Page 10 of Christmas Punch

“That there is a county road,” Evelyn said. “We don’t do the county’s work for them. I would think a fancy pants lawyer would know that.”

“I’m not—-.”

Seeing my subtle head shake, he took a clue and let it go. It was useless arguing with Evelyn once she got something in her head. I honestly couldn’t figure out whether she did it on purpose or not.

Evelyn chattered on about the festival as she drank her coffee. The woman could put away caffeine like a long haul trucker. She could swear like one too.

“I’ve got to go get ready for my volunteer gig at the festival. I’ll just let you two kids get back to whatever you were doing.”

“We were eating breakfast,” I stated. “We still are.”

“Sure, you were.” She had the audacity to wink at us.

“Nathan and I are not sleeping together Evelyn.”

“Not yet.”

Nathan’s face turned a little pink at Evelyn’s pronouncement. It was adorable. With that last shot, my friend was gone, leaving us in an uncomfortable silence.

“Thanks for making breakfast, Nathan. I’m going to get dressed and start working on my Christmas Punch.”

“Okay.”

“Would you like to come to the festival with me?” I mean, it wouldn’t be nice to leave the guy here all alone, right?

To my surprise he said, “Sure, that would be fun.”

Nathan was a very serious guy. I hadn’t seen him smile once since I met him other than a tiny quirk of his lips last night. I wasn’t completely sure he knew how to have fun, but if there was any place that could teach him, it would be Pine Bluff. This town had fun in its town motto.

Seriously, our motto was “Pine Bluff, Where the Fun Happens.”

After changing clothes, Nathan and I headed down to the café where I’d set up two big urns in anticipation of making the Christmas Punch. I made it every year for the St. Nicholas Festival, and I had a great system in place.

“What exactly is Christmas Punch?” he asked.

“It’s a holiday drink,” I said, going through the ingredients. When I got to white rum, he held up his hand, that stiff and disapproving look back on his face.

“You don’t have a license to serve alcohol here, remember?” This guy was like a broken record.

“But the festival does, and has had an event license for years,” I told him with no small amount of pleasure. “Don’t worry Mr. Holly, we’re on the up and up here.”

I put him to work slicing up the oranges and limes while I grabbed the cranberry-filled ice cubes from the freezer. Then I mixed up the other ingredients, gave them a stir, and added them to the urns with the fruit.

“Don’t tell anyone my secret recipe,” I warned him sternly.

He gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. I picked up one of the urns, intending to transfer it into the red radio flyer wagon that I would use to transport it to the town square, but the urn was a bit heavier than I expected and I wobbled it.

Nathan rushed to my aid, his long arms coming around my body to grab the bottom of the urn and help stabilize it. We both stopped, my back pressed against his front, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I could feel a twitch of interest against my lower back. It took every ounce of willpower not to relax into him. Was it getting hot in here? Because suddenly I was burning up.

Neither of us moved for a minute until I cleared my throat and whispered a husky thanks.

“I’ll get that for you,” Nathan said as he stepped back.

I moved away, already missing the warmth of his larger body behind me and watched as he easily transferred the two urns into the wagon.

“What do we do now?”

Our eyes met and my mind raced with suggestions that had nothing to do with delivering Christmas Punch. I cleared my throat.