Page 292 of Screwged for Christmas

The tiny pain behind her eyes grew to a throbbing ache. She sank onto a stool and hung her head. She took in her muddy jeans. “Add all the shopping and buying clothes to that list.” Ivy grabbed for her planner again as she snatched the phone back up and hit redial. After several rings, a sweet little unassuming voice sounded in her ear followed by a beep.

“Gran!” Her mouth worked but nothing came out. How did one go about arguing with their grandmother once they’d made up their mind? Not successfully, that was for sure.

A frantic note rang in her words. “He could be a serial killer that likes spunky ladies with fat bank accounts” She had to try something, only not even she believed the gentleman she saw in the pictures was anything less than honorable.

Ivy’s tone died a little as she asked, “Gran, what am I supposed to do? I can’t miss this job, you know that. Why did you leave me?” Her heart sank. The same kind of despair she’d felt when Lewis had ended their relationship dug into her heart like sharp talons.

She disconnected from the call with her gran’s recorded message and let her head fall to the counter with athunk. To an empty house, she said, “For the record, Christmas hates me.”

When they met up again, Ivy might commit her to the loony bin herself.

Rustling and a low bellow brought her up in a rush and her eyes went wide as she turned and caught a silhouetted shadow dart across the backyard through the kitchen curtains. “The gate.” Ivy rushed to the back door.

“Freaking hell, could this day get any worse!”

CHAPTER 7

Ivy flung open the door and froze in her stockings. Boots. She needed boots. She half skidded, half slid across the polished wood and shoved her feet back into her rain boots. Instead of going through the house, she made a mad dash through the front door and came to a stop at the gate that somehow unlatched. The wind? She knew she hadn’t even touched it.

The entire backyard looked like Santa’s village threw up all over it. Hundreds of strands of lights hung from the eaves, branches and holly bushes. With the white expanse of the frozen lake in the backdrop, the fantasy of winter wonderland stretched beyond the banks.

Up until she had left Dixen, Ivy had loved to take to the ice and practice her toe loops and pretend she was a princess on ice.

Several mature pines lined the property and served as a buffer from the cold winds coming up off the lake. Fat bulbs just waiting to light up the night with their white light hung from their bows. Holly shrubs hugged the house with their lush, green leaves and fire red berries sticking out from beneath the blanket of snow.

Fairy lights spread over their compact branches like a swath of stars ready to shine brightly at a moment’s notice. Ribbons of more lights twined around the bases of the pine trees and yet more poinsettias rimmed their bases to add the final touch of Christmas magic everyone could count on from the Winters. It was what brought people back year after year.

To her, it made the acid in her stomach bubble with more vigor.

She had to admit, at any other time, with all the snow it would look beyond magical and just how she remembered.

She took it all in over the span of three seconds before she bounded through the gate. Icy chunks of white fluff spilled over the rims of her rain boots and squeaked with each wide step she took.

She was too late. Rocco trotted across the pristine snow without a care and headed straight for her. “Rocco. You stop right there, little lady.” A streak of gray-brown fur ducked under a low branch weighed down with snow, causing a curtain of the snow to fall over her just as she caught up with the mischievous reindeer. He busted through one gate and made it through the other side, snagging each strand of lights as he went. Even managing the tiny star lights on the holly bush. Oh, he was in so much trouble. At war with herself, she couldn’t decide if she was happy the lights were gone because they threatened to bring back a spark of holiday spirit or mad that she would have to replace them.

She did a mental check. Nope. She only liked them from an interior decorator’s standpoint.

Her breath came in short bursts of panic-laced hot air.

Wow, she had no idea reindeer could move so fast. “You did that on purpose,” she accused the over-sized deer. She took a second to rub her hands together and blow on them to chase a little of the coldness away, but it was futile.

“Now look what you’ve done!”

She approached the reindeer slowly as not to spook her into making a second lunge for the lights she missed.

“Don’t even think about it. Your antlers are like weapons of mass destruction and I’m not into hanging Christmas lights or any other kind of decorations.”

She remembered how Aspen had shown her to reach out and touch the snout first. “That’s it, easy does it.” Almost every strand of Christmas lights Gran carefully and artfully placed now draped from or trailed behind the big goof.

She tugged her scarf and coat a little tighter as fat clumps of snow dropped on her from the pine tree. When she got beside her, Rocco nudged her and poked her snout into the large opening of her coat. “Hungry, are we?”

She plucked a cookie out and held up the green-glazed treat. “I hope you don’t mind the reindeer shape. No offense, you know. Plus I won’t tell any of your reindeer friends you ate a deer-shaped cookie.” She handed her another and tried to make fast work of reclaiming the Christmas lights but her frozen digits didn’t make the job easy or fast.

“You have a lot of nerve coming here like you own the place. What were you thinking?” She snapped her fingers, growing numb by the second. “Santa kicked you out of his workshop, didn’t he? Deposited you here in Dixen to keep everyone on their toes. Or maybe you don’t like Christmas this year, either? I’m absolutely flattered for all your attention, but can we keep this to a one-time-only kind of thing?” Ivy continued as she untangling star-shaped lights from little plastic pine trees wrapped around both antlers.

Finally done, and not a moment too soon from the coloring of her fingers, Ivy wadded up her tangled loot and deposited it on the top step of the porch as she kicked off her dripping rain boots and peeled off her wet socks. Next stop, the dumpster on the way to town.

Inside, she set to work on a fire and pulled a blanket from the back of one of the couches to wrap around her feet while the heat filtered through the house. Feeling her fingers and toes was a priority. Then food.

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