Page 33 of Santa's Mistletoe Playbook

He leaned forward now, whispering to her, hand finding hers. “Eh, it doesn’t matter. Next year, I’m going to be out of this podunk town and back to Pittsburgh.”

“I’ve lived here since I was like five!” Beatrice loved Pine Ridge. “It’s small, but it’s not podunk! We have a branch of NYU, we have libraries, theaters, our own minor league hockey team?—”

Neal cut her off with a bark of laughter that made his pecs dance, temporarily short-circuiting her indignation. However, it came roaring back when Neal crossed his arms and challenged, “You can’t seriously be comparing a great historical city like Pittsburgh to this little town in the mountains?”

Then why did you bring your (admittedly handsome) ass over to this “little town”? They have culinary schools in Pittsburgh!

But Beatrice didn’t say that. She didn’t want to argue—and she’d had another worrying thought. If Neal was going back to Pittsburgh after graduation—that didn’t bode well for long-term plans.

Neal looked at his phone as it dinged. “Hey. How much piping are you going to do? What kind? Wet on wet? Flooding?”

Bea’s eyes narrowed. Neal used terms that sounded foreign in his mouth—clumsy. And he only used them after he got a message on his phone.

“You mean buttercream or royal icing?” she asked, heading to the kitchen.

“Uh. Let me—both. Yeah, tell me about your plans for both.”

“Well, you’re half of the team. You tell me.” Bea crossed her arms and stared at Neal from the corner of the kitchen, peeping around the doorway. He was typing frantically.

Something is off. On one hand, we have Green-Smoothie-Neal, who preaches against sugar and chocolate, keeps subtly telling me to change my diet every chance he gets, and disses baking and sweets constantly.

And then we have a guy who wants to be my partner for everything baking related—and seems to want to win this competition—which is about everything he puts down.

Neal was hot as hell… but she actually didn’tlikehim very much.

“Um, royal! Let’s use royal icing. With lots of embargos.” He peered harder at the phone screen. “I mean,embellishments!”

The pit of her stomach turned to ice.

Someone is feeding him what to say. He’s sending someone our pictures! And the plans he wrote down on his phone!

“Hey, Neal, I don’t feel great. Could you come back tomorrow?”Or maybe never.

I’m overreacting.

“You can keep working on this, right? We need every day to work on this. Every piece has to be ready to assemble on Friday night!”

“I’ll be ready.”Me. Just me.

I think.

Bea waved weakly as Neal left.

If Neal is doing something shady—I’m out of the competition. We entered as partners. Both of us would be sunk.

Crap.

She reached into the pocket of her apron.

Time to call Curtis.

Better yet…

Bea: Can I come over?

Curtis: Absolutely.

“Did you have a nice work session with Neal?” Curtis tried to keep his voice neutral, politely interested.

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