Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 29000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 145(@200wpm)___ 116(@250wpm)___ 97(@300wpm)
I curse, but wave away her concern when she asks what’s wrong. “Nothing. I just wish I’d known. I should call my brother. He’ll be worried.”
“Oh, okay, well then, why don’t you let me get the wood and start the fire,” she says. “You can go call your brother and find the flashlight. Sound good?”
“No way are you stepping foot outside in nothing but my suit coat and your bare feet,” I say, scowling down at her.
She laughs. “I can put on my clothes and shoes.”
“No. Clothes bad. Naked good. I thought we’d established that already, Miss Hadley. I’ll get the wood first, then go downstairs.”
“Okay.” She beams up at me, so clearly delighted that I vow never to pass up a chance to tease her, flirt with her. Flirting with Holly Jo is quickly becoming my favorite activity. I could give up skiing for the entire season, as long as I know I get to spend snowy afternoons by the fire with this infectious woman.
I collect the wood and fetch the matches from atop the tall mantel, unable to resist kissing Holly one last time before I start back down the stairs. My family has already been worried for an hour or more, after all, what difference will another minute or two make?
Though stopping kissing Holly is much harder than starting.
I finally manage to wrench my lips from hers and start back down the stairs. In the kitchen, I find it easier to see than it was before. It’s still dark—very—but I can make out the shadow of the fridge and the cabinets by the coffee maker, where the phone is hung on the wall.
I make my way across the room, ears straining for any sign of Andy skittering about, but it’s quiet aside from Holly’s faint humming from upstairs as she starts the fire. Holly Jolly Christmas, I’m pretty sure that’s the tune, and it makes my shriveled heart grow another size or two.
Maybe I can get into the holiday spirit, after all, as long as Holly is part of the package.
Lifting the receiver, I welcome the dial tone with a happy sigh and punch in my brother’s cell. I don’t have the landline number for the mansion memorized, but Elliot should be getting service. The house is high on a hill, out of the dead zone of the valley of Jingle Bell Junction proper.
He answers on the second ring with a breathless, “Hello? Who is this? Luke?”
“Yes, it’s me,” I say, spirits sinking as I realize just how worried he must have been. “I’m fine. Just snowed in at the town hall. But there’s a fire here and a place to sleep, so no reason to worry.”
Elliot mutters a soft curse before shouting over his shoulder, “It’s Luke, he’s all right!”
I hear my sister and brother, Bran, murmur something in relieved sounding voices before Elliot comes back on the line. “Thank God. When the driver came back thirty minutes ago without you, I was positive something horrible had happened.”
“I’m fine, and I’m glad he’s safe.”
“Me, too,” Elliot says. “No thanks to you. What the actual fuck were you thinking, Luke? He waited so long for you that he barely made it home. He said the car was skidding all over.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it. “I was drunk and—”
“And that’s no excuse. You aren’t an alcoholic and you know better than to get wasted and walk around in the freezing cold. If you have some sort of death wish, fine, I guess, but don’t drag innocent people into your downward spiral.”
Innocent people.
Downward spiral.
The words send me flashing back to my fifteenth birthday, when I found Dad passed out on the kitchen floor beside a naked woman. They’d both had too much to drink and ended up unconscious by the blender they were using to make margaritas. If I hadn’t gotten up early to work out before school, my brothers and sister would have seen them.
That made me angrier than the fact that I had to kick Dad awake and help him carry his naked girlfriend into the bedroom. I hated that he cared so little about protecting my siblings. He was perfectly willing to risk exposing them to things no kid should ever have to see—especially from a parent. I vowed then and there never to be like him.
But sometime in the past few years…
The past decade if I’m honest…
I work all the time, just like Dad. I choose function over fun and productivity over play. I rarely drink, but when I do, I drink to excess, and I haven’t met a holiday I couldn’t loathe with every fiber of my being.
And, most importantly, I was a mean, Grinch-hearted grouch about coming to Vermont for Christmas, even though I have a competent team in place at the office to cover for me and no reason not to relax and enjoy the time with my family.