by Melody Grace
“You don’t need to convince me,” Mackenzie said, pausing to flex her hand. It had cramped from taking so many notes for her to-do list. “I get half my business during the holidays.”
“And it’s that kind of creative, entrepreneurial spirit I know will make this year’s festival a huge success!” Albert stood, and Mackenzie took that as her cue, too. “If you need anything, let me know. Now, what do I have next?”
“Chamber of commerce,” his secretary Franny said, appearing briskly in the doorway. “Over in Provincetown.”
“Ah, that’s it! What would I do without you?”
Not much, Mac was sure. Franny was the secret power behind Town Hall, and had outlasted every mayor since before Mac could remember, quietly ruling from behind her non-descript secretary’s desk. Once, a newly-elected mayor had decided to try and shake things up and brought in some highly-trained administrative assistant for the job. She’d lasted three months before losing her position in a surprise recall vote—that was a surprise to nobody.
Now, Mackenzie knew, if there was a secret to successfully pulling off this gig, Franny had it.
“Is that a new scarf?” she asked, following Franny back to her desk. “I love the color.”
“They’re in the basement.”
“Excuse me?” Mackenzie blinked.
“Supplies from last year,” Franny said, giving her a knowing smile. “That’s what you’re after, isn’t it? Not sure what state they’ll be in, but you’re welcome to go down there and figure it out.”
“Thank you,” Mackenzie breathed. She’d caught a glimpse of the budget line, and wasn’t sure how she was supposed to equip the whole town with festive cheer for such a small amount. “I figured all that fake snow had to go somewhere.”
That somewhere was the second-level basement, deep below the town hall. Mackenzie ventured down the staircase, her enthusiasm dimming as she made her way past clean, bright storerooms, down into the dusty, dark depths of the basement. A dim gloom greeted her, and she fumbled around until she found a light switch. The bulb flickered ominously overhead.
“I’ve seen this movie,” she said to herself, shivering. “It does not end well.”
But she was a grown woman. She wasn’t afraid of the dark. She squared her shoulders and set about hauling down boxes marked with Debra’s familiar scrawl. “Tree decorations,” she read aloud, coughing as a cloud of dust billowed up from the box. “Menorahs. Sex toys.”
Wait, what?
Mackenzie gingerly peeled open the tape on that one, not sure what she would find. To her relief, it was a collection of holiday ornaments, complete with battery packs. Clearly, Debra had decided to have some fun with her packing—and, most likely, some of that prize-winning eggnog.
“No thank you,” Mackenzie said aloud, eyeing the spikes on the two-foot light-up holiday tree. “Ouch.”
A noise came from somewhere behind her. Her heart leapt, and she spun around. “Hello?” she called, brandishing the ornament in front of her. She peered into the shadows. “Is anyone there?”
Another noise came, louder this time.
“I’m warning you!” Mackenzie yelled. “I’m armed!”
“Whoa!” A reply came, and then Jake was stepping out from behind a teetering shelf of boxes. He took in the sight of her, and then laughed. “What were you going to do, brain me with Santa?”
“Jake!” Mackenzie exhaled in relief, her heart pounding. “What are you doing here? Trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Sorry.” He looked around at the dim, cluttered basement. “Wow, this place is a death trap.” His gaze stopped on the box she’d just opened. “Sex toys?” he said, eyes widening.
“Just Debra and her unique sense of humor.”
“Shame.” Jake flashed her a grin, and Mackenzie’s heart kept on racing. Even in the shadows, she could see the stubble on his jaw, and the way he filled out that navy cashmere sweater. She still couldn’t get over how his body had changed, or how his blue eyes crinkled at the edges now: a man’s smile, not a boy’s.
Her stomach turned a slow pirouette.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said, trying not to be flustered. “What are you doing down here?”
“Helping you.” Jake casually reached for the nearest box like it was no big deal. “Now, who wants to untangle half a mile of Christmas lights?”
Mackenzie didn’t move. She fixed him with a look, and he finally explained. “Debra roped me into it. She said you were drowning, and in desperate need of a strong man to do some heavy lifting. So here I am.” He reached up, and hauled another box down, and Mackenzie was momentarily distracted by the way his sweater rode up, revealing a strip of tanned, taut stomach.
And as for those arms . . .
She flushed. “You don’t have to,” she said quickly. “I can handle it.”
Jake raised an eyebrow, and looked around at the basement—boxes strewn all over the floor.
“It’s OK,” he said, giving an easy shrug. “I have plenty of time on my hands. And besides, it could be fun.”
Fun? Working in a dim basement in close proximity to all those muscles . . . Mackenzie gulped. That was one word for it.
Tempting was another.
“Sure. Great,” she said brightly. “You can take that row on the left. Anything in good condition, we’ll be hauling upstairs. Franny says we can use the storage buildings out back until everything’s ready to install.”
She turned away, and started blindly going through the nearest carton, praying he wouldn’t say anything about the kiss—or his voicemail, that still sat, unanswered on her cellphone. She must have played it a dozen times over, but she hadn’t called him back. She didn’t know what to say.
Well, that wasn’t true. She just didn’t know what to say aside from, Kiss me again. Now.
“Look, Mac . . .”
Mackenzie glanced up, and found him looking at her with an awkward expression on his face. It was so familiar, it took her breath away, like he was seventeen all over again, reluctantly explaining to Chrissy Jenkins that he’d already agreed to take Mac to senior prom—just as friends.
It had cut her then, and it still did now. In an instant, Mackenzie realized what was coming: that same sincere rejection she’d watched him dish out to a dozen unlucky girls.
She couldn’t be one of them. She couldn’t bear him thinking she was another adoring fan-girl, eager for a moment of his time.
“Look, about what happened on Halloween,” she said suddenly, before she could lose her nerve. “I know I should have said something, but I was tipsy from Bert’s punch, and the costume, and the wig . . . Well, you know I can’t hold my liquor.” Mackenzie flashed a smile, hoping she was a good enough actress to pull it off.
“That’s the truth,” Jake answered slowly, his expression unreadable. “But, about that night. Maybe we should talk about it?”
“What’s there to talk about?” she asked brightly. “I could tell you didn’t recognize me. I was just planning on teasing you a little, but, well, one thing led to another. It happens,” she said, breezy. “No hard feelings, I hope?”
“Not from me.” Jake still looked unsure, so Mackenzie dialed up the “casual detachment.”
“Good! So, we can just pretend like it never happened then. And you can tell me how you wound up on the cover of Men’s Health wearing nothing but a speedo,” she added, with a teasing grin.
Jake groaned. “You saw that?”
“Oh boy, did I see it.” Mackenzie grinned, a sincere smile this time. “Someone pinned a copy to the town noticeboard. Your mom must be so proud!”
Jake laughed, looking embarrassed. “My agent made me do it. It was all staged, I swear.”
“Oh, so you don’t hang out in the gym in your underwear, surrounded by bulldogs?” she asked. “There goes my vision of your glamorous life.”
Jake snorted. “Yeah, think five a.m. workouts and running drills all day.”
“Poor bab
y,” Mackenzie teased. “It’s so hard living the dream.”
Jake smiled at her, a real smile that warmed her heart and made her feel like no time had passed between them at all.
“I missed this,” he said, like he was reading her mind. “Us. You.”
“Me too,” Mackenzie said quietly.
He exhaled. “It’s been . . . a tough year. I haven’t laughed like this in, well, a long time.”
The accident. She had almost forgotten the reason he was back in Sweetbriar at all. Mackenzie felt the strongest urge to go wrap her arms around him, hold him tightly, and kiss away the pain in his eyes.
But she could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, so she gripped an ornament instead, and gave him another bright smile. “I’m here to help. And so are you, so best get lifting. Chop chop.” She grinned. “What’s the use in being my errand boy if you’re not going to earn your keep?”
* * *
Mackenzie kept her head down and tried to focus on the task at hand—and not the gorgeous man just a few feet away, close enough to touch in the cluttered, dusty basement. But the universe seemed determined to taunt her, flooding her mind with flashbacks to their kiss, and making her wonder why she couldn’t just tug him closer and do it all over again.
Because that had been a moment of madness, she told herself sternly, putting three life-size plastic reindeer between them. And besides, that wasn’t her. That was the woman in the wig. She’d just managed to laugh the whole thing off and save what was left of her pride, and a repeat play wouldn’t exactly help with the whole nonchalant story she was spinning now.
The only thing worse than not kissing him again would be his inevitable rejection when she did.
“I can’t believe this stuff,” Jake said, sorting through a stack of old papers. “I mean, who thought this would make you want to celebrate the holidays?” He held up a poster showing a terrifyingly blonde child gripping a candy cane. “He looks like he’s about to curse you, not bring on good cheer.”
Mackenzie stifled a sigh. Sure, there she was trying her hardest not to fall at his feet, crying, Take me now!, and he was musing about the historical significance of candy canes. “I think we can leave all that stuff down here,” she said instead. “It’s just the decorations we want.”
Jake paused and looked around at the many, many boxes they’d already stacked by the stairs. “Just how many snowman ornaments do we actually need?”
“Well, every store is supposed to put up a display,” Mackenzie started. “Then there’s the town square, the park, all the public buildings . . . And I only made it halfway through Debra’s instructions.”
“In other words, the North Pole will move a little south this year.” Jake shook his head. “You know, I don’t remember it being this crazy when we were growing up. We had the tree-lighting and carols, but that was about it.”
“That’s because we were too cool to go in for all this tourist stuff,” Mackenzie teased, with a nostalgic smile. “We would fill up on cookies and hot apple cider, and then go to the movies instead.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jake said, grinning back at her. “You in?”
Mackenzie laughed. “I think a hundred thousand hopeful tourists would have something to say about that.”
She put her hands on her hips and looked around, doing a mental inventory. “We’ve found everything except the snowflakes. Can you see any more boxes anywhere?”
Jake checked the shelves. “No, we’ve got everything, I think.”
Mackenzie shook her head. “They have to be here somewhere. They’re my favorite, they go up on the gazebo every year. The light catches them just right,” she said, remembering. “like you’re in some winter ice palace, surrounded by snow. It’s actually how I first started working with clay—I wanted to make them myself, for a project in art school,” she confided. “I tried paints and different types of glass, but nothing worked until I started firing the glazes; it was the only way to get that glistening effect.”
She stopped, feeling self-conscious. What was she doing, rambling on about snowflake ornaments when Jake clearly couldn’t wait to get out of there?
She was just turning back, when she spied another box lurking in back on top of a cabinet. The snowflakes? She reached up on her tiptoes.
“I can get that,” Jake said, moving closer.
“No, it’s fine.” Mackenzie stretched, grasping to get it. It was lodged behind something, and she had to tug to get it free.
“I’m the errand boy, remember?” Jake tried to move her aside and grab it, but Mackenzie stubbornly kept pulling. She’d been doing just fine before Jake Sullivan came back to town. She was independent and capable, and she could reach a damn box without needing a man to get it, and push her up against the wall, and make her moan—
Wait, that wasn’t the point here.
Mackenzie blushed, and finally stepped aside to watch Jake reach up with all six-foot-two of taut, lean muscle and effortlessly pluck the carton down. He opened the lid. “No luck,” he said. “Unless you want to decorate the gazebo with reels of old microfiche.”
“Never mind,” Mackenzie said quickly, still feeling flustered. “I’m sure they’ll turn up. Like you said, we have more than enough.”
She turned away from his broad shoulders before she did something really stupid.
Like kissing him again.
6
Jake spent the afternoon in the basement with Mackenzie, helping her haul boxes up to the ground floor and check everything was in working condition. By the end of the day, he was sweaty, covered in dust, and ready to smash the next holiday ornament to cross his path.
He hadn’t had so much fun all year.
“That’s the last of it!” Mackenzie cheered, appearing in the main hallway with a final carton of tangled twinkly lights. She set it down and wiped her forehead, pushing sweaty red curls out of her face. Somehow, she looked more beautiful than ever.
“Remind me again why I volunteered for this?” she asked, sounding rueful.
“Because you’re a good person,” Jake replied. “And Debra is the queen of emotional blackmail.”
“She’s not so bad,” Mackenzie defended, loyal as ever. “It’s not her fault she got injured.”
“Did anyone even see her fall?” Jake countered, teasing. “For all we know, she takes the cast off and dances around the living room the minute we’re gone.”
Mackenzie laughed.
“God, I need a shower,” she said, tugging at her tank top. Jake’s mind went blank for a moment and he fought the vivid mental images fighting their way through. Mackenzie . . . naked . . . soaped up . . .
“And food. And a cold beer,” she continued, bringing him back to earth. Mackenzie looked torn for a moment, then shrugged. “The pub it is.”
“You always did have your priorities straight,” Jake said, trying to keep it together. He wasn’t some asshole, drooling over every girl in sight, and Mackenzie deserved a hell of a lot more respect than this. He hoisted the cartons and took them out to the storage locker, hoping the shock of cold air would get his hot blood under control.
It hadn’t been easy, working all those hours down in the basement with her. Every time she brushed against him, reaching for another box, he had to fight the urge to kiss her again.
Kiss her, and more . . .
But Mackenzie had made it clear she wasn’t giving Halloween a second thought. It happens, she’d said, like it was no big deal, and maybe to her it wasn’t.
Jake’s pride burned at that. The most epic kiss of his life, and the woman in question just laughed it off?
Clearly, his technique needed some work.
Not that he’d get a chance to hone it with Mackenzie, he reminded himself sternly, shoving the last few boxes into place. She was off limits, and damn, it was already driving him crazy.
“Thank you,” Mackenzie said when everything was locked up. “Really. It would have taken me all week to do this on my own. And I’d
probably have given myself a hernia, too.”
Jake smiled. “No problem. What’s next on the schedule, anyway?”
Mackenzie looked surprised. “You still want to help?”
“If you still want an errand boy.”
She seemed flustered, checking the massive binder she’d been toting around all day. “I . . . um, well, I guess we should go through the list of local businesses and distribute the decorations and schedule. We build with different events all through December,” she explained, “and then the Festival itself kicks off on the twentieth with the tree-lighting ceremony and runs until Christmas Eve. But all that can wait until tomorrow,” she added. “I’m beat, and you probably have better things to be doing.”
He didn’t. Jake’s evening held nothing but another take-out meal, and that empty house, and a phone that didn’t ring anymore. Nothing like a career-ending injury to show you who your friends really were. It was shocking, how quickly his buzzing social circle had melted quietly away, sending flowers and “get well soon” texts, and then nothing much more.
Jake lingered by the door. It wasn’t just that a night alone held no appeal; he wanted to make the laughter last a little longer. “Well, how about I buy you those fries I owe you?” he suggested. “Before you get so hangry you sit on the ground in the middle of the square and refuse to get up until I bring you a bag of chips.”
Mackenzie laughed at the reminder. “That was one time!” she protested. “And you’re not much better. Didn’t you make me drive to Boston just for a hot dog?”
“The Mighty Monster,” Jake corrected her, smiling at the memory. “Two-foot chili-cheese dogs with extra cheese. And they were worth every mile.”
Mackenzie giggled and fell into step beside him as they headed across the square towards the pub. “Mitch still keeping this place running?” he asked, looking at the new lights out front, and a chalkboard promising the best fish and chips on the cape.