by Tara Sivec
“He’s still on the phone with them?” Jen asks distractedly as she clicks away at the keys on the computer. “He was arguing with someone about parts when he left the cabin this morning.”
Wait. I thought he left the cabin, because he couldn’t get a signal for work. I was the work?
“Well, isn’t that just sweet of him?” Millie gushes, elbowing me in the ribs.
I elbow her right back.
Yes, it’s sweet. No, it doesn’t matter.
I keep telling myself that… until a few seconds later, when the man in question walks around the corner of the hallway next to the counter, staring down at his phone distractedly. I forgot how cute he is, and my stomach does a little flip-flop when he looks up from his phone as he stops right next to the counter. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, since the cabin was so dimly lit last night, and now I see—of course—they’re blue. I’m a sucker for a guy with blue eyes. Short, dirty-blond hair, navy blue sweater, jeans that hug him in all the right places, and brown, scuffed work boots.
God, he looks good. What was I saying again about not dating?
“Did you get everything sorted with Allie’s car?” Joy asks Jason.
“Yeah, just now. Jared’s gonna drive the tractor over later today and pull it up into my garage to work on it,” Jared tells her.
“You didn’t have to go through all this trouble for—”
“It’s fine. It’s not a big deal and wasn’t any trouble at all,” he quickly replies, cutting me off. “Jared is my neighbor and owns a body shop. Plus, he owes me one.”
Okay, so maybe I really wasn’t the work he was doing this morning.
“You also called fifteen different people to see if they could plow around her car so Jared could get to it, and called every mechanic in a fifty-mile radius to order the parts he already told you he’ll need,” Joy reminds him, giving me a conspiratorial wink that makes my stomach do another somersault.
I glance over at Jason and watch him nervously run one of his hands through the short hair on top of his head, making it adorably messier.
“I had other phone calls to make for work,” he mutters. “I just did them in between. No big deal.”
It is a big deal, but he clearly doesn’t want to make a thing out of it, which is fine with me. I really don’t want to dwell on how much time he wasted doing something nice and thoughtful for me either.
“I just love what you’ve done with the place, Joy,” Millie says, breaking the uncomfortable silence in the room, her voice making me realize I’m still standing here blatantly ogling Jason, and I quickly blink and look away. “Very discount department store chic.”
“We start decorating here at the bed-and-breakfast the day after Thanksgiving,” Joy explains, turning around and grabbing two keys off metal hooks hanging on a large board on the wall behind her, each key attached to a different Christmas ornament. “Then, every week after, we go to each other’s houses for dinner and help them decorate their homes. Mine and my husband’s home is first, Jen and Brian’s second, and Jason always brings up the rear, because the holidays make him ornery.”
Joy smiles over at Jason and he rolls his eyes at her.
“Not ornery,” he argues. “Just busier than normal.”
“Ornery,” Jen agrees with a nod. “He’s got a stick up his ass.”
“So far up his ass,” Joy agrees seriously.
“I’m standing right here,” Jason grumbles as Jen laughs, coming around the counter and grabbing both of Millie’s Louis Vuitton duffle bags from the floor.
“Millie, if you want to follow me, I’ll show you to your room,” she says, heading toward the sitting room. “The staircase to all the rooms is right through here.”
“Perfect! I am in bad need of a shower and I should really get in touch with my life coach. She is not going to believe the sacrifices I’m making for the greater good,” Millie says, leaning in to give me air kisses before turning and disappearing into the sitting room behind Jen, her voice fading as she goes. “Are those board games? I didn’t even know they made those anymore! It’s so simple here. Like the Amish.”
“Allie, if you can just give me a few minutes to grab my pumpkin pies out of the oven, I’ll show you to your room,” Joy states, glancing at the slim gold watch on her wrist.
Jason quickly reaches over the counter and grabs the key out of Joy’s hand.
“It’s fine. I can show her,” he says.
“I thought you were busier than normal?” she asks him with a raise of one eyebrow.
“I am. But I’m helping out. Aren’t you always asking me to help out around here?”
“And you just happen to choose right now to stop being a pain in my ass?” Joy questions, and I’m unable to stop myself from laughing when she looks over at me pointedly. “A pretty girl walks into the bed-and-breakfast, and suddenly he’s Mr. Helpful.”
“All right, that’s enough,” Jason mutters, an adorable blush coloring his cheeks as he quickly glances away from me to snatch a red gift bag out of Joy’s hand that she grabbed from under the counter and held out toward him. “Don’t you have pies burning in the oven?”
Joy gasps, racing around the counter but stopping long enough to give me another big hug that makes my insides all melty. She tells me to come find her if I need anything at all and then disappears down the hallway after giving Jason a smack on the arm as she goes for good measure.
When we’re alone, Jason clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair again before holding his arm out toward the sitting room, indicating I should go first. Moving in front of him, I try to quickly come up with some kind of small talk that doesn’t make me sound like a complete idiot.
“Seen any good football games lately?”
“Boy, snow sure is cold.”
“I haven’t kissed a man in 978 days and you smell like sunshine.”
Since none of those options are viable, I go with the next best thing. Screaming at the top of my lungs as soon as I walk around the corner in the sitting room.
“Holy shit, you gotta warn a girl about something like this!” I complain through my panting when I finish shrieking, holding my hand over my heart.
Jason chuckles, and for a minute, the beautiful sound of it makes me forget I just made a fool of myself. Again.
“Okay, that’s twice now you’ve screamed over a nutcracker,” he says, still laughing. “What is your deal with these things?”
“First of all, this isn’t just a nutcracker. This is a seven-foot-tall wooden nightmare. Why does this thing even exist? Second, you had an entire coffee table full of this thing’s satanic offspring at your house. You’re the one with the issue, man. And my mom took me to see The Nutcracker ballet in New York when I was little. The nutcrackers scared the shit out of me, and I didn’t sleep for a week after we got home.”
Making a wide birth around this thing as he stands sentry in the corner with his big teeth and lifeless eyes, I jog a little to get past him, moving quickly through the room and hearing Jason’s boots thump against the hardwood floor as he follows me past the crackling fire with a mantle cluttered with Christmas knickknacks.
“I made the mistake of telling my mom when I was little that I loved nutcrackers,” Jason explains as I get to the main staircase, having to walk carefully to avoid knocking over all the red poinsettias that line either side of the wooden steps going up. “She took that to mean I’m obsessed with them and buys a few new ones for me every year. That thing back in the sitting room was a hard limit for me when I got it for my birthday two years ago. I convinced her she needed to keep it here at The Redinger House so the guests could enjoy it.”
“Good call.” I nod when I get to the top of the stairs, never more aware of my ass and what it looks like than having Jason behind me as I took the stairs. “Personally, I would have doused it in gasoline and listened to its screams as it burned, but you do you.”
When I glance back over my shoulder at him to see whi
ch door I’m going to, I watch Jason’s eyes quickly snap up to my face.
Oh, God, he was totally looking at my ass! Why can’t I have a sexy walk like Millie? Instead, I was stomping up the stairs in a nutcracker rage.
“My mom means well,” Jason says, neither one of us acknowledging that I just caught him looking at my butt as he points to a door at the very end of the hallway and I continue walking. “As you can see, my family is really into the holidays.”
Stopping next to the room Jason pointed to, he comes up next to me and unlocks the door, pushing it open wide.
“And you’re not really into the holidays,” I add, stepping into the doorway and turning to face him as he hands me the room key, not even a little bit surprised to see my room is just as festive as the spare bedroom I woke up in at Jason’s this morning.
“I am; it’s just… my family has a lot of traditions. It gets to be a little much, especially this year. I just have a lot going on with work,” he tells me with a shrug, making me think about all the old traditions we used to have when my dad was alive.
Things I haven’t thought about in years. Things I don’t want to think about.
“Well, you’ve seen how my family does Christmas,” I tell him, referring to the stupid Christmas Eve party television special. “I’m not really in much of a Christmas mood this year either,” I admit.
“I guess this isn’t exactly how you’re used to celebrating. Sorry we don’t have any of the fancy decorations, or swanky parties, or famous people whose asses you can kiss.”
He doesn’t sound sorry at all, and my hackles go up. This is why I don’t date. People meet me and think they know me. They see my sisters’ stupid reality show and they naturally assume I’m exactly like them.
“That has nothing to do with it.” I shake my head at him, annoyed I wasted so much time thinking he was cute, and sweet, and wondering if I really could have a fling while I’m here. “God, you’re just like everyone else.”
Grabbing the door, I start to close it, but Jason quickly reaches out with his hand, pressing his palm against the door to stop me.
“I’m sorry,” he quickly says in a low voice. “That was a dick thing to say. I’m just having a stressful morning. And no, not because of your car issues. That really was no big deal,” he tells me, when I open my mouth to apologize for the inconvenience, even though I’m annoyed right now. “Can we just forget I was a dick and go back to that time I carried you up a hill, in a blizzard for six miles, without any shoes?”
The corner of my mouth twitches with the need to smile. “That’s a bit of a stretch.”
“Is it though?” he muses. “I believe you were unconscious and trying to pet my face.”
My face heats in mortification and I shake my head at him.
Holding his arm out to me, he hands me the red gift bag I forgot he brought up here with him.
“On behalf of the Redinger family, I would like to cordially welcome you to The Redinger House, and we hope you have a pleasant stay with us,” Jason says in a formal voice as I look into the bag filled with an assortment of wrapped Christmas candy, a bottle of water, a pair of fuzzy Christmas socks, and a Christmas stocking.
Pulling the stocking out of the bag, I hold it up and notice my name has been added to the top of it with silver glitter.
“Yeah, welcome to your first of many Redinger traditions.” Jason laughs. “Guests are asked to hang their stockings on their door handles, because Santa regularly stops by and fills them while you’re sleeping.”
Okay, now that’s kind of cute, I have to admit.
Jason is still smiling at me, and I notice a dimple indenting his cheek, my skin getting all tingly, because that’s really cute. Our eyes meet, and I’m still holding the stocking up between us, wondering why in the hell I can’t look away from him, and also wondering why it seems like we’re standing a lot closer to each other than we were a minute ago.
Did he lean in? Did I lean in? Is this going to put me on the naughty list and I won’t get any treats in my stocking while I sleep? And why do I even give a shit about that? Christmas—bad. Sleeping until December 26th—goood.
“Jason!” Joy shouts up from the bottom of the stairs, making the two of us jerk apart. “Stop flirting with our new guest and get down here and help your dad fix the broken light in Santa’s ass!”
Jason groans, and I laugh softly.
“She means the huge, plastic, light-up Santa on the side of the house outside,” he explains, backing away from me down the hall.
“I figured. Otherwise, that would be super awkward. Nothing says Merry Christmas like sticking your hand up Santa’s ass,” I inform him as he continues walking backward, chuckling as he goes.
“Don’t forget to hang the stocking on your door,” he reminds me, turning when he gets to the stairs.
“Not in the Christmas mood this year, remember?” I shout after him, his laughter floating with him down the stairs.
“Yeah, good luck with that!”
“You’re petting him again, and this time, you can’t blame it on drugs.”
When my eyes slowly open, I’m not the least bit surprised to see an explosion of Christmas decorations all around me, having grown used to them at this point. A pang of nostalgia rushes through me as I lay on my side with my hands between my cheek and my pillow, the glow of multicolored lights on the Christmas tree in the corner of my room bringing tears to my eyes.
Another lifetime ago, Granny would put a Christmas tree in every single bedroom in her house, and one of my favorite things to do was lie there in my sleeping bag on the floor after everyone else was asleep and just stare at the pretty tree in the darkness, anxious and excited for Christmas and all the fun things our family would do together in those coming weeks.
Hearing the slam of a few bedroom doors out in the hallway pulls me out of my trip down memory lane, and I roll onto my back, rubbing the sleep and the memories out of my eyes before sitting up in bed.
Unlike Jason’s spare bedroom that was just a mish-mash of different decorations, my bedroom has a theme, just like every bedroom at The Redinger House. There’s a snowman room, an elf room, a Santa room, a Rudolph room, a gingerbread room, and a handful of others I didn’t get to see, because the occupants weren’t there for the doors to be opened. Like some sort of cosmic joke, I was put into the Grinch-themed room.
There’s a Grinch wreath hanging on the back of my bedroom door. The Christmas tree is decorated in nothing but Grinch ornaments, including a huge, stuffed Grinch head as the tree topper. The bulbs in the lamps on either side of the bed have been replaced with green bulbs. There are several Grinch paintings hanging on the walls, a Grinch comforter with matching pillowcases and sheets adorning the bed, and there’s a three-foot-tall lighted and animated Grinch doll standing on a small table right next to the tree.
All I can do is laugh as I get out of bed, grabbing the soft, folded Grinch blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapping it around me as I head to the door. After I took the longest, hottest shower of my life and finally put on some clean clothes thanks to Jen, she took me on a tour, let me help myself to whatever I wanted in the kitchen for lunch, and then left me to do exactly what I’ve been wanting to do since I left L.A.—relax. I grabbed a psychological thriller from the bookshelf in the sitting room, curled up in bed next to the giant Grinch body pillow, and read for a while as I listened to the muffled noises around the house. I don’t even remember falling asleep. And I definitely don’t remember the last time I was ever able to take a nap. My brain feels fuzzy and still half asleep, and even though I’ve gotten more rest in the last twenty-four hours than I have in the last twelve years, I still feel like I could sleep for another week.
Since it’s dark outside, and with the way my stomach growls as I open my bedroom door, I realize I must have slept right through dinner. It’s weird not having my phone glued to my hand and not knowing exactly what time it is down to the second. I don’t even know where my pho
ne is right now, and as I pause outside in the hallway, I push the guilt away, thinking about how many messages and voicemails must be waiting for me.
Tugging the blanket tighter around my shoulders in the drafty hallway, I see that every single door has a Christmas stocking hanging from the doorknob, except mine. It’s still in the red gift bag, sitting on top of the dresser where I left it after Jason gave it to me. Stepping closer to Millie’s door right across the hallway from mine, I laugh out loud when I see what she’s done while I napped. Not only has she gotten right into the spirit of things and hung her Christmas stocking on her door handle, she’s also thoughtfully included a note that she’s taped to her door, listing her clothing sizes, shoe size, and jewelry preferences, along with the name and phone number of her personal stylist “so Santa doesn’t put anything in my sock that is from last year’s collection.” At the bottom of the note is an arrow, pointing down to the floor right next to Millie’s room, where she’s conveniently left a giant, wicker laundry basket “For any oversized items that do not fit inside the sock. Honestly, who came up with this idea? I couldn’t even get ONE Manolo in there. Happy shopping! Oh, and my favorite color is Givenchy.”
With a shake of my head and a smile on my face, I head down the dark hallway, the garland hanging from the chair rail now lit up with white lights and helping me see.
The house is empty and quiet as I walk down the stairs and through the sitting room, a small fire still crackling in the fireplace. I make a wide-berth around that stupid, giant nutcracker in the corner, but at least I don’t scream this time. Christmas music still softly plays from the computer on the desk in the front entry, and I stop to glance out the windows of the front door, seeing the snow continuing to fall like crazy. Hearing some noise coming from the kitchen, I head down the hallway next to the front desk, stopping short when I get to the kitchen doorway.