LITMIR.BIZ

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probably the stupidest. It had been clear from the beginning that she loved being around Finley. He was the one with the problem. He had absolutely no clue how to relate to Shannon anymore. Probably because he knew something about her that wasn’t true for most women, and he was barely accustomed to dealing with “most” women. Of course, he was clumsy and awkward around her.

      But at lunch he decided that he wasn’t going to abandon her. He might stop his romantic advances. He definitely wouldn’t kiss her again. Those things only seemed to make her unhappy, but he wouldn’t, by God, take Finley away from her in the last two days of their trip.

      That evening, after they’d eaten supper in a little Italian restaurant, he loaded Finley back into the car.

      “Where’re we goin’?”

      “Shannon’s.”

      “All right!”

      “I have no idea what she’s going to be doing tonight, but whatever it is, we’re going to help her.”

      Blissfully clueless, Finley shrugged. “Okay.”

      “I mean it, Finley. This might be a little hard for you to understand, but Christmas means a lot to Shannon and I don’t want any tantrums if she says or does something you don’t like.”

      “Okay.”

      He bit back a sigh. He couldn’t be sure that Finley really got it. But he did know he couldn’t let Shannon alone that night.

      She answered the door wearing a bright Christmas-print apron over jeans and a red sweater. Her dark hair swirled around her sexily, but the drop of flour on the tip of her nose made her look just plain cute.

      “Hey!”

      She stepped away to allow them to enter.

      Rory guided Finley inside. “We weren’t sure what you would be doing tonight but we suspected you might need some help.” He caught her gaze, smiled tentatively. “So we’re here.”

      She headed for the kitchen, motioning for them to follow her. “I’m baking cookies.”

      Finley gasped. “What kind?”

      Shannon turned and caught her gaze. “Christmas cookies.”

      Finley frowned but Shannon laughed. “Don’t you think it’s about time you learned how to bake them?”

      “I’m six.”

      Shannon headed for the kitchen again. “I know. But next year you’ll be seven and the year after that eight and before you know it you’ll be twelve or so and you’ll want to be the one who bakes the cookies. So, just trust me.”

      Finley wrinkled her nose and glanced up at her father. Recognizing she might be more opposed to the work than the idea that the cookies were for a holiday she didn’t really like, he said, “Well, you don’t think I’m going to bake our cookies, do you?”

      In the kitchen, the dough had already been prepared. Shannon had it rolled into a thin circle. Cookie cutters sat scattered along the side of the cookie dough bowl.

      He ambled to the center island as Finley hoisted herself onto one of the tall stools in front of it.

      “You see these?” Shannon displayed a bunch of the cookie cutters to Finley. “We push these into the dough.” She demonstrated with a Christmas-tree-shaped cutter. “Then pull it out and like magic we have a cookie that’s going to look like a tree.”

      Finley grabbed for the tree cutter. “Let me.”

      Rory tugged her hand back. “What do we say?”

      She huffed out a sigh. “Please, can I do one?”

      Shannon laughed. “You may do as many as you like.” She laughed again. “As long as there’s dough.”

      And Rory’s heart started beating again. He hadn’t realized how worried he was, how guilty he felt, until Shannon laughed and some of the burden began to lift.

      Finley and Shannon cut twelve shapes and Shannon removed the cookie dough from around them. They lifted the shapes from the countertop onto a baking sheet and Shannon rolled another circle of dough.

      They worked like that for about twenty minutes. When Rory also joined in the fun, it took even less time to cut out all the cookies in a circle of dough. As they cut shapes and filled cookie sheets, Shannon slid the trays into the oven. Using a timer, she kept close track of their baking times and in exactly twelve minutes she removed each pan of cookies.

      When they finished the last tray, Shannon walked over to the cookies cooling on the round kitchen table and said, “These are ready to be painted.”

      Finley frowned. “With a brush?”

      “With a lot of little brushes.” She brought a plate of cooled cookies over to the counter then headed for the refrigerator, where she had icing cooling. She filled four soup bowls with icing.

      “Now we put some food coloring in the bowls and make different colors of icing.”

      Grabbing two bottles of the coloring, Rory helped her create red, blue, green, yellow and pink icing.

      She carefully caught his gaze. “You’re good at this.”

      He laughed, relieved that she finally seemed comfortable with him in the room. “It’s not we’re like mixing rocket fuel.”

      She laughed a little, too. Finley snatched a cookie and one of the thin paintbrushes lying beside the icing bowls.

      Now that the cookies had baked, they’d fluffed out a bit and didn’t exactly look like their intended design. So Rory said, “That’s a bell.”

      Finley sighed as if put upon. “I know.”

      Hoping to cover for the insult, he said, “So what color are you going to paint it?”

      “The song they sang in the park today said bells are silver. But there is no silver icing.”

      “Silver bells are silver,” Shannon agreed. “But cookie bells can be any color you want.”

      “Then I’ll make mine pink.”

      “A pink bell sounds lovely.”

      Though Rory had pitched in and helped cut the cookies and even create the colored icing, he had no interest in painting cookies. He glanced around. “Would you mind if I made a pot of coffee?”

      Shannon peeked over at him again. This time more confidently. “Or you could make cocoa.”

      Rory’s shoulders relaxed a bit more. If they kept this up, by the time he was ready to take Finley home, he and Shannon might actually be comfortable in each other’s company again.

      He found the milk and cocoa. While Shannon and Finley happily painted cookies, he made their cocoa and served it to them. They barely paused. Seeing that it would take hours if he didn’t help, Rory lifted a brush and began to paint, too.

      They worked until nine. When they were through, and the cookies drying on the kitchen table, Rory told Finley to get her coat while he helped Shannon clean the dishes and brushes. In spite of the goodwill that had seemed to grow between them as they made cookies, once Finley left the room Shannon again became quiet.

      Rory still didn’t quite know what to say. With every minute of silence that passed, a little more distance crept between them. He knew part of that was his fault. He’d only decided he was ready to date. The decisions thrown at him the night before were usually the kinds of things people discovered after months of dating. When they were comfortable and confident in their feelings.

      But he understood why Shannon had told him. They were growing close and she didn’t want to.

      With the dishwasher humming, she dried her hands on the dishtowel and then tossed it on the counter. “I wonder if she’s struggling with her boots.”

      He

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