Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

KENNEDY

“The nerve,” I mutter.

Who does Rowan Mayberry think he is, anyway? He acted like I was an infectious disease from the moment I stepped out of the car, and then he dared to wrap his arm around me and pretend I’m his .

Worse, that natural physical chemistry I don’t have with any of the guys in the house? It leapt between us like flames traveling across a path of paper.

Darn him.

No, damn him. And damn my mother for hardwiring it into me that ladies shouldn’t swear, because those words feel right.

“Do you think Oliver remembers what happened this spring?” Harry asks in an undertone, glancing back at them. Harry’s still clutching his hat in one hand, his dairy-free drink in the other. I’m grateful for my dairy-heavy hot chocolate. It’s exactly the sort of creature comfort I need right now.

There’s nothing better for solving your woes than a pillow of whipped cream, Olive would say. I feel a fierce press of missing her. True to his words, Harry let me borrow his phone to call her from the sitting room closest to my bedroom last night, and we watched Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in The Case of the Christmas Caper together—the only Christmas movie the Labelles had in their very small DVD collection. It was laughably bad, and we did laugh. A lot. But it’s not the same as watching something together in person.

“Well?” Harry presses, his eyes so full of hope. “He didn’t say anything about it, so maybe—”

“Harry,” I say softly, glancing at him. “I’m sorry, but that’s not the kind of thing someone would forget.”

He sighs heavily. “You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just… Why are you upset? The whole strumpet thing?”

“Yes!”

“I mean, I guess it is kind of an old-fashioned word. The sort of thing you’d read in a poem rhyming strumpet and crumpet .” He lets out a groan as we near the sleigh, and even though the thing looks like it would fall apart if rust weren’t holding it together, I’m guessing that’s not the source of his distress. “I said ‘No dairy for Harry.’ I mean, I’m basically sabotaging myself at every opportunity here. Why didn’t you clamp a hand on my mouth or stomp on my foot really hard? A kick would have been understood—no, welcomed—in this one situation.”

“Huh,” I say, studying him. His nerves seem to prickle off him, as if he’s become a human hedgehog. “You really like this guy, don’t you?”

“What’s not to like?” he asks mournfully. “He’s tall, dark, and delicious , and he doesn’t accidentally rhyme words and pretend he did it on purpose.”

“He seemed to find it charming,” I say, hoping it’s true. Oliver seemed amused, at the very least, and he hasn’t been trying to keep his distance. I’ve caught him taking surreptitious glances at Harry, although that might be because he’s been behaving peculiarly. Except… “For all we know, he asked Rowan to set this whole thing up.” I pause, thinking about it. “I mean, it’s a little weird that they asked you, right? You don’t strike me as an outdoorsy guy.”

His jaw works. “I own a Prius. I care about the environment.”

It’s not the kind of car you’d go off-roading in, but I don’t say so. Instead, I hurry to assure him, “It’s not an insult. I’m not outdoorsy either. My mother would never let me play outside if it was muddy. Or rainy. Or really anything except sunny and dry.”

He sighs. “I never let myself play outside if it was muddy or rainy. You’re right. I only pretend to like hiking because Tina’s always going on about all the trails around here.” His eyes take on a far-off look. “Do you really think Oliver asked Rowan to set this up?”

“Maybe.” The thought carries me away for a second. It would be so romantic if Oliver had spent the last several months thinking about Harry as the one who got away—literally, since Harry ran off. “You know, how amazing would your ‘this is how we met’ story be if you and Oliver end up getting married?”

Harry laughs, some of his angst floating away. “You think I’d tell everyone that I had a gas explosion the first time he kissed me? That’s going to the grave with me.” He scrunches his features. “Except I did tell you, so I’m already failing at that.”

“I think he would probably tell people.” I grin back at him, then gesture to the sleigh. “Will you take my picture sitting in it?”

He gives it a dubious look. “I know you’re not going to like what I have to say, but Rowan might be right. If that were a wounded animal, it would be taken out to pasture.”

I pull a face. “What a terrible saying.”

“Huh,” he says, tilting his head. “You’re right. I guess I never really thought about it. But seriously, you might get tetanus or something. It’s not a common problem, but if you haven’t gotten your booster, you should really have second thoughts.” He gives a shudder as he takes in the plastic Santa in the driver’s seat. It looks like the eyes are supposed to move, but they’re frozen in a grimace. “That thing is absolutely nightmare fuel. I’ll be thinking about that tonight when I’m trying to sleep. No question.”

“Come on, Harry. I want to send a picture to Olive. She’ll get a real kick out of it.”

He sighs and gives a solemn nod. “Be careful where you step. I read a story the other day about a woman who stepped in a fire ant colony and was so badly bitten they had to amputate.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”

He twists his mouth to the side. “You could sprain your ankle though.”

I wave him off, consider the sleigh for a second, and decide Olive would be most amused if I sat next to the creepy Santa. I step in beside the mannequin and put an arm around him. “Can you take it like this?” I ask, smiling up at Harry.

He’s gaping at me, not making a move to lift his phone. “Oh. My. God.”

“What?”

“Don’t freak out, Kennedy,” he says slowly.

I half expect him to say our safe words— candy cane —because he’s seen one of the guys or, God forbid, Nana Mayberry up at the cabin, but it takes only a second for me to realize he’s looking to the right of me. I glance over and shriek. The Santa’s hinged mouth has dropped open, and an enormous spider is crawling out of it.

I try to leap out of the sleigh, but my foot gets caught on something, and I go sprawling next to it. My hot chocolate is a casualty of the fall, but thankfully none of the hot liquid spills on me. I catch sight of someone in my peripheral vision, hurrying toward me. Harry.

But when I look up, it’s not Harry. It’s Rowan, his forehead sweaty.

“What happened?” he blurts, crouching next to me.

“I…” But suddenly I can’t get any words out, because he’s so close to me, staring at me with such intensity, like he might chop up the ground if he finds out it tripped me. My lips part, but no words come. His spicy scent is engulfing me and making me stupid.

“ Princess ,” he says, reaching out to touch my hair. He runs his fingers through it, and my lips part further.

“It’s okay,” Harry says, stepping toward us but keeping a good distance between himself and the sleigh. I honestly can’t blame him. It’s better decision-making than mine. “She wanted to take a photo with the Nightmare Santa, and then its mouth popped open, and it belched out a spider. I’m really having second thoughts about this outing, Rowan. Are you sure this isn’t one of those scenarios where they’re secretly taping people while they torture them? I know most of those movies are fictional, but if people can think it up to put in a movie, then they can just as easily make it happen in real life.”

I’m prepared for Rowan to scoff about princesses and their selfie habits, but instead he looks amused. “You wanted to pose with that ?”

He nods at the Santa with the gaping mouth just as Oliver emerges from the woods. “Everything all right?”

“Nothing some whiskey can’t cure,” Rowan says, reaching for my hand. I let him take it, feeling a tingling awareness as his big hand engulfs mine, even through his work gloves, and he lifts me to my feet as easily as if I were a doll. As soon as I’m on my feet, he hands his cup to me.

“You carried that all the way over here?” I ask, stunned. He got to us so quickly he must have sprinted.

He looks a little embarrassed as he says, “I was about to take a sip when I heard you scream.” He juts it toward my hand again.

“But it’s yours,” I say.

“Worried about backwash?”

Maybe. I’m also keenly aware that his lips were probably pressed to the plastic lid, and mine might go in the same place.

“I didn’t drink any yet,” he says. “I was too busy picking out a tree.”

“You’re sweating,” I say. I have the desire to trace it off his forehead, but that would be demented. If I were to mention such a thing in front of my mother, she’d probably tell me it’s a sign that I’m defective and have been since birth.

“I started chopping it already,” he says, then swears under his breath. “I shouldn’t have left it like that.”

“Well, let’s go finish,” I say, before I can totally think it through.

He glances at Oliver, who’s now standing next to Harry.

The woman from earlier pops her head out the door. “What’s wrong?” she asks, her face drawn. “We can’t afford another accident with one of the axes.”

“An ax accident,” Harry says, his color worsening. “You could call them ax-ccidents.” He shoots me a panicked look, silently communicating that this was another occasion when I should have been close enough to kick him in the shin.

I mouth the word “sorry.”

“Just a spider,” Rowan tells her, and because he can probably see the righteous indignation on my face, he adds, “You know how I am about spiders.”

She chuckles, probably too relieved that we haven’t axed ourselves to really care what we’re up to, and heads back into the cabin.

“You’re scared of spiders?” I ask Rowan.

“Deathly,” he says.

Taking him in, his sweating brow, his short beard, and those intense eyes, it’s hard to imagine he’s afraid of anything.

“We should stick together,” Oliver says. “Make sure we’re safe from Santa.”

Rowan shakes his head ruefully. “I already chose my tree. You’re still looking. Maybe Harry should help you, and Kennedy can help me.”

“I don’t know much about cutting down trees,” I admit.

“And here I thought you liked to watch,” he says, lifting his brows. There’s an undercurrent rumbling under his words, or maybe I’m the one who put it there, noticing that sweat and his scent.

I take a hearty sip of the spiked cider, and it’s delicious. It’s also nothing like the drinks served at my parents’ famous Christmas Eve party—a stiff, joyless affair that’s only “famous” for its cold elegance. The trees no one in the family is allowed to decorate. The hors d’oeuvres made by a famous chef. The cookies made to look pretty rather than to be eaten.

I feel a swell of relief that I’m here and not there. Which is maybe why I start nodding. “Okay, let’s do it.”

The way Rowan immediately glances at Oliver tells me he’s up to something. It strikes me that he seems very eager to get Oliver and Harry alone together.

Wait a minute…

I steal a glance at Harry, who looks panicked but not necessarily displeased, and decide this isn’t one of those occasions on which he’d like a kick. So I follow Rowan into the trees.

“You left a tree half-chopped?” I ask.

“I know. It’s probably a safety hazard,” he says, wiping his brow. “But I heard you screaming at the top of your lungs. I figured you’d had an accident.”

“Or maybe an ax-ccident,” I say with a small smile.

We both laugh at the expense of our friend, which probably isn’t very nice, although there’s plenty of fondness behind it.

“I guess I’m afraid of spiders too,” I tell him. “Or at least spiders crawling out of Santa Claus’s mouth.”

“I’m not sure I’d want to meet the person who wouldn’t find that frightening,” Rowan says, stopping in front of a glorious pine, taller than him. His ax is resting against the trunk, business side down.

“How’d you choose it?” I ask.

“I looked to the heavens and asked for guidance, and a ray of light led me to this tree.”

“Really?”

He gives me a wry look. “No. It’s a good tree. My stepfather, Jay, taught me what to look for.”

“And what’s that?”

“Well, the first thing to look for is one that’s no more than six inches in diameter. You don’t want to be out here all day, do you?”

Actually, I’m not so sure I don’t. It’s better than being cooped up in that house, surrounded by men who are vying for my attention.

Men I don’t feel much inclined to give my attention.

“So that’s the only factor?”

“It has to look good too,” he says, giving me a smirk.

I glance away as he takes up the ax, but I can’t keep up my don’t look at Rowan Mayberry efforts for long. My gaze takes him in as his muscles bunch beneath his shirt and he deals another blow to the trunk. He must have set aside his coat before coming to me, because his arms are only covered by a red-and-black-checkered flannel shirt, his hands in those gloves.

“Are you playing matchmaker with Oliver and Harry?” I ask in a burst.

He lowers his arms before making another strike. “What makes you think that?”

“You seemed like you wanted to get them alone together, and we both know Harry’s not the kind of person who’d be interested in cutting down his own tree, yet you invited him anyway.”

“Maybe I wanted to be alone with you,” he says, tilting his head at me.

“No, I don’t think so,” I say.

He snorts and takes a swing at the tree.

“You said you come here every year?”

He pauses, glances at me. “Not every year. Last year, my little sister, Willow, was in town. Willow’s all about Christmas.”

“And you came with your stepfather.”

“I did,” he says with a nod. “Jay. But he and my mother were only married a few years.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “He sounds nice.”

“He is…so I’m not sorry. He’s a good guy. The kind of guy who deserved to marry someone nice, and he ultimately did. He and his wife have been together for decades now.” His face twists into something that’s not quite a smile. “You know, they actually met here.”

He’s usually so closed off and hard to read, but for some reason he’s talking to me, really talking, and I sense the hurt under his words.

“I’m sorry you have a hard relationship with your mother.”

That earns me another snort as he raises the ax again. “That would imply I have any relationship with her.”

“I wish I didn’t have a relationship with my mother,” I say, then lift my hand to my lips, as if I could shove the words back in. They’re true, but it’s not the kind of thing a lady would say.

“Oh?” he asks, smiling. He lets the ax hang by his side. “Zach doesn’t talk about them much, but we all know what happened.”

Actually, he probably doesn’t know. It’s not like my brother goes around telling people that he was disowned because everyone found out he’s illegitimate. My father didn’t feel the need to punish my mother, but my brother? He couldn’t throw him away fast enough. I’ll never forgive him for that, or my mother for letting it happen.

Zach and I have another brother, Phillip, but he hasn’t bothered with us since finding out the truth. He’s my father’s heir, the one who’s supposed to take over, but from what I can tell, he hasn’t been spending much time with my parents outside of work either.

“They’re awful people,” I say, surprised at myself for admitting it so openly.

“That’s okay, Princess,” Rowan says, lifting one side of his mouth. “Your fate isn’t decided by who your family is. You didn’t choose them, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t have.”

“Why do you call me princess?”

“Because you did decide to go on that show,” he says, grinning full on now. “That is on you.”