AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh…
Well Merry Christmas to us!
Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER…
“How the hell are we supposed to do this?” I frowned at the red cups sitting on the table next to the bright green plate with a snowman printed in the center. The table was covered in large marshmallows to the point of barely being able to see the green tablecloth with tiny white trees that covered the polished wood.
“Ask her, this was Shore’s idea.”
I groaned and shook my head. “Can I skip this one? There’s no way my hands are gonna fit into those cups.”
I held them up, expanding my fingers and Shore shook her head. “Nope, you’re doing it. This is my first Christmas as activities coordinator and it has to be perfect. All of you are participating to make sure these games work before I get to the guests.”
It was the week of Christmas and Shore was taking her job as activities coordinator seriously. I loved that she’d settled into her lane with not just me out on the ranch but here at the B&B too. She only worked a couple weeks out of each month when Melvina had themed activities that needed to be planned but Shore loved helping.
“Fuck me,” I mumbled and Melvina and Lou looked at each other and laughed before Lou pointed my way. “That’s how you ended up here in the first place. Maybe stop thinking below the belt, Wilde.”
I grinned and shot a look over to Shore who blushed when she felt the heat of my gaze. “No can do, that’s my favorite thing when it comes to that one.”
I motioned to Shore with a toss of my chin.
“Seriously, Wilde. Your mama raised you better than this. She would be very disappointed to hear you talking like that.”
“I doubt it considering that kinda talk is what’s gonna get her some grandchildren and since Garrett has no plans of settling down any time soon, I’m their best bet.”
Melvina grunted under her breath and Lou chuckled. “Andsince she’s not here because being in the middle of the ocean is more appealing than spending Christmas with me and her soon-to-be daughter-in-law, she’ll never know how I’m talking unless you tell her. Ms. Mel.”
“Hey, they invited us, Cowboy. She cares about spending Christmas with me,” Shore said, defending my mother. The two of them had a quick and easy bond after my parents spent a week with us last spring. I loved the way Shore and my parents connected and became instant family.
“She did but I couldn’t get my answer out before she followed up with ‘but if you guys don’t want to come I completely understand.’ That was a code for your father and I would prefer to have this time alone.”
They did want the time alone so when we declined because Shore’s parents were spending Christmas weekend with us, my mother wasn’t at all disappointed. She hadn’t planned on us accepting the invitation to join them in the first place.
“Well can you blame them? They’re on the grown and sexy Christmas cruise this year. Been thinking about booking one of those for me and Lou since Shore seems to have things under control here at the B&B. I hear that one’s pretty spicy. Got all kinds of grown and sexy activities for the guests.”
“Come on Ms. Mel. I don’t want to hear that.”
“Not so fun when the shoe’s on the other foot. Now are we doing this or not? That gingerbread cake I just pulled out of the oven is calling my name.”
All eyes were on Shore who nodded and lifted the stopwatch from around her neck. This was the last and final activity. We had been cycling through them for the past hour since she was using us as her test subjects to gauge if her ideas would work well for the guests staying at the B&B Christmas week.
“Okay you bunch of whiny asses. Hands in your cups.”
I grunted my displeasure but did as I was told and by the time we were done, there were more marshmallows on the floor than on our plates. Regardless, Shore seemed pleased with the outcome, so I was fucking elated no matter how silly we must have looked trying to scoop those marshmallows onto a plate with cup covered hands.
Making her happy had become my sole purpose in life and I was doing a damn good job if the constant smile she kept in rotation was being used as a determining factor. The same one she was wearing right now.
“Well that was a cluster of mess,” Melvina mumbled then smiled across the table. “But I think the guests are gonna love it. Why don’t you two get this cleaned up and I’ll get everyone some cake. I’ll meet you in the living room.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna help Mel get the cake,” Lou said, following his wife, skipping out on the cleaning. My eyes traveled across the table and to the floor, taking in the mess.
“How the hell did we get stuck with this?”
“It’s not that bad,” Shore said, taking it all in. When her eyes rounded back to me I narrowed mine and she laughed.
“Okay, it’skindabad.”
