Page 28 of Wrapped with a Beau

“You and I both know that your face is far from rodentlike,” he says with a smirk.

She half pouts, half scowls. “Uh, not the most glowing of compliments, but thanks?”

“Even though this town does seem to have a weird preoccupation with them,” he adds.

“I told you a stoat is a weasel.” She ignores his snort, tucking her phone away, and gives him a radiant smile that sucker-punches every other thought out of his head, including the one insistently screaming that this is a bad idea. “You have no idea how much this helps me out, Ves.”

“Yeah, well, wait until you see how much of a mess I made while cleaning.”

She blinks. “It’s worse than before?”

“Oh, the current mess laughs in the face of the before-mess’s face. Really thumbs its nose in it.”

Elisha throws her head back and laughs. Squeezes his elbow. Looks at him with sparkling eyes that aren’t just brown, actually, but the exact shade of golden brandy. “Lucky me.”

As they part ways—her back to work and him in search of packing materials, feeling warmer than he’s felt all day—he kind of thinks she means it.

“Hey! Ves!” she yells, hand on the chamber’s door. “I still have your scarf!” She starts to head back.

They meet at the same place on the sidewalk in front of her office building. The wind picks up, sending her hair flying. When she visibly shivers, he’s glad he loaned her the scarf Maeve knitted for him. He holds up a hand when she tries to unwind it from her neck. “Keep it until tonight,” he says. “Can’t have you coming down with a cold. Why is it whenever I see you, you’re persistently underdressed?”

“Tell you what.” Her smile is unmitigated challenge. “A secret for a secret. I’ll spill the deets if you tell me why you don’t date over the holidays.”

She must really want to know. But being vulnerable in exchange? Giving her emotional ammunition? He’s nosy, not desperate. “Doesn’t sound like that great a trade-off, Elisha. Care to sweeten the deal?”

Elisha thinks about it—or at least pretends to. “Hmm, you know what? I think you’ll cave first.”

Ves’s laugh is an unsubtle Dream on. He starts to walk away. “This close to Christmas, you want to risk going on my naughty list?”

He isn’t flirting. Definitely not. He’s doing a nice thing for a nice girl because it’s almost Christmas and goodwill to all and yes, okay, fine, that thing about her being the losing Oreo has stuck with him.

Arun would be so proud, Ves thinks wryly. Probably make some joke about Ves’s soft marshmallow Peep heart. Which is exactly why, when Arun inevitably requests that Ves regale him with a recap of his Piney Peaks adventures so far, he fully intends to lay it out as strictly business.

Truly, he does need the help: clear out the house, get through the holidays, reschedule the valuations.

That’s it, nothing more. He’s not thawing toward this small town or the people in it. Not at all.

And he’s certainly not counting down the hours until Elisha’s off work.

He checks his wristwatch and frowns before he can stop himself.

Chapter Fourteen

Ves

After returning home, Ves spends the next couple of hours frantically attempting to clean the mess he warned Elisha about but doesn’t actually want her to see. It’s no joke; the mess has undeniably multiplied. It’s like it had rampant bunny sex and is now even more everywhere than it was when he arrived.

When his surroundings are this uncontrollable, all he wants is the escape he used to find between the pages of a book. He has plenty loaded up on his phone’s Kindle app, but even thinking about books reminds him of the new book idea that he’s trying and failing to brainstorm.

He pulls out his phone, thumb hovering over Arun’s name. Then forces himself not to call, because it’s barely three p.m. and Arun’s probably got an eagle eye on an auction for a client’s book or negotiating the finer points of a contract like the badass, sharky agent he is.

Ves sighs as he taps open the new messages from his parents, the last one from his dad, saying simply Call me.

Karl Hollins picks up on the second ring. “Ves. Finally.”

“I texted you when I got to town.”

“I suppose you’ve called your mother already? Or am I the first one you called?”

---