Rowan simply shrugs. “Might be fun to see him riled up.”
Men. “Rowan, this is a holiday party. For a holiday auction. And punch is festive.”
“We’ll use red and green pens. Would that make the sign festive too?”
“The longer you argue, the more attention you draw,” I point out. I grab a napkin with my free hand and hold it out. “Let go of the ladle, Rowan.”
With a sigh, he finally gives in, lowering the ladle and tipping the candy cane into my offered napkin. “Fine. What’s your punch replacement plan?”
I straighten, summoning all my sunny determination. “Lucky for you, I know how to make a fresh batch. Grab the bowl and prepare to be dazzled by my recipe.”
“Dazzle me, Isla,” he says. For a flicker of a second, I wonder how I might dazzle him in a different scenario. Then Rowan pulls me back to the moment. “But first, tell me where to dump this so we can move on.”
I blink at his sudden decisiveness, appreciating his willingness to step up. “The prep area for the servers,” I say. “Down the hall, third door on the left. Then we’ll go to the bar, and I’ll convince the bartender to whip up a fresh batch with a fix-it recipe I’ve got in my head.”
“Got it.” With the bowl balanced in his steady hands—and the cuffs on his charcoal gray dress shirt rolled up, thank you very much—he scans for the nearest exit. It’s thirty feet from here.
Clutching the candy-cane-filled napkin, I whisper, team-leader-style, “Go! I’ll cover you!”
“You do that,” he says dryly.
Everyone’s mingling, so we should be able to quietly handle this little problem. But as I step away from the table, a pack of just-arriving guests heads toward me. Or us, really. A flare of tension races down my back. This is not a good look—tampering with the food and drink at a party.
Think fast, you problem-solving genius.
I peer around the ballroom, hunting for a faster exit,but Rowan has already changed directions with the confidence of, well, a pro athlete. He’s heading straight for…the poinsettias in the corner?
“What are you doing?” I whisper, too late to stop him, then turn back to the table. A woman in pearls and a red, faux-fur bolero jacket makes her way along the buffet, chatting animatedly with a dapper older man in a plaid suit.
Rowan is behind me, doing whatever horrifying thing he’s doing to the plant, so I guess I’ll do what he does on the ice—block. Grabbing the list of auction items, I widen my eyes with an exaggerated gasp. “A life-size nutcracker? And his nutcracker friends! That would be so perfect for a front porch display.” I wave the card, catching the pearl-and-faux-fur woman’s eyes. “Don’t you think?”
She tilts her head and looks at me askance.
Oh, crud. She thinks I’ve lost my mind. Why didn’t I pick something more universally beloved? I scan the list again, not panicking at all. “But maybe I should bid on this…gift basket of jams.”
The man harrumphs. “In my day, we didn’t have jam.”
I struggle to think of a reply to this unlikely claim. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a stream of red punch cascading into a large pot of poinsettias and choke back a horrified laugh at Rowan’s predicament.Must keep my attention on the faux-fur woman and the auction excitement.
“There’s also an afternoon at this brand-new restaurant with fire pits where you can roast your own chestnuts.” I beam at the woman. “Who doesn’t want chestnuts roasting on an open fire?”
The woman adjusts her bolero with a dramatic flick. “Darling, who wants little nuts when you can have a life-size nutcracker? Is it a proper forty-eight inches though?”
Sheactuallywants a life-size nutcracker? My eyes dart to the item, quickly finding the number. “It’s your lucky night! It is exactly four feet tall. And the accompanying nutcracker friends are thirty-six inches tall, from the toes of their shoes to the top of their hats.”
She snaps her gaze to her companion. “Arthur, be a dear and bid on that for me. And I don’t want to hear a word about how they didn’t have nutcrackers back in your day.”
“They didn’t, though,” he mutters.
She rolls her eyes and turns back to me. “Next thing you know, he’ll be telling me they didn’t have punch then either.” She looks at the table and frowns in confusion at the large, crystal-bowl-size space next to the punch glasses and ladle. “Speaking of punch…”
“We were just about to top it off.” I gesture vaguely in the direction of the bar.
The woman eyes me up and down, perhaps wondering why I’m dressed like a guest and not a server, but then she shrugs. “I appreciate that, but I’d rather mine be self-spiked.” She reaches into her little vintage handbag and takes out the tiniest silver flask I’ve ever seen, waggling it and winking at me. “I’ll be back to handle that part myself.”
She sashays off with her husband in tow, and a moment later, the ruggedly handsome hockey star returns with the now-empty crystal bowl.
“I saw the opponent barreling down my forward, I had to improvise,” he explains in hockey terms. “Couldn’t be seen lugging punch around. Now we’re just helpfully bringing an empty bowl to the bartender.”
