Oh man.
The dude so…totally…liked me!
“Uh…yeah,” I answered.
I saw his eyes through the screen door drop to the pie.
Quickly, I started, “I made this today. I thought you might—”
His gaze sliced to mine and he cut me off. “Go home.”
“I—”
“Go. Home.”
I felt my heart start beating hard in my chest as I said softly, “It’s really good.”
“Go home.”
“John…”
I said no more because at the mere utterance of his name, something sinister beat from him through the screen right into me, pummeling me to such an extreme, it was a wonder I didn’t drop to a knee.
“Woman,” he growled, impatience threaded liberally through the word. “Go…the fuck…home.”
And it was then he closed the door on me.
I stood at his door for long moments.
Then I went home.
When I got there, I ate the pie.
I did this even though every bite made me feel sick.
Like any good woman who’d just humiliated herself would, I ignored that feeling and kept eating.
And later, when I climbed into bed, I didn’t sleep.
Chapter Three
Waging War
“We’re worried.”
“Don’t be worried.”
“No one should be alone on Christmas.”
It was Christmas Eve. I was talking to my mother. I was also in my house in Colorado while everyone, including my sister, her husband, her newborn baby boy, my brother and his new fiancé, and my beloved favorite uncle and his entire family, were at the ranch in Oklahoma.
But every cabin was filled and all of them with more than one person. Hell, one family was taking up four cabins on their own for a huge family Colorado holiday getaway.
And Colorado holiday getaway I was giving them. Each cabin had a festive Christmas tree decorated in full-on Western. There was lots of twine with painted wooden things on it, cowboy boots, snowmen wearing bandanas and cowboy hats, saddles, horseshoes, and tin stars ornaments (and the like).
Not to mention, all the cabins were strewn outside with Christmas lights. It took me two full days just to put up those twinkling lights, but in the end, the effort was worth it. It looked phenomenal. Further, the big pots I had everywhere that were filled with flowers in the spring, summer and fall were planted with baby fir trees also lit with cheerful, blinking lights.
And each cabin had a big tin of homemade Christmas cookies sitting on the counter next to a real poinsettia to welcome my customers after they checked in and entered their cabins to experience Christmas joy Glacier Lily style.