and Margie’s, but they hadn’t come. He’d put his arm around her and pulled her in for a hug, then the air between them had changed. Crackled with electricity.
And he’d pulled away like he’d been burned. Holly Fulton had enough bad things in her life without having him too. That had been true then, and it was true now. No matter how pretty she was.
“They worry about you, you know,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because.” She picked up a French fry and waved it around. “You’re a boat-dwelling weirdo.”
“And?”
“Maybe you could show them that you’re...well-adjusted? Doing fine? Participating in normal, human type things?”
“You’re using Dan and Margie’s emotional distress at my possibly sad life against me?”
She scrunched up her face. “When you put it like that it sounds... unsavory.”
He picked up a French fry and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. “It is unsavory. It’s downright small. Low. Frankly, I’m surprised at you. For someone who looks so sweet, you’re ruthless.”
He could tell that she was very uncomfortable with being called ruthless. It was also the furthest thing from the truth. Still, he couldn’t help but goad her a little bit. Seeing as she was roping him into planning a Christmas party, and attending said Christmas party, both of which sounded about as appealing as getting a root canal while also receiving a vasectomy without anesthetic.
“Oh, cry me a river, Ryan. I’m strong-arming you into taking part in Christmas cheer and I will likely force-feed you gingerbread. It’s for your own good.”
“Like cod liver oil, flu shots and any book Oprah recommends.”
“A Christmas party is comparable to none of those.”
“Maybe not for you.”
“I promise not to get any joy on you. You don’t even have to like it.”
Saying yes to Holly really was the best idea. She wasn’t wrong. His involvement in this would make Dan and Margie less likely to think that he was turning into a seafaring hermit. He was a seafaring hermit, but as long as they saw him as something different, they might not worry so much.
He owed them way more than worry.
“Okay, Holly, you have a deal. I’ll help you plan your Christmas party. But I don’t have to like it.”
She brightened. “Oh, I expect you to hate it.”
“You seem awfully happy about that idea.”
“The more you hate something, the better I know it is. Since you seem to dislike the sorts of things normal people find extremely enjoyable.”
“What exactly are you going to enlist me for?”
She bit her lip, and he did his best not to watch as she worried her teeth over the delicate surface. “Putting up decorations. Helping me procure a tree. Tasting pies. You can taste my pies.”
He felt like he’d just taken a straight shot of whiskey, a trail of fire burning down his throat and settling straight in his gut. It happened so fast he could do nothing to stop it, could do nothing to reason out the fact that she was talking about literal pie, and that even if she wasn’t, it was Holly, and not some random chick in a bar.
He could try to blame it on the fact that, for a bachelor, the promise of fresh baked goods was a turn-on all on its own. But he knew it was more than that.
Holly looked placid and pleased with herself and definitely not like she had any idea she had conjured up an image of him eating her pie. So to speak.
He cleared his throat. “All that, huh? Are you trying to kill me?”
She stood, taking the paper that her cheeseburger had been wrapped in and wadding it up into a ball. “No. But if you die, don’t die before Christmas. Because I need your help.”
“It might be Christmas that kills me.”
She laughed, turning on her heel, her red hair swirling around her. Even her hair was merry and bright. “Joy to the world the Lord is come...” she sang, off-key and too loud, all the way out of his cabin.
As soon as she disappeared from view, he let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. Two weeks with all that Holly was going to be a whole lot of enforced happiness.
But he was hardly going to let Holly do this on her own, and have it get back to Dan, Margie and Elizabeth that he’d refused to help plan a Christmas party in their honor.
He was not that big of a dick. Well, maybe he was, but he didn’t want them thinking that.
And as long as he didn’t think about Holly’s euphemistic pie again, everything would be fine.
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