Page 10 of Stranded in A Small Town Christmas
There are two little girls standing side-by-side at the end of the hall, and it’s only after every image of twins from that horror movie that scared the shit out of me when I was a kid goes through my head that I place them as Natalie’s nieces.
Mel and Elsie, though I can’t remember which is which with my heart still hammering and my mouth dry. I may be the baddest guy in any boardroom, but a very enthusiastic fear of ghosts took hold of me at a young age, and I’ve never shaken it. I’ve got nerves of steel until somebody breaks out a Ouija board and then there’s a whooshing sound and a me-shaped hole in the wall.
“Good morning,” I say, pretty proud of how steady my voice is.
“Nana Jo says breakfast is ready,” the taller of the two girls says.
Mel, I think. My brain’s starting to recover from the adrenaline spike. “Thank you. I was just on my way down.”
Just then, Natalie appears at the top of the stairs, slightly flushed and breathless, and my mind goes blank again.
“Girls,” she hisses. “You know better.”
Elsie puts her hands on her hips. “Nana Jo said to tell mister…that man, that breakfast is ready.”
“Nana Jo is not the boss here. I am, and you both know you’re not allowed to be up here alone when there’s a guest. And Mister that man is a guest.” I clear my throat and her cheeks turn a darker shade of pink. “Also, his name is Mr. Wilson.”
“Donovan is fine, unless there’s a hard rule against it.”
“There is. And since you’re up, you should come eat,” Natalie says as the girls push past her and run down the stairs. “No running!”
“They’re cute kids,” I say once they’re gone—though I can hear their footsteps on the wood floor downstairs and they’re definitely still running. I have no intention of telling her they just terrified me.
“Being cute is why they get away with so much.” She waits as I pull the door to my room closed and walk toward her. “I should warn you, though, that there are several reasons why the sign says inn and not bed-and-breakfast, but the most important one is that we try to avoid offering food to guests as much as possible.”
I’m surprised she’s admitting that out loud. “Food service can definitely play hell on the profit margins.”
“What? Oh…no. We’re not great at that cooking thing.”
“The lasagna last night was good.” Granted, I’d been starving and I’ve admittedly had better, but it wasn’t bad.
She shrugs. “We each have one dish we can make passably well.”
“Really? What’s yours?”
“I make a mean microwave pizza.”
I laugh as she turns toward the stairs, but then she stops and looks back at me. Her gaze is intense, and for a second I think she might say something…intimate. Something like asking me how I slept and then telling me she couldn’t sleep at all because she was thinking about sneaking to my room and…
Then the corners of her mouth tilt up. “Nice outfit.”
“I got it from your family, so technically you picked it out.”
“Yeah, my sister divorced him, so…” She chuckles. “Might have been that shirt.”
Chapter Seven
Natalie
* * *
Leading Donovan into the dining room to find my mom dishing scrambled eggs onto everybody’s plate is a huge relief. Scrambled eggs are pretty hard to screw up, even for us, so Donovan’s going two-for-two on edible meals.
“Good morning,” everybody says at once.
“Good morning,” Donovan replies, sitting in the empty chair I wave him toward.
The coffee carafe on his end of the table gets his immediate attention, so thankfully he’s not looking when Nana Jo slides into the chair I was about to sit in. I’m confused because I always sit there, until she not-so-subtly jerks her head toward the empty chair next to Donovan.
