How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,4

had hoarded for the end of the world.

But maybe it was because I worked in the back, in the shipping department, and Mom hated that. Because I couldn’t even be a girl right. Or maybe it was because I was a girl and so somehow…less in her eyes. I didn’t know, and frankly, I was long past caring. I’d tried so hard to get this woman to love me and it didn’t matter.

“It wouldn’t kill you to support your brother,” Mom said, interpreting my silence as not supporting my brother.

“Let’s not do this tonight, Mom. We’re supposed to be having fun.”

“Is that why you’re dressed that way?” she asked. Her silver hair reflected the green and red lights and her eyes…well, they reflected what they always reflected when she looked at me.

“Yep,” I said.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with that boy being back.”

Only Mom would call a decorated Marine that boy.

“Okay Mom, it’s been lots of fun talking to you, but I’m going to go—” I twirled a finger around “—mingle.”

“All right, Sophie. Try…”

To act like a Kane. To make her proud. To be less myself. More like my mother. Dignified and quiet and whatever.

“I always do, Mom. Believe it or not, I always do.”

I turned and sucked back my champagne, setting my glass down on an empty table. The champagne was fizzy and sweet, and went to my knees and my head at the same time. A fast drink on an empty stomach was one of my favorite things.

Now I needed to find my brother.

And Sam. Really, I just wanted to find Sam.

The band was good. They were doing swingy-dancey versions of Christmas songs and there were a few people out on the floor. Rhonda who worked the front desk and Romeo from the warehouse clearly had moves.

Sam was nowhere to be found. Maybe he wasn’t here? He’d said he was coming and he was the kind of guy who showed up when he said he would. Oh man, he’d have something to say when he found out about Wes and Penny.

I saw Penny standing alone looking like a zillion bucks in a red dress.

My sister-in-law. Well, no time like the present to welcome her into the family. I whisked her away from the bar and behind the huge Christmas tree. Which was as close to privacy as we were going to get.

“So you did it,” I said, trying not to sound accusatory. “You married my brother.”

“You look really nice,” she said to me, and I was totally thrown for a loop. She was all kinds of still waters running deep. She was hard to get a read on. But when she pushed her glasses up higher on her nose, she revealed some of her nerves, and when she did that…she was impossible not to like.

“Do you really mean that?” I asked.

“Yes, I do.”

I shook my head. Damn it. I liked her and there was more to this engagement and marriage than anyone was being told. “You really are nice,” I said. “My brother doesn’t deserve you.”

“Are you here with a date?” she asked me, carefully hedging the compliment.

“No. I don’t have a date.” What I had was a plan. And a thong.

“Those two,” Penny said, nudging my arm discreetly and tilting her head to the wall behind her. “No, don’t look, he’ll see.”

“W.B.?” I asked, not bothering at all to be discreet. The third prong in my brother’s plan was the new CFO, W.B. Darling. W.B. found out my father was embezzling from the company, which had helped save the company but nearly torn our family apart. W.B. was a good guy for a man who had a spreadsheet shoved up his butt. Joy walked past him without a word and W.B. broke away from the wall to follow. Very interesting.

“Yes. Him and Joy. There’s something going on there, don’t you think?” Penny asked.

Yes! Yes, I did think, as a matter of fact. But Joy was not saying a word about W.B.

“I think Joy is into him, but she says she isn’t,” I said.

“She seems mad at him.”

“Why would she be mad at him?”

“It’s just a hunch,” Penny said.

Over her shoulder I saw half my warehouse crew walking over with napkins wrapped around fresh bottles of beer. That’s how fancy this party was. The bartenders put napkins around the beer so your hand didn’t get wet and cold. And they were going to come grill Penny and give her a hard time that she didn’t deserve on