Page 69 of A Holly Brown Christmas
Bring it…
“Excuse me, but I think we should maybe move this conversation to someplace a little more private,” she said softly. “No need to scare all the guests away or force them to stay outside.”
“Ms. Brown,” Camille began, “I’m sure my son appreciates all your hard work, but he had a goal in mind and that was saving his family and he used every means possible to make that happen. It was very kind of you to help and keep him on task and make all of this happen, but…this is a family matter and you’re not family.”
“Mom!” Lucas said with exasperation.
“It’s fine, Lucas,” Holly assured him. “If your mother wants to keep airing her dirty laundry for your entire staff see and hear it, that’s her prerogative, I suppose.”
No one said a word for a moment, but then Mrs. Brooks nodded. “Fine. We’ll go up to our room, and…”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Holly said with a stiff smile. “Follow me.”
The downstairs of their home had a ton of smaller rooms off of the main one—the media room, two storage rooms, a gym, and then the stairs down to the wine cellar. She knew she’d never get them down to the cellar, so she went another way.
At the storage room where she and Lucas had found all the decorations, she opened the door and motioned for them to go in. She followed the four of them in, carefully swiping the key from the spot next to the door. She then silently motioned for Kat to leave and to take Lucas with her. While they were on their way out and Spencer and Camille were looking around in confusion, Holly raced for the door and slammed it shut, grasping the doorknob with every ounce of strength she possessed, as she quickly locked it.
“Holy crap! What are you doing?” Lucas asked in shock.
“Locking them in!”
“But you said we couldn’t do that!”
“No, I said you couldn’t do it. No one said I couldn’t.” She smoothed a hand over her hair.
There was a ton of banging on the door, but no one wanted to respond to it. Everything had gone according to plan and she sighed with relief, feeling pretty proud of herself.
Only…Lucas didn’t look even remotely amused.
“Are you insane! You locked my parents in a closet!”
“Lucas, that room is enormous and it has furniture so they can sit, and I brought down a tray of refreshments. Believe me, they’re fine.”
The banging on the door said otherwise.
“Holly…”
“Look, your sister came up and didn’t know what to do, people are afraid to come inside because of the scene your parents were creating, so what was I supposed to do?”
Honestly, he had no idea. After they had talked about locking them in the wine cellar, he realized how ridiculous it was and had made his peace with it. Then she comes along and locks them in a storage room! The entire situation had gotten out of control, and he had no idea how to reel it back in.
“Personally, I think it’s awesome,” Kat said with a smile. “Thanks, Holly. You were a total badass.”
“Thanks!”
“This isn’t a good thing!” Lucas hissed. “Now everyone’s going to know that we locked our parents in a closet!”
“Okay, but they also now know that our mother is a crazy lunatic who is mean to people,” Kat reasoned. “I’ll bet if we asked for a show of hands, no one would be offended that we locked the two of them up.”
“So we need to do some damage control,” Holly said. “I’ll go outside and talk to everyone and convince them it’s fine to come back in and get them all excited about dessert, and you can try to talk to your parents and make them behave.”
And with that, she walked away.
“I really like her, Lucas,” Kat said as she hugged him. “That was freaking awesome!”
“Would you stop being happy about this? I can’t believe they made a scene!”
“Mom made a scene and was completely out of line. Everything here today was top-notch. For her to keep making nasty comments about everything was beyond rude, and if you ask me, locking her in the closet with Dad is almost too good for her.”
