No Bunny But You (Holiday Romance Series)

By

Carol Rose

Copyright Carol Rose 2013

Cover image courtesy of Julia Dolzhenko &
Dreamstime.com

Cover by Joleene Naylor

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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the hard work of this author.

* * * * * * * * *

Part of the Holiday Series by Carol Rose:

1. Hating Christmas

2. No Bunny But You

3. Thankfully Yours

* * * * * * * * *

“Here. Try on this bunny head for me.” The door to
her yellow VW Beetle open, Molly yanked at something in the back
seat, her white blonde head bobbing with the exertion.

“What?” Drake Hampton stood next to his friend’s car
in the bright Austin sunshine, watching her wrestle out of the back
seat what looked to be a large costume head.

“Try it on.” She jiggled the large bunny head in his
direction in a silly way. “You know that as a party planner, I
often have a guy in various costumes show up at parties. When I was
at the costume place this morning, getting a Spider Man outfit,
they offered me a great deal on the bunny costume. You never know
when this might come in handy. Here.”

“I’m not trying on the stupid head! We’re in a
parking lot, Molly. I’m not making a fool of myself by putting that
head on.” Knowing he sounded irritated, he looked around to see if
any restaurant patrons had noticed them. “I thought we were having
lunch.”

“We are,” she insisted. “I just wanted to see how the
head looked on someone.
Geesh.
I have several interviews
scheduled this afternoon with costume character people. I wanted a
better look at the bunny outfit, that’s all.”

He leaned on the open car door as a leaf skittered
by, swept by the wind. “You know, you didn’t ask me these weird
things when you were an interior decorator.”

She shoved the head into the back seat of her sunny
car. “Ha ha. Being a decorator allows much less latitude for fun
than planning parties. No bunny costume opportunities.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun. Can we have lunch now? I
need to get your text for the next blog.”

“It’s in my bag.” She slammed the car door and
followed him to the restaurant door. “About the blog…. We need to
talk.”

When the waiter had seated them and taken their
order, Drake looked at her across the table.

Molly cleared her throat and shifted her utensils
around several times. They’d been best friends for a long time.
Drake watched her, knowing something was up.

“I think you need to handle the blog on your own,”
she blurted out suddenly. “You know, without me giving you the
details of how to do home repairs. All on your own. No help from
me.”

“What? What the hell!” He stared across the table at
her, unable to believe she meant what she was saying. “You can’t be
serious.”

Leaning forward to grasp Drake’s hand, she said,
“Listen, you can do this yourself. You’re too good a guy to keep on
living a lie like this. In the beginning, I thought I was just
helping till you got comfortable with the blog. I never intended it
to go on so long.”

“No, I’m not.” He straightened, pulling his hand from
Molly’s as her words sunk in. She was bailing on him. He couldn’t
believe his best friend was bailing on him. “I’m not really that
good a guy. Besides, it’s not like I’m lying. This isn’t
earth-shaking stuff and I am learning as we work through different
projects. I do write every line. You’re just my data person. You’ve
always worked with your hands.”

Her gaze held his as she said again, “You can do
this. All by yourself.”

“I can’t believe you won’t help me with the blog
anymore?” Drake stared at her, willing her to change her mind. “Is
that what you’re saying? You won’t help anymore?”

“Listen, Drake,” Molly again shifted the cutlery next
to her plate, her pale features determined, “we’ve been friends
since high school—“

“Best friends,” he stuck in. He and Molly had been
tight since they’d wandered from dating to friendship when they
were teens. With her fair complexion and white blond hair, he’d
noticed her right away, and in the randy manner of teenage boys, he
wanted to nail her. But he soon learned that Molly was more than
eye candy. She was nice to look at and she initially seemed
deceptively fragile, but this girl was anything but fragile.

“Yes.” She nodded. “We were best friends since after
we stopped dating—“

Molly wouldn’t let him down. She couldn’t be serious
about this. They’d been through thick and thin.

Drake said in a teasing voice. “After you left me in
high school for the varsity quarterback, I think you owe me to keep
helping with the blog just because of that.”

“Get a grip, Drake,” she said with exasperation.
“When you were unemployed after the newspaper shut down—I know you
loved that job—you applied a lot of places to find a journalism
position—“

“I looked everywhere,” he said in a level voice, “for
months. I had rent to pay.”

“—and I understood that. I even encouraged you to
apply for this paid blog job—“

“Yes, you did. And since I don’t know crap about home
improvement stuff, you said you’d help me. You said that.” He
couldn’t believe she was serious about not helping him anymore. Not
Molly. “You know I haven’t done any of that work before. It’s
embarrassing for a guy to admit to, but I’ve never even lifted a
hammer. Hell, I took a bunch of AP classes, for all the good it did
me, and I wrote the school paper. I never had a job where I had to
work with my hands.”

She nodded. “It was weird. The rest of us had no clue
what we wanted to do when we got out of high school or even when we
went to college, but you knew even then that you wanted a newspaper
job. And you didn’t even have an afterschool job because your dad
didn’t want you to work in high school—“

“People aren’t reading newspapers the way they were.
Content is on-line. That’s why I started looking for internet
journalism jobs, but I wouldn’t have even considered this home
improvement gig after seeing the Bloggies at the South By Southwest
Festival if you hadn’t said you’d help.”

Molly swiped a hand through her chin-length white
blonde hair, shoving it off her face. “I
have
helped you
with the blog’s content, for two years now. I don’t think I’m
helping you, if I keep doing this.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table between.
“You
are,
Moll. You are helping me and I’m very grateful.
Really grateful. I don’t know one wrench from another. Hell, you’re
a designer and you build things all the time.”

“I’m not a designer anymore,” she reminded him.
“Remember my new event planning business? And when have you ever
even worked on home improvement stuff with me, the way I
suggested?”

Drake laughed. “It doesn’t matter if you’re not
designing anymore. You’re still good at that kind of thing. You
started working with your parents when you were old enough to pick
up a screwdriver. You’ve always spackled and painted and now you
build decks on the back of your little house and—“

“This has to stop, Drake,” she insisted. “You know we
can’t go on like this. I never intended this to be a long-term
thing. You don’t like taking my mangled text and smoothing it into
a blog. You’ve said yourself that I don’t do words.”

“No, but I do.” He smiled at her. Drake liked being a
team with Molly and he couldn’t imagine doing the blog without her.
She’d been his rock in so many ways. “It’s not that big a deal to
smooth everything out. I am picking up things from you. And
together, we work magic. The last blog about choosing the right
paint color—terrific.”

Molly shook her head. “This isn’t the right way to
handle things. You are sharp and focused with news content. You
leave me in the dust with that. This blog, with you writing things
I tell you about, this isn’t good for either of us. Yours is the
name and the face on the blog. It’s your thing. I’ll teach you the
home improvement things. It’s not that hard. You’ll learn how to do
all this stuff in no time. You’re intelligent and capable. If I
stop doing the work for you, you’ll do it. You’ll learn. I know you
can do this.”

“Will you be serious? I’ve never been a handy guy. My
dad is a college professor, for heaven’s sake. He never worked on
things around the house.” he said with exasperation. “He always
called repairmen. I don’t know crap about flooring or joists or any
of that stuff. You can’t quit, Moll.”

“You can learn—given the right incentive. Listen, I
don’t like having to be the tough guy, but you can’t continue like
this.”

He stared at her. “What do you mean?”

She hesitated a moment, before raising her candid
gaze to his. “If you want to keep this job, you need to learn to
handle the home improvement projects on your own…before word gets
out that you have someone else telling you what to write.”

Drake’s gaze narrowed. “Are you threatening me, best
friend?”

“Don’t look at it like that,” she begged.

“That’s how it sounds to me.” He looked at her in
disbelief. “
You’d
tell my boss? Molly Stanhope, that’s
blackmail! Are you blackmailing me?

“Don’t get all dramatic. You’re acting like I’m being
mean to you. All I want is to help you feel better about this gig.
You don’t need to keep up this charade. If you’re going to keep
writing a home improvement blog, you need to be able to do it on
your own.”

He sat back in his chair. “I can’t believe you’d rat
me out.”

* * *

“I tell you, Abby, it was one of the hardest things
I’ve done.” The next day Molly took a swallow of her iced tea,
curled up on her couch across from her friend. She kept seeing the
expression on Drake’s face when she’d told him she wasn’t giving
him projects for his blog. “It felt like I was dumping him, only
worse because….”

“Because now you have a thing for him.” Abby nodded
sympathetically. “Crazy, considering that you two have been best
friends all these years. I mean after you dumped him in high
school.”

“I know.” She stared glumly at her glass. With his
dark hair and eyes, he’d have been a chick magnet, if he hadn’t
been so nerdy and studious. “And I dumped him to go out with that
dumb quarterback in high school.”

“Don’t feel so bad about it,” her friend chided her.
“People fall for their best friends all the time. He’s a hot guy.
He just needs to see you in a different light. Again. Like he used
to.”

“You mean, see me other than as his crutch?” She made
a face at her friend as she swizzled her straw around in the tea
glass.

“Other than his best bud,” Abby corrected. “Although
I must say some people would think you helping him with his blog
was romantic, if they knew.”

Molly stared at her.

“Not me, but I’m just saying,
some
people
would see it that way.”

“This isn’t romantic for Drake. He just doesn’t want
to learn any home improvement stuff himself,” she said with
asperity. “Actually, it could be embarrassing, if he knew how I
feel now. What if he finds out that I have a thing for him, but he
doesn’t feel that way toward me?”

“Possible, but not likely. You’re hot, yourself.
Actually, I’m surprised he hasn’t hit on you. Seems like every
other guy does.” Abby sipped meditatively at her tea, staring into
space. “Drake’s always kind of been a ‘news nerd’. You know, in
that hot kind of millionaire way? He’s all tall and well-built,
too. Nice. I go for guys with dark hair.”

Molly shook her head. “I’m just helping him lie.
Helping him undermine himself. He’s not good at dealing with
failure or showing people his weaker side. You know, he doesn’t
take a lot of risks, particularly not emotional ones. He needs to
develop some skills in this area or get another job. You know what
his boss would say if he knew I tell Drake everything about the
actual work?”

“He’d fire him.” Her friend leaned back against the
couch. “So, what’s the plan? You stop feeding him info for the blog
and then you tell him you’ve got the hots for him?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I just want to knock his
block off and other times I want to strip in front of him. It’s
crazy.” With her friend staring at her, she assured her. “I’m not
gonna. I’m just saying….”

“Too bad you didn’t hang on to him when you had him.”
Abby made a wry face at her.

“I was sixteen! Who the hell knows what they want
when they’re sixteen?”