Page 17 of Dancing in Lake Mistletoe

“Oh.”

Ellen comes up behind me. “Mins, did you get a load of that green room?” she begins and stops short when she notices Dutch. “Oh my, who’s your friend?”

“Ellen, this is Dutch. He’s friends with Keller and Willa. I met him and his daughter, Josie, at the inn the other night. He’ll be a tech for us.”

“Hiya, handsome,” Ellen mutters.

“Ladies, this way,” Soma calls, and I glance over my shoulder to see her waving us to the stage entrance.

I look back at Dutch. “Um, we have to go.”

He grins. “Yeah.”

“It was really good to see you again,” I say.

“Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other,” he notes.

I like that idea. A lot.

“Girls,” Soma bellows again.

Ellen runs off to follow, and I just stand, frozen.

Dutch bites his bottom lip, as if to stop a chuckle, and his eyes flicker from the curtain to me.

My brain finally clicks into action.

“Right, I-I have to go,” I stutter as I turn to join them.

“Mindi,” he calls again.

I glance over my shoulder.

“Are you going to be at the festival this weekend?”

“Yes.”

He smiles. “Josie will be excited to see you again.”

Dutch

Iwipe the sweat from my forehead, even though the air in Keller’s garage is frigid. It’s barely above freezing outside, but between the space heater whirring in the corner and the mess of tools we’ve scattered around, I’m working up a sweat.

“Hold that still for a sec,” I mutter, glancing up at Keller and Bran.

They grip the edge of the metal stand with both hands. The stand is massive—heavy-duty steel with reinforced bearings—because, well, the Christmas tree it’s meant to hold is massive. Lake Mistletoe’s town square Christmas tree isn’t your average holiday fir. It’s a thirty-foot-high behemoth, and apparently, a stationary tree isn’t festive enough.

“Are you sure this thing is gonna work?” Bran asks.

I laugh, tightening the last bolt with a wrench. “It’ll work. I designed it, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, well, you also designed that drone last summer that crashed into old Mrs. Katz’s roof.”

“Pilot error,” I correct him, grinning. “Not my fault.”

He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t argue. Bran’s known me long enough to trust me when it comes to this stuff. We’ve been friends since high school, back when I was the kid who could rig up a working radio from scrap metal and a couple of AA batteries. He was the one who always had some crazy project in mind, and somehow, I always ended up being roped into making it happen.

Like now.

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