Page 60 of The Christmas Fix
“Oh, you mean when you accused me of kidnapping your daughter and called me an ambulance chaser?”
Noah grimaced. He’d been an ass. There was no excuse for it.
“Hey, can we get some donuts, too?” he asked, changing the subject.
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Loaded down with six bags of groceries and beer, they trudged across the parking lot. Noah looked down Peppermint Lane, the street that bisected Main. He shook his head.
“You know, by now we’d have already started decorating the street lights downtown,” he sighed.
Cat stopped and looked into the festive-less dark with him. “This year will be different, but that doesn’t have to mean worse.”
He sighed. “It’s more than just the traditions or the ornaments we’ve had for half a century. This time of year was really the only fun that I remember as a kid. Seeing it dark like this?” he shook his head. “It’s like we’re limping into the holidays.”
Cat sighed heavily. “I was saving this as a surprise mainly to piss you off.”
“What?”
“Follow me.”
She led him over to a box truck parked on the outskirts of Trailer Town and put her bags down. She climbed onto the back gate of the truck and flipped the lever. Grabbing the handle, she shoved the rolling door up.
“Are those—”
“Light up pole mount-ready reindeer with red noses,” she confirmed.
Noah was speechless. A passing comment, an opportunity to get under his skin, and Cat had jumped on it. “You’re diabolical and very generous at the same time.”
She shoved her hands in her pockets and looked at the neatly stacked decorations. “I am, aren’t I? So, you want to put them up?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Who knew sneaking up ladders on Main Street at two o’clock in the morning would put a smile that big on Noah Yates’ face? Cat watched as he tightened the mounting bracket on the very last gaudy reindeer on the very last lamp post.
He grinned down at her, his face awash in the white and red of Rudolph prancing mid-air, and Cat felt her stomach flip-flop. She should have been in bed hours ago. She’d ordered the rest of their misfit band of ninja elves to bed an hour ago so there’d be at least a few fresh faces on set when they started filming at seven.
But watching Noah enjoy a little mischievous public good was worth it.
He wasn’t quite the stick in the mud she’d thought him to be. There was a wound in there somewhere. One that made him embrace control and security and responsibility. Coping mechanisms of the wounded. He’d mentioned he wasn’t sure if he’d ever learned how to have fun. Obviously, the man didn’t know what a challenge like that did to her. Cat was already plotting.
Carefully, he climbed down the ladder and grinned up as Rudolph’s nose beamed bright red. “They’re hideous, aren’t they?” he asked cheerfully.
“Totally,” Cat agreed. “Merry is going to love them.”
“Shouldn’t you have filmed this? I mean, isn’t that something that would look good on camera?” Noah asked.
Odds were the reindeer lights would have to come down and be remounted for the sake of the cameras, but giving Merry and Noah a little something to smile about tomorrow—later today—was worth it.
“Eh, Paige will figure it out,” Cat yawned.
“I should take you home,” Noah said, checking his watch and wincing at the time.
“I’m three blocks that way,” Cat said. “I think I can find my way guided by the glowing Rudolphs.”
“You’re not walking home by yourself.”
“Why? Don’t you trust the mean streets of Merry?”
