“I just paid for your cocoa. And I upped the value of your home by moving in next door. Nobody likes a deadbeat area filled with abandoned houses. You’re welcome.” He toasts me with his cocoa before taking a bite out of his cookie. “Wow, you are good. I’ll have to come by and sample my way around that shop of yours.”
“Why not?” I toss my hand in the air, exasperated. “Everybody else is doing it.”
“Like who?” His brows pin together in the middle and do their best impression of a bird in flight. Graham has always had the most mesmerizing dark full brows. Nothing busy beyond repair that you wish someone might landscape, perfect dark lines that expressed his every thought. I’ll admit that I have always been spellbound by those caustic blue eyes of his. It’s easy to get lost in them. Sort of like I’m doing now.
“Like that new girlfriend of yours.” I can’t help but bite down on a devious smile. I’m going to hear it here first. Graham Holiday has a girlfriend, an official plus one who he will gleefully haul out of town for me come December twenty-sixth. Best Christmas present ever. Not a single soul in Gingerbread will be lamenting over the void Sabrina will leave behind. Graham and Sabrina will get their unhappily ever after, and I’ll be the one with a happy ending.
My stomach sours as if maybe I won’t.
Graham takes a deep breath, and his chest expands the width of a door. He rocks back on his heels a moment as he stares out into space. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Sure you do. I saw the two of you whooping it up at Angelino’s the other day, remember? You opened your mouth, and she laughed at whatever came out. If that’s not a sign of true love, I don’t know what is.” My body bucks with a silent laugh. How I wish I could replay that look on his face when he stomped his way to my table. Honestly, that look of horror was worth the entire effort.
He grunts as he chomps down on his cookie again, this time with a marked aggression. “Sabrina is a handful, but that’s all she is to me.” He looks me over with a wry smile. “At the moment.”
My stomach sinks like a stone, and I force myself to clear my throat. “So, what about back home? I bet you have twelve maids a-milking, all waiting for you in that expansive living room of yours.” I can picture it now. A bevy of scantily clad beauties all primping away for the moment their prince strides back to town on his white 747 steed.
“You really think you’re funny, don’t you?” He blinks a smile my way. “I don’t have anyone I’m serious about back there either.” He looks to Noel as she does her best to squirm under the fence.
“No!” I shout, and Graham gently lands his hand over mine as I try to reach for her. A lot of good that would have done. I’m standing a good fifteen feet away. “I swear, half the time she thinks her name is No.”
“She’s fine.” He lands a warm hand over my back, and I can feel him vibrate with a dull laugh right down to my toes. “I let her run around in there during the day. It helps get all that extra energy out. That way she’s nice and tuckered out for you when you get home.” His dimples dig into his cheeks, and my stomach bites with heat. Darn Graham for bringing all his big city charm and his alarmingly handsome face back to Gingerbread.
“You do that for me?” I give him a playful shove in the chest and note it’s hard as the Rock of Gibraltar. My God, is he bench-pressing all of Wall Street in his spare time?
“Yes, I do that for you.” His head inches back a notch as if stunned I’d even ask.
I clear my throat. “So you never answered the question. How many girls are you juggling back home? And do the ladies of the night prefer to be calledwomeninstead ofgirls?”
His brows knit as he warms his shoulder to mine, his hand still at home over the small of my back. “You’re really not funny, and to answer your question, none. There were a few who tried to rope me, but I got away.”
For a second I picture Graham running around exclusive nightclubs trying to escape an entire herd of girls with spinning lassos in hand.
“Have you gone out with any of these people more than once? Like say,threetimes? I’m pretty sure in a big city like New York that qualifies as an engagement.”
He laughs into the night, and something warms in me just to hear it. I used to do anything short of juggling monkeys on fire just to hear that sound once upon a time.
“I guess so. A girl at the office.” He grimaces at the thought of her. “She’s actually put in the greatest effort to tie me down, but I’ve put up quite the resistance.”
“Ooh, I like her already.” I don’t, but that’s beside the point. “She doesn’t fool around. What’s her name?”
“Cynthia Caldwell”—he holds a finger in the air—“of the Upper East Side Caldwells.”
We share a laugh on behalf of Cynthia’s entire family.
“She sounds very Upper East Side and sophisticated.” I give a little shrug and tuck my cocoa close to my lips. No matter how hard I tried, I’m sure I couldn’t fit into New York high society. Graham could easily. He’s always had a mass appeal and been a little more refined than the rest of us.
“Sophisticated?” His brows peak. “That she is. She’s also very insistent on getting her way. And you might say she’s a part of the reason I had to make a side trip to Colorado this winter. A person can only duck and evade so much.”
A boisterous laugh bubbles from me. If only he knew the ducking and evading he is in for with Sabrina. I’m pretty sure she’ll make Cynthia Caldwell from the Upper East Side wish she could hide between the racks at Bloomingdale’s. Sabrina is a master at getting what she wants, and right now she wants nothing more than this handsome buck by my side.
“What’s this?” My brother strides over with that overgrown PVC pipe we use to measure the length of the trees, and it towers next to him like an unstable staff.
“Hey, Nick.” I struggle to get his name out as my laughter dies down. “Just having some fun.” I wipe a tear from my eye. A part of me wants to fast-forward this entire Sabrina Jarrett fiasco just to see Graham trying to duck and evade with the best of them. Of course, by then, it’ll be too late, and Sabrina will be snug in his penthouse. Believe you me, she’ll be more difficult to get rid of than an entire herd of New York sewer rats.
Nick narrows his eyes over the two of us as a family to his left gets antsy for his attention.
“Don’t have too much fun.” He pegs the two of us with a silent warning, and I can’t help but avert my eyes. My brother has spent his twenty-nine years on this planet making sure my chastity stays right where it belongs, and some might say—Holly—that he’s doing too good of a job. Nick has pretty much scared off every single prospect I’ve ever had as far as men are concerned. I’m sure he’d be more than content if I were an old spinster with a house full of obese cats.
