Page 7 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
He winked at her, and she lit up, nerves all but forgotten. “You’re so sweet! I’m Stephanie, by the way. I guess you know that already, but we haven’t been properly introduced.”
He stuck his hand out, and she shook it. “Laurin. Wonderful to meet you.”
“Say your name again?”
If Candace had asked that, he probably would have been irritated, but Stephanie was so enamored he didn’t mind.
“Oh, it’s so much nicer how you say it!” she cooed, repeating it properly.
Any further small talk was cut off by the overhead loudspeaker.
“Quiet on the set!” Mike called out. “We’re going live in thirty . . . wait, forty-five seconds!”
Everyone adjusted themselves quickly and went still during the countdown, then leaned toward each other to silently fake chatting, as they’d been instructed to do, while the hosts welcomed back future viewers. “Contestants!” Jannie barked, the cue for them to snap to attention. Kate walked down the row, handing each team a red envelope. “The judges have asked that you include three things on your trees. You must have lights, you must have no fewer than two dozen edible ornaments, and you must have a handmade tree topper. You’ve all visited your cabins, so you now know that we’ve supplied you with a tree and basic supplies. Open your envelopes now, and I hope you paid attention to what we gave you, because you won’t be able to go back to the cabins before we take you on a trip to get the rest of your supplies at . . .”
Laurin watched closely as Candace opened the envelope and pulled from it a generic holiday card. She flipped it open to reveal a fifty-dollar gift card.
“. . . Walmart!”
Belle shrieked and pitched the card onto the floor. Laurin knew the scream well — it was the same as his mother’s when the rare, unfortunate cockroach skittered by — and instinctively rushed forward to take care of whatever critter had made its way into the envelope.
The envelope was empty of anything but the gift card.
Belle huffed and rolled her eyes up to the spotlights. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Walmart.”
“Cut!”
“Do you need glitter?” Candace asked as she jogged to keep up with Laurin. She was not about to swallow her attitude to ask him to slow down. The sound guy would surely pick that up. Thankfully, there wouldn’t be any unmanned cameras in the cabins; they’d been warned there would be behind-the-scenes visits, the camera crew showing up occasionally at the cabins to get tape, but they’d still have their privacy in their downtime for the most part.
Laurin snagged a cart and entered the Jasper Walmart, scanning the hanging signs to get his bearings. “We should hit the Christmas supplies first. It’ll be easier to match the pre-made stuff.”
“Right, but you have to get glitter first if you need it.”
He gestured to the back of the store. “It’s over in crafts. We’ll do a loop after Christmas.”
Candace grabbed the cart and tried to push it in that direction, but Laurin wouldn’t budge. “Glitter Greg will get it all if we don’t beat him there.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her but switched courses to crafts. “Glitter Greg?”
“Yeah. He’ll buy up all the glitter and all the glue and coat everything he can in it. It’s his thing. There was plenty of glue in the cabin, so I’m not worried about that, but—”
“You saw the glue?”
It was Candace’s turn to waggle an eyebrow, but she wasn’t about to tell him she had a photographic memory. They wouldn’t be teammates forever, and there might come a time when that gave her an advantage.
“I can make some candy canes,” Laurin offered as he looked at the limited selection of glitter.
Candace cursed herself for not claiming the confection part of the challenge already. She wasn’t all that crafty, but she figured she could bake up some windowpane cookies for ornaments. If Laurin could make candy canes, the cookies felt lame by comparison. That put her in charge of the topper, and she had no idea what she could do for that.
She glanced around for some inspiration in time to see a lady walk by with an angel in her cart. The thing was tacky, dressed in a fuchsia gown and adorned with dove plumage for wings. It advertised animatronic motion and real lights, but it gave her an idea.
She did know exactly one other craft.
She needed some time to pull it all together, though, so she told Laurin to go on to the Christmas department without her to make sure they got decent lights. He frowned but nodded, taking the empty cart with him, completely forgetting the glitter they’d come this way for.
She snagged a clearance Barbie before deciding she could shape a doll out of foam for half the price. Tight budgeting was something she excelled at. She then waited thirteen agonizing minutes for an employee at the fabric counter but leveled her irritation on the girl by asking for six-inch strips of the fabrics she’d chosen.
No one wanted to cut that.
