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Robin: Thank you.
CHAPTER10
Robin
Robin clippedup the steps of Colonial Hall. When she entered the busy workspace, her eyes searched the volunteers for Holly. While she didn’t see her, she did find Noelle. Or rather, Noelle found her.
“Auntie!” she yelled, sprinting on wobbly toddler legs from the other side of the great hall.
Robin caught Noelle under the arms and spun her around before settling her on her hip. “Where’s Mama?”
Noelle wordlessly pointed to the auxiliary room—the same one that part of her mother’s movie set had crashed into three years ago, causing it to need to be rebuilt.
Robin headed in that direction, waving at Joan and Nick Patterson along the way. “Morning!”
“Morning, doll,” Joan called back.
Nick nodded at her, then wrinkled his nose at Noelle, who giggled in Robin’s arms.
When she stepped into the auxiliary room, Robin found Holly wrapping presents that she assumed were for the kids of Snow Hill. It was a tradition for Santa and Mrs. Claus—formerly played by Nick’s parents, Jim and Joan, now played by some other locals—to hand out gifts at the ball.
But when Holly squealed and blocked the table from their sight, Robin registered the Minnie Mouse wrapping paper instead of Christmas paper and pursed her lips in apology.
“Hey, ladies,” Holly said brightly, ushering them out of the room.
Robin tried to angle Noelle in such a way that she wouldn’t see what were likely her birthday presents as they zipped away, shooting Holly a silently mouthed, “Sorry.”
Holly waved it off and plucked her daughter from Robin, then marched her over to Nick. Noelle practically dove into her daddy’s arms, making Joan jump back in exaggerated surprise. “This girl is a daredevil!”
As if on cue, Noelle climbed Nick’s broad chest and wriggled herself onto his shoulders as if he were a jungle gym instead of a human.
Holly leaned in and kissed Nick’s cheek. “We’ll be right back.”
“Holly,” Nick warned, giving her that look that she called his “Holly face” since he only did it to her, and it seemed to embody the tone he used when he said her name. “You know I’m right in the middle of this.”
“I do, but I also know you’re always in the middle of something, and you haven’t taken a break in”—she paused, checking her watch—“four hours and thirty minutes. Aren’t there labor laws that say you should take a break to play with an adorable toddler every few hours?”
He continued giving herthe lookas she grabbed Robin’s hand and retreated with several backward steps toward the auxiliary room. Noelle waved at them with a massive smile from atop Nick’s shoulders, then she exploded in a fit of giggles when he reached up to secure her more tightly and then took off in a quick jog around the hall.
Robin and Holly slipped back into the room and over to the table where Holly had been wrapping presents. “These are the last of her birthday presents. Then we’ll be ready for the party.”
“I can’t believe she’s going to be two.”
Holly shook her head as she continued wrapping a doll stroller. “I know. It’s weird that it feels like such a long time ago that I found out I was pregnant with her, but at the same time, it’s gone by in a flash.”
Robin nodded and helped herself to some wrapping paper and picked up a set of bottles for Noelle’s new baby doll. “I can relate. Abby will be ten soon. That’s a whole decade. Double digits. It’s mind-blowing.”
They continued to wrap Noelle’s gifts in silence for a moment, then Robin finally got the nerve to bring up the real reason she’d stopped by. “So… long story short, Jack is looking into Matthew’s case.”
Holly stilled. “Come again?”
Robin had no interest in telling Holly that she’d seen Jack at the window last night—shirtless, no less—and had then texted him to ask what he was doing awake. She didn’t want to get into the fact that she’d finally texted him after having his number for years and not pulling the trigger.
Hmm. Robin frowned down at the tape she’d just measured out and then placed on a present. She assumed he was shirtless, but since she could only see him from about the ribs up, she wouldn’t really have any way of knowing if he was completely naked.
The idea of that—combined with that flirty text about her going over there and the friendly-neighbor thing they’d been navigating for the past two weeks—made her blush.
Holly noticed and swatted her on the arm. “Hello! Full story—now.”
