather sarcastic, but there were little crinkles near the corners of his eyes. Surely, he isn't that annoyed with her if there are crinkles?