Page 34 of Not Your Average Vixen
He laughed under his breath.
Oh, my God! Was he thinking the same thing?
The perfect-cocked creep!
She faced him head-on. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with,Scooter!”
He held her gaze, and for a fraction of a second, he was there. The man who’d made her body purr. The man whose eyes flashed with such broken yearning that she’d wanted to gather up all his broken pieces and put him back together.
And then, it was gone—he was gone.
His eyes went flat, and the emotion drained from his expression. “I’d say the same for you,Birdie.”
Dan turned on the car, and holiday music flooded the cab.
“So, you’re Bridget Dasher, the maid of honor. And you’re Soren Rudolph, the best man. How fitting!” Dan remarked as he maneuvered the car into traffic.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Soren asked with a sharp edge.
But his New York jackassery didn’t seem to bother Dan one bit.
“Dasher and Rudolph! You’ll fit in perfectly at Kringle Mountain. We have many retirees in town who have dedicated themselves to the Christmas season. It’s a great place, and it really comes to life this time of year. It is a shame that the local bakery closed a few weeks back, but I know the folks at Kringle Acres are mighty appreciative that you’ve agreed to supply them with homemade Christmas cookies, Ms. Dasher. And they’re all looking forward to the spaghetti dinner tonight, too.”
“What are you talking about? A spaghetti dinner at Kringle Acres? What the hell is Kringle Acres?” Soren questioned with that city slicker chip still on his shoulder.
She plastered on a smile, then pinned the worst best man with her gaze. “We’re talking about community service. The entire wedding party is putting on a spaghetti dinner for the Kringle Acres Retirement Community residents. Volunteering and community service were important to my parents. And it’s on the wedding schedule. The schedule for the people who care about this wedding and are dead set on making sure that it’s executed with military precision,” she replied, all syrupy sweet.
Dan glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve got to say, Ms. Dasher, Delores was quite impressed with the emails you’ve sent. She said that you’ve got quite an eye for detail. You don’t see that much in Kringle, these days. It’s a pretty easy-going, go with the flow type of town. But don’t you worry! That doesn’t mean that Delores and I are slacking off. The chapel on top of Mount Kringle will be ready Christmas Eve for the wedding ceremony, and we were able to have all the baking supplies you requested delivered this morning.”
“Is the gondola that will take the wedding party up to the chapel working? Last I checked, Delores said it was a little touch and go,” she asked, ignoring the wedding crasher and focusing on what needed to get done.
While they were staying at the mountain house, the wedding was set to take place in the same tiny mountain chapel where her mother and father were married thirty years ago. The very same chapel that was only accessible by gondola.
“With enough Christmas spirit, I’m sure everything will be fine,” Dan answered as if Christmas spirit had anything to do with the mechanical functioning of the transportation that provided the only way to get to the cozy chapel.
She started to ask the jolly man to extrapolate on this when Soren cut her off.
“You’re baking?” he asked with a sour edge.
She sat back. “Yes, in addition to baking cookies for the residents of the retirement community, I’m making Lori and Tom’s wedding cake.”
“We’ll see about that,” he muttered, and her blood boiled.
Hewasthere to disrupt the wedding! Lori’s gut-feeling was right!
“I love this song. I’d bet that it’s one of your favorites, too, Mr. Rudolph,” Dan remarked, turning up the volume on a big band rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as they left the city and headed west toward a vast expanse of snow-covered mountains.
She glanced over at her scowling back seat companion. The man gave Dan a polite nod, but the guy was clearly not a fan of the song—which made sense. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a benevolent, save-the-day kind of reindeer. The man seated next to her was more of a Grinch than a hero—no matter what his last name was.
Soren cleared his throat. “You killed your banana.”
“What?” she shot back, giving him her best screw-you look, then glanced down to see that, yes, she’d strangled what was left of the poor fruit.
She’d forgotten she’d even been holding the half-eaten thing.
Before the banana mush could fall onto her lap, she popped what was left of it into her mouth. Dabbing at the corners of her lips with her fingers, she caught herformerhotel hottie watching her.
If her mouth wasn’t filled with the potassium-packed sweetness, she’d tell the banana peeper to peep somewhere else. But in his gaze, she didn’t see the worst best man. Sadness flashed in his eyes before he looked away.
