Page 18 of Three Days of Holiday

Her eyes said something completely different. They were bright and glossy, as if she too was looking back through memories of the previous evening.

“You okay, Holly?” her sister yelled loudly from the doorway, causing people to turn their heads and see the two of us standing off against one another.

I chose to ignore Hope.

“I know you felt it during our kiss,” I leaned in and whispered.

It would never work between us, but I didn’t want her to walk away mad. We may not have had a future together, but we didn’t have to always be enemies. How did I turn my back on the one woman who made me feel? Who made me smile?

She thumbed the corner of her folder, and when theproximity between us closed and she didn’t reach out and slap me, I counted it a win.

“You did. Didn’t you?” I asked when she didn’t answer, but her closed-mouth expression told the truth.

Holly tried to step around me, but I blocked her path. She huffed out a quick breath and then when her gaze met mine again, it was full of anger. “Your father came to my farm two years ago and threatened my brother’s fiancée. He tried to take a family legacy from us.”

I’d heard the stories, and while I understood she might see it that way, it differed completely from our perspective. My father tried to buy the Oceanview Orchards Farm for years while the farm crumbled, and right when it looked like they’d finally sell after leading us on for almost a decade, the second Halliday stepped in and became a hero.

Our offer was more than fair to each of the siblings. Their parents could’ve taken the money and started new ventures. But that didn’t mean I agreed with my father’s tactics or the way he exerted pressure on the family. Maine had millions of apple trees. We could get the product we needed elsewhere. Oceanview Orchards wasn’t the only farm on the market.

“I know, but that wasn’t me.”

“Wasn’t it? Aren’t you all the same?”

I jerked my head at that insult. “Are you the same as every member of your family?”

“Well, no, but,” Holly sputtered. “You know what I mean. And then last year you sent the county inspector, who almost shut the farm down right before Christmas.”

That accusation was my turn to cringe. It’d been my cousin Shawn’s idea, and it almost worked.

Sure, I wanted to win and win hard. I wanted our farm labeled the best apple orchard in Maine, but I wasn’t willing to resort to unethical tactics to do so. “I know my dad is an asshole, but that doesn’t mean I am.”

My answer finally drew emotion out of Holly. She almost dropped her folder but clutched it to her heart and put her other hand on her hip, leaning the upper portion of her body in my direction. “Oh, so does that mean that non-assholes lie about their name in order to take a girl out?”

When I answered, our lips were almost touching. I spoke so quietly only she heard, but the words were still full of spite. “I never lied.”

We were so close to one another, her breath skated across my lips. If we weren’t glaring at each other, it might almost look like we were two lovers coming in for a kiss.

But the air changed, and Holly’s shoulders fell. She took a step back. “Why do you even care? Let’s just call it over and be done with it.”

The thought that she could so easily forget our night sent shockwaves to my heart. “I care because I felt something.”

“Well, I didn’t,” she said, her eyes turning hard.

People gathered in the small hallway to watch our exchange, but I didn’t care who saw what happened between us. One side of my lips tipped up, and I shook my head. “Now who’s the liar?”

Holly flexed her hands again, crumpling the edge of her information folder. “You are. This is so stupid. Just like a Causebay.”

She pushed past me and headed for her sister. This time I let her, taking a few scant seconds to watch her asshe met up with her sister at the doorway and both of them pushed past the opening to take the first steps into the parking lot.

I waited until they were outside before I ran to catch up with them and yelled my next comment. “It is stupid, so let’s just resolve it.”

Holly wheeled on me at the passenger side door of a white Toyota. “What? How do you propose we do that?”

“Kiss me again.”

Her eyes widened, and she tipped her head back to catch a view of her sister. Hope stared at us so intently I swore her chest wasn’t moving, as if she didn’t dare take a breath. “You are crazy, William Causebay.”

“You scared?” I asked, inching closer to her. She fled backward until her back hit the vehicle. I’d show her how much I affected her.

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