Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
brIAN
“ O kay, let’s get to it,” I say as we enter my office, gesturing for Millie to have a seat. “But first, how are you this morning? Did you get some rest?”
“Oh yeah, some. It took me a while to get settled after everything yesterday, but eventually I got a bit of sleep,” she says with a smile.
“Totally understandable. Do you need anything?” I ask. It didn’t escape my notice, when Huey showed her to her room, that everything she had fit into a single bag, which definitely didn’t seem like enough.
“Oh no, you’ve done plenty,” she says, but as she sits, I don’t miss the grimace on her face.
“I don’t want to hear any of that. Seriously, are you okay? Huey said you had a pretty good wreck yesterday,” I ask, scanning her for injuries.
“Oh, I’m okay. Just a little sore. After this snow moves out, I’ll Uber to Walmart or Target and get what I need.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling all right, but I hate to tell you, the closest one of those is about forty miles away, and we definitely don’t have Uber in Springside.”
Her mouth drops in shock. “What? How do y’all do your shopping? Or get yourselves home when you accidentally drink a whole bottle of pinot? I don’t understand!”
“We take trips into Saddle Ridge every few weeks and stock up on anything that the store here in town doesn’t carry. We also have a great system of designated drivers here in town for events. Speaking of which, we’ll need to contact the DD’s chairperson to make sure some of them will be volunteering for the Christmas events. I know you don’t have a car, but if you need something just let Bridget or me know, and we’ll be happy to take you wherever you need to go. We’ll have to make a few trips anyway for supplies over the next few weeks,” I tell her, suddenly realizing that we’ll be spending most of the next few weeks together.
“Wait, rewind. I appreciate that, but I need to recap. Did you say the DD’s have a chairperson? Do they have T-shirts too?” she jokes.
“Actually, yes, they do. But DD’s doesn’t stand for designated drivers. They’re the Driving Divas. And for the T-shirts, the Christmas ones are green and say something like ‘We don’t have a sleigh, but we’ll dash you home’,” I reply, and Millie busts into a fit of giggles.
God, that’s a sweet sound. I stare at her mouth, thinking about all the other sounds I could pull from those pink lips. Lips that would feel incredible kissing down…
Damn it, really? I absolutely cannot be thinking about this woman like this, no matter how beautiful she may be. Not only is she new to town and obviously not looking for a relationship, but she’s also my employee.
Shaking my head, I attempt to distract myself from the inappropriate turn my thoughts just took.
Hoping she won’t notice the guilty expression I’m sure is on my face right now, I continue my explanation. “It started out as a group of older ladies who took turns driving themselves home after the town events that serve alcohol. But the group just kept growing, so now they offer it to the whole community. They just draw names out of a hat to decide who’s on duty, and the one chosen takes care of everyone for the night. I’m pretty sure Mrs. Darleen is the current chair.”
Millie is still laughing, and I can’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. I’ve never met anyone with a laugh as infectious as hers. In addition to being incredibly sexy, she seems like the type of woman who is determined to see the best in people.
After a few moments, she pulls herself together and bends down to grab a large notebook and pen out of her bag. Once she’s settled, she says, “All right. Driving Divas, got it. Sorry about that. I’m ready when you are.”
“Why don't you start by telling me a little bit about the events you’ve done in the past?” I say, leaning back in my chair. I’m surprised by how badly I want to know more about her.
Before I went to bed last night, I’d run a quick background check on her just to be sure she wasn’t some sort of con artist. For some reason, it felt a bit like snooping, but since she came with no references, I just needed to be certain. As I’d expected, the report hadn’t shown anything suspicious, but I’d been surprised to see her ex-husband was one of the wealthiest men in D.C. After that revelation, I was even more surprised that she'd decided to stay. Even if her only experience was organizing his personal events, the caliber of events she was probably used to planning meant she was probably still overqualified for anything in our little town.
“Well, like I said last night, I’ve done a little bit of everything over the last ten years. Formal galas, charity events, dinner parties, benefit luncheons, and corporate holiday parties—you get the idea. Are you wanting to start with the weddings or the Christmas events?” she asks.
“Why don’t we start with the Christmas events since they’re coming up pretty soon. Then we can talk about how we’ve run the weddings over the last year, and you can make any suggestions you may have to help us make them run smoother.”
“Great. How many are there?”
“Two. Just so you know, the people of Springside don’t do anything halfway. We organize all of the events through the inn because it’s got the space, but the whole town usually comes out. Some of them are on committees to help organize too, but we’ll come back to that. So, since it’s the last week in November, we’ve got about a week and a half until the first event. It’s the Midnight Mistletoe Maze.”
“What?” she asks, and I fight the urge to laugh at her expression.
“The Midnight Mistletoe Maze,” I say, and her face morphs into a look of further confusion.
“I’m gonna need a little more explanation on that one, I’m afraid,” she says, and I finally can’t hold in my laughter anymore. “Wait, are you trying to be funny?”
“Nope, you’ll come to find out Springside’s chaos needs no embellishment,” I tell her, and she smiles. “No one really knows how it started, but it’s been a Springside favorite for decades. Everyone comes here first, and we light the big Christmas tree and serve cookies with hot chocolate for the kids and a holiday sangria for the adults. After that, everyone loads up into sleighs and trolleys to make the ride over to the Coopers’ Christmas Tree Farm for the maze.”
Millie is writing furiously in her notebook as I speak, and I try to ignore how freaking gorgeous she is. Her brown hair is tossed into a bun, but as she writes I notice a few strands have fallen down, and I have to grip the armrest of my chair to keep me from reaching out to tuck them behind her ear.
And the way she continues to nibble on her bottom lip makes me wonder what it would be like to be the one tasting her. I’m seconds away from losing the last threads of my self-control. I have to get control of myself before I do something that definitely wouldn’t be qualified as professional.
“Does it actually take place at midnight?” she asks skeptically.
“Nope. Seven p.m. It used to be later, but we moved it up years ago because giving sugar and cocoa to kids at midnight turns out not to be the best idea. But there’s two maze times—one for the kids and their parents, and another for just adults. The adults usually grab dinner from the restaurant here between the tree lighting and the second wave of trolleys while they wait.”
I pause while she continues to write and wait for her to finish before going on. “Anyway, all the houses between here and the tree farm decorate and put up lights for the ride. It’s usually pretty nice, and you don’t have to do anything for that.”
“Oh, that’s nice. I used to love looking at Christmas lights,” Millie says a bit wistfully.
“I bet D.C. had some really cool lights, huh?” I ask, trying to figure out if something I said is causing her to look so sad.
“Uhh, yeah, I guess. My ex-husband thought Christmas decorations were tacky, so we never put anything up. He said Christmas lights gave him a migraine. So, I guess after a while I just gave up on all the fun traditions…” she says, but her eyes look distant. Finally, as if just realizing she said that out loud, she gives herself a slight shake and says, “Gosh, I’m so sorry. Enough about that. Anyway, tell me more about these mazes.”
“Well, the Cooper family has run the tree farm for as long as I can remember, and they plant their trees in the shape of a maze. The farm is huge, and they just alternate fields depending on which areas have the most trees that year. We’ll go out and help them string lights through all of them so that people can see. And when they make it out, there’s a station for the kids to write letters to Santa and some other fun activities. Oh, and throughout the maze there’s lots of mistletoe.”
“Obviously,” she mutters. “This is insane.”
Letting out another laugh at her expression, I tease. “You have no idea. We haven’t even gotten to the ballet classes or the live animals for the other events.”
“This place isn’t real, I swear. I’ve never seen anything like this,” she says, and I try not to chuckle again at her reaction.
“Oh, just buckle up, Miss Pouncey, because I promise, your first Christmas in Springside will be one you never forget,” I tell her. I don’t know where my words came from, but after the earlier sadness in her eyes when she talked about how much she used to love the season, I only hope I can make good on that promise.