Cooped Up for Christmas - Sabrina York Page 0,22

for him. “If it’s still there.”

His gaze seared me. “It is.”

I couldn’t disagree, but thankfully, I didn’t have to, because Mungo came to my rescue, poking in his head into the great room and telling Coop they were ready to start loading gear.

Is it pathetic that I breathed a sigh of relief when he sketched me a wave and took off?

Chapter Seven

The guests woke up late, but I didn’t care. I just hunkered down by the breakfast buffet and tried to focus on something other than my swirling emotions.

Let’s face it, Coop had made his interest in me more than clear. I had an open invitation if I wanted one. So what was holding me back?

Certainly not Dirk.

I believed in monogamy, when a couple has agreed to that. I mean, if you’re going to be together, be together. Dirk and I just never got to that magical point. And I had no delusions that he was running around Switzerland alone.

Was it fear then? Remembered pain from when Coop hurt me all those years ago?

I’d been crushed.

But now, I could see it from older eyes. Now I knew… In the midst of a childish snit, I had told him to leave. Like an idiot. Multiple times.

He finally did.

Yeah. I was probably the one who’d blown it. But that was hardly an epiphany. More like a modus operandi.

Question was, what did I want now? Now that I was an adult? Relatively mature? Over it with games?

What did I really want?

The guests started coming down, so I let Noel know and started laying out the food on the buffet table and priming the coffee urns. The adults appeared first, and then, in fits and starts, the teens. Jamison and his friends were unnaturally quiet and sullen. It kind of made me want to bang some pots.

Surprisingly, breakfast went relatively smoothly—that was, until Farley came down the stairs, with Eliza at her heels, in absolute hysterics. Both of them.

“Someone has stolen Lola,” Farley wailed.

“Lola?”

“My dog! My sweet little baby! She’s gone!”

Egads. The Chihuahua. No.

My first thought was of Mason’s appetite for Mexican food. I could visualize it now. Us, finding the mauled corpse of a tiny little Lola in the snow. Or worse, nothing but an ominous trickle of Chihuahua blood.

Eliza was just as upset as Farley, if not more. “I took her out to go potty,” she wailed, “but I brought her back in. I took her right back to the bedroom. But then, when I woke up, she was gone!”

“No worries.” I rubbed Eliza’s back, because she really looked like she was going to lose it. “I’ll get the staff searching at once.” I made an emergency call on the radio, and everyone responded like troopers. Coop and his team headed outside to make a sweep around the house and woods, while my people searched the big house.

When Lola could not be found, I didn’t know what to do. Farley was in a tizzy, all of the adults were moderately troubled and Whit was even thinking of canceling the snow day.

That would be a disaster.

Because, then, they’d all stay here.

“Look,” I said. “I’m going to be here while you’re gone. I’ll keep looking for Lola. I’ll call you the second I find her.” I stared Farley in the eye. “And I will find her.”

“Promise?”

I knew better than to make promises I couldn’t keep, but I also knew, this time, it had to be done.

Or they might stay!

“I promise.”

I watched them go with a big smile—a biiiig one—waving until their SUVs disappeared from sight.

Phew.

I turned to the staff who hadn’t gone with Coop on the snow day or with Ken on the shopping expedition.

My smile widened.

Because no one was there. They’d all gone—Olivia and Wren with Ken to shop with the ladies, and Jed and Ben were stoked to go on the mountain trip. Only Noel and I remained, and I knew Noel would hole himself up in his room and moon over Darcy all day.

So after I did the breakfast dishes and a quick tidy up of the guest rooms—in case they came back early—I headed for the staff lodgings because, thank you very much, I fancied a nap.

My eager footsteps stalled as I stepped into our kitchen and a deep low growl resonated through my bones. My gaze snapped to Mason’s bed which, for some reason, Coop had put in the kitchen. And yup, there the slavering beast was, all curled up. And growling. At me.

“Seriously, Mason? I gave you Mexican