Page 5 of Holly Jolly Heresy
“I know. Anyone who can get high school juniors excited about Shakespeare is a great teacher. Those kids adore you.”
Her heart warmed with the compliment, but she waved it away. “I bribe them with donuts on test days.”
“And you make learning fun. Having them rewriteOthelloas a reality TV show and film the episodes? Brilliant.”
Now she was blushing in earnest. She was proud of that unit, and the kids did seem to enjoy it. “I like teaching. It’s not where I intended to end up, but it’s been a pretty great place to land.”
Tell him now.
She’d offered to come on this trip in no small part because she was hoping she’d finally find a way to tell Caleb about the job offer sitting in her email inbox that she’d been ignoring for the last week. The one that would take her away from Aster Bay. The one expecting an answer by the first of the year.
She knew what sheshoulddo, but every time she tried to sign the contract she thought about all the things she’d miss—the family dinners at Lemon and Thyme with their friends and the late night girl talk over too much pizza and wine while Jo recounted her latest escapades.
And Caleb.
“How did you end up teaching at St. Anthony’s?”
She sighed, shooting him an unimpressed look. “This is starting to sound like a job interview.”
He grinned, a real grin that lit up his whole face and made her feel like a bottle of shaken champagne. What she wouldn’t give to only ever see this kind of smile from him.
“Maybe it is.”
“Oh yeah? What position am I interviewing for?”
He hummed in thought, his gaze skimming over her, raising goosebumps along her arms. “Official road trip companion.”
“You are asking all the wrong questions then.” She reached back into the bag of gummy bears and dropped a few in his outstretched palm before plucking a bright red one for herself.
“What should I be asking?”
She chewed the gummy bear slowly before answering. “Best highway rest stop snack?”
“Easy. A giant soft pretzel. The kind with the big chunks of salt that fall off and get everywhere.”
“Is there any other kind?”
“Yeah. The wrong kind.”
She laughed and pointed at the sign ahead of them. “Great, then you won’t mind stopping at that rest stop to grab one.”
He glared at her but there was no heat in it, his lips curled in a way that made her warm all over. “You’re going to make us late.”
“You in a rush?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Chapter three
Nativity, Maine was a small coastal town not far from Portland. A blip of a town, really. A blink while driving down I-95 and you’ll miss it kind of town. But that hadn’t stopped Nativity from taking full advantage of its name and going all in on Christmas.
Snow had begun to fall as Caleb navigated the narrow streets. Fanciful designs in Christmas lights were strung overhead between the tall evergreen, maple, and oak trees lining the sidewalk, lampposts were wrapped in festive garlands, and wreaths hung on nearly every door.
He wanted to love it.
Christmas had always been Caleb’s favorite holiday, but this year, he was dreading the upcoming Masses he would need to lead. How was he meant to stand in front of all those people who had known him since he was a child, who looked to him for spiritual guidance, when he had never felt so disconnected from the Church? How could he face it when, until that email the day before, he’d been certain this would be his last Christmas Mass?
“Is that—” Molly broke off, pointing ahead to the little patch of grass at the corner of the intersection where giant cow statues had been draped in fabric and arranged in a manger scene, a baby calf swaddled in the cradle.
