Page 37 of Mistletoe Face Off

“In a couple days.”

“You get to see that guy almost every day of the week?”

“No. It’s a gingerbread house making event, which I’m covering.”

“You're making a gingerbread house with Harrison Clarke? Somehow I'm finding it hard to picture that burly defenseman in an apron.” A smile grows on her face. “Wait. I've got it. An apron and not a lot else.”

“Selena Washington! You are a married woman,” I scold jokingly as I try not to think of Harrison in an apron and not a lot else.

I may need to take a moment.

“There is no law against married women thinking about hockey players in aprons, you know. You get to feud with him, I get to imagine him in a kitchen with a bowl of frosting.”

I raise my hands in the air. “Thank you for that mental image. I do not want to think about that.”

She waggles those brows of hers. “Yeah, you do.”

I scrunch up my face. “I haven't told you the whole truth,” I admit.

“There’s more? Spill,” she instructs.

“Harrison offered to take Macy out on the ice. Today.”

If I thought Selena’s eyes got huge before, they're the size of dinner plates now. “In a hockey game? That poor little thing will get crushed!”

“Not a hockey game,” I reply on a laugh, the thought completely improbable, not to mention insanely dangerous. “It turns out Harrison has some skills as a figure skater, and as you know, Macy's dream it is to be a figure skater one day. But she has trouble overcoming her anxieties in order to get on the actual ice.”

“Macy is such a sweetheart. Your ex sure has done a number on her, letting her down the way he does. That poor pumpkin gets her hopes up and then he dashes them time and time again. Jerk.”

My heart hurts for my daughter. “That's why I love you. You see things the way I do.”

“What other way is there to see it? A man has a responsibility to his child regardless of whether he and the mom get on. It's not right.”

“No, but it's him.”

“I think it's wonderful that Harrison’s offered to help Macy out. In fact, I would say that he is cut from an entirely different cloth from your ex.”

“I sure hope so,” I reply, a knot forming in my belly. I don't typically introduce men to my daughter. I know I'm not romantically involved with Harrison, so there's a lot less at stake, but nevertheless, I'm super protective when it comes to Macy. She's my world, and I don't want anything—or anyone—to hurt her.

“Are you worried about Macy getting on the ice or Harrison being the right kind of man to have around your daughter?”

“Both?”

“In that case, go along and see how it works out. If she doesn't get on the ice, she doesn't get on the ice. You've been there before. And if it turns out that Harrison isn't who you think he is, then you can leave.”

“You make it all sound so easy.”

“Look, I get it. I'm a mom, too. We want to protect our babies at all cost. But think about why you agreed to this in the first place before you started second guessing yourself. How has he been with Macy?”

“Amazing.”

“There's your answer.”

I spot Stephen walking across the floor toward us.

“Slippery Stephen at eleven o’clock,” I say under my breath.

“Just when things were getting juicy,” Selena replies with a roll of her eyes.

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