Zoe reappeared, her gaze flickering between her two friends.
“Guess that’s my cue,” Liam said. “Gotta get back to the store and serve people their Christmas presents. ’Tis the season and all. Five dollars cover the chocolate?” He didn’t wait, placing the five-dollar bill on the counter. “See you later,” he said, turning and waving on his way out.
Cassidy quickly stepped behind the counter, ignoring the cash. Her eyes were too busy following Liam across the street.
Zoe didn’t say anything for a beat. She just sipped her cocoa and smiled.
“What?” Cassidy said, trying to sound nonchalant.
Zoe leaned on the counter and whispered conspiratorially, “If you stare any harder, you’re going to fog up the glass.”
Cassidy shook her head and pocketed the five. “I wasn’t staring. I was glaring.”
“Staring, glaring, what’s the difference?” Zoe laughed. “Both require passion, don’t they?”
“Passion, ha! I’ll show him passion, Mr. I-Don’t-Have-a-Christmas-Movie-Checklist.” Cassidy grabbed a cloth and started wiping down the already spotless counter.
“You realize that’s not really a thing, right? And here I thought you said you were off men for the year?”
“I am,” Cassidy said firmly. “Anyway, Liam is definitely not my type. And he’s clearly not into me.”
“Ha, whatever you say,Sugarplum.”
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Iamoff men.”
She’d thrown everything away, including her identity, on a man before. She couldn’t afford to lose focus now. That’s what her year of abstinence was all about. “No men. No distractions. No charming, rugged, stupidly good-looking farm boys who show up when you’re barefoot and brain-dead.”
“Don’t forget that tousled hair and those long, long lashes.”
Cassidy peeked toward the window again, even though Liam was long gone. “I promise you I amnotgetting involved with that grumpy grinch of a man.”
Zoe patted her hand. “Famous last words, honey.”
FOUR
LIAM
Monday, December 1st
Liam’s hamstring was killing him. And it wasn’t the only part of his body that was throbbing. Ever since he’d left Cassidy’s shop two hours ago, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head. She’d been angry—no, furious—when he’d dismissed her chocolate. If only she knew the truth…
Outside, snowflakes brushed softly against the wide front windows of theHot Honey Farm Shop. The scent of pine from the crates of fresh wreaths near the door mixed with the faint sweetness of apples and cinnamon courtesy of the wax melter his mother had plugged in as a new business gift.
“You want the shop to smell comforting, like home,” she’d said, dropping off the wax melts and the porcelain heater.
Liam knew she was right. If there was anything Beth Hawthorne knew, it was how to make a place feel like home with her weekly family meals, the way she slipped fresh flowers into Mason jars for the table, or how she could turn a plain room into something warm just by being there.
Liam leaned on the counter, shifting his weight off his bad leg, the reclaimed wood cool and solid beneath his palms.He scrolled through Christmas display ideas on his laptop, a well-worn sketch pad open beside it, filled with scribbled measurements and rough pencil drawings of window displays and light arrangements he wasn’t sure he’d actually build.
Three weeks. That was all he had until it was his light-up night. Three weeks of pretending his new farm shop was the holly-jolliest place this side of the North Pole.
Three weeks of faking the Christmas spirit he couldn’t quite bring himself to feel anymore.
Some people have way too much time on their hands, he thought, grumbling over every over-the-top Pinterest suggestion. There were houses with displays set to music, thousands of lights timed to flashing snowflake beats, all color-coordinated to perfection.
Some even went full monochrome. All white.
Sterile, Liam thought,like a hospital.Cassidy would never go for anything so plain. No, he had a feeling she loved color bursts of red and gold lights, and loads of greenery. And there’d be glitter, no doubt about it.
