Page 133 of Mistletoe All the Way

He must notice once he tosses me a What gives? look. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

“Seems it is,” I say, as we run along the sidewalk for another quarter mile before we dart onto a hiking trail.

My running shoes crunch along the hard-packed ground and snow cover. Sure, the terrain is tough, but it’s harder to keep up than usual.

“Man, a few days in California and you’ve gone soft,” Jamie says, noticing.

“You don’t even know the half of it.”

“What happened?”

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I flash back over my time there, all the way to meeting Eloise. The way we poked at each other that first day. The way we taunted each other at the diner. The way I tricked her, and how she tricked me right back at the Christmas market.

She matched me move for move, barb for barb, word for word.

A stupid smile tugs at my freezing-cold lips.

I remember, too, how she surprised the hell out of me when she flew out here, wanting to do something big for the competition. When we decorated a tree together at my cabin, then she slinked down the hall and hung some secret mistletoe. A small laugh falls from my lips as I remember looking up at the green leaves and holly berries with some new hope in my heart.

“Must be good,” Jamie remarks as we run in the quiet of the early morning woods.

But I’m still a little lost in the movie I’m watching in my head. My return to Evergreen Falls, braiding Honey’s hair, the parade, the way Eloise understood me instinctively, figured out I might possibly be a little bit shy in public, and found a way to help me through it.

She did so much more than that.

From the wig to the brown contact lenses, to the T-shirts she made and the pictures she took, to showing up and helping at the farm. My god, she did so much for me, but most of all, she woke me up. She made me feel. She made me see that the world might be dark, but there are glimmers of hope in it in people like her and the way we can treat each other when we try.

Truly try.

I blink out of the far too lovely memories as we run past some towering evergreens, branches laden with snow. “I fell in love,” I say, plainly and simply.

Jamie slows his pace. “Holy shit, you did?”

“I sure did.”

“And…?”

He doesn’t have to spell it out for me to know his question. Did she fall too?

I think not only of the other night at her house but the morning, too, when her parents showed up, and the way we held each other once they left. The confessions we made.

And I wonder about something as we pass a tree where a cardinal lands on a snowy branch, looking like a Christmas postcard, like something you might send someone to let them know you’re thinking of them.

“I think I’ve made a huge mistake.”

Jamie gives a Been there, done that smile. “I know a thing or two about making mistakes.”

46 SLEIGH BELLS RING

Eloise

This is the last place I want to be on Christmas Eve. But I don’t want to be like them. Cruel. Dismissive. Thoughtless.

I take a steadying breath on my parents’ front porch, square my shoulders, and run a hand over my blown-dry hair. I’m dressed in my Christmas Eve best, but I’m still me. I’m not wearing Louboutins like my mom or pearls like her either. Just a simple and fun Christmas sweater with a Santa illustration on the front, stylish jeans, and nice boots.

I’m holding a gift for them. I’m not sure they deserve it, but I made it a few weeks ago—a homemade ornament for their tree. Just like I make every year for them.

I’m early, but I figure maybe I can clear the air before dinner. That’s what the holidays are for, right? Letting go of hurts, moving forward, and sharing your heart.