Page 18 of Not Home Alone

“Super fun, right?” she says, with the turtle under one arm, leaning in and trying to get me to make eye contact with her.

“Oh my god, so fun!” She’s not getting to me. I reach for my knitted beanie on the top shelf in the closet.

She squeals. “Put it on!”

I will not put it on. Merrily Tucker attached felt reindeer antlers to my beanie. I hate them. I admire her commitment and stamina, but I really liked this beanie and that was not cool. “That is so cool,” I say through a clenched jaw.

That’s it.

I drop my beanie and scarf to the floor and march into the foyer. She has somehow already hung the garland back up over the entrance. I seriously don’t even know how she had time to do that. It’s making me question reality. But one thing I do not question—there will be no Christmas trees in this house, even when I’m not here.

“What are you doing?” she asks, placing the turtle on the floor. She’s trying to hide the anxiety in her voice, but I heard it.

I pick up the Christmas tree that’s to the right of the front door because it’s the one that isn’t plugged into an outlet. I shouldn’t have to specify which tree I’m picking up on which side of the front door because what kind of a maniac puts Christmas trees on both sides of a door? “I’m taking all of the Christmas trees to the curb so someone more needy can take them home,” I tell her. “Because I also enjoy making things awesome for everyone very quickly.”

“There’s more where that came from!” she threatens.

“Cool. I’ll toss them to the curb too.” I open the front door and carry the tree through it.

“Well, good morning, stranger,” says an amused voice from the sidewalk.

Shit. It’s Quinn. Maybe she didn’t see my face.

“Grant?” Quinn isn’t questioning whether or not it’s me, so much as she’s wondering why I’m not welcoming her even though I didn’t invite her here.

Shit. My mind is too consumed with thoughts of how I can punish Merrily because she must have told someone who told someone who told Quinn I was here and that is not okay.

“Hellooooo?” she says, as she approaches the steps.

“Quinn,” I say, tilting the tree to the side so I can nod at her. “Good morning.” I place the tree on the floor of the porch. “What brings you here?”

Quinn Whitmore is, objectively, an attractive woman. Her jet-black hair and ice-blue eyes are stunning, in the way that a wolf’s stare is stunning. I can’t look away, but my survival instinct has always told me to remain still and play dead so she doesn’t chase me. We’ve known each other our whole lives because our families move in the same circles. There’s nothing wrong with her, I just don’t like talking to her. Or texting with her. Or hearing from so many people in town that I should marry her. “I might ask you the same thing.” She scans the skies above the house. “I heard you were staying at the Home Alone House. I guess you don’t get very good cell phone reception over here.”

“Right. I saw your texts last night. I was going to get back to you today, but I’ve been⁠—”

“Great! The reason I wanted to talk to you last night is I was going to ask if we should go to the annual Moody Christmas party at the winery together this year. I heard Patrick Voss is going to be there. Daddy can’t believe your father is considering selling his company to that guy.”

“I’m sorry—what? Patrick Voss?”

“Oh, that got your attention, did it? I don’t think Daddy’s supposed to know about it, but he was at the terminal in Dubuque last night when Voss flew in on his private jet. He’s pretty upset. Thinks it would be bad for Holly Grove. I just think it would cheer him up a lot if you and I showed up at the party together…”

Voss? That man makes my father’s business ambitions look like child’s play and his pre-retirement ethics seem saintly. Quinn continues speaking but I can’t hear her over the sound of the alarms that are going off in my head.

Patrick Voss has been wanting to buy up half this town from The Moody Group for years.

And there’s only one way to stop him…

I glance back at the front door—Merrily is nowhere in sight, but she’s in there somewhere. She really wants to stay here. And all of a sudden, I have one very good reason to let her.

“Since we’ll both be going,” Quinn finishes off. “So, what do you say, Grant? You know how happy it would make both of our fathers…”

It feels like she’s slowly circling me as she stares me down, but all she’s doing is walking up the stairs to join me on the porch. “Interesting,” is what I say. And the next sentence rolls off my tongue so easily it’s shocking, but it shouldn’t surprise me the lengths I’ll go to save the family business and this town. “That would be great, Quinn, except I’ll be going to that party with my girlfriend.”

The word “girlfriend” has barely escaped my lips, like a lunatic from an asylum, when I hear Merrily padding down the stairs inside, singing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

“Hah! Right,” Quinn says, with the assurance of someone who has been asking my sister about my relationship status periodically. “Be sure to wear that coat, by the way,” she continues, gesturing at the Santa faces. “So festive.”

I finally turn away from her to find Merrily dancing to the front door. In a Christmas tree costume. It’s a polyester triangle with colored pom-poms and tinsel garlands. Her face is sticking through a hole and there’s a puffy, gold fabric star at the pointy top. There is not one sexy thing about that stupid costume, but I can’t stop staring at her bare legs. Or wondering why the hell I just said what I said to Quinn.