Mack couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun. The simple act of building a snowman—something she hadn’t done since she was a child—filled her with a kind of innocent glee she had long forgotten. She glanced at Holly, who was grinning from ear to ear as she packed out the snowman’s body. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and she looked adorable with her cheeks pink from the cold.
Holly disappeared for a moment and came back with two twigs.
“I found a pair of arms!” she called out, holding them up in triumph.
“Great. They’re beautiful claws,” Mack joked, sticking the left one in while Holly attached Santa’s right. Holly adjusted themso they were symmetrical before they molded Santa’s beard and stuck the pipe into his mouth.
Mack stepped back and admired their work with a smug smile. “Not bad, huh? We just need a hat.”
“I’ll be right back,” Holly said, running off again. She returned with a red tinsel garland and a Santa hat. “I bought this at one of the stalls,” she said, holding up the hat. “And the wind blew the garland into my face like it was meant to be.”
Mack wrapped the tinsel scarf around the snowman’s neck while Holly placed the hat on its head.
“Santa’s got a great butt,” Holly noted as she walked around their snowman. “Very perky. Let’s hope they take that into consideration with the scoring.”
“Oh, are you a butt person?” Mack asked teasingly.
“I do appreciate a nice butt. Yours is great, by the way,” Holly shot back at her.
“So is yours.” Mack playfully slapped Holly’s behind, making her jump and laugh. “I was admiring it when you were looking out the window this morning.”
“Oh yeah? Were you checking me out?”
“Guilty.” Mack shivered at the surge or arousal that coursed through her. This was getting interesting “I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more of it,” she said, hoping she wasn’t taking it too far. “It really is quite something. You know, in an objective, stating-the-facts kind of way.”
Holly rolled her eyes and laughed. “Oh, that again?” She bit her lip as she looked Mack over. “Well, keep up the charm and you might get lucky.”
Mack’s jaw dropped as she stared at her. “You’re going to drive me crazy, you know that?”
“Good,” Holly replied, batting her eyelashes. “I’ve been told I have that effect on people.” For a moment, they simplystood there, facing each other, and Mack’s pulse quickened as fantasies coursed through her mind.
Just then, a countdown began from the crowd. “Ten! Nine! Eight!”
Holly’s eyes widened in a panic. “We forgot the eyes and the nose! How could we forget those?”
Mack snapped out her reverie and started digging in the snow until she found two rocks. “These will have to do,” she said, bursting into stitches of laughter as she pressed them into Santa’s sockets.
In a wild frenzy, Holly ran around, looking for a nose.
“Five! Four! Three!”
“I can’t! This is too stressful.” Failing to find anything suitable, Holly turned to the contents of her purse and pulled out a bright-red lipstick. She rolled it all the way out and jammed it into the middle of their snowman’s face, just in time.
“Two! One! Time’s up!” Barbara screamed.
Mack and Holly stepped back, both crossing their arms over their chests as they surveyed their creation in mock seriousness. The snowman stood at a precarious tilt, its body formed of unevenly packed snowballs that gave it a distinctly lumpy appearance. The rocks they’d used for eyes were hilariously mismatched—one oversized and the other barely more than a pebble—giving it a comically bewildered expression. Holly’s bright-red lipstick, repurposed as a nose, jutted out like a clown’s honker.
“Well, there he is,” Mack said, stifling a laugh.
“Yeah…” Holly shook her head, giggling. “I think we nailed it. He’s got personality, that’s for sure.”
Chapter 10
Holly
“Ican’t believe we came last,” Holly said, shaking her head in disbelief as she and Mack trudged through the snow toward the Watertown gas station. “Our Santa was clearly the most anatomically correct snowman in the competition.”
Mack snorted, her breath visible in the cold air. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s exactly what the judges were looking for. ‘Most accurate snowman gluteus maximus.’ It was—” She paused, squinting through the heavy snowfall. “Wait. Is that…is that the gas station?”
