Page 2 of Feels Like Christmas
“Are you always around somewhere?”
Was he flirting with her? She thought he was, but she didn’t trust her intuition enough to flirt back. Yet. “I’m only here evenings and weekends, to help out in the dining room. And here, behind the bar.”
“Something tells me I’ll be looking for a cocktail after spending the day trying to keep up with those two.” He nodded his head toward the living room. “They may look grown, but don’t let that fool you.”
There was so much underlying affection in his words, she couldn’t help smiling. “Here’s a card with the cell phone numbers on it and who you should text for what. We don’t have a curfew, but if you know ahead of time you’re going to be late, we appreciate a heads-up so we don’t worry too much. When we have inexperienced riders or guests with young children, we’re a little nosier about plans and a little quicker to pull the search party trigger. But overall, just be safe and respect the property and other guests and have a great time.”
He looked at the card for a few seconds and then turned his gaze back to her. His eyes crinkled as one corner of his mouth quirked up in a playful smile that made warmth flood through her. “I don’t see you on here. What if I need something in the evening or during the weekend?”
Okay, he was definitely flirting. “I guess you’ll have to come find me at the bar.”
Before meeting Nola,if Ian Emerson had stumbled across a time machine, he would have used it to go back to the moment he’d first thought taking a Christmas vacation with two children whose birth certificates claimed were adults and slapped himself upside the head.
They hadn’t even gotten on the road before Jacob had started it by running to the passenger door. “Shotgun!”
“I’m the oldest,” Maddie told him. “So I always have dibs on shotgun. It’s implied.”
“I’m taller than you, so the only thing that’s implied is that people with shorter legs get the backseat.”
“Keep it up and you’ll both ride in the backseat,” Ian said in his best dad voice, even though he totally understood the bickering. He wouldn’t want to ride in the backseat of an extended cab pickup, either.
But neither Jacob’s Jeep nor Maddie’s AWD crossover had the towing capacity to handle the enclosed trailer with three snowmobiles in it, so they were going to have to figure it out. Jacob was eighteen and Maddie was twenty. He’d always thought they’d outgrow this, but apparently not.
“You can have shotgun,” Maddie said, “and I’ll drive and Dad can ride in the backseat.
Ian laughed before he realized she was serious. “No.”
He was forty-six, which definitely made him the oldest—and he certainly felt it in that moment—and he also owned the truck, as well as everything it was pulling.
“We can all take turns driving,” Jacob said. “So me and Maddie can take turns in shotgun.”
“You will be taking turns riding shotgun. But I’m driving.”
It was ironic that, merely an hour into the trip, he was wishing he was alone in the truck when it was being alone that had trapped him in the cab of a pickup with two bickering semi-adults in the first place. He’d looked around the rented house he’d been trying to feel at home in since he and Heather split, and he hadn’t been able to picture what Christmas would look like, even though it would be the third since the divorce.
It was a throwaway remark Jacob had made about not having enough time for snowmobiling that had sparked the idea. And when a few Google searches had landed him on the Northern Star Lodge’s website, it had all come together.
He and the kids were going away for Christmas.
They’d put plenty of miles on their snowmobiles, spend quality time together, and enjoy being surrounded by Christmas decorations and holiday spirit it wasn’t up to him to provide. If he was lucky, he could fake his way through the season without anybody guessing he felt anything but jolly. Then he’d get them home in time to celebrate actual Christmas Day with their mom. When he’d made the reservation, he’d felt optimistic for the first time in a long time.
By the time he’d walked through the front door of the Northern Star Lodge after what felt like the longest drive ever, all he’d felt was exhaustion, a few twinges in his back and relief that he’d decided to get Maddie her own room so at least he could separate his kids. He’d put Maddie in one and Jacob in the other, and then he might go shut himself up in the snowmobile trailer just so he could have some peace and quiet.
But then he’d locked eyes with a beautiful woman who was looking back at him with heat in her eyes, and he rethought locking himself in the trailer. Not alone, anyway.
Before he was halfway through checking in, he knew that if the woman was single, he wanted to get to know her better.
First he had to get Jacob and Maddie settled in so they could decompress for a few minutes before dinner was served, and maybe even unpack. He just hoped the rooms had enough outlets for the tangled mass of charging cords they’d brought with them.
“I guess that’s it,” Nola said. “Oh, keys.”
She took a small basket out of the liquor cabinet and pulled out two keys on small wooden key rings with the Northern Star Lodge logo burned into the wood. “Again, we’re not a hotel, but Josh put locking doorknobs in a couple of years ago so you can lock your door while you’re out.”
An unexpectedly vivid image of his hand grazing against hers in slow motion popped into his head, but she dangled them by the fobs, so he snatched the keys out of the air with no contact at all. “Thank you.”
“The cabins have guests in them, but they’re grilling and brought their own beer, so you probably won’t see a lot of them. There’s a group of four guys staying in the bunkroom at the end of the hall right now, and an older couple who come every year will be checking in for just the weekend. But that’s it.”
It was probably just meant to be informational, so he knew who he and the kids were sharing a house with for the next week, but he was focused on the fact one group was drinking in their cabins and the other was four guys who’d be talking with each other. There was a good chance he’d get some time to talk to the pretty bartender one-on-one.
