Christmas at Holiday House - RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,75
to moving boxes, chaos and a solitary Christmas. While we do have good friends in Arizona, they’re all busy with their own families this time of year.”
Lucy looked delighted. “Oh, yay. I’m so glad. And trust me, Winnie will be over the moon. We’re going to have so much fun. You’ll see.”
She didn’t doubt she would have a good time with Lucy and with Winnie. Now, if only she could figure out how to keep from ruining everything by falling hard for Ethan.
Lucy rose from the table with an air of suppressed energy, as if she had come to a decision about something.
“I know you said it was time for Christopher to take a rest and I know it hasn’t been a half hour yet. But would you mind terribly if I borrowed him this afternoon?”
“You want to borrow my five-year-old? First, of course. Second, why?”
Lucy shrugged, avoiding her gaze. “I have been sleeping all morning and now I have a lot of energy. I need somewhere to put it. Rodrigo and José were leaving here to go to the bowling alley in town and Christopher wanted to go with them. Right now, that seems like a lot of fun. Would you mind if I take Christopher?”
“Now?”
“I know, it’s a wild idea. We’ll be back in an hour. Maybe an hour and a half. Bowling doesn’t take too long. When we get home, he probably even would have time to rest before the big event tonight.”
Abby didn’t know what Lucy was doing, but she suspected it had something to do with José Navarro.
Was she a terrible mother that she loved the idea of having an hour to herself, with absolutely nothing to do but read the new paperback she had picked up at the supermarket?
“Sure. Knock yourself out.”
Yes, she had told Christopher he had to stay in his room for a quiet half hour. But once in a while there was nothing wrong with breaking the rules.
* * *
She shouldn’t have come.
Lucy stood just inside the bowling alley attached to one of the most popular pizza joints in town, wishing with all her heart she hadn’t been so impulsive.
What was she doing here? What was she trying to prove?
She had been struck by what Abby had said about her powers of persuasion. Maybe in some corner of her mind, she thought maybe she could wield those powers against José and convince him to bend a little. Maybe they could forget this heat between them and just go back to being good friends. Even better, maybe they could just have a steamy holiday affair, get it all out of their system and then go back to being friends.
Okay. She wasn’t thinking rationally. Now that she was here, she realized how impulsively shortsighted she was being. José wouldn’t bend on this. She knew him well enough to know that. It was all or nothing for José Navarro.
She should just slip back out of the bowling alley, climb back into her rental car and drive back to Holiday House.
Except she had dragged Christopher into this whole thing, and he was looking around the bowling alley with wide-eyed excitement.
“I can’t wait,” he said. “I always wanted to go bowling.”
She couldn’t back out of it now. She might be a terrible person but she wasn’t completely irredeemable. She could not offer a child a treat and then take it away simply because of her own poor decisions.
How could she deny Christopher something he was looking forward to, only because she had chickened out?
What was wrong with her? She was a freaking mess. José was right. She did not want him, but the moment she found out someone else was dating him all she could think about was kissing him again.
No. That wasn’t right, either. She absolutely did want him, she just knew the two of them together would be disastrous.
He was a sweet romantic who wanted happily-ever-after. She, on the other hand, was the world’s greatest cynic. Even her best friend said so.
She and José could never be together. She would break his heart and would wind up hating herself because of it.
So what was she doing here?
“Do you want shoes or not?”
The pimply-faced clerk behind the counter at the bowling alley was looking at her like she was a few pins short of a spare.
“Shoes. Right. I’m a women’s size seven and a half. What shoe size are you, kiddo?” she asked Christopher.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m five years old. Is that my