Page 80 of The Mistletoe Kisser
“Oh. You don’t mind that I brought Stan, do you? He was bored and I’m pretty sure he’s housebroken.” The sheep wandered past her into the house.
“Uh. That’s fine,” she said, watching Stan trot into the living room. Holly, the almost-glue-gunned cat, skulked behind him, eyeing the sheep with suspicion.
“He’s pretty good company,” Ryan told her.
The man had developed a friendship with a sheep he let in the house.Booty call off.
“How did you find my place?” she asked, following him as he headed for her kitchen.
The man looked out of place in the tight space with its ancient apple wallpaper and dingy pine cabinets. She wished she would have gotten around to doing the dishes and vacuuming.
“I asked the bartender at the brewery. She knew. The llama lady from yesterday with the bad biscotti was there for dinner and gave me turn-by-turn directions. Jax said you’re usually in bed by nine, but I knew you’d be up late making wreaths.”
Sammy blinked. “Hang on. You toldhow manyMooners that you were coming over to my house tonight?”
“Just three,” he said, clearly not understanding the ramifications.
She preferred not having to field well-meaning but inappropriate questions about her sex life in the produce aisle at the grocery store or under a cow’s udder.
On cue, her phone alerted her to a new text message. She picked it up and silenced it. Before she had the chance to put it back down, three more texts buzzed in. In desperation, she stashed the phone inside a stack of wreaths on her table.
Great. The gossip group had been activated. Everyone would be speculating that she and Carson’s nephew were getting it on when—depressingly enough—they were not.
“Interesting place,” he said, eyeing her living space as he dumped the bags on the kitchen counter.
He wasn’t catching her or her home on their best days.
“It’s usually much cleaner than this,” she told him. “I’ve been busy.”
She’d bought the two-story farmhouse and its ten acres that summer. With the help of local contractor Calvin Finestra, Sammy had worked her way down a prioritized punch list to make the house—mostly—livable.
They’d upgraded both bathrooms, opened up the living and dining areas, and stripped the dizzying pink heart wallpaper out of her bedroom. But the cramped kitchen with its pine plank cabinets and faded candy apple red counter tops was one step up from eyesore. And then there was the upstairs. The second floor needed more TLC. But it would have to wait until later like everything else since the barn and pastures were next on her list. Then there was the adjoining parcel of land she had her eye on. But that was far, far into the nebulous future.
At least she’d sprung for new, grown-up furniture.
The long, white-washed oak dining table occupied the space between the kitchen and front door. It looked pretty great… when it wasn’t smothered under an obscene amount of craft supplies. Four days of dishes were stacked in the tiny sink in the U-shaped kitchen. Stan was currently shoving his face in the load of week-old clean laundry that sat half-folded on the coffee table in the living room.
“Given your get-up, I was expecting a Christmas tree,” he said, his gaze lingering on her legs.
The way he looked at her was downright sinful. Sheep be damned.Booty call back on!
“I always get my tree from Carson at the Solstice Celebration. I had no idea he wasn’t going to sell them this year,” she told him.
“What’s in the totes?” He nodded toward the four red and green plastic totes stacked behind her couch.
“Christmas decorations.” There were a lot of things she hadn’t gotten around to lately.
“Whoa.” Ryan’s eyes widened as a gray cat popped out of a wreath on top of the table. It narrowed its yellow eyes at him and tore across the table before disappearing under the couch.
“That’s McClane,” she said, finding her voice. “The black one is Holly.”
“On the way over here, I was trying to predict how many animals you’d have. So far, unless you have a herd of goats upstairs, I’m disappointed.”
“Said the guy who brought a sheep with him!”
“He’s basically the same thing as a dog,” he argued, unpacking the food.
“No goats.Yet,”she said.“Three cats and some fish outside in the pond.”
