Chapter 10
Ten
HOLLY
Decoration Complications
“Okay,” I said, staring up at the community center’s decidedly tall ceiling and the equally decidedly short stepladder that someone had optimistically provided for decoration hanging, “I’m starting to think Mrs. Peterson’s vision of ‘festive garland draped artfully from the rafters’ might have been conceived by someone who’s never actually had to hang anything higher than a picture frame. ”
Declan followed my gaze upward, then looked at the stepladder with the kind of expression usually reserved for clearly inadequate tools.
“That’s definitely not going to reach,” he said. “What’s the backup plan?”
“I was really hoping you wouldn’t ask that,” I admitted, consulting my clipboard with the kind of false confidence that fooled absolutely no one. “The backup plan was to figure it out when we get here and hope for the best.”
“Solid strategy,” Declan said solemnly. “Very professional.”
“I prefer to think of it as adaptive planning,” I said with dignity. “Leaving room for creative problem-solving.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?” He walked over to examine the stepladder more closely, testing its stability with the kind of careful attention that suggested he was actually considering using it.
“Because I’m pretty sure there’s a significant height differential between adaptive planning and a potential emergency room visit. ”
I looked up at the rafters again, trying to calculate the distance between where the stepladder would put me and where the garland actually needed to go. The math was not encouraging.
“Maybe we could ask Mr. Bennett to bring a taller ladder tomorrow?” I suggested without much hope.
“Or,” Declan said, “I could lift you up.”
The casual way he said it, like offering to boost me up to hang Christmas decorations, was a perfectly normal morning activity, made something flutter in my stomach that had nothing to do with festival planning.
“Lift me up?” I repeated, trying to sound like this was a practical suggestion rather than something that would involve Declan’s hands on my body in ways that were definitely not covered in Mrs. Peterson’s planning manual.
His eyes heated up in ways I hadn’t seen for a while before he squashed it, making me think it was a figment of my overactive imagination.
“I’m six-two, you’re what, five-four? If I lift you up, you should be able to reach the rafters easily.
” He gestured at the offending ceiling as if this were a simple mathematical problem rather than a scenario that would require us to be in very close physical contact.
“Five-three,” I corrected, and then immediately felt ridiculous for caring about the distinction when the real issue was that being lifted by Declan would involve his hands on my waist and my hands on his shoulders, my pussy in his face and probably a level of trust and physical awareness that our relationship definitely didn’t need.
“Even better,” he said with a smile that suggested he hadn’t noticed my internal panic about the logistics of being lifted. “So what do you say? Ready to get creative with our problem-solving?”
The reasonable response would have been to suggest we wait for proper equipment. The sensible response would have been to scale back our decoration ambitions to things that could be accomplished with the available stepladder.
“I’ll flatten you.”
He blinked a couple of times as if he had misheard me. “I’m stronger than I look,” he retorts.
Now, I felt bad. Did I just insult him by insulting myself? I eye him up critically. “Do you work out?” I asked, my voice slightly higher pitched than normal.
“Five times a week. Usually.”
“Usually?”
“Back home.”
Back home. New York. Six hours away, where he has his fancy life and probably a fancy girlfriend.
I wanted to refuse, but instead, I heard myself saying, “Okay, but if you drop me, I’m blaming you in the incident report.”
“Fair enough,” Declan said, moving to stand beneath the section of rafter where we needed to hang the first strand of garland. “Though I should probably mention that my track record for not dropping people is actually pretty good.”
“Pretty good?” I climbed onto the stepladder, which made me taller than Declan, but still nowhere near the ceiling. “That’s not exactly a confidence-inspiring endorsement.”
“Fine. My track record for not dropping people is perfect,” he amended. “I’ve never dropped anyone I was lifting for decoration purposes.”
“How many people have you lifted for decoration purposes?”
“You’ll be the first,” he admitted with a grin that was entirely too charming. “But I’m confident in my technique.”
“Your technique,” I repeated, trying not to think about what his technique might involve in terms of hand placement and body contact. “Right. Okay. How do we do this?”
“Here,” Declan said, positioning himself directly in front of the stepladder, “put your hands on my shoulders for balance, and I’ll lift you from your waist.”
Simple instructions that somehow sounded like the most complicated thing I’d ever been asked to do.
I reached out tentatively, placing my hands on his shoulders through the soft wool of his sweater, and immediately understood why this had been a terrible idea.
Declan definitely worked out. He was solid and warm and close enough that I could smell his cologne—something clean and masculine that made me want to lean closer and sniff him rather than focus on hanging Christmas decorations.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” I managed, though I was definitely not ready for the way his hands settled at my waist, large and warm and confident, or the way my entire body seemed to come alive at the contact.
“On three,” Declan said. “One, two...”
He lifted me smoothly, easily, like I weighed nothing at all, and suddenly I was high enough to reach the rafters but completely incapable of focusing on the garland because every nerve ending in my body was concentrated on the places where Declan was touching me and where his fucking face was.
I heard him breathe in deeply, and I was morti-fucking-fied.
I could feel the heat of his palms through my sweater, could feel the careful strength in the way he held me steady and secure.
“How’s that?” he grunted, and when I looked down at him, his face was tilted up toward mine. I could see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes.
“Good,” I said breathlessly, though ‘good’ didn’t begin to cover the way my heart was racing or the way every rational thought in my head had been replaced by awareness of how perfectly his hands fit at my waist, how easy it would be to lean down and…
“Holly?” He grit out. “The garland?”
Right. The garland. The reason we were doing this. The perfectly innocent festival decoration that definitely did not require me to think about how good Declan’s hands felt on my body, or how much I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, or how I wanted his face buried in my pussy.
“Right, yes, garland,” I said, forcing myself to look up at the rafter and away from Declan’s face. “Hanging garland. Very important garland hanging happening right now.”
I managed to loop the first strand of garland around the appropriate hook, though it took considerably longer than it should have because my hands were shaking slightly from the combination of being lifted and being held and being close enough to Declan to feel the warmth radiating from his body.
“Next section?” he asked, and there was something in his voice that suggested he was having his own difficulties focusing on the practical aspects of decoration hanging.
“Next section,” I confirmed, though what I was really thinking was that we had at least six more sections of garland to hang, which meant six more opportunities for this kind of close contact, which was either the best or worst thing that could possibly happen to my ability to maintain professional boundaries.
Declan carried me—actually carried me, while I was in his arms, like something out of a romantic movie—to the next hanging spot, and I tried to convince myself that the flutter in my stomach was just from the movement and not from the easy strength in the way he held me.
“Steady?” he asked as he positioned me beneath the next hook.
“Steady,” I lied, because I was the opposite of steady. I was hyperaware, flustered, and completely distracted by his hands.
I reached up to hang the second strand of garland, and something about the angle or the reach made me shift slightly in Declan’s hold.
His hands tightened at my waist to keep me secure, pulling me closer against him, and suddenly we were pressed together in a way that made the temperature in the room seem to spike by about twenty degrees.
“Sorry,” I breathed, though I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for—shifting in his arms, making this more complicated than it needed to be, or wanting to stay exactly where I was instead of focusing on Christmas decorations.
“Don’t apologize,” Declan said, and his voice was definitely rougher now, almost strained. “You’re fine. This is fine.”
But it wasn’t fine, because when I looked down at him again, his eyes were dark and focused on my face with an intensity that had nothing to do with festival planning.
And I was staring back at him with what was probably the same expression, caught between the practical necessity of hanging garland and the increasingly impractical desire to forget about garland entirely.
“Holly,” he said quietly, and my name sounded different in his voice than it ever had before.
“Yeah?” I managed, though it came out more like a whisper than actual speech.
“I think...” he started, then stopped, his eyes dropping to my mouth for just a moment before meeting my eyes again. “I think we should probably hang the rest of the garland.”
Right. Because we were hanging decorations, not having whatever moment this was turning into.
Except that I didn’t want to hang the rest of the garland.
I wanted to stay exactly where I was, with Declan’s hands around me and his face tilted up toward mine and the air between us charged with something that definitely wasn’t professional collaboration.
“Probably,” I agreed, but I didn’t move to reach for the next section of rafter, and Declan didn’t move to carry me to the next hanging spot.
Instead, we stayed exactly where we were, looking at each other in a way that made it clear that we were both thinking about things that had nothing to do with Christmas festivals and everything to do with the fact that we were close enough that if either of us leaned forward just a little...
“Holly,” Declan said again, and this time he did lean forward slightly, and I found myself leaning down toward him, and for one heart-stopping moment I thought we were actually going to kiss right there in the Everdale Falls Community Center surrounded by half-hung Christmas decorations and stepladders and. ..
“Hello? Is anyone in here?”
The voice echoed across the community center like a gunshot, and Declan dropped me so fast, I nearly landed on my ass. His hands shot out to steady me, but the moment—whatever moment we’d been having—was thoroughly and completely broken.
“Just a minute!” I called out, trying to sound like someone who had definitely been hanging Christmas decorations and not someone who had been about to kiss her festival co-chair in a moment of complete professional abandonment.
“Mayor Williams,” he said quietly, recognizing the voice, and I could hear footsteps approaching across the community center floor.
“Declan, Holly,” the mayor said as he rounded the corner, beaming at us with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested he was delighted to find us there together. “How wonderful to see you two working so hard on the festival preparations.”
“Just hanging some garland,” I said, gesturing vaguely at the stepladder and trying to ignore the way my heart was still racing. “You know, getting an early start on decorations.”
“Excellent, excellent,” Mayor Williams said, looking around at our progress with approval. “And working together so efficiently, I see. Jessica mentioned what a wonderful team you two make.”
If the mayor only knew what kind of teamwork he’d almost walked in on, he probably would have had some very different comments about our collaboration.
“We’re making good progress,” Declan said, and his voice was perfectly normal, professional, like he hadn’t been about to kiss me thirty seconds earlier. “The venue layout is coming together well.”
“Splendid,” the mayor said. “I actually stopped by to see if you needed any additional municipal support—permits, equipment, that sort of thing. But it looks like you have everything well in hand.”
“We do,” I said quickly, probably too quickly, because the mayor’s smile took on a slightly knowing quality that suggested he might have noticed the flustered energy radiating from both of us. “Although maybe some higher step ladders.”
His gaze went to the feeble one that was provided, and he nodded. “Yes, of course, of course. I’ll have something sent over.”
He left without another word and Declan and I stood in the community center looking at everything except each other. The stepladder, the remaining garland, the rafters that still needed decorating—anything that didn’t require acknowledging what had almost happened between us.
“We should probably finish up here,” I said finally, aiming for casual and probably landing somewhere around awkward.
“Right,” Declan agreed. “Wait for the new ladder.”
“Yes.”
“Exactly.”
I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Declan had said my name, or the way his hands had felt, or the fact that for one impossible moment, I’d been absolutely certain he was going to kiss me.
More importantly, I’d been absolutely certain I was going to kiss him back.
Which was probably going to make the next two weeks of festival planning significantly more complicated than Mrs. Peterson’s manual had prepared us for.