“You know this means war, right?”

Her lips twitched. “Because you’re a soldier?”

“Because you deserve to pay for getting paint on me.”

“Oops.” She gestured to the smudges of paint on his cheek. “Did I do that?”

He rolled his eyes. “You church girls. Always playing innocent.”

“Sometimes we are innocent,” she defended, her eyes full of challenge.

“Not this time.” The brush in Bodie’s hand begged to retaliate, to dab a big glob of paint right across Sarah’s pert little nose, to start a playful paint war with her as he’d threatened.

Then he reminded himself he wasn’t here to play with Sarah or to dabble in whatever this feeling was that he experienced when she was near. He was here to help her do a job.

Not play in paint.

“You’re chicken, aren’t you?”

Her taunt had Bodie laughing out loud. Seriously? They were back to that?

“You think I’m afraid of you?”

“Terrified,” she teased, waving her brush at him. “You know if you come closer, I’ll have you wearing Seafoam Green all over.”

He shouldn’t have done what he did next. Lord knew he’d been taunted in the past with lots worse than wearing a shade of paint. Taunts he hadn’t given in to.

But he gave in to Sarah and grabbed hold of her arms, gently removing her paint brush from her hands while she squirmed, squealed, and tried to keep him from doing so.

Amidst laughter, hers and his, he got the brush from her.

“You wouldn’t,” she accused when he wielded the brush toward her.

“I’m going to.”

She backed up, bumping against the bare wall they were supposed to be painting. Her eyes were big, but not with fear. Excitement shone brightly in them.

Her lips parted. “I have really sensitive skin. I’ll probably break out if you do and then be all rashy during Christmas. Please don’t.”

Bodie hesitated, studying her. Was she telling him the truth?

Just as he was deciding she might be, she grabbed the brush out of his hand.

“Ha. Gotcha,” she claimed, doing a little happy dance while hiding the brush behind her back.

“I guess you did.” He laughed, acknowledging that he’d been played. “You know, I’m not sure you helping paint is getting me closer to being done.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it’s a lot more fun this way.”

“That it is.”

Chapter Six

“Oh, Christmas candy canes!”

At Sarah’s good-girl substitute for swearing coming from somewhere else in the house, Bodie glanced up from where he was sealing the tile in Aunt Jean’s suite.

Grateful his hip and leg held up after his extended time squatted on the shower floor, and that his body was getting stronger and stronger each day, he straightened to check out his work. When he had made sure everything was up to par, he went to see what had frustrated her.

“Please answer,” she said, while flipping through a stack of mail on the kitchen island countertop. Was she talking to him? To Harry?