“I get that it’s sometimes scary to throw yourself out there. God, if anyone knows, it’s me. But I don’t think you should cut yourself out of things completely, not allow any risks.”
“I take risks. What do you think my Tahoe trips are about?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m talking about risks of the heart, and you know it.”
“I’m going to do what’s best for everyone and going out with Mason is not it.”
“Sure,” Mia replied, but then her tone switched to a more chipper one. “Well, no one is going to force you, least of all me.”
Natalie was surprised. She wasn’t sure if she expected more of a fight, but she seemed to accept her reasoning easily enough. She was grateful to have such a supportive friend.
Business was surprisingly quiet. Mia leaned against the counter to people-watch. Natalie took out her phone to scroll through social media.
“I really like that woman’s coat,” her friend said, staring across the farmyard with her chin propped on a hand.
“What woman?”
“The one talking to Mason. That coat is gorgeous. Do you think it would be weird if I went over to ask her where she got it or at least take a picture of it? I definitely don’t think it’s too early to start dropping Ross some hints on what I want for Christmas.”
She became curious about this coat. Sure enough, standing beside Mason was a beautiful blonde woman wearing an elegant long wool coat in an attractive shade of magenta. She stood out in an environment of white and green, both her and the coat were eye-catching.
“Maybe I should ask Mason,” Mia mused to herself.
“You really think he’s going to have information about a coat?”
“No, but they seemreallyfriendly. Maybe they know each other, and he can introduce us so it’s less weird. He’d vouch that I’m not a coat creep, right?”
Were they being friendly? She studied him and the woman with a new eye. Although they were too far away to hear any conversation, it was clear they were conversing easily. He stood beside her, propping up a wrapped tree in one hand. A friendly smile lit his face while the woman happily conversed with him. It seemed more than a strictly business transaction.
“Wow, she’s really pretty,” Mia said. “She could probably pull off any coat. It’s really not very fair. Well, good for Mason. He’s a nice guy. It’s great to see he can get right back on the sled again.”
She narrowed her gaze at her friend before returning her attention to the couple, trying to see if this assumption was due to a wild imagination or there was actually something there. The blonde touched his forearm, tossing her head back in laughter. Oh, they weredefinitelyflirting. Natalie twisted the rag in her hand in annoyance. “Or he’s just helping her,” she said, trying to sound as though she couldn’t care one way or the other.
“You’re probably right,” Mia replied with a shrug. “Except he just pointed to the barn, and it looks like his lips said the wordsledding.”
“You really think I’m going to believe he’s asking someone else to go sledding a mere hour after asking me?” Although, maybe he would because, as Mia had stated, he had pointed to the barn area.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter what we believe. I mean, the truth of the matter is that nothing has really happened between you two so it’s not like he’s doing anything wrong if he connects with someone else. When you make a connection, you make a connection. It’s not like you can always control the timing of it. I have to say, they make a really cute couple. He’s definitely found someone who has great taste in coats.”
The blonde woman touched Mason’s arm again and Natalie tossed the cleaning rag, grabbing her own five-year-old, not-gorgeous coat as she stomped past Mia and out of the horse trailer.
“What are you doing?” Mia yelled after her.
“I don’t know.” And she truly didn’t know what she was doing. She was irritated at Mia, Mason, whoever that blonde woman was, at the whole damn world. All she wanted was one day of peace.
She didn’t expect him to pine over her forever, but it didn’t seem right for him to get over her in the span of an hour. All this did was prove his affection didn’t run deep. Typical. Just like Stephen. She hated men like that, guys who flitted from woman to woman as if one was the same as any other. He shouldn’t be able to do that to anyone, let alone to her. Someone needed to tell the man off and it might as well be her.
“Mason!” she said, striding toward him, powered on some weird sense of vengeance. Finally, her anger had a proper direction to focus on instead of poor Mia. This was for all the women he’d suckered by making sure they were warm and fed and didn’t have Diva Santas bothering them.
His gaze snapped to hers, along with the pretty blonde woman’s, both sets of eyes wide as though not sure what to expect from some wild woman stomping across the yard with revenge on her mind. Mason may have even looked around nervously because he knew he’d been caught.
Her mouth opened to unleash her fury when Stan, sucking on a candy cane stick, stopped as if an internal sensor had alerted him to impending drama and possible gossip. This gave her a moment of pause because, as far as she was aware, Stan, and whoever else he told, thought she and Mason were dating. While Mason most likely deserved a good verbal lashing, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in the center of what would appear to be a messy fake breakup.
Except, after interrupting everyone’s conversation, they were staring at her, waiting. What blurted from her mouth was: “I’ll do the damn sledding with you.”
This was sure to let Mason know she was on to him and save the woman grief if he’d also offered her the same invitation. She’d take one for the team, even if, up close, she didn’t think the woman’s coat was so spectacular.
His face broke into a grin.
It was then she realized she’d soon be in the market for a new best friend because she was going to kill Mia.
