Chapter 1
Harley
“Seriously,Mandi. What sane person has an entire tote filled with tinsel?” I pant the question because I’ve been lugging an ungodly number of totes filled with Christmas decorations from my Jeep into her brother’s cabin for what feels like hours. At this rate, I’ll run out of time to actually decorate anything before Tripp is due back. And I plan to be long gone before my bestie’s Grinchy brother arrives home after a hunting excursion to catch me.
“Hey, I never claimed to be sane,” she says over speaker phone, her voice echoing off the high ceiling of the remote log cabin. It draws my attention upward, toward a cedar railing. One that I’ll be covering with garland soon enough.
“It’s just…a lot of tinsel.”
“One canneverhave enough tinsel. It’s the first rule of Christmas.”
I look back to the open tote filled to the brim with packages of tinsel of every conceivable color. “It’s not.”
“It is. Look it up.”
I like Christmas as much as the next girlie, but I’ve never met anyone as obsessed with the holiday as my college bestie. She’sthe type who’d leave her Christmas tree up all year round if her family didn’t give her so much grief over it.
“Ifit made the list at all, and that’s a big if, I think it’s more like number forty-nine.”
“What doyouthink is number one?” Mandi challenges as I shrug out of my coat, tossing it over the back of the couch. My hoodie is next. It doesn’t matter that it’s ten below zero outside and I still have two more totes to grab. I should also plug my Jeep in so the battery doesn’t freeze during my decorating efforts. But right now, my main focus is how much I’m dying from all the manual labor.
“Getting kissed under the mistletoe, of course. Which I plan to do tonight.”
“You’re going to the single mixer then?” Mandi asks, a little too much excitement in her tone. But with two kids under the age of five, a perfectly boring hubby she adores, and a freshly sprained ankle, she’s determined to live vicariously through me.
“Unless I get buried under the mass of Christmas decorations you sent me out here with,” I say.
“Tripp wouldn’t let you die that way.”
“Ifhedoesn’t kill me first.”
I’ve only met Tripp Mongtomgery a handful of times, and never for more than a few minutes. He’s the quiet, stoic, chronically grumpy type. He’s hardly said more than ten words to me in the months that I’ve lived in Caribou Creek. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the man hates me.
Too bad, because I’d jump his bones in a heartbeat.Ifhe wasn’t my best friend’s brother, that is.
“Have I told you lately how much I love you?” Mandi says.
“You’re just lucky I don’t have to work today.”
This is her oldest brother’s first Christmas home since he retired from the military. Until an ice skating incident a few days ago, Mandi planned to play Santa’s elf herself, though Ihave little doubt she would’ve dragged me along to help with Operation Christmas Explosion. A mission that is now my sole responsibility.
“What kind of boss makes anyone work on Christmas Eve?” Mandi challenges.
“Andi’s working today,” I point out.
Admittedly, my boss is a little bit of a workaholic. But she insisted the rest of her bakery staff stay gone until the twenty-seventh. She wanted us to have a long holiday break to spend with our families.
Mandi is the closest thing I have to real family these days, and I’m honored to be included in her family’s Christmas morning traditions. I’m excited to see the looks on her kids’ faces when they open their presents. I imagine it’ll be veryA Christmas Story, where they eventually pass out, still in the holiday pajamas, in piles of wrapping paper.
“Andi’s crazy,” Mandi says. “Everyone else in town has closed up shop until after Christmas.”
“Everyone?” I ask, a little nervous that I might’ve forgotten a gift or two and won’t have an opportunity to grab anything last minute if that’s the case.
“The brewery’s only opening for the mixer tonight. Speaking of, have you picked out your outfit?”
“I’m going all out,” I admit, deciding the last couple of totes can wait as I pull out the fat, seven-foot Christmas tree from a box so big it nearly didn’t fit in my Jeep.
“Oh?”
