Page 42 of A Holly Jilly Christmas

I glance up. Sure enough, there’s a scraggly piece of plastic mistletoe hanging over our heads. It’s a hasty job, barely clinging to the ceiling with several pieces of scotch tape. I don’t know how didn’t I notice it earlier, but as I look around, I realize there are several other similar ugly hanging pieces, like someone cut up a full half of the stuff and planted it around the house.

“Karen,” Case says, following my gaze. “I don’t know when or how, but that’s definitely Karen’s work. Is your family half this bad?”

“Not quite so bad. My dad doesn’t even have a shotgun to pretend to threaten you with.” Which is saying something, considering this is Texas.

Case leans on the island, turning to study me. “Are you really here?”

“The more important question is, did you really have a crush on me for years?”

“I hate the word crush,” he says with a scowl.

“Like you hate the term single because it’s beneath you?”

“I never said it was beneath me, Jillian. I said it sounded too young for me.” He brushes a fingertip over my cheek, his coffee-brown eyes turning soft. “And now, it sounds completely inaccurate.”

“So, you’re not single?”

He shakes his head slowly. “I wouldn’t say so.”

“Or … unattached?”

“Doesn’t feel that way.” He cups my jaw, leaning a little closer.

My heart is racing, and somehow, his hand on my cheek—a simple touch—has lit a fuse that has my skin tingling and my nerves being all … nervy.

“What does it feel like?” I ask, my voice low and breathy. Maybe a little desperate.

His gaze roams over my face, slowly, deliberately, reverently. “It feels like,” he says slowly, inching closer with every word, “I’ve wasted a lot of years admiring you from a distance, wishing I could get up the courage to talk to you, hoping you might like a slightly older but not creepy-older man.”

He’s so close now I’m seeing him double, all out of focus. Our lips are almost brushing, our breath mingling.

“The question is, Jillian—what does it feel like to you?” His beard tickles my skin, making me shiver.

“It feels like to me, you’re both wasting good mistletoe by talking under it instead of kissing!” Marcy calls from the hallway.

I giggle, and pull back just enough to see Case with his eyes squeezed shut. It looks like he’s counting to himself.

Marcy pokes her head around the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt, but I forgot my crackers. I get nauseated if I don’t keep them next to the bed. Pretend I’m not here,” she says, darting in and grabbing a box of crackers off the counter.

“Impossible,” Case says, but he’s smiling.

And as Marcy leaves again—hopefully for the last time—Case leans back in. “Now, where were we?”

“We were right at the part where I say yes, I’ll be your girlfriend even though technically your sister is the one who asked me. And now we’re at the part where we agree she’s also correct and we should be doing a whole lot less talking and more kissing.”

“Fine,” Case growls, and then he pulls me closer and fuses his hot mouth to mine in a kiss that feels completely mistletoe-worthy.

EPILOGUE

six months later

I can’t stop staring at Case, who can’t stop staring at the baby in his arms. The wonder and love in his eyes as he gazes down at his days old niece—well. Let’s just say if spontaneous pregnancy were to join spontaneous combustion as pseudo science’s new darling, I’d be patient zero.

“She’s so …” Case fumbles for words. Then he smiles, first at the baby, then at me. “Perfect.”

Clover—whose name sounded a little goofy until we saw her and agreed, it totally fits—squirms a little, then makes the tiniest sound. Case’s adoring gaze shifts straight to panic.

“She must be hungry. Marcy! She’s rooting.”

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