Page 203 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

To my shock and no small amount of disgust, he responded with:Your terms, Mary. ;-)

I’m not sure what threw me more, the acquiescence or the winky face. I don’t trust either.

I’m terrified he’s going to hurt my son again. That he’ll blow in like a storm and then flit out, leaving me to put the pieces together. But I also don’t want Aidan to learn someday that his father asked to see him and I turned him down.

“You have no idea how tempting that is,” I admit to Nicole, “but I have to talk to him first. If he really wants to be there for Aidan, I guess I’ll have to deal with him visiting or getting Aidan for visits.”

“We’ll see,” she says.

I’m not sure what that means—it sounds an awful lot like Nicole plans to go rogue—but I decide not to pry. “Moving on. Would you like to see my room?”

“Are you propositioning me?”

“No,” I bark out, blushing, “I wanted to show you the painting I told you about.”

“I know,” she says with a grin. “What can I say? You’re fun to shock.”

We bring our hot chocolates with us, something that’s firmly against my own house rules, and I lead her through the door, feeling proud of what I’ve accomplished in a short time. The bedroom feels like my sanctuary now, like it’s somewhere I want to be.

And your memories of Jace have nothing to do with that, surely.

I tell my internal voice to shut the heck up and glance at Nicole.

“So?”

“Yeah,” she says, thoughtful, “I can see why you want to glam the place up. The only thing worth keeping is the painting. That’s rad.”

“Hey! Ialreadyglammed it up. Didn’t you see the new duvet cover? And the lamp! You can’t tell me you don’t like the lamp.”

That’s when I catch her smile. “It’s veryyou.”

It doesn’t sound like a compliment, and it’s probably not supposed to, but I find myself smiling back. “Thank you.”

Her smile widens. “You didn’t apologize for yourself. Good one. I think you’re ready for your next challenge.”

I feel a weird tingling on my skin, and it takes me only half a second to realize I’m hoping she challenges me to sleep with Jace again. Or text him. Or do anything that puts me into closer contact with him.

She doesn’t disappoint. “Come to my wedding this weekend. And bringhim.”

I’m so overwhelmed with shock, I almost drop my cocoa, because (a) I can’t picture her getting married, even though I’ve concluded from her stories that Damien is just as crazy as she is, (b) my type A side is horrified by the thought of inviting guests to a wedding at the last minute, (c) she’s not wearing a ring, as far as I can tell, and (d) I can’t do this. I can’t just up and invite Jace to a wedding, of all things. We’re just friends, right? Besides, he doesn’t know Nicole, and she’s terrifying, and…

“Stop coming up with excuses in your head. I’m going to take it personally,” she says. “And quit eyeing my ring finger. We’re not doing that. We’re getting tattoos instead.”

“I mean, I’ll go, of course,” I say. “If you’re sure you can add us at the last minute. Will Molly and Cal be there too?”

“No,” she says bluntly. “We decided not to invite anyone. My mom would get weird and try to stuff me into a white dress. Literally. That woman doesn’t know the meaning of the wordno.”She’s not the only one.“And Damien’s parents are shitty. Our friends would just make a big deal of it.”

Does that mean she doesn’t consider me a friend, or that she trusts me not to make a big deal of it?

“But…?”

She rolls her eyes. “We need witnesses, obviously. Witness One. Witness Two. Done.”

I’m still reeling from the revelation that we’ll be the only guests. Are they getting married at city hall? A ghost-riddled dungeon? A tattoo parlor? With Nicole, anything seems possible. “Can I tell Molly?”

One eyebrow lifts. “Will you hold off if I tell you to?”

I don’t really want to—it seems wrong, kind of, since Molly and Cal knew Nicole before I did. Still, knowing her as they do, they’d probably expect this kind of thing, and I don’t want to break her trust.

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