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Plus, he’d get to spend time with her. That was the real goal here. If he went home after lunch, he’d just be thinking about her the rest of the day.
She started to answer, but she had to put her response on hold while Jackie set his food down in front of him. By the time she spoke, he’d gotten so distracted by the delicious food, he’d forgotten how much he was hanging on the next words she said.
“Sure,” she finally said. “It’ll be fun.”
13
It’ll be fun.
Had she actually said those words? Charity had obviously forgotten how much work decorating the town library was.
“You forgot something,” Francine Donahue, the head librarian, said from her spot behind the circulation desk.
Nic and Charity stood side by side, admiring their work. They’d set up the gigantic tree to the right of the entrance and strung garland along the desk and in every doorway in the place.
But Francine was holding something very distinctive as she started toward them. Pinched between her thumb and forefinger was a bushel of mistletoe.
“We can’t seem to get away from that stuff,” Nic commented.
Maybe it was a sign. Charity thought those words but didn’t dare say them out loud.
“Where do you want us to hang it?” Nic looked around. “You probably don’t want to create a traffic jam at the door.”
Francine let out a short laugh. “I hardly think people are going to be lining up to kiss under the mistletoe. When we have our annual Christmas party, it might be a fun photo booth sort of thing.”
“Photo booth!” Nic looked over at Charity. “A photo booth. I told you.”
It took a second to work out what he was talking about. That first night on the square, he’d mentioned that the controversial mistletoe hanging from the statue was attracting photos. When people shared those photos on social media, they often tagged the location, which offered instant promotion. So it stood to reason that a photo opportunity at the library would help promote it, at least locally.
“Where?” Charity stepped forward, eyeing the area.
Making things look good was her strength, but this brought a different challenge. She had to find an object that would hold the mistletoe. It had to be something that would drape it low enough so that it would be just above couples’ heads in photos.
“We need a really long ribbon,” Charity said, spinning back around to face Francine.
Francine smiled. “That, I can do.”
As she headed straight for the big room people reserved for meetings, Charity turned back around to admire the tree. But that only put her staring straight at her ex-boyfriend.
She didn’t like this, not at all. Or maybe she liked it a little too much. All she could think about right now was kissing him under that mistletoe.
He was at least five feet away, but he may as well have been standing directly in front of her. Electricity zinged between them, making it nearly impossible to look away.
“I can reach that,” Charity said, looking up at the light. She was grateful for an excuse to look away. “I just need to toss the ribbon up and have it loop over it. Then when I pull it down, I’m set.”
The silence that followed made his thoughts clear on that. It was a ridiculous idea. No way would it work. The laws of physics said whatever ribbon Francine brought would be way too flimsy to be able to carry itself over that dangling light.
The plan was to hang it from one of the many dangling fluorescent lights that filled the library. Funny, she’d never even noticed that the lights dangled before. This was the first year mistletoe had even been mentioned, so it wasn’t like she’d had to look for somewhere to hang it in past years. Yes, she had a feeling Francine introduced it right now on purpose.
Yet another Misty Mountain Cupid?
“I think I probably can do it,” Nic said. “But I’m going to need a regular-sized chair.”
In this area of the library, the tables and chairs were shorter for the younger patrons. Adults and teens usually sat toward the back of the building where the books got progressively older.
Charity didn’t wait around to discuss it, instead heading straight back in that direction. She found a chair within seconds and was on her way back. At the same time, Francine emerged with a full spool of ribbon and a pair of scissors.
“I figure we can cut it to the length we need.” She looked from Nic to Charity, eyes wide. “How are we going to do this?”
