Chapter 9
“ Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go.
” I skipped across the patchy frozen ground, singing at the top of my lungs as birds chirped in protest. Hooking my arm through Nick’s elbow with my gloved hand, I began to swing in time to the tune.
“ The horse knows the way …take it, Nick!”
He didn’t take it.
Instead, he shrugged out of my grip with a pained expression, reaching up to flip his jacket collar over his neck as a flimsy excuse to be released. Wimp. The wind wasn’t that bad. “I don’t know the words.”
“No one does.” I adjusted my hat, nose burning from the cold. Okay, maybe it was a bit chilly. I attempted the next line. “Something, something… the sleigh …”
I’d ditched the elf ears after they’d given me a headache—I’m blaming the headache on them and not on Lydia getting chummy with my mom earlier—and now my black beanie fit snugly over my curls as my family trudged through the forest.
Dad led the way, toting an ax and flocked on each side by Janie and Mason, who peppered him with questions he couldn’t answer, like why did trees grow so tall and why was the sky gray today instead of blue?
“Because God said so,” he finally declared.
They accepted that answer and then launched immediately into questions about the North Pole, promptly stumping their grandfather once again.
Olivia, Kat, and Mom walked as a threesome, arms linked. Chloe and Axel filed behind, holding hands, while Ryan and Lydia followed them, Ryan’s face shooting periodic scowls at Axel’s back and then softening as he looked down to respond to Lydia.
I brought up the end of the parade with Nick, partly because that was the way it’d worked out when we’d started this hike to the back of my parents’ property, and partly because I didn’t want to act this Christmas-obsessed in front of my family.
Granted, they’d already witnessed the other steps of Operation: Naughty List without saying much—except for Olivia.
Thankfully, she was too distracted by her worries over Mom to grillme.
I was equally glad she’d not caught that conversation Nick and I had while crouched over my siblings’ childhood ornaments. That’d been a close one. Good thing Axel had barged into the kitchen when he did and set off Ryan’s brother radar, or else I might have actually bonded with Nick.
Might have actually started to see him as a real man with a real heart and real memories and real reasons for his own aversion to Christmas.
I swallowed. Close call, indeed.
“ Through the white and drifted sno-ooow! ” Axel walked backward, arms spread wide as he bellowed the next line into the forest.
Janie and Mason stopped asking questions long enough to clap. Kat shook her head, while Chloe laughed, grabbing at Axel’s red scarf and rewarding his courageous solo with a kiss on the cheek. Ryan eyed them and squatted to make a snowball, eyes narrowed to slits.
Which gave me a great idea. What was more annoying than listening to me sing off-key Christmas songs and meandering through a frozen forest while picking out a Christmas tree?
Listening to me sing off-key Christmas songs and meandering through a frozen forest while picking out a Christmas tree with wet snow in your jacket, that’s what.
While my siblings and Lydia rushed to prevent Ryan’s evil plan against Chloe and Axel, who were now wrapped in a hug, I concocted one of my own. “Janie, Mason—what’s that?” I pointed to the top of a tall pine off the side of the path and let my mouth drop open.
Their little heads immediately swiveled to look, along with my parents’, Nick’s, and Chloe’s, who managed to untangle herself from Axel and frown up toward the sky.
While they all squinted at nothing, I scooped up snow and turned sideways, hiding the evidence as I worked to pack it into a tight ball. It was harder than it looked, since it was more ice than slush, but that was okay. Just meant it would take longer to melt in Nick’s coat.
Chloe shaded her eyes with her hand as she peered upward, hip cocked.
Her light brown hair cascaded over her shiny jacket.
“I don’t see anything.” Behind them, almost comically silent, Kat and Olivia wrestled a snowball from Ryan’s grip as Lydia clung to his arm, wearing her most stern teacher expression.
“Yeah, Aunt Holly.” Janie jumped up and down on the crunchy forest floor, as if the motion could get her close to the branches twenty feet above her head. She pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “I don’t see it!”
“That’s because you’re a shrimp.” Mason, who was barely taller than Janie, gave her a little shove.
She glanced at her mom, who was still busy talking Ryan down, then to her grandparents, who were also looking up into the branches, and frowned. Then she sat down on the ground with a hard thump and released a piercing wail that sent a flock of birds abandoning their treetop post.
Oh brother. It must run in the family, because if that wasn’t a move straight out of Kat’s childhood playbook…
It worked in my favor because, at Janie’s cry, everyone abandoned the futile search and crowded around her, murmuring various admonitions (Olivia) or comforts (Mom).
I finished forming my weapon of destruction, my palms cold through my gloves, and felt a grin sliding across my face that had to rival Ursula’s after Ariel signed her golden contract.
“Hush. You’re not a shrimp, Janie. You just haven’t hit your next growth spurt.” Olivia picked her up and swiped snow off her behind. “Mason, quit being mean. You’re not exactly ready to try out for the NBA. Have you seen how tall your father is?”
I hid the snowball behind my back, weaving casually around my family to find the perfect vantage point.
“I will be ready one day.” Mason twisted his ball cap around on his head so it rested backward against his sweaty hair. Why was that kid always sweaty? “That reminds me, we gotta see Santa soon. I never got to tell him I want a new basketball for Christmas.”
Olivia shot Ryan a wide-eyed look over Mason’s head. Ryan shrugged. Then she looked at Mom and Dad, who slowly shook their heads. Olivia sighed and patted Mason’s back. “Okay. We’ll get to the mall before next weekend.”
“Yay, Santa!” Janie, who had clearly recovered from her self-inflicted fall, bounced again. “I want that cool doll that throws up.”
Dad winced. “Pretty sure the North Pole ran out of those, kid.”
As Janie protested, I sidestepped past Lydia and Kat, closer to Nick. Perfect. A visit to Santa would be a great addition to Operation: Naughty List. Nick would hate it.
I would, too, but that wasn’t the point.
I edged into place behind my unsuspecting prey, who stood with his arms crossed, waiting for the impromptu family meeting to end so we could get on with the tree picking.
Nick had survived decorating roughly one and a half trees back at the house, and now he had to stand around in the cold, waiting for us to pick another one for the living room.
In fact, we’d already been out here half an hour, and the Sinclair Great Tree Debate hadn’t even started yet.
He didn’t look nearly miserable enough, but this would help.
I reared my arm back and threw as hard as I could. My packed snowball sailed in a perfect arch, up, up…and way over Nick’s head. It landed square on the back of Dad’s neck.
He turned slowly, ice dripping off his shirt. I covered my mouth with my hands. Everyone seemed to freeze, and not in the way Dad probably was now.
I grimaced. “Oh my gosh. I’m so —”
“Snowball fight!” Axel let out a war-cry whoop and immediately knelt to gather snow. Before anyone else could react, he’d formed a flawless ball and let it lob, nailing Ryan straight in the chest.
Ryan sucked in his breath. “That kid is going down.”
This time Lydia didn’t object, just graciously moved out of the way as Ryan knelt and began gathering ice and twigs with full arm scoops. The grandkids rushed to help him.
Chloe squealed and darted across the trail as Axel chased her with more ammunition. “Don’t even think about it! I just washed my hair!”
Mom and Olivia ducked behind nearby pines. I rushed to do the same when— SPLAT.
Ice slithered and dripped down the collar of my coat, beneath my long-sleeve thermal and past my cami into my pants. I squealed and danced sideways, the biting cold trailing down my calf. “Who—”
Nick’s head popped out from behind a pine. Dark hair dipped over his forehead, and his flushed cheeks and devious grin made him look closer to Axel’s age than Ryan’s.
My heart stammered in my chest—probably trying to regain rhythm from the shock of the snowball. Definitely not because Nick had that Chevy truck commercial vibe going again.
I shook my leg but only succeeded in sending the melting water into my sock. Great. “You realize this means war.”
“You wouldn’t dare start a war at Christmas, would you?” Nick tsked and shook his head, his body still hidden behind the tree. “Not very festive of you.”
I packed another ball, ducking just in time for Ryan’s rogue shot to miss me and hit the trunk where Olivia hid. Snow ready, I stood back up and took aim. “Feels pretty festive to me.”
Nick was gone.
I blinked. What was he, a magician?
I turned a slow, full circle. He wasn’t hiding off the path in the bushes laden with tiny red berries.
And he wasn’t sneaking past Olivia and her kids, who chased her in a wide circle with miniature snowballs, or over by Kat, Mom, and Chloe, who had apparently each taken sides and were cheering on Ryan, Dad, and Axel.
I frowned, pausing my search. Odd Kat wasn’t playing too.
Normally, her competitive self would be right in the middle of it all.
SLAM. Another snowball hit me in the back. Without stopping to look or think about how close range that shot had been, I turned and charged.
Straight into Nick.
I ricocheted off his broad chest, stumbling backward until something caught me midair.
His hands. Gripping my waist.