Page 273 of Screwged for Christmas

“Let me get that for you.” Aspen slowly leaned in, his eyes on hers the whole time. Yeah, she still had it bad for him because her heart raced and skin flushed when he leaned in just shy of touching her and held the kitchen door open for her.

“Let’s get you inside, sweetheart.” He placed a light touch to her lower back and ushered her inside where it was only marginally warmer.

Shafts of sunlight beat through the heavy clouding and burst through the kitchen window to give the place a glow of warmth despite the cold. Definitely colder now that she did not have Aspen’s heat to cocoon her from the cold, but his jacket was the next best thing. She tightened the sides around her and tucked her nose inside.

“Thank you.” She turned away from Aspen, who walked in behind her and took a second to roll her eyes in bliss. Would it be wrong to groan at how good this man smelled? Wow. Some would argue the seasons did not have a scent. That snow was just frozen water. But to her, winter was her favorite time of year and smelled just like Aspen Kennedy. Her odd revelation came at an awkward moment, but it was the truth.

Her self-imposed man-hiatus since being dumped a month ago suffered a fracture in its core structure.

Twice now she’d tried to get married. Both attempts failed. First one was her fault but not the second.

Some would say it was karma getting back at her since she did almost the same thing by leaving Aspen at the altar. She would agree but could examine it more in-depth when she could ugly cry from all the crappy decisions that lead to this moment when she was alone in her room. Right now, she wanted to enjoy the delights of seeing Aspen again. And didn’t that make her twisted in the head!

“I wondered how long you two crazy lovebirds would stand out there in the cold. Love really is blind. Oh, hon, red looks good on you!” Gran flashed a wide smile her way and winked.

Ivy placed her makeshift weapon on the counter and rubbed her hands together. “Morning, Gran!” While outside, the power had come back and her gran had set about her morning routine of caffeine and Facebook, it seemed.

Coffee, thick and strong with a hint of cinnamon, wafted through the icy air and tingled her senses. Oh, how she’d missed that and the woman responsible for making her famous winter blend. She caught a hint of nutmeg and vanilla too.

“Morning, sunshine!”

She dropped a quick kiss on Gran’s cheek. “I see you’ve started early.” Ivy pointed a finger at the smartphone. “Anything new in the world we should know about?” Ivy moseyed around the counter to the coffeepot. “Behave.” She half mumbled and whispered as she passed by the kitchen island.

But it did not matter because her grandmother already had a twinkle in her eye. When that happened, you better keep off her radar because it meant her mind was set on something or someone.

“What? I have eyes. And a good imagination. But you two were painting the whole picture for me.” She tapped the corner of her head and her sassy, say-it-like-she-wanted grandmother waggled her eyebrows at Aspen over the rim of her steamy cup of dark roast.

Her pulse thudded harder when Aspen only cleared his throat and gave that crooked grin of his in response.

Ivy reached for the planner she left on the counter the night before and a pen:Call siblings, curse each of them for life for throwing me to the wolves.

“Mrs. Winters. Glad you’re feeling spunky as usual. Morning.” Aspen slipped his cap off and leaned in to gave a quick kiss on the cheek. The bad boy of Dixen High was nothing less than a gentleman.

“Morning, handsome. I see you wasted no time in stopping by.” She tossed him a wink. “That’s my boy.”

“Gran,” Ivy mouthed sideways as heat crept up the back of her neck and flushed over her cheeks. Aspen didn’t seem nearly as bothered, though. He stood leaning half his weight against the counter, cap in hand and a smile bigger than Alaska on his face.

“Yes, ma’am. Couldn’t let anyone go without firewood on my watch.”

“Sure,” her gran quipped. “If you deliver firewood with kisses like those, you would have everyone in town wanting you to deliver theirs too.”

Ivy scribbled another quick note, anything to keep her eyes glued down and not on Aspen until she got ahold of her runaway thoughts.

Gran scooted off the stool and went for another refill of coffee. “This is going to be the best Christmas ever. I’ve already planned it out.”

Didn’t seem likely given how the holiday season kicked off with her getting dumped and then losing her house. Or was it the other way around? Didn’t matter.

“Oh, what kind of plans?”

“You’ll see.”

Ominous, but she left it for a later discussion. She did not have time for Christmas plans or anything remotely festive. Christmas could scoot along and so could New Year’s and while she nixed the holidays from her mental list she might as well include Valentine’s, too. She would take a pass on anything that involved the heart and the home for the foreseeable future, thank you very much.

And it was all her fault, she reminded herself.

All. Your. Fault.

CHAPTER 3

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