Page 1 of Holiday Intercepted
1
Paige
Istood in the hallway of Maple Grove High School, staring into the glass case that houses dozens of trophies throughout the years. Pictures of team after team lined the case, behind each of their trophies. Our little school seemed to be a hotbed for several now-famous sportsstars.
To a passerby, it would look like I was just admiring the school’s athletic prowess. And I’d utterly die if anyone found out what I was actually lookingat.
Taylor Wilson. He was taking a knee in the 16x20 glossy picture, his helmet on the ground just beside his leg and he looked straight at the camera with a small smile. One might even call it a smirk. A banner stretched over top of his image,saying:
Maple Grove High School, Maple Grove, NH – Home of the New England Patriots Tight End TaylorWilson.
Tight end. I snickered to myself because there couldn’t be a more appropriate position for our sexy alumnus. I hadn’t seen him in person in twelve years. Not since high school our high school graduation when he packed up his life and stormed out ofmine.
I rolled my eyes in spite of myself and with a sigh, forced myself to look away from his image. He didn’t storm out ofmylife. He left the town. Because a lot of understandably bad memories had collected here for him. I didn’t know many people who would have stayed around after the senior year he had. He most certainly didn’t leaveme. Because if I was being honest, he probably barely even remembered I existed. Sure, we’d known each other since we were children. He was my brother’s best friend since they were learning how to walk. Taylor, Cam & Steve Tripp, and my little brother, Scott were inseparable, despite the fact that Steve and Scott were a year younger than the rest of us. But he never saw me as anything more than the annoying, tag-alongsister.
I gulped. At least, he didn’t until we shared a kiss our senior year when we were both starring in the musical,Guys and Dolls. It had shocked about everyone when he showed up at auditions. But teachers were doing everything they could to keep him from suspension, which would have resulted in losing his scholarship to Boston University—and that involved extra credit for auditioning to be in the schoolmusical.
But other than that magical stage kiss we shared, he only had eyes for Tiffany. At least hediduntil she cheated on him with half the football team. I, on the other hand, never stopped thinking about Taylor. Not for the four years we were in high school together when I’d daydream about him while staring at his profile in class, or not even now as an adult. It didn’t help that I had to pass by his freaking 16x20 picture every day on my way toclass.
A sigh slipped past my tight lips. How pathetic wasI?
Though he only moved to Boston—about an hour away from our small New Hampshire town, he never came back. Not once. And while I knew there were a lot of reasons for this—the death of his mother, Tiffany cheating on him, his amazing scholarship to BU… I also knew the number one reason he never returned home was because ofmymother.
Until now. Rumor had it, he was on his way back right this verysecond.
The buzz around Maple Grove was that he was arriving today and staying for one weekend just to go to Cam and Lydia’s engagement party tonight. He’d likely leavetomorrow.
I felt a light pinch on my upper arm and spun to find Kyra standing behind me, her brows arched intuitively. Dammit. I knew from the heat spreading to my cheeks and across my nose that I was blushing. She was the only person in the world who knew me well enough to know I was definitelynotstaring at our sports trophies. Not only were sports never my thing, but I’d been fighting tooth and nail to get our non-sport related trophies shown off in the same idolatrous fashion that the school tended to revere its football, cheerleading, and baseballteams.
Now that I was a teacher at Maple Grove High, my theater kids had placed first at state competitions three years in a row. But were our trophies in that case?Nope.
“Hey, you,” Kyra said, her eyes flitting from mine to the glass case, then backagain.
I sighed and hugged my folders tighter against my chest as I tore my eyes away from Taylor’s picture. “Hey.”
But I wasn’t fooling anyone. Kyra’s gaze knowingly landed on the image of Taylor. “You ready for the final staff meeting of theyear?”
I groaned. “Thecalendaryear,” I corrected her and turned toward the library. We still had months to go until the actual school year wasover.
“Even still,” Kyra said, her tight pencil skirt, high heels, and leopard print sweater making it so she had to take twice as many tiny, quick steps as I did. “After this, we have ten whole days off!” she squealed. “Vacation begins in roughly ninety minutes, starting tonight with Cam and Lydia’sparty.”
Ninety minutes. I just needed to get through this staff meeting, and then I couldrelax.
Kyra leaned in, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Yvonne told me that Steve said he only finally RSVP’d ‘yes’ two days ago, and that was after Steve let him have it about what a shitty friend he’s been the last fewyears.”
I cleared my throat, looking through my notes for my trophy speech at today’s meeting. “Who?”
Kyra looked up at me through thickly painted lashes and rolled her eyes. “The man whose portrait youpretendnot to stare at every time you passit.”
“I don’t stareeverytime—”
“Aha!” Kyra pointed a white tipped fingernail in my face and I swatted at it. “So you admit you werestaring?”
Damn. Note to self: espionage is not a good backup career to teaching theater. I wasn’t so good at the keeping secretsthing.
“Apparently,” Kyra continued, still whispering, “Taylor made Steve promise that Tiffany and Scott weren’t going to be anywhere near the partytonight.”
I cringed, pausing just outside the library where most of the teachers were milling about. “Well, I don’t know aboutTiffany,” I whispered her name because out of the corner of my eye, I could see her standing on the other side of the library. She was just as beautiful now as she was back in high school. Sleek, dark brown hair with ends that always seemed to curl perfectly under, no matter if she was wearing it down or up in a ponytail. Razor sharp cheekbones, green wide-set eyes and a pouty, petal-pink mouth. “But Scott is definitely going to be around… even if he’s not at the party. His hotel is practically hosting the whole weekend for free.” My brother turned the Maple Grove Inn completely around when he bought it from the original owners. He hired Cam Tripp’s construction company to renovate it and gave it a much-needed facelift, then rebranded the Victorian hotel into one of Trip Advisor’s most sought out inns in New England. It helped revive our little town by bringing tourism back. “He even gave Cam and Lydia’s local friends a huge discount if they stay the night so that no one has to drive home afterdrinking.”
