Page 6 of Getting Wrapped Up

“Oh, it’s not just the Hawaii and snow thing,” Kate said. “The past three Christmases, I’ve had boyfriend issues. This year, I’m staying inside. Away from Christmas and guys and any thoughts of combining the two. I’m going to hunker down with junk food and Marvel until New Year’s is past. Then I’m going to get up, go back to my regular routine and forget there even was a Christmas this year.”

“You can’t do that,” Phoebe protested. She loved Christmas. Everything about it. And Sapphire Falls did Christmas big. It was like every holiday movie, song or story ever told. She hated the idea her friend would be down on Christmas.

“I can,” Kate assured her. “I’ll be okay.”

“Tell me about these guys that have ruined Christmas for you.”

Kate sighed. “Three years ago, I caught my boyfriend kissing one of the girls I work with at our Christmas party. Cliché, I know, but it hurt.”

“Of course it did,” Phoebe said sympathetically.

“The next year, my boyfriend dumped me on Christmas Day. We were supposed to have dinner with his family, and at the last minute, he decided that he wasn’t serious enough about me to introduce me to his parents. We’d been dating exclusively for six months at that point. I decided if he wasn’t serious by then, he wouldn’t be serious.”

“I think that was a good choice.” Phoebe mentally thanked Heaven for Joe. She’d found the man of her dreams and she was never going to have to be back out there dating ever again.

“And then last year, my boyfriend stole two of my credit cards and my car. On Christmas Eve.”

Phoebe gasped. The two women in the aisle with her—one of them the mother of one of Phoebe’s students and the other her aunt Karen—both looked over. She gave them a smile and a wave.

“Wow, honey, you have had a rough few Christmases.”

“I’ve never had a good Christmas.” Kate sounded totally dejected. “I can’t handle watching it all happen around me. People are walking along the sidewalks, holding hands, picking out gifts. I turn on the TV and it’s all these movies about falling in love at Christmas. I turn on the radio and it’s all about it being cold outside—which it’s not here—and how people are rocking around the Christmas tree. While I’m here alone wishing I could be rockingunderthe Christmas tree. I can’t take it.”

Phoebe snorted. “You have a Christmas tree fantasy?”

“I do,” Kate said with feeling. “I really do. The room’s dark, the only lights on are from the fireplace and the lights on the tree…” She trailed off. “But I don’t even have a fireplace.”

Phoebe stopped with a bunch of bananas in hand. “Tell me you have a tree, Kate,” she said. “Please tell me you have a tree.”

“Nope. No tree. I told you, no Christmas here this year.”

Well, that was unacceptable.

“You need to go buy a plane ticket,” Phoebe decided. “I have snow, a tree, a fireplace and…” She thought fast. She couldn’t let this sweet woman spend the holiday alone ignoring that there even was a holiday. What Kate needed was Sapphire Falls. No one couldnotbe in the Christmas spirit in Sapphire Falls. “And I have a nice, sweet, cute country boy to make you feel all better.”

Her wheels were turning. She needed to set Kate up with someone. Someone nice. Someone who would be a gentleman. Someone who could give her a good romantic Christmas memory to erase all the bad ones.

It wouldn’t have to be true love. A fun holiday fling would be perfect.

“You do?” Kate asked. “Are you kidding?”

Phoebe wasreallyglad they weren’t on Skype where Kate might be able to tell that Phoebe was making this up as she went. “Yes, of course. You can’t breathe the air or drink the water here without getting in the Christmas spirit,” Phoebe said. “And I was wondering what to get you as a gift.”

Kate laughed. “You’re giving me a sweet country boy as a Christmas gift?”

“I’m giving you one perfect Christmas. We have it all here, honey. You’ll feel like you stepped into a movie.”

Who was she going to set Kate up with though? She thought through the single guys in town.

“You’re going to make a guy take me out for Christmas?”

“Oh, yeah,” Phoebe scoffed. “What a hardship. I bring a beautiful, classy, smart, sweet girl to town and ask him to take her to the Christmas formal. I’m sure he’ll never forgive me.”

“Well…”

Phoebe detected a definite note of interest. Kate wasn’t shooting her down anyway.

“I do love snow. So much. And I’ve never been to a small town at Christmas.”

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