Kissing Under the Mistletoe (16 page)

“You are needed out on the floor. Now!” Jordan shoved her way into the office.

Regan jerked away, buttoning up her shirt and smoothing back her hair. And Gabe stood there like an idiot watching
her. All the pressing in the world couldn’t hide that she had just been loved. Oh, they hadn’t made love—yet—but what was happening between them was way more than just kissing.

“Hello? Did you not hear me?” Jordan said again, her eyes darting back and forth between the two.

“I’m sorry, I was just grabbing my things.” Regan leaned down and picked up her shoes.

“Not you,” Jordan sighed dramatically. “Although you were supposed to be on the floor over twenty minutes ago.” Her irritation zeroed in on Gabe. “You! I have been texting you for nearly ten minutes.”

He shrugged, used to Jordan’s dramatics. Whenever she complained about her daughter being a handful, he considered buying her a black tea kettle.

“Texts? I didn’t get any.”

As if on cue, his phone vibrated. Jordan picked it up off the floor and thrust it at him. He silenced it and set it on the desk. Regan, on the other hand, was bright red and doing her best to avoid looking him in the eye.

“Jordan, give us a minute, would you?”

“That’s okay. We can talk,” Regan mumbled to the floor. “You know.” No, he didn’t know. And he wanted to finish this conversation now. Before Regan made it all the way to the door, which was where she was headed. Fast.

Gabe reached for her but she skirted past, his fingers grazing her hand, which seconds ago had been all over his body. She hadn’t made it more than five feet when she was shoved back inside, and right back into his arms, by three shouting ladies, a hissing fluff ball in Santa drag, an angry Frenchman, and a partridge in a pear tree. Literally.

The Frenchman held the crystal partridge from the lobby display.

“Get us some rope, Regan,” Lucinda said, jabbing the businessman in the rear with an umbrella. “We can tie him up while we wait for the sheriff.”

“Nobody is tying anybody up,” Gabe hollered, snatching Lucinda’s makeshift cattle prod and ChiChi’s scarf for good measure, since she was holding it like a rope. Easing Regan out of scratching distance, since the cat was showing its claws, Gabe took the Frenchman by the arm and guided him to the chair.

“Now, would someone mind telling me what in the hell is going on?”

The entire room erupted into conversation. Well, conversation implied a two-way thing—this was more of everyone telling their side of the story simultaneously. At the top of their lungs. Besides him, the only one who wasn’t yelling was Regan, who was still looking for a way out.

“Silence!”

Everyone froze, including the cat, whose hat was now covering its eyes.

“Jordan, please explain to me what is going on.”

Jordan folded her arms and glared. “Check your phone. It’s all there.”

This, Gabe thought, right here, was why he spent so much time—what had ChiChi called it?—
smothering
his family members. Because when he didn’t, he spent his days cleaning up his brothers’ messes and dealing with homicidal grannies. He was about to say to hell with it and let his nonna take out the Frenchman when Regan spoke.

“‘Get your stare-worthy, entitled ass over here now,’” Regan said.

Gabe looked up and Regan shrugged, holding up his cell as proof. “That’s what the text said. The next one says, ‘All the wine in the world can’t make up for your crazy a—” She stopped, looking at everyone in the room
but
ChiChi. “Maybe I should skip ahead?”

“Scroll to the last two,” Jordan said, picking at her cuticles.

“Um, okay, here it is. ‘Your grandmother is about to assault a foreign diplomat with her handbag.’” Gabe grabbed ChiChi’s purse, which was clutched in her angry little hands.

“I am a wine connoisseur,” Frenchie argued.

“He’s a criminal,” ChiChi argued louder.

“He is the head of foreign investment for the country of France!” Jordan rebutted.

“See,” Pricilla said, pulling out a petit four from her purse and taking a bite. “Politicians are all criminals.”

“He was stealing Marco’s crystal bird,” ChiChi accused.

“I was not stealing anything, I was merely admiring the display when these three started beating me with their umbrellas, and then that feline scratched me.” The Frenchman looked from his arm to the cat and then to Lucinda. “I hope it’s had its shots.”

Lucinda cuddled Mr. Puffins to her chest. “I’m going to shoot you if you don’t give us back our Randolph!”

“Ah, hell,” Gabe said, a headache forming behind his left eye.

“I have no idea who Randolph is, and as I tried to explain to these ladies earlier, I have nothing to do with his disappearance.”

“I never forget a face and I have seen yours before. Probably on one of those police shows on television,” Pricilla shot back, licking the icing off her pudgy little finger so she could point with it.

And Gabe’s life just got a hell of a lot worse because this man wasn’t a diplomat, and Pricilla
had
seen his face. It was plastered on every ad promoting this week’s wine conference. Their criminal was none other than Simon Bonnet, one of the largest wine importers in France and this week’s keynote speaker.

“And we found this near the town display, right next to Randolph’s pedestal,” ChiChi said, shoving an Eiffel Tower key ring in Gabe’s face. He blinked. “As in, the scene of the crime.”

“Oh, boy.” Regan’s face paled and Gabe would have bet good money she was shy one key ring.

“Can you read the last text?” Jordan asked, taking a petit four from Pricilla.

“Um, okay.” Regan read the screen. “It says, ‘I’m taking the rest of the week off. Paid.’”

“And to think I brought you one of my persimmon rolls,” Jordan added.

Gabe cringed. He hated those persimmon rolls. They were almost as bad as ChiChi’s fruitcakes. He still had the one from Thanksgiving in the back of his truck.

As if reading his mind, Jordan harrumphed and then headed for the door.

“Hang on.” Gabe grabbed her arm. There was no way in hell he could lose Jordan the week before Christmas. Not this Christmas. As insane as she made him, she also made his life run smoothly. She was the gatekeeper for all of his
family’s crazy ideas and problems. If she left, he would be forced to go with her, because there was no way he could deal with his family alone.

Then the damnedest thing happened. The Frenchman laughed.

Simon and Regan sat, one in the chair, the other on the desk, and spoke in rapid French, giggling and sharing stories. Gabe watched with fascination—and, if he were being honest, pride—as the man literally transformed in front of his eyes. Under Regan’s attention his brows lowered, his eyes lit with excitement, and his whole body relaxed.

She didn’t flirt or use her beauty to charm him, which she easily could have. Instead, her magic was making him feel validated, taking the time to listen and to share.

With a final laugh and a firm shake of the hand, Regan led him out of the office. Simon patted Gabe on the shoulder and said something about grandbabies and holidays.

“You going to just let them walk away?” ChiChi barked.

A wise man would answer yes. Last he’d heard, though, the roles of all three wise men were already cast. And he wasn’t one of them.

“T
his one,” Holly said as she walked around the tree. It was full and lush and smelled like Christmas. It was also ten feet tall and wider than their kitchen.

“How about we find something a little more...quaint?” Regan suggested, gripping the ax handle tighter and steering her daughter toward the smaller trees.

Choosing the right tree was a lot more difficult that she’d anticipated, and, if the way the ax handle was already giving her blisters was a sign, cutting one down was going to be painful. Cutting it down in the middle of a race, when most of her competitors were dads, was going to be impossible. Which was why Regan and Holly came early, to scout out a good tree. Because when that whistle blew and people started scrambling for the available trees, it was bound to get messy.

First step was to get Holly to agree on one that was not fit for Rockefeller Center. It was the dreamer in Holly. She believed that if they had the perfect tree then they would have the perfect Christmas.

Telling herself that she did not fall under those same illusions, yet determined to make this Christmas everything Holly dreamed it would be, Regan put on her game face and contemplated just how big a tree they could get and still cut through the trunk in the allotted fifteen minutes. Because how many more years would Holly still believe in Santa? In Christmas miracles?

“How about that one?” Regan said, pointing to a beautiful tree toward the back of the row. Holly ran through the column of trees to stare up at it in awe. There was no way she could get it on top of her car, let alone in her house, but if Holly loved it then they could always have it delivered and put it on the back porch.

“Nope,” Holly said dismissively. “Not
quaint
enough. Plus it’s got a red tag.” Which meant that it had already been sold.

Most people in St. Helena didn’t have to wait for payday to buy a tree. They had come down weeks ago, picked out the best one, prepaid, and
still
came to the St. Helena Cut and Run.

The Cut and Run was an annual fund-raiser held by the Community Action Committee to fund the Christmas musical, and with a portion of this year’s profits going toward the Safe Return of Randolph fund, nearly the entire town had turned out, which wasn’t a surprise. Regan had begun to understand that St. Helenites loved their town, Christmas, and Randolph. And not necessarily in that order.

She had tried several times over the past week to return the stupid statue. But no matter what time she went, there were always mourners holding a silent vigil. Sometimes not so silent, she thought, remembering Mrs. Lambert of the
Grapevine Prune and Clip singing her version of “Ave Maria” while holding a clip-off to help raise funds for Randolph.

“Five minutes left until the Ninety-Third Annual Cut and Run. All contestants please make your way to the starting line.” A voice came over the speaker, which was on loan from the school.

Regan followed Holly over to the next row, the fake snow crunching under her feet. She waved to Jordan, who was too busy draping Ava in her coat to wave back, and said hi to Mrs. Collette who, just as Holly described, smelled like saltines and sounded like she had a megaphone surgically attached to her vocal box.

The deeper they had gone into the Christmas tree patch, the thicker the crowd had grown and the more nervous she had become. There were more people than golden tags. And since only the golden-ticketed trees could be cut in the contest, someone was going home empty-handed.

“Mommy,” Holly cried from two rows over. Regan could hear the excitement in her daughter’s voice and
knew
she’d found her Christmas tree.

Cutting through the jolly forest, around a scantily clad Ava who, with red-streaked hair and diamond-pierced navel, had managed to lose her mother and the bottom half of her skirt, and sidestepping a woman with a blinking red walker, Regan finally found her daughter. She was staring up at the most beautiful tree on the lot.

It was a shiny hunter green with lots of lush branches and the perfect tip for her mother’s star—a symmetrical goddess. Regan would have to have it delivered, which meant an extra charge, and the tree was a bit tall, but with some heavy maneuvering they could fit it through the door. Now
all she had to figure out was how to get it, since the trunk was way more than a fifteen-minute chop.

“She’s a pretty one,” Isabel said, stepping out from the other side of the tree. She wasn’t wearing a rainbow knit cap, a men’s flannel, and holey jeans with gardening gloves dangling out the back pocket. No, Isabel, in fur and lumberjack boots, somehow managed to look runway ready. And in
her
back pocket was a tall, well-built man with hands the size of watermelons and an ax big enough to chop through Holly’s tree in one whack.

“This is my brother, Paul. Paul, this is Holly’s mom.” Isabel placed a possessive hand on his arm. “He’s home for the holidays and is sweet enough to be my swinging ax tonight.”

“Regan,”
Holly’s mom
said. “Nice to meet you.”

“It is very nice to meet you.” Mr. Swinging Ax held Regan’s hand until Isabel elbowed him.

“We saw a tree over there with your name on it,” Regan said, placing a possessive hand on
her
tree. She had actually counted five Stark-ticketed trees thus far.

“Just seeing what else is out here. We could always use one for the front porch.” Isabel gave the tree a swift kick. “This is nice, but I imagine it would take quite a while to chop down. Even for someone Paul’s size. Too bad you don’t have a man to help out. Well, happy hunting.”

Regan almost shot her a happy greeting in return, but that finger would cost her a whole lot more than a quarter.

“Do we need a man to get a tree, Mommy?” Holly whispered, looking up at Regan as if her answer could forever change the course of her little five-year-old life.