Page 29 of Sugar Plum Serenade

“Traitor,” she whispered as she walked by, but then she smiled a little. Maybe going overboard for Christmas wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. She was beginning to enjoy the lights, at least.

She couldn’t run from The Nutcracker incident forever. No one could hide from the holidays year after year after year, though she’d tried. The memory of that night and what she’d lost in one bad instant had gone on too long. The fall, the drop, had robbed her of so much.

Tuck’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, so it was safe to assume he wasn’t in his house, watching her. She stopped on the sidewalk and turned to admire the decorations for a moment. That was all the time she had. A moment. Getting ready for tonight was going to take some time, even if she was overly anxious and questioning her suggested delay in the date start time.

Thinking about Tuck was enough to make her forget, for a moment, that there was a ghost in her house.

Ghosts! Everywhere, apparently. She thought again about Colt’s request. Did she want to help? Tuck wouldn’t listen to her just because they were testing the boundaries, trying to figure out what they were, if they were anything at all. And the other thing… talk about stepping out of her comfort zone! Why couldn’t Anna handle it? Or Colt himself? She’d left the depot this afternoon with a noncommittal, I’ll think about it. What else could she say?

All she needed to think about right now was tonight. Would the night go where she expected it to? Of course it would. What could stop them?

Nothing that she could think of.

She unlocked her front door, walked inside, and dropped her bags on the couch. Next the lights on her own tree were switched on. Maybe she’d turned her back on all things Christmas for a few years, but the lights were pretty. Why should she deny herself that small enjoyment?

As she walked toward the bathroom with a shower in mind, she called out in a voice that, surprisingly, revealed no trepidation. “No peeking, Giles!”

Tuck knockedon Olive’s door precisely at seven o’clock. Given everything that had happened lately he shouldn’t be so damn happy, but he was. Olive helped him forget it all for a while, just by being.

He was never at a loss for words, but when she opened the door he couldn’t speak. She was always beautiful. In sweatpants and a ridiculously oversized T-shirt she was gorgeous. But now, in this moment…

“Wow.” Lady in red… The dress wasn’t super short or super tight, but it showed off Olive’s impressive curves and killer legs. Maybe she didn’t dance anymore, but she still had a dancer’s legs. How could a woman look so damn sexy with that shy, uncertain expression on her face? Olive wasn’t bold; the dress was.

She stepped outside and turned to lock the door behind her. The rear view was just as impressive as the front. They might not make it to dinner…

He offered his arm, and she took it as she walked gingerly down the steps in those high heels that made her legs look even more fantastic. Before the night was over, he’d have those dancer’s legs wrapped around him.

“So, where are we going?” she asked as they hit the sidewalk.

“Not far. We can walk.”

Her headed jerked up; she glared at him. “Walk? In these heels?”

“Trust me.” When they turned from the sidewalk onto the walkway to his front porch, she relaxed. “I decided I didn’t want to share you tonight.”

She might’ve been insulted, but she wasn’t. At least, she didn’t appear to be, and he thought he had a pretty good read on her. “So this dress and these heels are just for you?”

“They are. Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” She stopped at the bottom of the steps. “You decorated your house for Christmas.” It was a simple statement with no element of shock or judgment. She would’ve seen the new decorations on her way home, so there was no need for surprise.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She continued to study the changes he’d made. Well, changes Ginny and Jodie had made on his behalf. “You know, the first thing I really liked about you was that your house wasn’t decorated.”

“I’ll tear it all down right now.”

She laughed. “No, I like it. It seems right. Maybe this trip is helping me to shed my curmudgeon-like attitude toward Christmas. It’s silly, really, that I’ve let one bad holiday ruin every December for years.” They climbed the steps, and she asked, “Did you cook?”

“Oh no. I wanted you to enjoy the evening, not run screaming back to your house for another omelet.”

“I like omelets.”

What did it take to rattle her? More than a bar brawl, more than having her December turned upside down to help her sister, more than a whirlwind romance with a brand-new neighbor. Did Olive ever get rattled?

He opened the front door to a small entryway. Beyond was the living room, which now boasted a tall, lavishly decorated and brightly lit tree. No tasteful white lights for him, no, he wanted every color in the rainbow on his Christmas tree. Olive might think it was tacky.

She released his arm and walked over to the tree to study it more closely. She looked up, down, around, even checked out the backside that faced the front window, then declared, “It’s beautiful.”