Page 4 of Jingle Bell Flock
Charlie’s gaze slid to me, one eyebrow raised in that way that said he was taking in every detail and filing it away for later. “Jeremy. Exciting morning?”
“Something like that,” I muttered.
My sister’s eyes danced with mischief. “Definitely looks like you two had quite the adventure.”
“Not an adventure. A disaster,” I corrected, finally releasing my hold on Comet, who immediately trotted over to Sugarplum like he hadn’t just caused twenty minutes of absolute chaos.
“Is it though?” She pulled out her phone, and both Harrison and I shifted toward her to look, which meant we ended up shoulder to shoulder. I should have stepped away once I realized how close we were. I didn’t.
“Eli texted a few minutes ago,” she continued, scrolling. “You’re trending locally. #WinterberryGoats has 12 posts, and they all have a bunch of likes.”
Harrison moved closer to look at the screen, his shoulder brushing against mine.
I should have stepped away, put some distance between us.
I didn’t.
I stared at photos of kids and adults laughing with the goats, until she scrolled to one of me—arms crossed, face set in a scowl that should have terrified small children. Instead, people were using hashtags like #sexygrumpylumberjack and #xmastreeguyishot.
What the actual fuck? I looked like I was about to murder someone—which I was—and people thought that was hot?
“Are you kidding me?” I gestured at the screen and snorted.
Next to me, Harrison muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t quite make out despite how close he was standing. It sounded like “not wrong,” but that didn’t make sense.
“What?” I turned to him.
“Nothing,” he said, but his ears were red, and he was suddenly very interested in looking at Jemma’s phone instead of at me.
“Ah, look at this one,” Jemma said, scrolling to a different post, her teasing grin softening into something sweeter.
The screen showed a family photo—parents and kids gathered around Sugarplum—with a caption that read: “Winterberry Farm’s new petting zoo is ADORABLE! I hope they’re doing this every weekend.”
“It’s not a petting zoo,” Harrison and I said at the same time, his voice a deep rumble that I felt as much as I heard.
We glanced at each other—a mistake, because at this distance I could count the shades of gold in his eyes, could see the way his lips parted slightly like he was about to say something else.
I glanced away quickly. Jemma’s smile had widened into something that made my stomach sink.
“But what if it was?”
two
. . .
HARRISON
My fingers disappearedinto the sticky brown dough, the scent of cinnamon and cloves tickling my nose, when my phone’s ringtone cut through Mariah Carey’s high notes on the kitchen speaker.
“I saw the Instagram posts.” Bristol’s voice crackled through my earbuds. “Tell me everything.”
Using the back of my wrist, I pushed my hair back off my forehead. “It wasn’t my finest moment. That’s for sure.”
Bristol Rhew and I met almost immediately after I moved back to Mistletoe Bay, and we became fast friends. One day, we were splitting a fried seafood platter at The Groggy Lobster when the bell above the door jingled. I’d looked up to see Jeremy standing there, his flannel sleeves rolled to the elbows to reveal strong forearms, and his ever-ready scowl on his face. Our eyes locked for two heartbeats before he backed out, the door slamming shut behind him. My trembling hands had spilled icedtea across the table and onto Bristol’s lap.Thatwas when I told her about my former best friend.
Where I saw a hopeless situation, she saw an enemies-to-lovers scenario straight out of the romance novels she loved so much. Her optimism would have been cute if it weren’t so damn heartbreaking.
“Did you at least get to talk to him?” she asked.
