2. Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
COLTON
I bounded up Hope’s porch steps, my arms full of boxes. Lights, shiny ornaments, the whole nine. I’d started making this plan in my mind the second she agreed to work our way through that ancient Christmas to-do list.
Step one? Make it look like Christmas threw up on Hope’s house. Okay, the list wasn’t exactly worded like that, but that was the goal, and I couldn’t wait to see Hope’s face when we finished.
As I reached the front door, I realized I had no free hands to knock. Improvising, I tapped out a quick rhythm with my foot. The opening beat to Jingle Bells, in fact.
“Comin’!” Hope’s muffled voice called from inside.
A second later, the door swung open, and there she stood, her blonde waves slightly tousled. Her eyes widened as she took in the festive explosion in my arms.
“Um… hey. What’s all this?” she asked .
I flashed her my most charming grin. “Christmas bucket list stuff. I come bearing... well, not gifts, but a lot of decorations and some tangled lights. It’s all the leftovers from the Wilson and Cole family compound.”
“These are the leftovers? Are you sure you didn’t nab all of it?”
Looking down at the boxes in my arms as well as at the ones I’d loaded onto the porch next to me, I let out a sheepish chuckle. “Looks that way, but believe me, there are enough decorations spread between their two houses to win a National Lampoon contest.”
“Lucky us.” Hope’s lips quirked into a hesitant smile, but her shoulders tensed as she crossed her arms. “I don’t know about all this. I’m not really in a festive mood.”
“This year, or like… ever?”
Her only answer was a slight quirk of her lips, and I felt a pang in my chest at the sadness in her eyes. What had dulled her sense of the fa-la-la spirit? Or, worse—had she never had one?
“Come on,” I coaxed. “We can start small. Besides, I can’t feel my fingers, and if I drop this box, we’ll be finding bits of glass on your porch until next Christmas.”
A glimmer of amusement broke through as she opened the door wider. “Fine, bring your Christmas invasion inside. But I’m not promisin’ miracles.”
I grinned, feeling victorious as I set the boxes down in Hope’s living room. The space was cozy, but just like yesterday when I’d first arrived to unearth the time capsule, there wasn’t a hint of Christmas anywhere. It might as well be some boring month that didn’t require decorating, like June or September.
Challenge accepted.
I clapped my hands together. “Operation Perfect Charlotte Oaks Christmas is underway. First order of business: transforming this room into a winter wonderland.”
“A winter wonderland doesn’t sound like startin’ small…”
I winked, pulling out a stuffed snowman that looked like it’d come from one of those holiday craft fairs. “Where should we start? I’m thinking this guy should go on the table by your key bowl. We’ll put some garland on the mantle and fake frost on the windows. Hey, you got any festive throw pillows around here?”
She arched a brow.
“Take that as a no. It’s fine. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
I set the snowman on the table in the foyer and returned to her side, loving the way her skepticism seemed to be at war with amusement now.
“You’re really gonna go all out with this list, aren’t you?” she asked, crossing her arms.
“What can I say? I’m very thorough.”
“I bet.”
I chuckled, but my blood pounded in my ears at the slight blush she wore. “It’ll be fun. We can put on some music, maybe spike some eggnog later...”
“Would anyone drink eggnog if it weren’t spiked?”
I shrugged. “I would if you wanted me to.”
She shook her head. “I draw the line at singin’ carols. You do not wanna hear me sing.”
“Deal,” I agreed. “Should we start with the outside stuff before it gets dark?”
At her nod, I heaved the box that held the tangled lights into my arms and stepped out onto the porch. The wooden boards creaked under my feet as I set down the box, and I knelt and dug in before she had a chance to change her mind.
“Gotta untangle this mess first,” I said as I began separating the strands.
Hope crouched on the other side of the box, reaching out to help with a particularly stubborn knot. Our fingers brushed, and I felt a spark so strong it took me a second to realize it was impossible to get electrocuted by an unplugged string of lights.
Then it happened again—but to my chest this time—when I caught the hint of a smile on her face before she dipped her head.
We fell into an easy rhythm, and it was a comfortable silence, not awkward in the slightest. By the time we began stringing lights around her porch, Hope and I moved like a team who’d spent years in each other’s space instead of only a few months.
When we were done with the porch, I gazed up at our handiwork. “So, what’s the verdict on our decorating skills so far?”
Hope paused, surveying the front of her house with her head tilted to one side. “It’s... not terrible. ”
“Wow, high praise.” I deadpanned, then laughed and took a step back to admire the sparkling strands.
Unfortunately, I’d forgotten about the pile of extra lights at my feet. I stumbled forward in a tangle of limbs and wires, and my efforts to untangle myself only served to make it worse. Hope reached out instinctively to steady me, but that only served to make me more off-kilter as I pivoted to make sure I didn’t take her down with me. But more turning was the last thing we needed because then, before I could blink, we stood face to face, mere inches apart, the lights wrapped around our feet. This close, I could smell the faint scent of peppermint on her breath as surprise widened her eyes.
If I were honest, it wasn’t a terrible place to be. But then, my usual charm deserted me, and I had no idea what to do next.
Was she leaning in, or was that my imagination?
Ah, who cared? I could lean in, too.
But just as I did, a distinctive bleat at our feet shattered the moment. I looked down, still tangled in lights, to see Gertie the Goat trotting up to us with her beady eyes fixed on the strands that had us tangled up.
“It’s okay, Gertie,” Hope said, moving in my arms as if to show Gertie we weren’t in need of saving. “Don’t?—”
But it was too late. The goat darted forward, snagging a strand of lights near my ankles in her mouth, tugging on it with surprising strength. I yelped as the sudden jerk nearly sent me—no, us —straight to the ground. I cursed under my breath, trying to maintain my balance while the pygmy attempted to save us but only made it so much worse.
Then again, I still had Hope in my arms, so was it really all that bad?
Hope laughed as we wrestled with the lights and tried to avoid getting bitten by our tiny rescuer. It was a genuine, musical sound that sent warmth spreading through my chest as we worked together in a ridiculous dance of limbs, laughter, and bleating.
Hope’s hand found mine as we both reached for the same strand, and I felt that spark again, even stronger than before.
Finally, we managed to wrangle both the lights and Gertie. Hope held onto the goat’s makeshift collar while I quickly wrapped up the remaining strands, placing them out of reach.
“Well,” I panted, running a hand through my hair, “that was... something.”
Hope nodded, still catching her breath as she sat on the porch steps next to a now-calmed-down Gertie. “Never a dull moment with this one around.”
“I didn’t even know she was around.”
“Probably followed you from the Wilson’s place.”
I nodded at the sense she made, but as the adrenaline faded, there was a shift in Hope’s demeanor. Her smile had dimmed, and she seemed lost in thought as she absently stroked Gertie’s head.
“You okay?” I asked gently, sitting on the porch steps beside her .
She sighed, her gaze fixed on the trees that surrounded her house. “Yeah, it’s just... all this Christmas stuff, I guess.”
“That bad?”
Her lips pulled over to one side. “Not everyone has to celebrate it, ya know.”
“Yeah, of course.”
She sighed. “You really wanna know?”
I nodded.
“My grandma,” Hope said softly, “I was little when she passed... but that’s why my mom and I left Charlotte Oaks. And my grandpa was crushed, losin’ us right after losin’ the love of his life. But my mom always wanted to leave this town, and when her mama passed on, she said she was just done.”
My heart ached for her. I still wasn’t sure what this had to do with Christmas, but I felt her pain deep in my bones. I wanted to pull her close and shield her from it. But something told me that wasn’t what she needed right now, so instead, I listened.
“We came back to see my grandpa in the summers… but never at Christmas. He didn’t celebrate it anymore, and neither did we.”
Hope’s eyes shone with unshed tears, and without thinking, I reached out and placed my hand over hers, squeezing gently. “I’m so sorry, Hope. Did it… uh, did your grandma pass right around Christmas?”
“Yeah, and she was as much of a Christmas lover as you seem to be,” she said, bumping my shoulder with a tiny lift of her lips. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was close.
“Losing someone is never easy, especially around the holidays,” I started, then broke off as I gazed around the half-decorated porch. “But did you ever think maybe she’d want you to celebrate her favorite holiday in her memory?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Of course. But when you grow up with a mama who’s actively tryin’ to protect her own heart by puttin’ down Christmas, it’s not that easy. She was always talkin’ about how commercialized it was, how the reason for the season is lost these days, and so on.”
I nodded, considering her words as I pulled out the Charlotte Oaks Christmas list. “Well, will you let me—and our list—bring back some of the fun for you? There’s not much on here that screams commercialized Christmas. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite.”
“How so?”
“For one thing, we’re supposed to make a Christmas wish after each item we check off. It says Christmas magic is the most powerful of all. And there’s a lot of stuff worth wishing for that has nothing to do with commercial stuff.”
She didn’t look convinced.
I pressed on. “What’s your first wish?”
“I thought we were supposed to wait until we finished each item.”
I waved a hand. “Eh, during, after. I’m sure it’s fine.”
She stared off into the trees. “I have no idea. Let’s finish up while I think about it.”
Sensing it was important not to rush her, I agreed, and things got a lot lighter as we finished up inside the house. But if she thought I would forget about the wish thing… nope. I asked again as soon as the last bit of garland was secured.
She hesitated for a moment, then closed her eyes. When she opened them, there was a vulnerability there that took my breath away.
“I wish...” Hope began softly, “I wish I could see Christmas the way you do.”
Her words hit me right in the chest, and it look me a minute to recover before I could reply. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to make that happen, won’t I?”
She snorted delicately, almost like she didn’t believe I could.
Once again, challenge accepted.