Chapter 15 Dane

Chapter 15

Dane

This is the worst day of my entire life.

Snow globes and lunch with Amanda’s family and a few random errands around town that we claim to be wedding errands are requiring more touching. More kissing. More accidentally being in sync with her between saying the same things and subconsciously moving closer to each other when we both realize we’re being watched.

We’re back at Lorelei’s house with Chili for dinner. I make excuses about needing to check in with work to give myself a break, but I still hear them talking.

And this is half of why we’re doing it.

I’m not in Tinsel often. Amanda’s apparently not either.

But Lorelei and Amanda are chattering away like they talk all the time. Like it hasn’t been months since the last time they saw each other. Like they were even better friends when we were kids than I knew, and that their friendship has only gotten stronger since.

I don’t make much progress checking email to minimize the mess that I’ll eventually be going back to, and I’m falling farther behind on work this week when I’m supposed to be putting in at least half time to save vacation days.

I’m too busy soaking in the stories they’re telling each other about their lives while the scent of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies fills the air.

Amanda’s accidental excursion to a comedy club that ended with her onstage playing right back to the stand-up comic. Lorelei acting as peacekeeper during a committee meeting about changing out the color of the light bulbs on Kringle Lane. Stories about Amanda’s dogs acting up all over the city. Lorelei’s attempt at a starring role in a low-budget commercial for the Fruitcake Emporium.

Amanda’s fear that the play she wrote for her local community theater will bomb.

She wrote a play.

She wrote a play.

And she hasn’t said a word to me or her family about it, as far as I can tell.

Because she doesn’t think it’s a big deal?

Or because it is a big deal, and she’s afraid no one will support her?

“It’s okay if it bombs.” There’s so much cheek in her voice that I don’t believe her. “I failed at being a professional actress, so it would just fit the theme.”

“ It’s not going to bomb ,” Lorelei replies. “When is it? I’m coming. Wait. Wait. Does this mean you and Dane are definitely living in New York?”

I freeze, but Amanda has this. “He’ll work remotely in New York until after my play, and then we’ll head to San Francisco for a few months. Figure out which one suits us best, you know?”

That’s when I heave myself up from not working to pop my head into the kitchen and volunteer to grill burgers.

It is absolutely a once-in-a-blue-moon cheeseburger night for me tonight.

It’s hot in the kitchen with the oven on, but the fresh cookies are worth it. Even hotter at the grill, and the cheeseburger is even more worth it.

Over dinner, I don’t have to say hardly anything.

They keep going.

It’s making my chest tight.

Not jealousy. Not envy. I don’t feel left out.

I just want this for my sister, all the time. To not have to hide how much she enjoys hanging out with Amanda.

I want it for Amanda, too, but I want it even more for Lorelei.

She loves her life here in Tinsel, but I don’t believe for a minute that she doesn’t dream of going other places and seeing other things too. She’s been to San Francisco to visit me a number of times. She took a trip with another friend to Chicago a couple of years ago. I completely believe she’ll go see Amanda in New York too.

Plus, while I know she feels like she belongs in Tinsel, I also know working at the family’s ornament shop isn’t her favorite.

It’s just what she does because that’s where she’s needed here.

Making the torture worse?

All evening, while they’re talking, Amanda keeps touching her ring. Glancing at it. Moving her hand to make the diamond catch just right in the light, sending sparkles all over the kitchen.

Reminding all of us that we’re planning a wedding.

Which Lorelei keeps exclaiming will make her sisters for real with Amanda.

Absolute. Hell.

We leave earlier than I’d like when Lorelei basically shoos us out the door with a bag full of cookies, plus a wink and a nudge. “I’ve taken enough of your betrothal time, you crazy lovebirds,” she says.

Amanda helps Chili into the car while Lorelei hugs me tighter. “I love seeing you so at peace,” she whispers.

At peace.

Not in love .

At peace.

She knows this is fake. She has to.

But she’s trusting us to do the right thing.

“Feels good,” I force out.

“That’s how I know it’s right. Vanessa never gave you peace. Not like this.”

Ah, fuck.

She did mean in love . She means You look like you fit in your life now . You’ve found your missing piece, and hunting for it isn’t stressing you out anymore.

“Go on, go take your fiancée home.” She grins at me as she pulls back. “Call me if you need anything else for wedding plans. Might be the only time I ever plan one.”

I give her a look, but she shoos me away with a vague comment about a small dating pool.

As we’re driving back to the cabin, Amanda twists in her seat to look at me. “I really do love your sister. That’s not an act. She was always my best friend in school, even if our families hated it. If she ever needed a kidney, I’d be first in line to sign up to give her one.”

I smile. “What if you weren’t a match?”

“I’d donate a kidney to someone else in the hopes that my generosity would inspire the right donor for Lorelei. I think the world works like that sometimes.”

While I’m not sure I agree, I can appreciate the lengths she’d go to in order to do something good for someone else.

And it makes me like Amanda even more.

I open my mouth to ask her to tell me about her play, but change my mind.

As her fiancé, I should know these things.

But as the man getting too hung up on her, I don’t know if I can handle it if she tells me she’s embarrassed or afraid everyone will laugh or just doesn’t want to share that part of her life with me.

When we get home, she offers to take Chili on a short walk while I unload the leftovers Lorelei insisted we take home.

And moments after I’m done, Amanda comes running into the house, Chili running with her.

Chili.

My dog.

The laziest being on the planet.

Running.

For a second day in a row.

“We got another letter!” Amanda shrieks.

I spin so fast I almost hit my head on an open cabinet door. “What’s it say?”

“I don’t know. I just saw the envelope and ran up here so we could open it together.”

Her cheeks are flushed. Her breath comes in rapid bursts that make her chest rise and fall quickly under her tank top, and her eyes are shimmering with excitement. There’s a curl that’s come loose from her bun, hanging down and brushing her cheek.

She’s so fucking pretty, and her energy is contagious, and she makes me happy.

At peace.

Safe.

I shouldn’t feel safe with her. My family has told me since before I could talk that anyone in her family was dangerous to us.

But there’s no why .

Without a why, I reject the idea that they want to do us harm. And I’m thirty-one years old.

I’m old enough to deserve to know a why if there is one.

But I don’t think there is.

I think our families are just assholes who don’t know how much their feuding hurts everyone around them and makes me not want to be part of the family.

“Oh, it is another letter,” she squeals as she slides the envelope open and peeks inside. “Same handwriting. Look.”

She pulls it out to show me. I have to grip her hand in mine to slow the vibrations shaking the letter, especially with the old-fashioned script and the fact that my ancestors were still practicing their English after a lifetime of speaking German.

I love how excited she is about this. Like this letter is the magic of Christmas. But better, because it’s not about Tinsel. It’s not about Christmas all year round .

We’re in the middle of a heat wave. All the snow here is fake. The music is out of season. The poinsettias aren’t blooming.

It’s not the magic of Christmas.

It’s the inherent magic Amanda carries inside of her.

I wasn’t faking when I told her grandma that at lunch today.

“ Oooh , Lucy was in charge of sending Maud’s dowry from Germany,” Amanda whispers.

I clear my throat. Being this close to her is making me want to read this letter while I bend her over the table naked. “So there’s question about if George stole it.”

I’m not interested in the letter. I’m interested in Amanda.

Which I will absolutely not be confessing tonight.

“And they can’t tell yet if Minnie is pregnant,” Amanda says. “But no one believes George’s story about falling for her while they were at church together.”

I skim the letter, then skim it again. “It doesn’t say what the dowry was.”

Amanda spins to me. “ Oooh. It doesn’t.”

Her body is lined up with mine and she’s tilting her head back to look up at me.

“What do you think it was?” she whispers.

It’s a logical question. It should be one with an easy answer.

But my brain is scrambled right now.

I don’t want to be logical. I don’t want to be analytical. I don’t want to pull my phone out and search popular imports from Germany around 1900 .

What I want is to boost this woman up onto the counter, kiss her until she can’t breathe, strip her out of her clothes, and make every inch of her satisfied.

I’m not supposed to fall for my fake fiancée.

This isn’t part of the plan.

But she makes it impossible to not like her.

To not want her.

I’m staring.

I’m staring into her deep-brown eyes, and I need to stop.

I’ve heard there’s been research saying that if you stare into another person’s eyes for a couple of minutes, you start to fall in love.

I like Amanda too much already.

I can’t do this.

Falling for someone in San Francisco would be one thing.

Falling for Amanda Anderson is completely different.

“Germans introduced Christmas trees to America,” I blurt.

My family had no part in that. It was before our ancestors came here.

But I need something to say that isn’t I want to kiss you .

Kissing is for outside these walls. When we have an audience.

Not here.

“Do you think Lucy was mailing Christmas trees?”

I shake my head. “Tinsel wasn’t a Christmas town until the 1960s. It was probably money.”

I can’t take Chili out. Amanda already did.

But I have to break away from looking at her. “We need to find out who sent these and see if there are more.”

“Would Lorelei know?”

I don’t know.

But I know she’d be discreet.

So I nod. “Yeah. We should ask Lorelei. Tomorrow.”

Amanda grips my forearm. “I know this is a little inconvenient, and I know it’s not fun lying to everyone, but I just want you to know, I’ve had a really great time with you these past few days.”

I swallow. “Same.”

Walk. Away. Quit staring into her eyes. Walk. Fucking. Away.

She smiles one of those brilliant smiles, and then she shifts away toward the fridge like she’s reading my mind and thinks I’m talking to her. “I’m glad we’ll stay friends after this. Want some eggnog? I’m going to have a little bit before bed.”

No.

No, I don’t want eggnog.

But what I do want isn’t something I’ll be getting.

So I nod.

And then I live with the consequences of my actions.