His Holiday Heart by Jillian Hart Page B

illuminated him as he reached for his seat belt, turning toward the house and toward her.
    Their gazes met. Her blood pressure fell, pooling in her toes. She saw the bleakness in his blue eyes and in his heart. The passenger light blinked out, and he was gone from her sight.
    She stepped away from the window, and the blind slat remained, stuck in place like a peephole. The truck turned around and lumbered off, the taillights brilliant pinpricks of diminishing light. They grew smaller and smaller until the night swallowed them, and she was alone again.

Chapter Seven
    “I need to talk to you.”
    Spence snapped his briefcase shut and scowled at his sister standing in his office doorway. Danielle had been especially perky all morning long. While he was glad she was happy, he wasn’t sure he approved of happiness—or at least not when there was work to be done. The Christmas shopping season was in full swing, and they were busy.
    “I have no time. You’ll have to talk with me on the way to the church,” he said and grabbed his winter coat. “If you need to hire more help, then handle it. I have a folder of applicants in my top left desk drawer.”
    “Excellent. I have been hounding you for the last two weeks, you know.”
    Yeah, he knew. He was tired of hearing it. She had worn him down. “We have a bottom line, don’t you forget it.”
    “Impossible with you here to remind me, brother dear.” She smiled sweetly. Wearing Christmas colors of red and green, she was positively glowing. He had never seen her look better.
    “I’m glad to see you’re happy again, Dani. It’s been a long haul for you and Jonas.”
    “Our lives are almost back to normal. We’ll hear on his job situation late next week sometime.” Danielle was always going to be the eleven-year-old sister he remembered with light brown curls and a quiet smile, regardless of how the years passed. When Dad had married her mom, life had changed for the better in the McKaslin household. Of all his sisters, Danielle was the most sensible—not that he was sentimental or anything. To prove it, he scowled. She was blocking the doorway. “Just don’t go walking off the job and leaving me high and dry without a manager, you hear?”
    Her hand landed on his wrist, stopping him from trying to shoulder around her. “I would never do that to you, Spence. You know that.”
    He did. “Are you ready? You don’t have your coat.”
    “I told you we need to talk before you go.”
    “ We’re going to be late to the meeting. The committee head has to attend. You have less than three weeks before Christmas.”
    “There’s something I need to tell you.” Danielle looked apologetic.
    Uh-oh. “You’re going to bail on the committee, aren’t you?”
    “I’ve already spoken to my second-in-command, and she is going to sit in for me this morning. She has all the notes.”
    “You can just stand there smiling like this is great news. Why are you bailing on me?”
    “I need to take it easier these days.” She gazed up at him expectantly, and there was quiet joy on her face.
    “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” He frowned harder. He loved being an uncle, so this was good news. But as the manager of the bookstore, he was losing yet another assistant manager to motherhood. “Who am I going to get to replace you? I’ve run out of sisters. Not that a one of you is useful, getting married and leaving me with a store to run and no one to help.”
    Tears sparkled in Danielle’s eyes as she went up on tiptoe, understanding perfectly what he could not say. What he could never say. His chest felt battered by a hurricane, but he made sure he couldn’t feel a single lick of emotion.
    “I love you too, Spence.” She kissed his cheek, squeezed his wrist and walked away.
    Sisters. He swallowed hard and closed the door behind him. He didn’t know what he was going to do without them. They were all married, becoming mothers; they didn’t need him anymore. He was in an