Page 52 of Fa-La-La-La Faking It
She thought perhaps it had something to do with his farm. Maybe he’d already decided he wasn’t staying in Bluebonnet, after all. Maybe that’s what this kiss meant...goodbye.
Her breath hitched. “Okay, show me.”
Jace shrugged out of the Santa coat and tossed it onto the velvet chair. Then he reached into the pocket of his soft flannel shirt and pulled out a small, folded square of paper.
He pressed it into her palm. “I haven’t shown this to anyone else. I just found it this morning in Uncle Gus’s barn.”
Her fingers closed around it, and once it was in her grasp, she realized it wasn’t a piece of paper, after all. It was a photograph, soft around the edges and yellowed with age. Adaline unfolded it, but even after the image came into focus, she still couldn’t process what she was looking at.
“You found this in Gus’s barn?” Her eyes lifted toward Jace. “I don’t understand.”
“Join the club.” He released a long, tortured breath. “You said you wanted to get to the bottom of why Gus hates Christmas. Something tells me that might have a lot to do with it.”
Jace’s gaze flicked toward the photo, and Adaline studied it again, searching for clues. The picture showed a woman with lush blond hair standing against a white rail fence. A glossy chestnut-colored horse stood over her shoulder with its mane flowing in the wind and a Christmas wreath around its neck, dotted with holly berries and dusted with sugary white snow. The photo was so striking and festive, like something from a magazine cover or a poster for a holiday movie. But it wasn’t the horse or the woman or the overall merriment that gave Adaline pause. Every time she looked at the picture, her focus narrowed to a pinprick. All she could see was the small dog nestled in the subject’s arms.
Cinnamon markings on a pearly white coat. Fluffy ears separated by a blaze of white. Huge, melting brown eyes...
The tiny spaniel was a dead ringer for Fuzzy.
Chapter Seventeen
Astrange sense of relief coursed through Jace as he watched Adaline trying to process the photograph. Her eyes were huge in her face, and the color had drained from her cheeks. The image had clearly rattled her as much as it had him.
All day, Jace had tried to convince himself that he was placing too much emphasis on the picture...that Gus had probably stuffed it in the storage closet with the rest of the horse memorabilia because none of it was important anymore. It was just a bunch of clutter he no longer had use for.
But in his heart, Jace knew that couldn’t be true. Judging by Adaline’s stunned expression, she agreed.
“Tell me I’m not crazy.” The fact that he was having this conversation while wearing a gigantic pair of Santa pants that were at least three sizes too big only added to the surreal nature of the moment. “It has to mean something, right?”
Adaline nodded and finally tore her gaze away from the photo long enough for her eyes to fix on his. They blazed bluer than ever.
“It can’t be a coincidence—not after Gus’s initial reaction to Fuzzy. I know your uncle can be a difficult man, but he was really hostile.” Her lips curved into the smallest of smiles. “Until you ordered him to be nice to me, apparently.”
Jace arched a brow. “And now he’s all sunshine and roses?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but he seems to enjoy spending time with Fuzzy.” Adaline traced the dog in the picture with her fingertip. Its resemblance to Fuzzy was truly uncanny. “And he hasn’t thrown any Jell-O at me lately, so there’s that.”
Jace laughed under his breath. “There’s still time before Christmas.”
“Can’t wait,” she deadpanned. “Seriously, though. Do you have any idea who the woman in this picture could be?”
Jace shook his head. “I don’t, but the storage closet is full of her photos. Most of them are framed horse show portraits. This one really stuck out.”
“I can see why.” Adaline smiled down at her dog and Fuzzy responded with a curious head tilt.
“There was something else, too,” Jace added, lowering his voice when a chapel custodian began dismantling the Santa display.
“What?” Adaline leaned in, and Jace caught a whiff of her sugary sweet smell that he’d missed so much over the past few days. Part of him—a very large part, if he was being completely truthful—wanted to scoop her up in his arms and carry her off to kiss her among the Christmas trees and forget all about Gus and his secrets.
But he knew he couldn’t. Jace had come back to Bluebonnet to reconnect with his uncle while there was still time. The clock was ticking, and now he finally had something real and concrete to cling to—something he could take to Gus and use to start a conversation.
“I found a wedding veil. It was packed away in a box in the same closet with everything else,” he said.
“Awedding veil?” Adaline gasped so loud that Fuzzy’s ears swiveled back on his head.
The custodian shot them a curious glance as he hoisted Santa’s throne on to a dolly with wheels. “Are you two getting married?”
“What?” The color rushed back to Adaline’s face in an instant. Two rosy spots of pink dotted her cheeks. She seemed to be looking anywhere and everywhere other than in Jace’s direction. The woman’s complete lack of a poker face never failed to amuse him. “I...um, no. We were just talking about someone else’s wedding veil.”
