Page 191 of Screwged for Christmas

“No. Freaking. Way. Nope. Change my mind.” A cluster of the sexy guys in question walked by and she really tried to keep her eyes north of the nipples, but when five, yes FIVE naked, men built firmer than a freight train walked by smiling, what was a girl to do?

Appreciate the view, is what.

“Zahara, when you said I needed a change of scenery you didn’t say anything about mountain men with dimples and no clothes?”

Her sister smiled a cheesy grin. “Thought I’d leave that as a surprise. Merry Christmas!”

“You dirty slut!”

“Only on Christmas and twice on Sunday if you know what I mean.”

Right. Her sister, the straight-laced high school teacher and now the meaty dish between two scrumptious and deliciously hot male specimens. Some girls had all the fun!

“It’s about to get very cold for me, isn’t it?”

“Only if you think about it.”

Everyone from the small mountainside town gathered on the edges of the street. “It’s like they’re taunting my inner klutz and she’s greedily rubbing her hands together in anticipation of embarrassing me. They’ve all unwittingly positioned themselves to fall prey to my tendency to have the worst luck ever.”

“Look at it this way. You’ll meet everybody at once and kind of break the ice. Would make one helluva meet and greet, huh!” The excitement on her sister’s face tore her between giving in and giving up. She pinched the bridge of her nose to hide the laugh that wanted to break free.

With her best deadpan look, she eyeballed her sister without cracking even a sliver of a smile. Her glasses slipped and she edged them back into place with her chunky mittens. “Not. funny.”

Zahara twisted her mouth into a grimace, and it was game over.

“That’s all right. Maybe next year then.” Her sister pulled out the old poor me routine.

It worked. “Damn you, woman. If it weren’t for that little baby in you, I would be stripping your ass naked instead.”

“So you’ll do it then? You’ll race in my place?”

Ivy caught her sister’s smug expression and she narrowed her eyes. “You’re so gonna owe me for this.” Okaaay. So this was happening. Ivy shucked off her heavy coat and tossed it in the bin her sister pulled out from under the table.

“Anything you say, sis.” Those berry red lips of hers peeled back into a bigger grin. “I see the ugly sweaters have made their appearance.”

God, she was such a softy. Ivy kicked off her not-even-broken-in-yet winter boots and then started work on her Christmas sweater. “What? You didn’t think I would leave my Rudolph home alone, did you?”

Ivy loved tormenting her sister with her tacky holiday sweaters year after year. No sense in breaking tradition. This one happened to be her favorite. Solid white with a huge reindeer face hand-stitched on the front with a large red nose.

She glanced up and caught the scrunched expression of horror and smiled with satisfaction.

“Let me make sure I have this straight. You guys do this run every year?”Freaking crazy people.

Next came her socks.

“Like clockwork. Every December twenty-first.” Her sister laughed and shook her head. “Damn girl, how many sets of socks do you have on?”

Ivy choked out a gurgled laugh of surprise. “Did you read the thermometer?” she asked in disbelief as a gust of wind played hanky-panky with the ruffles of her clothing.

Gray clouds swallowed crystal blue sky in vast swaths to settle over the snowy peaks in the distance. Puffy fingers reached, ready to rake over the growing crowd gathered to see the spectacle. A few rays of sun beat back the inevitable, but before long another downpour of snow was due to hit Savage Ridge according to the news report she’d caught back in Fairbanks. Hopefully, not for a little while, though.

“By the way. You’ll have a partner to race with, too.”

Ivy buried her hands in the snow for balance as she toed off her boots and shimmied out of her snow pants to reveal a pair of jeans.

She couldn’t help but think maybe the impromptu trip here wouldn’t be so bad after all. Now that she didn’t have to worry about pristine records, a little pre-holiday fun wasn’t such a bad idea.

Ivy rolled her eyes at herself. Geeky to a fault, she couldn’t approach a man to whip up that kind of ‘date’ if her life depended on it.

---