A Copper Ridge Christmas

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.

CHAPTER THREE (#u54c97559-7b5b-5b40-9586-9a0f6e0c3510)

SHE’D TEXTED RYAN a little over an hour ago and he still hadn’t responded. Fortunately, she’d gotten quite a bit of work done sitting in The Grind, the local coffee house. She also drank too much coffee and ate too many biscottis, but really, what was too many biscottis? Cassie Caldwell, the owner of the shop and baker extraordinaire, had made cranberry, white chocolate, and gingerbread in honor of the season, so, really, Holly had been obligated to sample them all.

An eggnog latte had also been a must in the spirit of the season.

Cassie was expecting her first child any day now with her husband Jake, and Holly felt that meant her work needed to be doubly honored, considering.

Holly looked out the window at the encroaching darkness. The shop windows outside were lit up, full Christmas displays adding warmth to the chilly evening.

She looked down at her phone, which was still dark, the inactivity beginning to stress her out. She was starting to wonder if Ryan had only agreed to help her with the party to get her off his boat last night, and now that he had routed her out of his domain, he had no reason to play along.

She looked morosely at her phone, which was still resolutely not receiving a return text.

Ryan should be off the water by now. Which meant he was just ignoring her.

She frowned and took another sip of her latte. She could do this without him. She planned parties for a living, after all. So what if he’d been the person she should have been able to count on most to want to give back to the Traverses? So what if she was busy? Where Margie and Dan were concerned, nothing was too difficult.

And if she just wanted to spend a little bit of time with Ryan because it reminded her of Christmases past, well, she would just have to get over it. Because it didn’t matter. And anyway, he was a lot meaner now than he used to be. She hardly even liked him. She just liked the way he filled out a sweater, that was all. An entirely different thing than liking his personality.

The door to The Grind opened and she turned to look, her breath catching and becoming a lump in her throat when she realized it was Ryan.

He was a bit more cleaned up than he’d been last night. No beanie, his dark hair pushed off his forehead as though he’d been running his fingers through it. He was wearing a black wool coat and tan corduroy pants, a tight, gray T-shirt conforming to his hard torso.

At least, she was assuming it was hard. It looked hard. She’d never actually touched his stomach, or his chest, though she had thought about it. In fact, she was thinking about it now.

Smiling, she waved from her position at the table and got nothing more than an arched brow and one corner of his lips turned slightly upward in return. He walked to the counter and she sat there, watching, taking a moment to get an eyeful of his physique.

Then she realized the long-distance ogling was probably a little bit weird and stood, leaving her laptop sitting on the table and making her way across the coffee shop to the counter. One of the many perks of living in a small town was that she didn’t have to worry about leaving her things unattended to stand next to the man she should see as nothing more than a surrogate older brother so that she wasn’t leering at him from across the room.

“You came,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“I wasn’t sure if you would. Seeing as you didn’t return my text.”

He lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t tell you I wasn’t coming.”

Just then, Cassie came out from the kitchen, brushing her hands on a flour-covered apron over her rounded stomach. “Hi,” she said, by way of greeting to them both. “More biscotti, Holly?”

Ryan shot her a look that clearly asked How many did you eat? Holly ignored him.

“No, thanks,” she told Cassie. “I think I ate enough for it to count as lunch, dinner, and dessert.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Cassie replied cheerfully.

“I’ll have a biscotti,” Ryan said.

“What kind would you like?”

“Whichever is your favorite, and a large black coffee.”

Cassie smiled. “You got it. Go ahead and have a seat.”

Ryan actually smiled back, and Holly was so stunned for a moment she forgot to breathe.

He started to walk back toward her table, and she followed. “So,” she said, “you are capable of basic friendliness.”

“Yes,” he said. “I can also use silverware and operate basic machinery.”

“It’s just that you don’t smile very much these days. At least not at me.”

He lifted a brow. “Did you ever think maybe it’s because you’re a pain in the ass?”

She thinned her lips into a flat line and shot him her most evil look. “How would I have time to stop and notice? You’re so busy being a pain in mine.”

“What did I do to you? I was just on my boat, minding my own business. You came in with cheeseburgers and dire commentary on my living situation and general countenance. Face it, Holly, you aren’t very nice to me.”