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She looked off to the side thoughtfully and his heart started racing. No. She was going there. She was probably about to suggest someone else drive his truck—maybe her—and that he hop into that Santa suit.
“Who’s your Santa?” he blurted, mostly to put off whatever she was about to say.
Looking at him again, she took a step closer. “Sid Renner,” she said in a low enough voice that nobody could overhear, not even the band members still standing a few feet from them. “He said he’d do it, but where is he? My assistant is trying to track down his phone number. I thought I had it, but somehow it never made it into my phone.”
Looking around, Nic frowned. Sid’s kids had been older, so Nic hadn’t spent time over at his house or anything. He’d just seen him in passing. But he’d always seemed like a good, upstanding citizen. Not at all the type who would flake out on playing Santa the day of the town parade.
It’d been a while since Nic had spent any real time around here, though, so what did he know? People changed.
Suddenly, movement over to his right caught his eye. “Is that why there’s a police cruiser pulling in?” Nic asked, a sinking sensation in his gut.
“Enzo!” Charity called out, as if he could hear. The windows on the police cruiser were up. She glanced over at Nic before rushing off. “Back your truck up to that float when you get a chance. I’ll hopefully have a Santa in a few minutes.”
“Enzo Reeser.” Nic shook his head. He hadn’t seen that guy in years.
Nic was climbing into his truck when he looked back in that direction. By then, Charity was pointing, with the hand that held the clipboard, toward the field house next to the football field. Had she just talked the Misty Mountain chief of police into playing Santa for the Christmas parade?
Yes, this would definitely be an interesting afternoon.
5
Charity didn’t have time. That was her biggest problem now that she’d solved the shortage of Santas and trucks for the annual Misty Mountain Christmas parade.
All she needed was a few minutes to have an actual conversation with her BFF, but her best friend had agreed to play an elf on the Santa float. The same role she played at last night’s Christmas tree lighting. Plus, the man Charity wanted to talk to that best friend about was the one pulling that float, so she had to stay far, far away.
Once the Santa float had pulled out of the parking lot, Charity took the back roads to the outlet mall—a trip that took at least triple the time it would have on the main road. It didn’t help that the whole town was being routed up the mountain, then to the left and back toward town.
It was a slow crawl on the twisty, winding roads, but it gave her plenty of time to slow down, breathe, let some of the tension ease, and come up with a plan to stay away from her ex. Unfortunately, she’d wasted so much time at the parade start point, the parking lot was already full. They’d used an abandoned church parking lot near the outlet mall for the past three years, which at least gave them a little extra time to get the donated trailers back to their original owners.
As usual, a crowd was gathered around the area with a sign that readFree hot cocoa. Charity told herself she was scanning the crowd for signs of her best friend, but really, she was looking for Nic, and her heart immediately took off at a gallop when she spotted that head of dark hair and the now familiar navy blue coat.
“Charity!” someone yelled as she approached the group.
It was Mark Barnes, a dad who volunteered to help out with the parade every year as a favor. She couldn’t be mad at him for calling attention to her. Instead, she pasted a big smile on her face and ignored the fact that Nic had turned to look at her. She saw him in her peripheral vision.
“What’s up?” Charity asked.
She was going for casual, but her voice came out sounding strangled. Like she’d just choked on a large swallow of liquid and was trying to get control of her vocal cords again.
“We’re running out of cups,” Mark said. “The extra ones never arrived.”
At those words, Charity’s steps slowed. Her mind was immediately spinning as she went into repair mode. It was the same as when the Santa hadn’t shown up. As frustrated as she was, she didn’t have time to worry about what had gone wrong. She had to fix it and fix it fast. These people wanted hot cocoa, and they were running out of cups.
Hot cocoa was a tradition. The parade participants put in time freezing on these floats, knowing there’d be hot cocoa at the end. Not having it would be a huge disappointment.
“I’ll go get some.” Charity started toward her car. It was amazing how fast she walked when it meant she was putting valuable distance between herself and her ex-boyfriend.
“Great,” Mark said. “Maybe you can ride with Charity, Nic.”
Keep walking. Keep walking and pretend you didn’t hear.
That was the command Charity issued to her legs, but they didn’t obey. They slowed, she turned. Every cell in her body might be screaming for her to get out while she could, but Nic was back there, and she’d just heard someone say their names in the same sentence for the first time in eight years.
Nic was walking her way, and she noticed he didn’t have a cup of cocoa. They’d run out of cups before he got his cocoa, obviously. Maybe the cups were a big enough emergency that he needed to tag along. She was just going to run to the local grocery store and grab whatever she found there.
“My mom’s at the outlet mall,” he said. “She just grabbed a bunch. All we need to do is swing by and pick them up.”
As he approached, his back was to the crowd, so he had no idea people were watching the two of them. They had an actual audience. Gossip about this would be all over town in no time.
