A Very Hoppy Christmas (Christmas at Mistletoe Bay #6)

Chapter 1

one

. . .

STELLA

Winterberry Farm’s big holiday event was in full swing around me. The tree farm stretched out in neat rows, families wandering through, carrying thermoses and arguing about Fraser Fir versus Balsam.

Speakers tucked near the Price farmhouse rang out with Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey. A hundred or so feet away, a gaggle of kids shrieked over Harrison Prescott’s goats. A bell rang every time someone bought a wreath from Holly Bascombe of Flowers By Holly.

I had spent all week prepping, including hand-labeling the batch of beer I’d named Wicked Bite, a rich, malty ale with orange peel, cardamom, and just enough cinnamon and nutmeg to feel festive without tasting like a Yankee Candle.

Crisp December air nipped at my cheeks as I poured a ribbon of amber ale into a glass. The beer caught the pale winter sun and glowed molten copper against the white folding table.

“Don’t spill anything, and don’t you dare throttle anyone,” I murmured under my breath.

Reasonable goals for someone who’d spent her entire life being judged for her clothes, her size, her tattoos. My absolute refusal to apologize for taking up space.

I’d learned early on that people mistook self-protection for bitchiness, and frankly, I’d stopped caring about the difference.

Today, at least, I’d try not to prove them right.

Across the way, Harrison stood behind the Mistletoe Creamery table, dressed in a navy peacoat, his blond hair tucked under a hand knit beanie, surrounded by artfully arranged boards of cheese, candied nuts, dried fruits, and crackers. He caught my eye and lifted a wedge of goat brie in a toast.

I snorted and tipped my glass in reply.

It still did something warm and stupid to my chest seeing Jeremy and Harrison so happy together.

Jeremy—who was just as prickly and guarded as I was, who’d also learned that armor was easier than vulnerability.

When he’d told me the other day he was imagining a future with the dashing goat daddy, I almost couldn’t believe it.

But seeing them together, watching the way grumpy Jeremy’s eyes lit up every time his boyfriend looked his way? Well, it almost made me believe in love and happily-ever-afters.

Almost, but not quite.

To my left, Holly fussed with a bouquet, adding one more sprig of eucalyptus.

The beautiful florist’s station was a riot of color in the gray afternoon—wreaths, bouquets of winter greenery, and bundles of mistletoe tied with red velvet ribbon.

She also had glitter dusted across her cheekbone that she didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re sure my sign looks okay?” Holly called out, stepping back to stare at the chalkboard leaning against a crate of wreaths. “‘Holiday in Bloom’? Not too cutesy?”

“You’re fine.”

I didn’t know Holly well—our paths had only crossed a few times in the women’s entrepreneur group in town—but I knew enough about people to recognize when someone was forcing a cheerful facade.

I knew because I’d been doing it since high school, when being the fat goth girl with the weird clothes made me an easy target.

Smile, deflect, never let them see how their words landed.

I’d gotten so good at it that most people assumed I was just naturally prickly, never realizing my thorns were there to protect the soft parts underneath.

“Okay,” she murmured, smoothing her hands briskly over her apron. “Good. Great.” A beat later, her brightness clicked back on. “By the way, your lipstick looks amazing. Very festive.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, touching my bottom lip on reflex. It was a new matte burgundy I was trying out that claimed to last up to twenty-four hours. So far, so good.

Holly looked like she had another compliment locked and loaded, but a couple approached my table before she could fire. I pivoted into my business-owner persona, the one that gamely tolerated crowds and holiday nonsense without snarling.

“Hi there,” I said. “Want to try Wicked Bite? It’s got orange peel, cardamom, cinnamon, and just enough alcohol to get you through cutting down a tree with your family.”

They laughed, accepted the samples, and I answered questions about the beer’s ABV and whether it was available in cans yet (soon, if I could get the packaging line to cooperate).

Business. I could do business. Even with the wind sneaking down the collar of my coat, even with Christmas music threatening to lodge in my brain and not leave until March, this part was easy. Talk to interested folks about my beer. My passion. More importantly, sell it.

I handed off another glass, rinsed the empties out, and poured again. Over the next couple of hours, I lost track of how many times I repeated the phrases “hint of citrus” and “perfect with your holiday meal.”

The traffic was almost enough to make me stop looking for a certain hot as fuck lobsterman who took up way too much of my mental space.

“You absolutely do not care if he shows up,” I told myself under my breath as I wiped a small spill off the table.

My younger brother Colin—who also happened to be Cade’s best friend since they were kids—had mentioned that Cade would probably be stopping by the event, as he still hadn’t picked up a tree for his house out on Hobson’s Landing.

Maybe he was stuck out on his lobster boat, The Graymalkin. Where most folks ate roasts and hams for Christmas, we Mistletoers loved a good old-fashioned Feast of Seven Fishes, which meant he’d be hauling traps right up until Christmas Eve.

Whatever the reason was, he hadn’t shown.

An ache I’d spent the past year tamping down threatened to bloom behind my sternum.

No. I shook my head. I didn’t care because he didn’t care.

Cade had made that abundantly clear on New Year’s Day when he snuck out of my—

“Stella Bo-bella.”

That stupid nickname. The one he’d given me back when he’d first started hanging out with my brother. The one that should’ve annoyed me but never did.

His voice—warm and rumbly and achingly familiar—slid over me, and damn it, my traitorous heart skipped.

My head snapped up to see him standing on the far side of the table, his hands tucked into the pockets of his parka, and a knit cap pulled low over his hair. His cheeks were wind-reddened, his eyes that summer-sky blue that seemed out of place in a New England winter.

For a second, all I saw was the version of Cade from eleven months ago. The way he’d braced one hand beside my head against my bedroom wall. The way he’d looked at me like I was some kind of miracle.

My fingers tightened around the glass in my hand.

“Thought you might’ve seen me coming and run the other way,” he said, his smile softening the sharp lines of his weathered face.

“Why would I do that?” I asked, even though we both knew why.

He huffed out a quiet laugh. “You tell me.”

I busied myself with the tap instead of answering.

“Is this the special holiday ale I keep hearing so much about?” He nodded toward the tap. “Looks good.”

“It is good,” I said, pouring a sample because I was a goddamn professional and that was what professionals did.

I slid it toward him, making sure our fingers didn’t touch.

Cade picked up the glass, his gaze roaming my face in an unhurried sweep. “You been busy?”

“Running a business in December? What do you think?”

“Always busting my balls,” he muttered, lifting the beer to his lips and taking a sip. His eyebrows lifted. “Whoa. That’s really good.” He tasted it again and shook his head like he couldn’t believe just how good it was. “Might be my favorite one yet.”

Colin and Cade had been my taste testers long before my brewery existed, usually elbowing each other out of the way to get the first pour. I used to joke that their loyalty was only a little bit out of a desire to see me succeed and mostly out of a desperate desire for free booze.

Still, when it came time to actually give me feedback, Cade always took it seriously, his nose in the glass to capture the aroma, followed by that first slow sip, and then a thoughtful little crease between his brows as he pieced together whatever honest opinion he was about to give me.

“Uh, thanks,” I said, trying—and failing—not to react to the warm flicker his praise sent through me.

“Anyway.” He set the glass back on the table. “I was gonna go check out the trees. Figure out which one to drag home.”

“You always wander each row, pretending to search for the perfect one, and in the end, you pick the most lopsided tree available.” The fact that I knew this about him was more than unsettling.

“If you want another Charlie Brown situation, go to the section where the hill starts to rise. All the wonky misfits are planted over there.”

He huffed out another small laugh, then let his eyes coast over me again. Not a friendly glance, and definitely not a safe one. This one lingered like he remembered how I’d looked naked with his hands on me.

A breath stuttered out of me before I managed to control it.

“What can I say? I like things with character.”

My face went hot despite the cold, and I had to look away.

“Go.” I flicked my fingers toward the field of trees. I waited for him to take the hint, to wander off into the sea of green and leave me to pull myself back together.

But Cade stayed rooted where he was, grinning that wide Cheshire-cat grin that had gotten me into trouble in the first place.

He knew precisely what he was doing. Exactly what that line had done to me.

And for one stupid, unguarded second, I let him have that victory. No deflecting. No barbed comeback. Like New Year’s Eve hadn’t blown our entire friendship to pieces. Like I hadn’t been dodging him ever since.

Just the smallest pull at the corner of my mouth.