boots making authoritative thuds with her every step. “Not by myself, anyway.”
Beyond the closed front door, a series of engines turned over and sputtered to life. Clark’s stomach sunk.
“Let me guess…”
“Everyone’s already leaving. They’ve got to go home for Christmas Eve. There’s no way I could take all of this down by myself. It’ll just have to stay up.”
She landed on the step above him, and their body language echoed their last encounter. Back then, she was below him, asking for something she had to know he couldn’t possibly give. Now, he was the one at a disadvantage.
Taking stock of himself, Clark tried to catalogue his feelings. In business, these sorts of exercises kept him from flying off the handle during negotiations. He treated his emotions like items on an inventory list. They first needed to be counted, weighed, measured, and then neatly put away to keep from overwhelming him. It would have been easy enough if her caramel-candy eyes weren’t so distracting. The color was extraordinary, but it wasn’t their beauty he kept tripping over. It was her unguarded warmth he couldn’t quite wrap his head around. What gave her the right to treat him like an old friend, welcome to open the doors of her heart and make himself at home inside? Hadn’t she ever been hurt before? Clark managed to put those thoughts away before he asked any of those questions out loud, opting to reach for the glass icicles over his head.
“Fine. I’ll take it down,” he said.
“And risk breaking everything before you can sell it?” Clark’s expression and stiff arms must have given him away. She adopted an air of false modesty. “Am I wrong? I thought you wanted to make money off of this once you dissolve the company.”
“It belongs to me.” He returned his hands to his pockets. The icicles would have to wait. He didn’t know the first thing about storing all of this holiday garbage, and no one would buy bits of shattered glass. “Why shouldn’t I sell it?”
“Of course you should.” A breeze of sarcasm blew behind her as she stepped down from the staircase and headed straight for the living room. He followed close behind, not wanting her to break or put her Jack Frost spell over anything else in this house. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until Christmas is over. The icicles are here to stay. Besides, you respect a contract, right?”
“A contract?”
“In your uncle’s contract with the city, he stipulates that this home can be used as a muster point for all festival-related activities. I have every legal right to be here.”
Uncle Christopher…why would you do this to me?
“Why are you doing this? What do you want?”
“Let me put it to you this way: The festival was my home. It’s been my home every Christmas since I was seven years old. You took my home away, so I think it’s only fair I get to take yours.” The living room received no less treatment than the rest of the house, only it contained the pièce de résistance. The Christmas tree. Clark seemed to remember the ceilings in this house being fourteen feet high, which meant the undecorated fir was thirteen and a half feet tall. At least. The glistening angel almost brushed the ceiling. “Don’t worry. I’ll be out of your hair once the season’s over.”
Clark tightened his jaw to keep it from dropping to the floor. She couldn’t possibly mean what he thought she meant, especially not with the nonchalant way she swanned around the room, adjusting the nutcrackers on the mantle as if she hadn’t just invited herself over for Christmas.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re stuck with me.”
The decorations, he could handle. He’d just sleep in his car the next two nights and wake up to the world returned to normal on Boxing Day. A strange woman with an affinity for decking the halls? He wouldn’t and couldn’t allow it.
“Oh, no. You’re not staying, too.”
“Of course I am. I bought us matching PJ’s and everything.”
He didn’t want to know if that was true. Picking up her jacket and duffle bag, he started to shove all evidence of her inside. The scented candles waiting to be lit, the pile of inventory papers tucked away on an end table… It all had to go.
“I don’t want you here.”
“I’m also non-negotiable. Contract says so. I’m the foreman.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“Why not?” She scoffed, pulling the duffel out of his hands and returning it to its place in the corner of the room. “Don’t you have a guest room or twelve?”
“Because you can’t, all right? You just can’t.”
The last thing Clark was inclined to do was examine her question. Why can’t I stay here? The question was more thorny than she probably gave it credit for, and he wouldn’t prick himself on the brambles just to satisfy her curiosity.
“What? You’re going to kick me out in the snow?”
“It’s not snowing.”
She clucked, leaning back on the couch, as comfortable and at ease as if she were in her own house.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
He didn’t know what possessed him. His rational mind knew it wasn’t snowing. Better still, he knew it couldn’t be snowing. In Texas, even as far north as they were, the worst they usually got was the occasional cold wind, frosty pond, or hypothermic cow. Yet, his raging heart shoved him towards the window, where he threw open the curtains to reveal that, indeed, not only had the entire front yard of his home been covered in a thick layer of snow, but there was a gentle snowdrift passing by the window.
In a small, private humiliation, Clark’s breath caught at the sight. Then, he remembered himself. Snow in Texas wasn’t beautiful. It couldn’t be beautiful because it wasn’t real. He remembered the town square, which had been similarly covered in a layer of snow so thick and so realistic he’d almost reached out to touch it, and his awe dissolved.
“Fake snow?”
“It’s not a Dickens Christmas without snow. Lots of it.”
“I wouldn’t know.” He slammed the curtains shut, a gesture which resulted in little more than an impotent swaying of fabric. “I’ve never read it.”
Back turned, he couldn’t see the shock play on her face, but he did hear the genuine gasp of surprise she let out at this declaration. He shouldn’t have expected any less from this Christmas freak.
“Never read A Christmas Carol? Well, thank goodness you’re letting me stay.” He turned in time to see her rustling about in her bag, determination written on her soft features, but even the softest, sweetest, most determined face in the world couldn’t deter him. “I think I’ve got my copy in here somewhere.”
“I’m not letting you stay. You’re leaving.” He scooped up her jacket and offered it to her. “And now.”
“But think about it: do you really want to be
