Page 30 of Christmas with the Boy Next Door

Does the Gingerbread Ball exist?

Yes.

Does Jack have years of experience going to Marine Corps Birthday Balls that involve formalwear and dinner and dancing?

Yes.

Will the Gingerbread Ball be anything like the Marine Corps ball?

No.

What else was he supposed to have given thought to?

Nick settled the first leaf into the space at the center of the table as Jack followed suit with the other heavy slab of cherrywood. Then he straightened, resting his hip against it and crossing his arms.

“Robin.” Nick pursed his lips. “I’m asking about you asking Robin to the ball.”

Jack took an involuntary step back. He hadn’t even considered it. In fact, he hadn’t actually planned on attending the ball at all. It wasn’t that he’d made up his mind to skip it or anything, it was just that he hadn’t thought about whether or not he’d show up.

Snow Hill’s annual Gingerbread Ball was held on Christmas Eve every year, and it wasn’t like he had the seniority in Philly to snag time off whenever he wanted. But he lived here now. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that he’d actually get to attend the ball this year? He’d been setting up for it for almost two months now.

“So… is that a no?” Nick prompted him, misreading his bewildered silence.

“No, it’s not that. I guess it’s just that I haven’t even thought about going. Sounds dumb, I know, after all this prep. But I didn’t go the first year Holly and I were in Snow Hill because it wasn’t my thing. After that, I had to work. But it’s uh… a little different now.”

Nick pushed off the table and reached for the two Minnie Mouse tablecloths they planned to spread over the extended table and handed one to Jack. They worked on that task, then moved the chairs from against the walls of the dining room to their designated places, along with some extras that’d been stored in a closet in the basement.

“What’s so different about it now?”

Jack shrugged. “It feels a little like I should go.”

“Because you’re no longer the Jack Frost Christmas hater you once were?”

Jack chuckled and shook his head, placing a few pink-and-silver centerpieces on the table in the places he hoped were close enough to where Holly had instructed him to place them. “Not exactly. I’m not on your level yet, Saint Nick. But I’m warming up to it. I guess I meant because I’m trying to be part of this community now. I want people to trust that I’m one of them and not the ‘big-city cop’ they assume I am.”

He’d been working the streets in this town for long enough for some of the wariness to leave the residents’ eyes when he came around, but not all of it. Not completely. Attending the ball seemed like a good way to expedite the process.

“That’s a good thought. So then, I guess you’ll ask Robin to be your date?”

Jack picked at the edges of the birthday banner he’d been about to hang over the buffet table. “Should I?”

Nick grinned. “Really?”

“Does she… I don’t know… date? In the beginning, I wasn’t sure if she was ready for that, but now it’s worse because I’m literally working at Matthew’s desk. But has she been out with other guys?”

Nick furrowed his brow and looked up like he was trying to remember if he’d ever seen her with anyone. Then he shrugged and turned back to Jack. “I don’t think she has actually. Not that I’m the one she’d talk to about that kind of thing. Maybe ask Holly?”

Jack nodded pensively. Hecouldask Holly, but any time his sister had talked to him about Robin, she’d been very clear about not pushing her. First, because it was too fresh. The year he’d met Robin, he’d told Holly she was cute after a considerable amount of browbeating on her part. But then she’d pulled him aside on New Year’s Eve and told him she’d learned some stuff about Robin’s past and that he really shouldn’t go there. It’d only been a year since her husband died, and she could tell her new friend wasn’t ready for a relationship and didn’t want either of them to get hurt.

Since Jack had left town to become a cop right after that and learned the bigger reason for her lack of interest in him, he’d put her out of his mind. For the most part, anyway. She’d still sneak in from time to time, but he couldn’t help that. He was still a guy, truly alone for the first time in a long time, looking for what would make him happy or make him feel like he finally had a home and a life that he could call his own.

The image of Robin’s smiling face, golden hair, and that confident way she held her shoulders back—even though her eyes told the story of a woman who’d become a master at putting on a brave face—had appealed to him in a way he’d never felt before.

By the time he’d become a police officer in Philly (holding the one job that’d be a dealbreaker for her) he’d pretty much given up hope that anything would ever kick off between the two of them.

So much had changed since then. Did he need to ask Holly if she dated, considering all of that? No. Probably not. Because what did it matter? She was single now. So was he. And if Holly could get him to relax some of his whiny, tortured soul, anti-Christmas behavior… did that mean she’d also aided Robin in overcoming some of the stuff that had kept her away from him?

Before Jack and Nick could continue the conversation, however, the front door of the inn burst open, and the woman in question breezed through the door. Jack’s chest seized the second he laid eyes on her, and he came to a decision in a snap.

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