Page 61 of Finally Moore

I glance down at my soaked outfit and groan. “Guess I need to change,” I say to myself.

I rush to the cabin and frantically pull different options out from my dresser and closet. Nothing saysChristmas Eve. It all saysI run an inn and desperately need to update my wardrobe.Then my eyes land on a fitted red sweater that still has tags on it, hanging at the far end of my closet. I bought it last Black Friday because the sale was too good to pass up, but regretted it as soon as I got home and saw how unforgiving the material was. My shoulders sag until I hear Scott’s voice in the back of my mind, telling me how beautiful and perfect I am.

“Fuck it,” I say as I tear off the tags. Deep down, I know Scott is going to die once he sees me, and that’s all the motivation I need to step out of my comfort zone.

Chapter twenty-five

Scott

Iglanceattheclock for the hundredth time. Everyone is here and Scarlett is still a no-show. I check my phone. No new messages and mine are left unread.

“What’s up, lover boy?” my annoying-ass little brother asks while draping an arm over my shoulder. “Heard you were here making somecream pieslast night.”

I shrug him off and sigh. “Scarlett’s late.”

Jake glances around as if he’s just realizing she’s not here. I don’t blame him. Our smallish family has practically tripled over the last year—add in Scarlett’s bunch and we’re packed in like sardines. “I’ll call in, see if dispatch has been sent out to the inn or seen her car. She still has that older two-door green Wrangler, right?”

Fuck!

I hadn’t even thought of that. It’s windy and the roads are covered with thick layers of black ice. What if she’s stuck in a ditch somewhere? Meanwhile, I’m sitting here pouting like some selfish asshole, instead of growing a pair and going out there to look for her. I know I’ve fucked up when Jake is the reasonable one between the two of us.

“What’s going on?” Derek, my brother’s best friend and one of the local cops, perks up at the mention of dispatch.

“Scarlett’s missing,” Jake tells him, and now I’m rushing out the door.

A few people ask me where I’m going, but I don’t respond. Hopefully Jake and Derek have enough sense to not scare her family until we know something for sure. I’m so stuck in my head, going over every worst-case scenario, that I don’t look up until I run into a tiny figure in the driveway.

“Ouch,” Scarlett says and stumbles back a step.

“Thank god!” I reach out to steady her and quickly tug her into my arms.

“Oh, hey, what’s going on?” she asks me, her eyebrows knit with confusion.

“You’re late. I didn’t have a message from you, and you weren’t reading mine. I thought…” I stop, realizing how quickly I jumped the gun and let my brother’s off-handed comments send me into a panic. Sometimes I forget he’s a firefighter and that’s just the way he thinks. I guess the fact that we lost our parents in a car accident last year doesn’t help much either. “I was just worried,” I tell her a little more calmly.

Scarlett grips my face between her hands and pulls me in for a kiss. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. A pipe burst and I was scrambling to deal with the aftermath. If I’m being entirely honest, I’m just so used to doing things on my own it didn’t occur to me to reach out and let someone else know what was going on…”

“Is everything okay?”

“It will be,” she says with a nod. “I have a plumber there now and Hannah is cleaning up the rest of the water. She was looking for an excuse to avoid her family. And then, when Junior dropped in, her eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.”

“Junior?”

“The plumber.”

“Oh,” I say as if I understand. I don’t. But at least she’s okay and so is the inn.

“Anyway, my cell died so I left it home to charge and just brought the emergency line with me, in case there are any more problems. I didn’t mean to make you worry. I texted my mom so she knew to go ahead without me and I gave her the address. I thought she would’ve…” Scarlett shakes her head. “No, I should’ve messaged you. I’m sorry.”

“All that matters is you’re safe.” I kiss the top of her head and try to ignore how much it stings to realize she didn’t think to reach out to me when she needed help.

“Oh, and thank you,” she says, and I look at her, confused by the sentiment. “For covering the windows. It’s already ten degrees warmer in the cabin. It was nice getting dressed without shivering.”

“Of course,” I say with the makings of a grin.

“You didn’t need to do that. Not that I’m not grateful, but I know you had a lot going on today—”

I stop her with a kiss. When I pull back, she’s wobbly on her heels. “Don’t you understand there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you?”

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