Page 12 of Christmas In Love

“Okay. Fine.”

“A carnival.”

Natalie blinked at him, her head tilting to the side. “A what?”

“Carnival. The hospital from my residency did a Christmas carnival every year for staff and patients who could attend. It was a huge hit, and I don’t think it would be too hard to get together with only a couple of weeks’ notice.”

“Twelve days,” she corrected.

“As I said, a couple of weeks… ish.” He winked, and Natalie cursed her feet, which were suddenly moving closer to him and his handsome face.

“Anyway, we just need a location, and then anyone who was doing floats could do a booth instead? I can’t imagine it would take much for them to repurpose the float items.”

“We’ll need a Santa.” Natalie sat down, energy bubbling up inside as she thought through this new idea.

“Ask Mr. Claus.”

“Mr… who?”

“Claus, err, Clarke.” Cade grinned sheepishly.

Understanding dawned, and Natalie laughed. “He does kinda look like Santa, huh?”

“Kinda? The guy’s a dead ringer.”

Natalie laughed. “Okay, well this might work. Yeah… it really might. I’ll call the committee tomorrow and get it approved. Then I’ll notify everyone who volunteered for floats, and I think we could use the hotel’s event room for the night. Thanks, Cade, this is a great idea.” She smiled across at him. When had she sat back down?

He smiled back, the awkwardness completely gone. Unconsciously, Natalie leaned forward. So did he.

An annoying jingle at the end of a dog food commercial chose to flood the room with music, effectively ruining the moment. Natalie cleared her throat, standing back up. She was like one of those blow-up stick people at car dealerships. Up, down, up, down, get all twisted and look like an idiot—up again.

She grabbed the plate the cinnamon rolls had been on. Cade pushed back from the table.

“I should get to bed, thanks for the food.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped towards the door. How did a man lookthatgood in a sweater?

“Anytime.” Not really. She couldn’t risk something like this again. Thank heavens he was probably checking out the next day. “I hope your patient… well, I hope everything turns out okay.”

He nodded, a hint of the distress returning to his eyes though it wasn’t as potent. Hopefully their conversation had distracted him as much as her. He went to the door, paused, and turned back.

“Oh, Nat?”

Her insides twisted warmly at the nickname, but her voice was impressively steady as she responded “Yeah?”

“My parents’ basement is going to be out of commission for the foreseeable future. Can I rent my room until the day after New Year’s?”

Natalie's stomach dropped at the same time her heart soared. Stupid body. “Uh, yeah, that’s fine. Sure.”

“I’ll find you in the morning and make the rest of the payment. I don’t want to keep you up any longer.”

“Sounds great. Good night.”

“Night.”

The second he stepped from the room, Natalie leaned against the counter and rubbed her forehead. How was she supposed to keep her walls up for nearly three weeks?

Chapter 5

Cade

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