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Frowning, Nic looked at the crowd around the statue. Couples were taking turns kissing under the mistletoe, while other couples snapped pictures. They were so caught up in what they were doing, they obviously didn’t realize the ceremony was starting.
Nic, on the other hand, stepped away from the mistletoe hanging from the bronze index finger and headed straight toward the center of the square. He kept going until he had a clear view of the stage.
His first love had just taken the mic and stepped up to the middle of the stage. Until about fifteen minutes ago, Nic had thought he was over Charity Ardmore. She wasn’t just his first love. She’d also been one of his best friends in both elementary and middle school.
In fact, she’d been such an important part of his life for a full decade, it was hard to believe he’d walked away eight years ago and never looked back. Every time he came to town, though, he thought of her. He wondered what it might be like to run into her again.
All this time, he should have just come to the tree lighting. His parents weren’t into that sort of thing, his sister was too work obsessed, and he’d never wanted to come alone. But tonight, he needed something to lift his spirits, so here he’d ended up. Within five minutes of parking, he held the door for the first woman he’d ever loved.
Charity waited for the noise to die down, glancing nervously to her left. He assumed the person she was introducing was over there—probably the man or woman who was heading up this tree-lighting ceremony. Unless Charity was the one doing that. If so, he’d settle in for the show.
She scanned the crowd, and he wondered if she was looking for him. Or maybe seeing him again had no impact on her at all. It would serve him right. He was the one who’d broken up with her not long after he left for college. By phone. He could still hear her crying on the other end of that telephone line.
He’d been immature. That was the best explanation he could give for it. He wanted a clean slate when he started his freshman year at Ohio State. He wanted to be free to date without being tied down to someone back home.
But in college, he’d always felt like something was missing from his relationships. It was something he’d had with Charity. Over time, he’d stopped thinking about it so much and had even gotten married. That marriage hadn’t lasted, but he’d loved her. It just became clear, over time, that they were on two different paths.
That seemed to be a pattern for him.
“Misty Mountain’s tree lighting is a tradition,” she said. “It goes all the way back to the 1970s when the mayor at the time decided this town was the perfect place to spend the holiday season. Today, we have tons of tourists, as well as seasonal residents, some of whom are here today. And then there are the lifetimers like me who were born and raised here and will be here the rest of our days.”
Nic was taking a sip from his coffee when those words filled the air. He nearly choked on the liquid as it went down. That answered his question. She’d never for a minute regretted telling him she planned to live in this town for the rest of her life.
That hadn’t set well with Nic. He had plans, and they went way beyond living in this bubble. He wasnotgoing to become his parents.
“Put your hands together for our mayor, Matt North.”
Charity’s voice pulled Nic out of his thoughts. He could just stand here and watch her. There was no harm in that, right? Then he’d finish his coffee, toss the cup in the trash, and head straight to his truck.
It would take time, but he’d forget about her just as he had the first time. Eventually, he’d be able to drift off to sleep at night without the memory of her face poking at him, keeping him tossing and turning. And it would be easier this time because he wouldn’t have gotten his heart involved.
But as Matt grabbed the mic from her and took center stage, Charity didn’t join the group behind him. Instead, she kept walking, passing Matt’s entourage and leaving the stage.
Nic hadn’t planned for that. Would she be down here in the crowd, milling around? Could he go talk to her if he wanted to? At least stand close to her, maybe?
Wait, that sounded a little creepy. He was not a creep. He needed to get out of here, to put some distance between the two of them.
Taking a final sip of his coffee, he turned with every intention of heading toward the overflow parking lot on the other side of what used to be the bookstore and boutique. But as he walked, he cast a glance to his left—to that statue he’d ignored for most of his life. A statue that suddenly intrigued him.
Scanning the area to make sure nobody was watching, Nic tossed his empty cup in a trash can and started toward the statue. The crowd was gone, apparently having drifted over to watch the tree lighting. It was just Nic and Louis Ames, founder of Misty Mountain. A bushel of mistletoe hung from that finger, strung on one of the bendable wire hooks used on Christmas ornaments.
He could easily remove it, even though it had been tightly wound there. But why would he do that? He still believed in romance…for other people. Maybe even for himself if he someday recovered from his failed marriage. His failure as a person.
A strange sound caught his attention just as he was stepping back to leave. It was the sound of high heels on concrete. He realized as he turned that those high heels were on the feet of his first love.
“Charity?” he asked for no reason in particular.
She skidded to a halt nearby, but her gaze only lingered on him a few seconds before she shifted it to the statue. “We have to get that mistletoe down. Noelle hung it. She had a stepstool.”
Nic was trying to focus on her words, but he couldn’t seem to get past how beautiful she was up close. Had her cheekbones always been that prominent, her lashes that long? And her light brown hair was the perfect midway point between straight and curly. She always used to complain about how frizzy it got in the dry weather, but everything about it was perfect. Everything aboutherwas perfect.
“Stepstool,” he said.
That was the one word he could pick out of everything she’d said. She’d mentioned Noelle, her best friend. They’d always been close. He thought he’d heard at some point that Noelle moved away, but maybe, like him, she was here for the holidays.
“She put mistletoe on the bronze statue using a stepstool,” Charity said. “She had an idea.”
Charity returned her attention to him and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He looked from her to the statue and back again.
