He ferried his half-full bowl to the kitchen, putting as much space between them as possible. Suzanne St. Michelle was a very bad idea. He’d loved and lost once a very long time ago, and he wasn’t interested in ever putting his heart on the line again. He didn’t get involved with women. Certainly not New York artists slumming it in Middle America, who thought lack of Netflix was some kind of mental deficiency.

“It’s starting,” she called as Grady lingered over plating up the cobbler, trying to quell his erection through mind power alone and failing. Not even thinking about that ridiculous cherub painting was working. Adjusting himself, he prayed that ninety minutes of saccharine Christmas stuff would do the trick.

It did. Within the first five minutes.

Grady counted twenty jingling bells, a dozen Merry Christmas greetings, and three snowmen. By the end of the film, he doubted he’d ever be capable of an erection again. He’d lost count of the bells and snowmen and angelic little children with toothpaste smiles wishing everyone Happy Holidays. Hell, if there’d been a partridge in a pear tree in the main street of the small fictitious town where the movie was set, he’d have been unsurprised.

There’d been five gold rings—yes, really—in one scene, so why not?

Still, he heard a sniffle and glanced at Suzanne as she dashed at a tear. What the hell? “You’re crying?”

She turned red-rimmed eyes on him. “What? It was sweet.”

“Yeah. I know. I can already feel my teeth rotting.”

“He was a doctor who didn’t believe in Christmas anymore,” she said, her gaze imploring. “But now he does because the heroine’s sick child helped him to see that every day you have is worth living and that special days should be celebrated. It was…” She scrubbed at her face. “Lovely.”

Grady’s lungs felt too tight for his chest at that little wobble in her voice. She was lovely. All red-eyed and emotionally invested in the most ridiculously fluffy plot he’d ever seen. Maybe that was the artist in her? They were sensitive types, weren’t they?

Unlike soldiers.

The urge to put his arm around her crept up on him. What the fuck? He beat it back with words. “God. You’re a crier, aren’t you?”

But a memory surfaced then—his father teasing his mother about being a crier. About her soppiness over movies and love songs and baby animals. His mother saying with a smile, “Scott Grady, you married a sentimental woman.”

Grady blinked. Christ…when had that escaped the box?

“Uh, yeah.” She blinked at him through a watery smile. “Emotional, touchy-feely artsy type here, remember?” Reaching for the second DVD, she said, “Ready for A Knight Before Christmas?”