Page 38 of Once Upon A Christmas Song

“No he’s not. He likes you, I promise,” Prue seconded Cami. “Usually he tries to bite our fingers when we stick them through the spaces in the cage. How you’re carrying it, he should be trying to gnaw them off.”

This news was late in coming.

“Sometimes Mrs. G has to give him some drops to calm him down,” Prue informed me.

I glanced at Dawson, whose inelegant snort made me smile despite not wanting to encourage him. “Psycho rabbit,” he teased me under his breath. “Best watch yourself.”

“We could trade,” I offered.

“No, I like watching you carry stuff,” he said, and the way he looked at me made my face heat. I couldn’t help it; it was a lusty, filthy, flirty look I was on the receiving end of. My mouth went dry.

“Stop,” I warned him. “You’ll make me trip.”

“We don’t want that,” he teased, insufferably pleased with himself. “Watch your step,” he reminded me.

“Call me Luke,” Mr. Amsel announced suddenly. “I just realized I never told you my first name.”

“Like he needs it,” Dawson muttered.

“Pardon me?” Luke asked.

“Nothing,” Dawson answered with a fake smile before shooting me a look.

“Stop,” I ordered.

“What?” he asked innocently.

“So what are your plans for the holidays?” Nicole asked Cami as we made our way to the parking lot with many other people carrying the same things we were save for the class pet.

“On Christmas morning, me and Mama open our gifts together, just the two of us, and then we get ready and drive to my granma’s house. Our whole family meets there, and my aunt Danita always says it’s a zoo.”

Nicole chuckled. “It sounds lovely.”

“Now, on Christmas Eve,” Cami began, walking right beside me, “we have a party at the place where my mom, my uncle Chris, my aunt Darcy, my aunt Xola, and Conner all work. It’s really fun, and we eat all kinds of junk that makes my mama crazy because she’s a chef.”

“Is she?” Nicole asked, glancing over her shoulder at the little girl.

Cami nodded. “Yeah. And then, after we eat all the really bad stuff, they all sit around in a circle and give each other elephants. I don’t really get the whole elephant thing, but they’re old, and I guess they all like them.”

“Old?” Luke asked me.

“To her, yeah.”

“Wait now,” Nicole said suddenly, stopping and turning to me. “Darcy and Xola?”

I nodded.

“You work at La Belle Vie?”

“I own La Belle Vie.”

“You do not.”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.”

She turned to her husband, looking both happy and surprised.

“This is serendipitous,” he said, smiling, but his gaze, for whatever reason, felt a bit odd. I wasn’t stupid and the way he looked me up and down was more than friendly. And though normally I had no problem with a gorgeous man checking me out, the fact that he was married was a nonstarter.