I didn’t realize you knew my nickname.”
Dammit. She did it again, just like she had this morning when she’d mentioned the winter formal. Her cheeks flushed. “Of course I knew. You were president of the school the two years we were there together. Everyone called you Coop. It was on every campaign poster. Kind of hard to miss. I guess…I don’t know…you seemed like the old you. Not that I knew the old you.”
Oh my god. What was she doing? It was like an instant replay of the humiliation she’d felt years ago, except this time he was watching her go through it.
“Anyway,” she said, “we should really get to the whole light-detangling situation so you can rid yourself of this silly holiday business. In fact, you know what?” She strode toward his desk and wrapped the mass of lights into her arms. “I can just take these back to my apartment and work on them there.”
Maybe he was letting his personal feelings about the holidays spill over into his thoughts about how the town celebrated it. And while she didn’t agree with it, she could understand it. Plus, the thought of keeping the guy here untangling Christmas lights when it was the last thing he wanted to do didn’t make the rest of her night sound too fun. At home she could at least take off her bra. God, that sounded amazing after the day she’d had.
“Wait,” he said, blowing out a breath. “I said I’d help with this part, and I’m a man of my word. And I think I can make the night a little more bearable for both of us.” He strode toward a small mini-fridge that sat on the wide window ledge next to his coffeemaker and retrieved two bottles of beer. “How about a refreshment?” he asked, turning to face her again.
She sighed. An adult beverage would really hit the spot right now. If Deputy Crawford couldn’t relax with a cold one tonight, she might as well pick up the slack. The mayor did seem genuinely committed to helping her sort out the lighting mess. And truth be told, she was kind of dreading doing it by herself.
Dani offered him a conciliatory smile and popped the top off her bottle using the edge of the mayor’s desk.
“Refreshments, Mr. Mayor. You just said the magic word.”
Chapter Four
Two hours, three beers, and a whole mess of wire and glass later, Peyton and Dani had somehow accomplished the impossible. The perimeter of the mayor’s office was now lined—twice over—with the untangled lights.
“This is it,” he said, holding the plug at the ready. “The moment of truth.”
Dani winced.
“What?” he asked.
“Well, do you think maybe we should have—?”
“Tested the lights as soon as we uncovered the plug? Oh yeah. One hundred percent.” But he’d gotten sidetracked by their rhythm. By listening to her talk about life in Meadow Valley since he’d been gone and her family and living with Casey above the bar and—all of it. Every word that came out of her mouth—now that the whole grinch thing was behind them—put him at ease. He could have listened to her for two hours more, but he’d stolen enough of her time for one night.
Dani laughed. Her hair—no longer in the tight ponytail she wore under her hat—bounced in dark waves against her shoulders, and Peyton had to fight the urge to forget the lights altogether and tangle his fingers in that hair and…And what? She was here because of a coin toss and because she didn’t want to see him ruin her favorite holiday. He needed to get his head on straight and stop thinking things he shouldn’t be thinking.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Did we, or did we not waste the last two hours of our lives?”
“Wait!” Dani said as she collapsed into the chair behind his desk and started pounding the top with her palms. “We need a drumroll!”
He listened to the beat of her hands against the wood and then finally plugged in the lights.
The perimeter of his office lit up like a bright white picture frame.
Dani sprang up and pumped her fist in the air with a loud “Woo-hoo!” Then she strode to where he stood and high-fived him like it was something they’d been doing for years. “Nice work, Mr. Mayor! I never thought I’d say this, but we make a damn good team, don’t we?”
He nodded then breathed in deep. Now that she was closer, he could smell the scent of cherries and