Page 6 of Three Days of Holiday

“No, I think it is. Really, it was a miscalculation on my part. Anyone this important in the competition deserves more than drinks. How about dinner and then drinks?”

“Well…” Holly said, looking back at her table. I swore I saw her calculating the work she had to do to prepare for the end-of-the-week event. The first few years were intense.

Her sister rolled her eyes and tossed an empty plastic cup at her, hitting her in the shoulder. “She says yes.”

“It’s not you,” Holly started.

“It’s you?” I finished for her.

She laughed and shook her head. “No, it’s my brothers.”

Realization dawned on Hope’s face, and she nodded in agreement. “I forgot about them, damn.”

I didn’t plan to let three Halliday boys stand in my way of dinner with a beautiful woman. Even if she was their sister.

Before I came up with a solution, Hope’s eyes popped open wide, and she gave a quick shout. “Sneak out after dark like in high school. You can’t get dinner, but you can at least get the drinks part.”

“Hope, I’m not a child. I don’t need to sneak out after dark.” Holly hesitated for a moment, looking back and forth between me and her sister. “Although it’s not such a horrible idea.”

I’d already gotten this far into the plan. I couldn’t back out now, and I certainly wouldn’t leave the woman who made me smile so hard my cheeks hurt. “You name a time and place and I will be there. We’ll make it desserts.”

Nothing hiding in the dark would keep me away from this date.

3

HOLLY

The third floorboard outside my bedroom door creaked as I rested a single toe on it. Darn it, how did I forget about that floorboard? A snore from my parents’ bedroom cut off midstream, and the bedsprings creaked.

I froze in the hallway with a hand over my mouth to cover my breathing as I waited to see if someone exited my parents’ room.

Why was this so hard and terrifying? Maybe because when I was younger and smaller, I used to escape from my window, crawl across the roof, and shimmy down the drainpipe. That was six years and at least thirty-five pounds ago. Plus, college gave me a healthy dose of self-preservation. I was no longer willing to risk my life for a case of cheap beer out in Billy Miller’s cornfield.

Hey, apparently, I’d grown up since graduating high school.

But not too much, considering I was still sneaking outof the house to meet a guy. It just was through safer conventions.

The snoring started again, and I relaxed my shoulders as I skipped the fifth board, which was also a squeaker. I made it to the banister by taking only tiny steps and half breaths. On the first step, I clutched the railing and pulled on it—a proven best way to stop the staircase from creaking.

It was 7:30, but this close to Christmas it was pitch black outside, and my father had already hit the sack. Being Santa for a bunch of screaming children tired him out. As did his inability to not wake up at four o’clock in the morning to start chores, even though we weren’t currently farming in the dead of winter.

When we were children, he used to say it was because he didn’t want to get out of the routine, but I thought he enjoyed being up early and having quiet time in the house without five children running and screaming in his way.

I made it to the bottom of the staircase and then froze as the light from the kitchen splashed against my toes. Crappy crap, crap, crap.

I hesitated, not sure if I should backpedal upstairs and try the rain spout or take my chances on the staircase. Whoever waited in the kitchen needed to believe I wanted a quick nighttime walk—something I’d never done in my entire life. I planned to claim a newfound health consciousness.

“I know you’re standing there, Holly. And since you haven’t walked into the kitchen, it’s obviously not for a good reason.” My mother stopped speaking and opened the refrigerator, causing the condiments to rattle.

“Mom,” I said, overly cheerfully as I popped my head into the kitchen, trying to pretend like everything was fine. “I thought you and dad were both sleeping.”

She closed the fridge door, rattling more condiments, and took a bite out of a chocolate chip cookie. “No, now that you’re all grown, there’s absolutely no reason to wake up at such a god-awful hour. And when he goes to bed so early, it gives me plenty of time to watch whatever I want on TV.”

“It is the Hallmark season,” I said, leaning up against the threshold of the kitchen. I didn’t want to walk too far in because then I might not have the chance to come up with an escape plan, and I only had five minutes to dash through the woods and meet Will at our designated location.

“You’re going out then?” my mother asked.

“No, why would you think that?”

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