Page 43 of The Christmas Fix
“She cares. Deeply. And she’s going to do everything in her power to make sure the people of Merry get their Christmas,” Henry added.
Noah scraped a hand through his hair.Could he have been this wrong about her? Could his stubborn, immobile moral code be flawed?He thought about what she said about Sara.Was his dedication to responsibility, his need for control, really cutting him off from life? When had his world gotten so damn small?
“You look a little sick. You want some wings?” Drake offered.
Noah tried to remember the last time he’d had anything deep fried and coated with blue cheese.
“Yeah. You know what? I do want wings.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Cat dragged the heavy glass door open and ushered Paige and her mother inside, leaving the late autumn chill outside. The Workshop was the only bar within ten miles of Merry, and Cat was in desperate need of a good buzz. She’d invited her mom and Paige along to keep her from buying a carton of eggs and going to town on Noah’s house on her way back to her trailer.
In any other town in the world, the bar would be decorated with neon beer signs and flat screens with football on them. In Merry, the top shelf liquor was framed by a light-up Santa’s sleigh. There was a scrap of a dance floor in the corner painted in candy cane stripes. Regular patrons could purchase their own mugs, etched with their official elf names. All servers wore Santa hats.
It was both ridiculous and charming.
“I’m getting a Cosmo,” Angela announced, rubbing her palms together in anticipation. “I’m sorry you had a bad day, sweetie, but I’m glad I get to be part of the ‘blowing off steam’ portion of the evening.”
Cat should have been dead on her feet after a full day of filming. Reggie’s on-camera interview and the footage from the diner rocked. She knew because she watched the playback before they started the shoot at the Hais. The shoot that Noah had crashed with his piss-poor attitude and head-up-his-ass judgment had gone well, too. Viewers were going to get one hell of a before and after with all the feels.
Speaking of feels. She was still mad.Seething mad. And that temper had given her a second wind. She’d made an impromptu visit to the engineering office Jasper Hai worked for and—through eye-lash fluttering and a few subtle threats that came across as flirting to the uninitiated—had gotten a new sponsor for the damn treehouseandplanted the seed for bringing Jasper back to work full-time.
“The audience would love to see what a good company does to support their employees when they need it most.”
Then she’d stormed back to her trailer and revamped the call sheets for tomorrow with Henry. In addition to demo day on three sites, they’d be digging through the park’s storage building to see how damaged the Christmas decorations were. She had six calls to return about her school and an entire line of new products to approve for next fall’s clothing line.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about how much she wanted to break Noah Yates’ nose.
In a flash of self-preservation, she’d called on her estrogen posse to support her… and keep her from doing something dumb enough to go to jail over.
Paige spotted an empty high-top table in the corner and led the way. The back wall was lit with one of those snowflake laser lights that made it look like a pink, indoor blizzard was happening.
Cat slid onto the barstool and rubbed the back of her neck. There was a ball of tension there that she knew wouldn’t be dislodged by a fun fling or overdoing it on liquor. No. The only thing that would dissolve it was running over Noah Yates in the middle of the street.
“So, let’s talk about why you look like you want to murder someone,” Paige suggested, shrugging out of her coat.
Angela, her sweet, Italian mother, leaned in. “You just tell me who it is. We’ve got connections, you know.”
Those connections included a baker cousin in Jersey and a small-time bookie in Queens.
“Believe me, Mom. If I wanted this guy to disappear, I’d want the satisfaction of doing it with my bare hands.”
A waitress, in a green elf dress and Santa hat, approached. “You ladies picked the right night. We’ve got three of the handsomest devils enjoying themselves at the bar tonight.”
Cat craned her neck. She wasn’t interested in a hook up tonight, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to enjoy the view.
“Damn it!” she hissed grabbing a menu and holding it over her face.
“Oh! It’s Drake and Henry and… oh.” Paige nervously moved Cat’s utensils out of her reach. “We can go somewhere else.”
“Where the hell else are we going to drink? The parking lot of a liquor store?” Cat hissed. She was going to have to talk to Drake and Henry about where their loyalties lay. Cat rolled her shoulders and shook her head. “No. We’re staying. He can leave.”
They ordered their drinks, cosmos all around plus a double shot of Jameson for Cat, and Cat busied herself shooting daggers in Noah’s general direction.
Angela put her feet on the rungs of her stool and stood to get a better look. “Oh, is that Noah?” she asked.
Cat yanked her back down. “Mom!”
