Page 12 of Meet Me on Mistletoe Lane

When I tried to smack him, my silver claddagh ring flew off my finger and landed on the floor beneath Nona’s small ceramic Christmas tree. The ring was a gift from Sam’s Gram from a few Christmases ago and had always been a little big, despite my attempts at wrapping thread around it.

Sam walked across the room and brought it back for me. “Right hand?”

I nodded and held out my hand, thinking he would just drop the ring into it.

But he didn’t.

His callused fingers were normally rough and dry from years of working on his family farm, but right now, as he slid the ring back onto my finger, they felt soft, gentle.

I knew these hands, every scar and freckle on them.

So why was his touch now sending zips of electricity through my wrist, numbing it the same way my sleepy foot felt just a moment ago?

“Heart out, right?” he asked, his voice rough as he let go.

“Right.” I flexed my hand at my side, but the humming feeling didn’t go away.

Heart out.

Because I was definitely not in a relationship.

And I definitely hadn’t thought about starting one with my best friend, who was still standing far too close to me.

Just a momentary lapse of judgment from too many rom-com holiday movies.

And stupid Santagrams.

Sam opened his mouth to say something, but then Jo ran into the room with a half-eaten slice of Italian bread in her hands. “Guys, guys! You will never guess what I just heard by the eggnog.”

Chapter Four

“You smell like beef and cheese. You don’t smell like Santa.”

—Elf

“How could he not have a will?” Sam asked the next day for the hundredth time since Jo dropped the bomb after eavesdropping at Nona’s. He laid his tray onto the round table in the cafeteria and sat across from me, rolling up the sleeves of his green sweater before he pulled his latest book—Fahrenheit 451—out of his back pocket.

“Well, I mean, he was pretty old and alone. Maybe he just didn’t think about leaving anything to anyone.” I reached across the table and snagged the tomatoes out of Sam’s salad at the same time that he grabbed the carrots out of mine, and tried not to think about how good he looked in that sweater.

To be fair, most guys looked hot in cable-knit.

Which was entirely unfair, considering they already held the monopoly on flannel and hoodies, too.

“Are you going to eat all of that?” Jo pointed to his tray, which was covered with mashed potatoes, steak, gravy, three rolls, and a side salad.

“It’s steak and gravy day,” he said matter-of-factly before adding ranch to his salad and closing the box to mix it up. “But seriously, Paxton owned a place half the people in town rented for their small businesses. He didn’t think to make a plan?”

I sighed and started picking pieces off my roll, suddenly not very hungry. “I dunno. But we can’t do anything about it now.”

“Except worry about a hoity-toity lawyer from the city coming in to sell it off in pieces,” he said before shoveling in a heaping forkful of potatoes.

Jo snorted. “ ‘Hoity-toity’? What are you, seventy years old, Sam?”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I just have a bad feeling about this. Like…everything’s about to change.”

Ha. Understatement of the year.

“Is that really such a bad thing?” Jo leaned back in her chair. “Maybe this big-city lawyer will bring a little life back to this town. Switch things up a bit.”