“What are you being signed up for?” Cole sat down next to Sophie. His plate held Maybelle’s pumpkin pie with a generous dollop of whipped cream and a helping of banana pudding. “Another kissing booth?”
Isabelle’s cheeks heated. “No. Gwen called out of work tomorrow—” she started, but Sophie interrupted, giving Zach one of her biggest smiles.
“And you offered to help us out? That is so sweet! Thank you, Zach. Our customers are going to love you.”
“No, they aren’t,” Isabelle corrected, frowning at her sister. “I told him no.”
Sophie gave her a confused look. “Why would you do that? Tomorrow is going to be crazy busy.” She turned to Zach. “We’d love to have your help. I’m sure Isabelle only said no because she didn’t want to take advantage of your relationship.”
Zach’s lips twitched as he glanced Isabelle’s way. “She’s worried I’ll be too much of a distraction, but I promise to keep her focused on the job at hand. Afterward, I’m all hers.”
Right. All hers. Isabelle sighed. Could a pretend girlfriend take advantage of her relationship with her pretend boyfriend? And if so, was that why her chest was all fluttery at the prospect of Zach being at the shop?
Chapter Ten
“Okay, our firstactivity is the Make-a-Candy-Cane game,” Isabelle announced to the forty-plus kids bouncing around the church playground in a variety of winter garb from light jackets to fully decked out from head-to-toe outer layers.
The ones in the thick layers were rosy faced as the town couldn’t have asked for better festival weather. Although temps were expected to drop into the low thirties that night, currently, the sunshine took the edge off the midafternoon sixty degrees and the fun Rudolph sweater Isabelle had borrowed from Sophie that morning was just right.
As promised, Zach had shown up to volunteer. Sarah must have told him he had to get into the Christmas spirit as he wore a long-sleeved, green T-shirt with a large, jolly snowman on the front and the back of the snowman on the back side. Isabelle suspected Sarah had gifted the item to her houseguest. Why had her friend chosen a snowman? It wasn’t as if Isabelle didn’t struggle enough with abdominal snowman thoughts when she saw Zach without actually seeing a happy snowman over his chest and stomach.
Catching her eye, he winked, and her heart hiccupped. Well, that was what it had felt like, anyway. Just as it had hiccupped repeatedly the day prior when he’d helped at the quilt shop. He’d been wonderful, only having to be told once how to do something to then just go with it. With his constant grin and friendliness, he’d had their customers eating out of his big hands. That he looked like a buff Hollywood superhero hadn’t hurt. As wonderful as Gwen was, Zach had easily topped what her sales would have been.
Was there anything he wasn’t good at?
“Ms. Isabelle and Mr. Zach are going to divide you into teams.” Rosie clasped her bright-pink gloved hands together. She wore a matching pink scarf and boots over her Christmas-print green tights and thick sweater. Her pink hat had bells attached that jingled when she moved, and Rosie was rarely still, so there had been an almost constant jingle.
Wearing a simple red Christmas sweater with a single green wreath over her heart, Maybelle shook her head at her friend’s bright outfit for the umpteenth time since she’d arrived at the church playground, then smiled at the kids. “Each team will have a package of red paper streamers and a roll of toilet paper.”
“Your job is to use the materials to wrap around whomever you choose to create the most realistic looking candy cane.” Isabelle focused on the wordscandy cane, so she didn’t accidentally tell the kids to make snowmen. Relieved she’d gotten it right, she bowed her arms. “You want to choose someone who can stand really still with their arms bent to form the top of the candy cane.”
Jasie Willis waved her hand. “Me, I can do it.”
Isabelle smiled at the bouncing around redheaded girl, who she knew was a real firecracker from when she’d taught her in Sunday school at church, then continued, “You’ll have five minutes from start to finish. Ms. Maybelle will say when to go and when to stop. So, pay close attention.”
Maybelle gestured to where she’d had Zach set up an ornate Christmas hourglass on a table. “When the last grain of Christmas magic falls on the town below, it’s candy cane judging time.”
The kids whooped and hollered their excitement. With Zach’s help, Isabelle divided the kids into small groups, smiling when Morgan’s son, Greyson, and his friend Brianna ended up on the same team. Last Christmas, Greyson had told his mother he planned to marry the girl one day. Based upon the way the six-year-old smiled at the girl, he hadn’t changed his mind.
“Start your Santa sleighs and off you go.” Maybelle turned a handle that flipped the large hourglass.
One adult volunteer stood with each group, cheering them on. Zach got Greyson and Brianna’s group and Isabelle’s team was next to them. Her group took too long discussing who was going to be the candy cane, but finally agreed upon a grinning-ear-to-ear Jasie. Once decided, the kids began wrapping the red paper around her as she did her best to stand still, but got tickled, doubled over, ripping her team’s efforts up to where the paper fell to her feet.
Eyes big, her hand covered her mouth. “Oops.”
“It’s okay. Just stay really still while they start again. Come on, y’all have got this,” she peptalked, glad when they set back to work around a stiff Jasie.
Hearing Greyson’s laughter, Isabelle glanced at her cousin’s son and smiled. He’d been chosen as his team’s candy cane and was being wrapped in the toilet paper by the other children, Brianna included. Catching Isabelle’s eye, Zach gave her a thumbs-up, then returned to encouraging his team.
“Great job,” he praised.
He was right. His team was doing a great job. Except for his sweet little face, Greyson was completely wrapped in white. Now Brianna was leading the other kids on, carefully wrapping him with the red streamers. He arched his back and held his arms out. It was going to take a lot to top Zach’s group.
“Come on, team. Let’s start over,” she told her kids as another section of paper tore. “Jasie, you’re going to have to hold still, or the paper is going to keep tearing.”
“Yes, ma’am.” But the girl couldn’t contain her giggles as one of the kids wrapped paper across her face and continued around her head, leaving only her eyes showing, creating a mummy look rather than a candy cane pattern. Jasie must have thought so, too, because she made a haunted moaning sound. All Isabelle’s team burst into giggles, obviously enjoying themselves as they enthusiastically began intentionally mummy-wrapping the young girl.
Maybelle blew a whistle, then called, “Time! Boys and girls, turn off your sleighs.”
