The Mistletoe Kisser: Blue Moon #8

by Score, Lucy

  “Honey, where have you been? We’ve been having dinner for years.”

  Years?

  “I guess I just didn’t realize how much things had changed.” In Ryan’s reality, when he’d gone off to college, his parents had still been arguing over visitation and holidays and sports uniforms. He had never returned home for anything other than short visits, dividing his time between his parents’ homes.

  Was it possible his perception had frozen in place while reality had actually moved on?

  “Anyway, we were talking about your sister and wondering if she and Jeff are going to move now that baby number three is on the way.”

  “Marcie’s pregnant?” He tried to remember the last time he and his oldest sister had talked. There’d been that missed call a few weeks back. But he’d been in the middle of a merger and too busy to talk. Hang on. The merger had been months ago, not weeks. But he’d never returned her call.

  His mom laughed like he’d told a joke. “Of course she’s pregnant. She’s due in February. It’s another girl, and they can’t decide on a name yet. You know Jeff and his terrible taste in names.”

  Did he? He wasn’t sure he could pick Jeff out of a line-up if his sister wasn’t standing next to the man.

  “Anyway, are you going to be able to make it home for Christmas since you’re still on the East Coast or have you used up all your measly vacation time on Uncle Carson?”

  He winced. Misleading his mom hadn’t exactly been intentional, but when she’d called with the emergency he didn’t feel mentally up to confessing that he’d been fired and was, for the first time in his life, adrift. “I don’t think so, Mom. I have to get back soon.”

  His mom sighed. “Well, I’m not going to pretend I’m not disappointed. But I understand. I suppose Marsha wants to spend Christmas with you. How is she doing? You haven’t mentioned her in quite a while. Where does her family live?”

  Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Marsha and I broke up.” Last year.

  “Oh no! I’m so sorry. Did you tell me? Your dad and I were just saying you hadn’t brought her up in a while. We both just assumed you’d been busy.”

  He had been. But too busy to mention that he’d broken up with the woman a year ago? Too busy to know his oldest sister was expecting another baby? Too busy to know that his parents had become friends?

  “I rode a horse yesterday.” He blurted the words out.

  “On purpose?”

  It seemed he and his mother had managed to shock the hell out of each other in the span of one phone call.

  “It wasn’t my idea. But yes. On purpose.”

  “I’m impressed. Who convinced you to overcome your Napoleon thing?”

  “I accidentally spent yesterday with a veterinarian. She took me to a dairy farm, I got kicked by a llama, and then we rounded out the day on horseback after looking at a horse’s uterus.”

  It was eerily silent on his mother’s end of the call for thirty seconds, and then she started laughing. “I haven’t heard a more un-Ryan-like sentence come out of your mouth in years. It sounds like your vacation is turning out to be pretty memorable.”

  He winced then opened his mouth to tell her. To say the words. But they got stuck somewhere in the throat region. “Yeah,” he said weakly.

  “Anyway, I need to go. Let me know if you need me to rally the troops for Carson, my good, low-maintenance son. I owe you for taking time away from work to handle this. I know how busy you are.”

  “It’s, uh, not a problem,” he said lamely. “I’ll talk to you on Tuesday.”

  He stared at the phone for a long beat after disconnecting. Then looked at the remaining shoeboxes.

  At home, when he’d needed to puzzle over something, he’d walk a few blocks. Perhaps a stroll around the farm would help him clear his head.

  He dressed in as many layers as he could without immobilizing his limbs and headed outside.

  He wandered down the lane to the road where he spent a few long minutes admiring the expansive sky. Infinite blue today with a few thready clouds.

  There was something about the paperwork niggling at the back of his mind. He paced down the lane, avoiding puddles from the melting snow.

  “Baaaa!”

  “Mother of God!” he yelped.

  Stan the sheep was waiting expectantly at the pasture gate, his white wool camouflaging him against the backdrop of snow.

  “I already fed you breakfast,” Ryan told the sheep.

  Stan stared at him mournfully.

  “What? I don’t speak sheep.”

  “Baaaa!” Stan jogged toward the gate, then back again to Ryan.

  “Do you want out?” he asked.

  The sheep trotted back to the gate.

  “I don’t know, man. What if you run away? It’s fucking cold, and I don’t feel like chasing your ass around again.”

  “Baaaa!”

  Stan sounded sad and desperate. Lonely even. Ryan could empathize. “Fine. But if you run away, it’s on you. Got it?” Stan’s tail wagged. Knowing he was probably making a big, rookie farmer mistake, Ryan unlatched the gate and opened it. Stan barreled through, but instead of continuing his sprint to freedom, the sheep rubbed his head on Ryan’s bruised thigh.

  “Are you wiping your nose on me or is this some kind of barnyard hug?” he asked.

  “Baaa!” Stan’s tail wiggled in delight, and he pranced toward the back door of the farmhouse.

  “Hey. Wait up,” he called.

  He didn’t know what the etiquette was for hosting farm animals inside the house. But he also didn’t feel like freezing his ass off outside anymore. Deciding that the sheep and the house were someone else’s long-term problems, Ryan opened the door.

  Stan happily wandered into the kitchen.

  Maybe the sheep just didn’t want to be alone? Ryan couldn’t blame him.

  Alone is exactly what he would be as soon as he boarded that plane for home. Back to his dove-gray condo with a few tasteful paintings, a small collection of books that he never seemed to get around to reading, and a bed that he slept in alone.

  Without a job to dedicate his life to, just what in the hell did he have?

  He couldn’t blame the partners. The only thing worse than the idea that he was complicit in the fraud was the truth: that he’d been too stupid to see it. He should have seen it. The evasiveness, the runaround. He hadn’t dug deep enough. He’d been too busy building portfolios to build relationships with clients.

  “Want some casserole?” he asked the sheep.

  “Baaaa!” The sheep nudged the empty plate on the living room floor and looked at him expectantly.

  Ryan glanced up from the binder in his lap and shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I don’t think you need to have any more vegetable korma.”

  Pouting, Stan wandered over to the blanket Ryan had put in front of the electric fireplace and flopped down.

  Ryan glanced back down at the binder. So far, the only document inside was the notice from the bank on the incense-scented letterhead. Several re-reads of the letter hadn’t produced any new information. He held it up to the light for one last scan. He studied it carefully, reading each word for the bingo. At the top, partially obscured by the bank’s peace sign logo, he spotted something interesting.

  “Aha!”

  Finally, a break. It was a barely legible loan number. This he could work with. He cracked his knuckles, prayed his access hadn’t been revoked, and logged into his firm’s network.

  Blue Moon Community Facebook Gossip Group

  Blue Moon Sheriff’s Department: Nikolai Vulkov and wife Emma caught making out behind Fitness Freak Gym by Deputy Layla Gunnarson. Their $20 fine will go into the Indecent Exposure Fund, which purchases and distributes new winter clothing for those in need.

  19

  “Hang on. He turned you down for no-strings sex because he didn’t have enough time to analyze the decision?” Layla’s eyes narrowed over her slice of spinach t
ofu pizza.

  Peace of Pizza was in its mid-lunch rush. But Sammy, Layla, and Eden had managed to snag a table near the open kitchen where Bobby, the popular dreadlocked pizza maven, was belting out Billie Holiday and expertly rotating pies in and out of the oven.

  “Basically,” Sammy answered, spearing a piece of tomato out of her salad. “And that he was concerned he had too much on his mind to perform well.”

  “No man is that practical,” Eden insisted, sawing through her stromboli with gusto.

  “You haven’t met Ryan,” Sammy countered. He was probably already on a plane, heading out of her life forever.

  Their conversation cut off abruptly as Nikolai Vulkov, tall, gorgeous, reformed ladies man stepped inside from the cold. His gray wool coat flapped behind him in the wind.

  “Ladies,” he said with a wink.

  “Hey, Niko,” Sammy said. “How was the shoot?” Niko was a fashion photographer with a glossy portfolio of luxury brand clients.

  “It went well enough that we got all the shots in one day instead of two. Which means Baxter and I get to surprise my beautiful, hormonal wife with the buffalo chicken special she’s been craving since 3 a.m.”

  Sammy glanced through the glass where Baxter the yellow lab wore a plaid Christmas sweater and chewed on his reindeer antler headband.

  “She’s a lucky woman,” Eden told him.

  “Not as lucky as I am,” he insisted.

  “Your order’s ready to go, Niko,” Bobby called from behind the counter.

  Every woman in the place watched as Niko paid, collected the dog, and left. A collective sigh of female appreciation rose up as he disappeared from sight.

  “I don’t trust this guy,” Layla announced.

  “Who? Niko?” Sammy asked.

  “No. Ryan. Anyone would be honored to be invited into your pants,” her friend insisted.

  Sammy’s gaze roamed the restaurant. Bobby had swapped out the regular orange lava lamps on the tables for the red and green ones. Sparkly cutouts of dreidels and Yule logs hung from the ceiling, drifting on alternating breezes from the pizza oven and front door.

  “I think he meant what they all mean,” she said with a sigh.

  She’d stayed up too late the night before, watching wreath-decorating videos on YouTube and massacring bows and pinecones. Then she’d spent another few sleepless hours replaying Ryan’s side-of-the-road kiss. His insightful conversation on horseback. His curt “Thanks for everything, Sparkle” when she’d dropped him off at Carson’s. Sometime around two a.m., she’d tiptoed into the gossip group on Facebook and cursed herself for looking so eager and hopeful in every one of the nine pictures her neighbors had managed to sneak of her and Ryan together.

  Please like me, her eyes seemed to say in each picture.

  “What do you think they all mean?” Eden asked.

  “That I’m good enough to drive them around, or cook them breakfast, or babysit their little sister. But not good enough to take to prom or date. Or in this case, have a steamy one-night stand.” She was feeling sorry for herself. It made her want to slap herself in the face. There was no room in her schedule for a pity party and no tolerance for being annoying.

  Eden and Layla exchanged a look.

  “What?” Sammy asked.

  “Sammy, I say this with love.” Eden patted her hand on the table. “That is the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard you say. And that’s including the time we were loaded on cheap rum, and you thought you saw Oprah in the ladies’ restroom at the skating rink.”

  Technically, it had been a poster of Oprah.

  “You’re making it sound like you get rejected all the time,” Layla said, steering them back on topic.

  “I do,” she insisted.

  “Do not,” Eden argued.

  “Men look at me, and they see a little sister or a tomboy or a woman who puts her arms up cow asses. I wouldn’t expect you two to get it.”

  “Us two?” Layla’s eyebrows raised as she took a bite of cheesy pizza.

  “They look at you two and see beautiful, interesting sex goddesses. Men trip over their pants to have sex with you.”

  “Technically that was only because Davis had a concussion and his balance was off,” Eden pointed out.

  “And I haven’t gotten laid in—” The door of the restaurant opened and Huckleberry Cullen, the blond, built high school guidance counselor stepped inside. “A while,” Layla finished, seemingly very interested in her plate.

  Eden dropped her utensils. “Permission to enact my Voice of Reason rights.”

  “Permission granted,” Layla said, pretending not to notice Huckleberry’s head nod in her direction. Sammy’s curiosity would have piqued but she was too busy feeling like crap.

  Eden interlaced her fingers on the table. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself and looking for stories that reinforce the ‘men aren’t tripping over their pants to bang me’ narrative. But in reality, we all know what’s going on.”

  “Oh, really? All of us?” Sammy scoffed. “Please, enlighten me.”

  “She’s going to make me say it,” Eden complained to Layla.

  “She needs to hear it,” the blonde said, crossing her arms over her ample chest.

  This sounded like a conversation the two of them had been having for a long time. An inside joke that Sammy was left out of… or worse, was the punchline of.

  “Dr. Samantha Ames,” Eden began, “what exactly do you think makes you less attractive?”

  “Because I smell like manure for fifty percent of my working hours and I don’t look like either of you.”

  Eden’s smile was dangerous.

  “That’s such a crock of shit,” Layla complained.

  “I don’t expect anyone who looks like you two to understand.” Sammy sniffed.

  “I unclog guest toilets for a living,” Eden said.

  Her friend managed the Lunar Inn on the outskirts of town and spent her days making guests feel pampered and appreciated. Sure there were probably a few plumbing emergencies, but there was also a glamour to hospitality. “Yeah, but you look amazing while you’re doing it.”

  “Aww, thanks.” Eden gave her short dark hair a fluff. Her earrings, sexy filigree dangles, sparkled at her ears.

  “Listen, Whiny Pants,” Layla said, pointing her pizza crust menacingly at Sammy. “Last week, remember when I had that weird rash all over my face from Rupert Shermanski’s god-awful organic moisturizer?”

  Layla’s perfect Swedish features had been covered with scaly hives. “I do recall something along those lines,” Sammy said.

  “While rashy and on the job, Colby and I went through a drive-thru for tacos. I farted twice in the car. Once so bad we had to roll the windows down, and he still asked me out.” Colby was Blue Moon’s other deputy. He was also too young to be taken seriously.

  “You’re still gorgeous when you’re rashy and gassy,” Sammy pointed out. “Plus you have great boobs.”

  “You do,” Eden agreed.

  Layla grabbed her girls and hoisted them up. “Thanks.”

  There was a commotion at the back of the restaurant, and Sammy saw Huck bending down to pick up a potato chip display he’d knocked over.

  “My point is, if you’re gorgeous, you can fart on anyone you want and they’ll still ask you out,” Sammy explained.

  “I farted near him. Not on him,” Layla clarified. “But if you don’t open your ears and do some listening, I will fart on you.”

  “You need to lay off the dairy,” Sammy warned.

  “We’re getting off track,” Eden said. “What my flatulent friend here is trying to say is that just like us, you’re beautiful, smart, sexy, funny, witty, and all of those other bangable adjectives. But…”

  The but caught Sammy’s attention.

  “But what?”

  “Your effort goes in the wrong place,” Layla said.

  “Huh?”

  “Look at Layla’s boobs,” Eden said. All three of them paused to a
dmire Layla’s rack. “Now, she’s wearing a to-die-for, high-end, sexy push-up bra under that deputy’s uniform. And why is that, Deputy? Why are you wearing an underwire for your shift?”

  Layla shrugged as if the answer were obvious. “Because when my boobs look good, I feel good.”

  “And what happens when you feel good?” Eden asked.

  “My Awesome Sexy Factor goes through the roof. When I feel sexy, I exude sexy. When I feel good, people want to be around me. And not just the ones with penises. Same goes for our on-trend, vampy friend here,” she said, pointing at Eden.

  “A good-quality mascara and leggings that make my ass look like a gift from the heavens are not required for toilet scrubbing or scone baking or vineyard walking,” Eden informed her. “But when I put a little effort into myself, when I pull on the perfect cleavage sweater or try a new eyeliner, or get eight hours of sleep, I feel like the best version of myself.”

  They both looked at her expectantly.

  “All I’m hearing is you saying if I get better bras and slap on some makeup, maybe I can find a guy,” Sammy said sullenly.

  “Honey, that is not what these beautiful young women are saying,” Bobby said, stopping next to the table, one hand on a curvy hip. “You gotta take care of you first. If you’re running all over town taking care of everybody else, who’s taking care of you?”

  “Is this a conversation the whole town has about me?” Sammy wondered.

  “Just the Dr. Sammy Roundtable,” Eden smarted off.

  “We’re up to forty-two members,” Layla said.

  “Meetings are every other Tuesday,” Bobby teased.

  “You run yourself all over town working and elbowing your way to the front of the line to volunteer for every damn thing. What’s left for you? When’s the last time you did something for you like blow-dried your hair?” Layla asked.

  “Or got a facial?” Bobby suggested.

  “Or sat in front of your fireplace with a big ol’ glass of wine and a sexy book?” Eden added.

  “Or ate an entire tray of brownies?”

  “Exhausted people aren’t sexy. They’re not the life of the party,” Liz, the town florist, chimed in from the table next to them. “They’re too tired to have fun.”