Page 9 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

“Did you not explore the area before you bought the house?”

“I drove up the hill, saw the house, and drove back down.”

“Well, if you’d driven past it, you’dhave discovered this is the only road up Fool’s Hill. About two hundred yards past your house, it stops and turns into a hiking trail.”

“There has to be a way.” I wrap my arm around the back of her seat and start what will likely be a ten-point turn.

“There isn’t.” She sounds certain.

I stop the car and stare at her. The light from the headlights bounces off the snow and illuminates the side of her face as she pushes her blond hair back behind her ears. Her skin is fair and a little flushed.

She turns her head to look at the tree again, and the light catches her eyes. They might be blue.

“If there’s no way around it…” She pauses and digs her teeth into a lower lip that’s lush and pink. “Which there clearly isn’t…”

She falls silent, staring at the giant, immovable obstacle in our path.

“Go on,” I urge her, knowing full well she’s about to state the inevitable.

She turns her head back inch by inch to face me. “Then there’s no way off the hill.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

First, I arrive to find my non-Christmas Christmas has been made extremely Christmassy, then I’m jumped on by an annoyingly perky and chatty mugger bunny, then I find out I’ve hurt her goddamn ankle, and now…oh, hellish Christmas-on-a-stick of all hells, now…

“Well then, I guess you’re spending the night at my house.”

I pull my arm from around the back of her seat and put the SUV in Drive.

CHAPTER 4

NATALIE

“There you go, Bugs,” Gabe says, as I let go of that ridiculously muscular arm and flop down on his ridiculously large—and wow, it’s like sitting on a cloud—couch.

The living area of the open-plan room is set up almost exactly the opposite way around from the way the Sullivans had it. And where theirs was full of color and life, this is all designer neutrals and, of course, lacking any sign of the festive season.

The sharp pain in my ankle has turned into more of a dull ache. And it only twinged a little bit when he helped me out of my shoes. But he insisted I didn’t put any weight on it and that I hang on to him and hop inside. And, honestly, I’m not mad about getting another opportunity to wrap my hand around that arm—or rather, partially around it. I’d have to have fingers as long as the bunny feet to fully encircle that muscle.

The prospect of spending the night in the home of a man I’ve known for not much more than an hour—albeit ahome I’m familiar with—seems like the thing people warn you about before you go to college. And on those true crime shows.

“The switch is there.” I point to the right of the front door.

“What switch?” he asks.

“To turn off the decorations you loathe so passionately.”

“Ah, yes.” He trots back and flicks it with more disdain than I thought possible.

“I’ll chill an icepack for you.” Gabe rummages in the bag he brought in from the car.

“You travel with ice packs?”

“And a heating pad.” He looks up at me, and I see him in good light for the first time. The skin of his face is fair, with smooth cheekbones chiseled above the neat line of his dark beard. “Bad shoulder, remember?”

Eyes as grouchy as his have no right to have that much mischief behind them, and they definitely have no right sparking that fluttery thing in my belly.

Distraction required.

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