“The Christmas King?” I couldn’t help but laugh.
“And now I got my dream girl.” He put his hands behind his head, peacocking a bit. “Life is good.”
My cheeks flooded with heat. His dream girl? How was I supposed to protect my heart from this guy when he invaded my classroom, settled his rambunctious but adorable nephew down, and called me his dream girl?
“You’re too much,” I told him, breathless.
He turned the full force of his attention on me, holding my gaze, standing as close as possible without touching me—for the sake of the first graders—and dropping his voice to a sweet murmur. “All true, babe.”
Dazed, flustered, boiling over with butterflies and nerves like potatoes unattended on the stovetop, I asked, “What are you even doing here?”
His grin grew, making crinkles near his eyes, his dimple popping behind his scruff. “My crew is going to be here after school to take things down so they can close up the building for break. I got here a little early to see you in your element. Thought maybe you could use some help after the bell rings.”
My heart squeezed tight. Did I know Sam would be this sweet? This attentive? Could I have guessed all those years ago? If I wouldn’t have seen my mother’s mouth assault on him and ran away, would he have become this man? Would I have become this girl who was on the very precipice of falling in love with him?
“I think I’ll kiss you,” he said in that rumbly voice. I gazed into his green eyes, deep, fathomless depths of adoration and affection staring back at me. “As soon as we lose all this cute baggage, I’m definitely going to kiss you.”
And there I went. Tipping, falling, soaring off the cliff into something beautiful and bright and so much bigger than I ever believed could be between us.
CHAPTER 15
Christmas Eve Steve
Iturned off Main Street, heading toward the Meyer’s house, and marveled at how I felt—different I was—only a month after that fateful Thanksgiving day. I’d been full of dread and panic. I’d been jaded and annoyed at all the Christmas cheer. I’d been terrified of running into a man I now knew I was in love with. The whole town had dragged out the worst in me. And yet, the only thing I felt now was peace and the kind of happiness that washed over me in gentle swells, like the warmth of the ocean under a starlit sky, or the gentle waves of a lakeshore on a sunbaked day. I was submerged, but I was safe. I was settled. I was . . .
My phone rang. It was Teagan. She’d been at Tom and Linda’s since early this morning. They had Christmas traditions to live out and a Christmas Eve meal to make. I was meeting the family and Sam at the house so we could go to early church service before we dove into a big meal of fancy appetizers, charcuterie, desserts, and more cheeseballs than any one family should eat. But ‘tis the way at the Meyer’s house.
Look at that? I had even found my holiday cheer.
Sam had to work today, so I had done some last-minute Christmas shopping around town, wrapped everything, and thenspent the afternoon job hunting for something in Mistletoe and the surrounding small towns for when my long-term sub job ended.
“I’m almost there,” I told Teagan when I answered the phone, running late per usual, but only by ten or fifteen . . . maybe twenty minutes tops. “You guys can start getting in the car if you—”
“That’s not why I’m calling.” Her tone registered suddenly—nervous, distant, whispering.
“What’s going on?”
“Your mom is here, Holly.”
A cold, hard block of ice dropped into my stomach. “What? She’s supposed to be in . . . in Turkey or Dubai or wherever the hell. Why is she home?”
“She’s here,” she hissed, ignoring my question. “My mom invited her to church with us.”
“What?” I screeched, the house coming into view. My mind started spinning with alternate routes of how to get out of seeing her. Plan Bs and Plan Cs and Emergency Protocols. “She hates church,” I added quickly. “She won’t go.”
“She’s going,” she said firmly. “Her new boyfriend is religious.”
“What are you even saying?”
“Steve.”
“What?!”
“Is that her?” someone asked in the background.
“She’s pulling up now,” Teagan said too loudly.
The person—my mother, presumably—cheered in the background.
