Page 19 of Hot Holiday Fling

“This family is not, in any shape or form, a democracy. Since I spent twelve or more hours in labor with every one of you, I am your supreme ruler,” Rachel retorted, but Hunt heard the affection in her voice.

“That’s pretty accurate actually,” Richard commented, his tone dry as dust.

Rachel narrowed her eyes at him. “In front of you is a giant tree cookie and participation is mandatory...everyone has to decorate one.”

“And how do we judge the winner?” Kate demanded. Hunt heard the competitive streak in her voice and smiled. God, she and Steve were so alike.

“We take photos of our trees and we share them on social media. The tree with the most likes is the winner.”

“That’s not fair, Hunt has a pretty big fan base,” Kate whined. “He’s famous.”

After much discussion about the rules and deadlines and how to count the likes—and after giving him a handicap—Rachel finally gave her family permission to start decorating their cookies. Hunt, not having a creative bone in his body looked at the bowls of frosting and the piping bag at his elbow and shook his head. With Duncan out of the office, Hunt was incredibly busy and yet he was sitting here about to pipe icing on cookies.

But, honestly, there was no place he’d rather be.

Adie flashed him a smirky smile and expertly twisted her piping bag so that the white frosting filled one corner of the bag. “Watch and learn.”

Hunt followed her directions and soon had his cookie covered in white frosting. He reached for a bowl of chocolate buttons and placed them around the edge of the tree, pleased by his efforts.

He popped a button into his mouth, caught Adie’s eye and instantly remembered the exceptional one-of-a-kind chocolates he’d tasted a few days back. “Well, it’s not chili and bacon,” he told her when she met his gaze.

Adie blushed, but before she could respond, Grant directed a question at him. “Kate’s been telling me about your foundation’s urban treasure hunt. It was an inspired idea to team celebrities with teenagers from the foundation’s sports programs. And running through the city sounds amazing. You’re going to have such a good time.”

Hunt shook his head. “Oh, I’m not running.”

Everyone turned to look at him and he frowned at their perplexed faces. He lifted his hands in the air. “What? Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“I thought you were part of a team. Why on earth aren’t you participating?” Adie voiced the question they all, obviously, wanted the answer to.

Actually, that was a damn good question. Why wasn’t he running in his own damn race? Running was something he enjoyed but, like so much, it was way down his list of priorities. Work, and more work, filled positions one to five.

Work was all he did.

Hunt wriggled, uncomfortable with the way the Williams clan, including the kids, were looking at him. Adie just sat in her chair, smiling at his discomfort.

He didn’t have a decent excuse and he didn’t want to tell them that the thought of running hadn’t occurred to him. “I’m too busy, even more so than normal because Duncan is out of the office and my workload is intense.”

“It’s a couple of hours on Saturday, Hunter, and everybody, including you, deserves some downtime,” Adie told him, resting her forearms on the table, her elbow precariously close to her glass of eggnog. He reached across the table and moved the glass to a safer spot.

“Even if it was something I wanted to do—” and to be honest, he kinda, sorta, did want to “—I can’t enter because I don’t have someone to run it with me. The kids involved have already been matched with the athletes and have, hopefully, started to develop a relationship with their mentors.”

“It’s your race, you can add someone to the registration roll or you can run with whomever you want to,” Kate said.

True. He mentally thought through some of his acquaintances and ex-teammates and realized they were either already partaking in the race or had previous commitments. “Steve would be my go-to person,” Hunt quietly stated. There, he’d mentioned Steve’s name. For the first time in a decade, he’d brought Steve into the conversation. Hunt felt Richard’s hand on his shoulder, the manly squeeze. Talking about Steve was hard, but damn, he deserved to be part of the conversation.

Hunt looked at Rachel and, on seeing the tears in her eyes, quickly looked away. God, if she started crying, he wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“Since the foundation is named after Steve, what about one of Steve’s brothers running with Hunt?” Adie’s brisk question cut through the tension.

Grant shook his head. “I’d love to but we’re leaving to go out of town tomorrow.”

Adie looked at Mike, who shook his head. “Sorry, I’m unavailable too.”

Kate pouted. “I see nobody asked me.”

Adie patted her back. “Honey, your idea of exercise is binge-watching a series on Netflix.”

“Funny,” Kate retorted.

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