Page 20 of Matchmaking Under the Mistletoe

Millie’s been living in my house for eight days, and each day I’m convinced there’s no way I can go another minute without her. We've settled into a routine, and it's driving me wild how badly I want her. We ride to work together, spend the day working on the upcoming events late into the night, ride back home, and go to bed just to do it all over again the next day.

Neither of us has brought up the almost kiss from last week, and I’ve tried telling myself that it’s for the best. But every time her face lights up in excitement about an idea or I catch a whiff of her perfume, I can’t control the desire that runs through me. Before the moment in the dark, I’d thought she was beautiful, but after the other night, she’s consuming me.

As I wait for Millie to come out of her room after her run, I give myself my daily pep talk.

Get it together. She’s not interested, and if you run her off because you’re acting like a horny teenager, you’ll never forgive yourself. You’ve never needed a woman before, and there’s no reason to start now.

But when she walks out of my guest room in a festive red sweater and jeans that accentuate her curves, it feels like all my resolve goes right out of the window.

“Good morning,” she says, giving me a small smile.

“Good morning. You ready for tomorrow? Your first official Springside Christmas event,” I say, trying to distract myself from the way her red lipstick makes me want to claim her mouth.

“Yeah, I am. I can’t believe it’s already here. I keep worrying I’ll forget something, but I’ve checked my to-do list at least a hundred times. Hopefully we’re good to go,” she replies.

“I’m sure it’ll be perfect. The kids will love the activities you added in for them, and the decorations look incredible. I can’t believe how much you’ve gotten done in the last week,” I admithonestly. And while I’m trying to distract myself from how badly I’m craving her, I really have been blown away by how hard she’s worked.

When I offered her the job, I didn't really know what to expect, but after seeing her in action this week, I’ve started to feel like she’s probably vastly overqualified for the job at our little inn. Over the last week, she’s ordered snow globe bouncy houses, created a mistletoe themed ornament station, and repurposed some old decorations from the storage room to make a huge photo wall, in addition to all the other tasks we discussed during our first meeting.

“Thank you,” she says, taking the travel mug of coffee I’m holding out for her. “Now to just hang the last of the lights at Deer Valley and make sure everything’s ready to go at the tree farm for tomorrow. I’m ready when you are.”

“Sounds good,” I say, grabbing my computer bag and throwing it over my shoulder. “Do you want to start at the inn or the maze?”

“Let’s hit the inn first. I want to add some more of those pink ornaments and those stems I found online to the tree before we hang the lights,” she says, and I nod making the drive to the inn.

“I’m grabbing our lattes and then I’ll be ready to go over the final list with Bridget. Be right back,” she says as soon as we step through the entrance, as we both wave hello to the usual group of locals that have taken to spending time in our lobby over the last week.

I just nod, hoping she doesn’t notice my grimace.These God forsaken cinnamon drinks are the bane of my existence,I think to myself, as she bounces around the corner to the small café.

Each day is the same, and every time I’ve opened my mouth to tell her to stop, I catch a glimpse of the smile on her face as she hands me the disgusting concoction. Needless to say, I’msuffering through a few miserable sips each day until I can throw it away without her noticing.

After Millie bounds back into the office with our coffees, she and Bridget review the last few details for the day. Then she sets to work shoving an obscene amount of ornaments into the tree while I respond to emails signing off on the upcoming performance reviews for the city’s horticulture department. Several hours pass while we work in silence, and I try to keep my gaze from wandering from my computer screen to where she’s humming and decorating the lobby.

I’ve rechecked my to-do list and both my inn and the city emails respectively at least ten times. Not because I don’t want to spend time with Millie, but because I know if I can’t keep myself from watching her too closely, I’ll never get anything done. Finally, after wasting another thirty minutes flipping between tabs on my computer screen, I stand and make my way over to her.

“You ready to head over to the maze?” I ask, once again shocked by how incredible she’s managed to make everything look. This morning, the lobby looked festive enough, but this afternoon it looks like it’s ready for a feature inSouthern Living.The tree sparkles with the extra stems and ornaments she tucked into the branches, and she’s added greenery and boxwood wreaths above the fireplace and at the front desk. “It looks incredible.”

“Thanks,” she says, and I chuckle at the glitter clinging to her face and clothes. “I swear, I’ll be finding glitter in my clothes for the next three months.”

I laugh as we make our exit and ride in comfortable silence over to the Coopers’ Christmas Tree Farm, which Millie has also transformed into a complete winter wonderland with fake snow.

Yesterday afternoon, she’d coordinated a group of volunteers to set up most of the larger decorations while I attended themonthly city council meeting. I hated to leave her with it for a few hours, but considering the fact that I’ve neglected almost all of my mayoral duties since she arrived in town, I begrudgingly listened while the councilmen argued about the color for the new benches we agreed to place in city park.

But thanks to Millie’s hard work and the help of her volunteers, all that’s left today is to string the lights through the trees at the entrance and exit, since the Coopers offered to take care of the inside. They had a way of lighting the way of different paths with certain colors to make sure no one got lost, and I was thankful we didn’t have to worry about that headache.

By the time we get everything unloaded, the sun is starting to set, and the air is getting cooler. Millie checks her phone and lets out a groan.

“What’s wrong?” I ask while lining up the extension cords we’ll need to cover the line of trees on either side.

“I just got texts from five different volunteers saying stuff came up, and they can’t make it tonight. We’re never gonna get this done,” she proclaims, looking at the forty something trees stretching in front of us that we’re supposed to be covering in lights.

“Did they say what came up?” I ask, knowing it’s pretty out of character for the group to cancel this short of notice.

“Uhh, kind of a mix of reasons. Apparently there’s a stomach bug going around and Caroline said she needed to help Theo get Petunia back in the pen after she made an escape… Who the hell is Petunia? Their dog?” she responds, and I can’t help but burst into laughter.

“Theo moved into town earlier this year to replace Huey as the fire chief, and he bought a bunch of farmland to get some animals. Huey set him up with one of the local farmers who was looking to sell some of their livestock, but Mr. Willy convinced him to take his temperamental donkey named Petunia. Let’s justsay she really lives up to the whole ass title,” I explain, and Millie dissolves into a fit of giggles.

“I swear, this town…” she says as she tries to regain her composure.

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