Page 24 of Merry Mended Hearts

He nodded. I moved. And then we did this kind of shuffle thing, a dance without pre-planned steps the way people do when they accidentally both get in one another’s way and both of them try to correct it at once.

I giggled.

He grunted.

The third time, he gripped my arms with his big hands, and it felt like my soul filled with hot chocolate at the touch. Warm, oozing, filling, and sugary, sending a buzz through my entire body. Every one of my cells were screaming. The monkeys sank into the warm liquid and made little “aaah,” sounds as they did so.

Because Boone Harper was TOUCHING ME.

He held me in place, nudging me to the side while he stalked past toward the exit.

“I was just leaving,” he said again.

“Are you—” I began when a crackling noise pulled our conversation—such as it was—to a stop.

Boone’s forehead creased, his attention shifting toward the table of antiques on display across from the fireplace. Another crackle and some static followed.

“Was that the radio?” I asked.

“Impossible,” Boone said, lowering his hands from my arms.

He smelled like wind, like cinnamon and snowfall. I edged closer to him, and he didn’t move away as our shoulders brushed. My heart pounded as another whirring, crackling sound emitted from the radio.

“I thought you said it didn’t work,” I said.

He glared at the table. “It doesn’t.”

“Then where’s the sound coming from?”

“I don’t know.” He crouched to his hands and knees and lifted the lace tablecloth to peer beneath it.

I did the same, edging in close enough to smell the wind in his clothes. Our shoulders brushed once more, and I tried to see the wall. But there was no sign of a plug whatsoever.

Next, Boone rose and inspected the radio itself. With some effort, he lifted it to examine every angle. The radio wasn’t attached to any source at all, and there were certainly no battery receptacles in it.

How, then, was it making noise?

With the fire blazing at our backs, he placed the radio on the table once more. Almost at once, the whirring sound increased, and the faintest hint of a song began to eke from the antique speakers.

“…I thought I’d take a rise…seated by my side…”

“Is that…?” I began.

Boone silenced me with a hand, leaning in closer, turning his ear toward the sound.

“…Bells…all the way. Oh, what fun it is to ride…”

“That’s ‘Jingle Bells,’” I said.

“Unbelievable.” Boone’s statement and the goggling expression he gave the radio swept chills down my arms.

A tinkling sound emerged then, not from the radio. It was a sound with clinks and jangles. Metallic and rattling, and yet light enough to brush up my spine with all the tickling effect of a feather. It was just enough to trigger goosebumps along the base of my neck.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Sounded like it came from the chimney.”

The minute we turned, the fire that had blazed moments before swept out in a gust of smoke and ash.

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