Page 10 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

I grunt. “You think everyone else is obsessed with love just because you took an arrow.”

She throws another fry at me. This one I do manage to catch in my mouth. “Love’s not a death sentence, Rowan. I’m still very much alive. So is Bryn. And Willow.”

Willow’s my little sister, and the first of us Mayberrys to fall prey to the family curse. She doesn’t seem to mind much, I guess. She lives in Asheville with her fiancé, Alex.

Maybe it seems dramatic to call falling in love a family curse, but that’s the way it seems from the outside looking in. I’ve seen three of my strong, independent sisters go gooey over a few guys. And yeah, they’re pretty solid guys at the end of the day, but they’re hardly worth the trouble, if you ask me. It’s much better to be alone, to rely on no one but yourself. The only two single Mayberrys left standing are me and our baby sister, Ivy.

I’m not annoyed that my sisters have found partners, obviously, but I like having them to myself every now and then. It’s been nice, getting closer to Holly and Bryn over the past year. Growing up, most of the time it didn’t feel like I had much of anyone besides Willow. Now, Willow’s gone, thank God, because even though I won’t quit Highland Hills, it’s the kind of trap that has teeth. It’s better that she’s somewhere else. Even if she’s fallen into a different kind of trap.

“I want more from life than just being alive,” I say pointedly. “I definitely want more than a legal contract binding me to another person.”

She breaks into a song about wanting adventure, which I’m pretty sure is fromBeauty and the Beast—mock me if you will, but I do have four sisters. Her boyfriend, Cole, pauses on his way back to the bar with a tray of empty glasses and leans down to kiss her mid-verse. My scowl deepens, although I can’t deny that I’m impressed he hasn’t dropped the tray.

“How’s the sabotage going?” he asks me, grinning as he pulls back.

I glance around, annoyed. “Be careful, man,” I say in an undertone. “This needs to stay quiet.”

He waves his free hand carelessly. “Those guys can’t come in here anymore. After last night, they’re confined to the house. Trust me, that Jonah the Fifty-Eighth or whatever told everyone that at least five times.”

“Was that before or after your brother punched Meathead?” I ask.

Cole laughs. “Beforeandafter. Shit, that was a scene. But if he hadn’t punched him, I would have needed to step up.”

Holly reaches up to touch his face. “And I owe your brother a cold one for taking one for the team. Your face is too annoyingly perfect to be punched by a Meathead fist.”

Apparently, the guys all made a nuisance of themselves at the brewery last night, further proof that I need to do my part to make this go away. Meathead kept aggressively flirting with Brittney, Cole’s second-in-command, despite her making it very clear that she was both disinterested and annoyed. When he leaned forward and tried to lay a kiss on her over the bar, Cole’s brother took a fist to him. It had led to a short brawl, broken up by Cole and a couple of other guys.

“The sooner those assholes get out of town, the better,” I say.

Holly belts out a laugh. “So his solution was to turn Kennedy orange and freeze everyone to death.”

Well, when she puts it that way.

I groan. “You’re right. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a supervillain.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely not,” Holly says. “You’re too much of a closet softy.”

“Am not,” I say, instantly annoyed at myself for sounding like I’m five.

“You teared up when you saw Bryn’s sonogram photos the other day.”

“Did not.”

But I did. So sue me. It’s not every day a man gets to see his niece for the first time.

“Men can cry, Holly,” Cole says, surprising the shit out of me by taking my side.

“Well, of course they can, dum-dum,” she says, clearly unmoved. “But the ones who do are softies.” She lifts her eyebrows at both of us. “I’m not the one acting like that’s a bad thing.”

“You’renot a softy,” I interject.

“Oh, hell no.” She points a finger at me. “But Ididcry when I saw those pictures.” She gives me a pointed look. “I’d also cry if someone turned me orange and locked me in the Labelles’ house with a bunch of rich assholes.”

I huff out a laugh. “Princess volunteered for the role. You’ve got no reason to feel bad for her.”

Still, even as I say it, I can acknowledge to myself that I do sort of feel bad for her. She’s a bit untouchable, like a princess, but there’s a certain naive optimism about her, as if she really does believe the shit my grandmother is peddling, or at least wants to.

Tilting her head, Holly says, “So why don’t you give her a reason to unvolunteer?”

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