Cute in red, huh?
No. Absolutely not. He would not let Kira convince him to don a Santa suit. A man had to have his limits. Right?
He tried to follow Kira, but she slipped easily away through the throngs of revelers. Everyone was starting to gather around the big evergreen in the center of the town square, so attempting to go against the flow of the crowd was impossible.
‘Ben!’
He turned from his search for Kira and spotted his sister working her way toward him. For a split second, he thought about ignoring her, but that wasn’t really in the spirit of the evening.
‘Hey, how did it go?’ he asked, as Jeanie and Logan caught up to him. Annie was with them, too, her giant fluffy earmuffs and hideous Christmas sweater making her stand out in the crowd.
‘It went great. A lot of sales even with giving the cocoa away for free.’
‘I told you that was a good idea,’ Annie said, nudging her friend. ‘Lure them in with free stuff and then start charging.’
Jeanie smiled. ‘You were right. You’re a very savvy businesswoman.’
‘I know. So,’ Annie turned to him, eyes lit up mischievously, ‘did you find anything interesting up at the tree farm yet?’
‘Oh, yeah, several dead bodies, the place is littered with them. I guess I just forgot to mention it.’
Annie laughed. ‘I like him.’
‘Yeah, he’s a riot,’ Jeanie said dryly.
‘I haven’t found anything except an old house and a woman trying to run the place by herself.’ He decided not to tell Jeanie and her friends about the list he’d found behind the radiator. If there really was something valuable buried at the farm, that was for Kira to find, not this nosy town.
‘Oh, no, Ben.’ Jeanie shook her head like she was horribly disappointed in him and he knew he didn’t want to hear whatever it was she had to say next.
‘What?’
‘Not again.’
‘Ooh…’ Annie chimed in. ‘What?’
‘Ben has a habit of wanting to fix things for people, specifically people he’s dating,’ Jeanie explained. ‘And then they just end up taking advantage of him and ditching him.’
Annie winced.
‘It’s not like that,’ Bennett protested. Was this the thanks he got for sharing more of his life with his sister? She just aired out his dating issues on the town square? He never should have told her about those last few dates, and about the favors he’d given out, like he was freaking Santa. Thankfully, he’d kept his sharing to the last few months and hadn’t delved back further into this particular dating issue. If Jeanie only knew how screwed up his dating life was, he’d never live it down.
‘It’s definitely like that,’ Jeanie said. ‘How many of your last dates involved rides to the airport?’
‘Not that many…’
‘Oh, Bennett.’ Annie shook her head. Even Logan grimaced.
‘Why is it so bad to want to be helpful? Isn’t that a good thing?’
He blamed Mrs. Brendan, his first-grade teacher. She really got him hooked on those gold stars. And maybe over the years he’d liked the way people appreciated him when he did them a favor, he liked the feeling of being needed, of being useful.
‘Not if you let yourself be a doormat for these women. You’re too nice, Ben.’
‘That’s not what’s happening here.’
Jeanie raised an eyebrow. ‘Then what’s happening?’
‘Mainly, this insane town forced me to go up there and then I offered to check the heating in that old house. That’s it.’ He decided not to mention the computer help, cabin inspection, and potential Santa audition he might have also signed on for. Jeanie and her friends were already looking at him like he was a wounded animal that needed to be put down.
‘It’s not what you think,’ he insisted. ‘She doesn’t even like me.’ Even as he said it, he was remembering the look on Kira’s face when they’d collided, the surprise and then the warmth in her eyes.
‘Everyone likes you, Ben.’
‘Not her. She finds my helpful nature to be very annoying. But I couldn’t leave her up there all alone and cold…’
Annie gasped like she had solved some great mystery. ‘You like her!’ she squealed. ‘You like the grumpy tree farm lady!’
Bennett cleared his throat. ‘What is this, middle school?’
Logan rolled his eyes. ‘You get used to it after a while.’
‘I don’t like her.’ That definitely wasn’t true, but he wasn’t about to admit that he did like Kira even though she had tried to give him every reason not to, or that he really wanted to spend more time with her even though that was foolish considering he was leaving after Christmas. Or that he was an idiot for even thinking about any of this, since he’d supposedly sworn off women but had done nothing but think about her since he met her. ‘I’m doing what you all asked me to do!’ he said instead, putting the blame right back where it should be. On his sister and her crazy friends.
‘Oh, right. Back to that,’ Jeanie mercifully allowed the topic to change. ‘So, nothing weird up there?’
‘No. Just trees and an old house. That’s it.’ Not that he’d been particularly thorough about his search. Unless the old man buried his wife under the boiler, Ben probably wouldn’t have noticed, but that was just one more thing he planned to keep his mouth shut about.
The women frowned.
