Mistletoe and Mr. Right (Moose Springs, Alaska #2) - Sarah Morgenthaler Page 0,2
of the door, because when it finally swung open, the elves saw their chance to make their escape. She jumped back to avoid the avalanche, ending up in a snowbank halfway to her now very cold knees. The closest elf was facedown in a boot hole, looking like it had officially given up on making it through the holidays with a semblance of dignity.
Through the open doorway, Lana could see that the inside of the barn had been turned into a makeshift town hall. Folding chairs filled what once had been a large area to store hay.
As everyone in the back few rows turned in their seats to stare at her out in the snow, Lana gave them an awkward wave.
“That was unexpected,” she said, trying to cover her embarrassment with cheerfulness.
“There’s another entrance on the other side,” someone muttered.
Well. That certainly would have been informative.
Rescuing half a dozen cheap plastic elves from a snowy death wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever done, although she would have appreciated a few less smirks aimed her way. Lana never had liked it when everyone looked at her when she stepped into a room. She was used to it, but she didn’t like it.
She’d learned a long time ago to compensate for that discomfort by throwing her best and brightest smile to the room. Usually it worked to lessen the tension, but not this time. The gathered townsfolk most definitely didn’t smile back.
The smiles had been fewer and farther between since her condominium project had been announced.
“Tough crowd,” she told the plastic elves in her arms.
If Ben hadn’t told her where they held town hall meetings, she never would have been able to find it. By the looks she received when she headed toward the front of the barn, more than a few people wouldn’t have minded her absence. But as meeting halls went, the barn worked well. A wooden stage had been built on the end farthest from where Lana had made her less-than-grand entrance, and at least most of the people present hadn’t witnessed her faux pas. They’d scooted the chairs around to form rows facing the makeshift stage up front.
They’d tried to make the barn seasonally appropriate, filling it with a cheerful if haphazard assortment of holiday decor. Most was fairly innocuous, but liberties had been taken with Rudolph’s antlers, and something seemed to be going on between Mrs. Claus and Frosty the Snowman if the twinkle in her eye was to be believed. The pile of elves had been hanging out near the rear escape exit, the one Lana had unwittingly entered. They’d probably had the right idea.
The combination of strings of blinking Christmas lights, red and green plastic ornaments, blue and white papier-mâché snowflakes, and gold sparkles painted on popcorn balls was somewhat jarring. Someone had mounted a star on the top of a cardboard cutout of a lamp made out of a woman’s stockinged leg, with several presents stuck underneath.
Drawing her coat close to chase away the chill, Lana scanned the room, searching for a friendly face among the familiar ones. She breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted a short, slender brunette in glasses seated off to the side, across the room from a folding table loaded with coffee urns and holiday treats. Zoey Caldwell glanced up from the book in her lap as Lana approached, brightening when Lana waved at her in greeting.
“I saved Graham a seat, but you can have his,” Zoey said. “He’s been a brat all day.”
“Is he ever not a brat?” Lana replied, sitting next to her best friend.
“Hmm, good point.” Zoey’s boyfriend was many things, and a brat was definitely one of them.
The constant good mood Zoey had been in since meeting Graham and moving to Moose Springs the previous summer still hadn’t faded, and she gave Lana an enthusiastic hug. A hug Lana happily returned. It was embarrassing to admit how much Lana wanted those hugs…and needed them. They had met years ago at a truck stop diner outside Chicago. Zoey had been Lana’s waitress, and something between them had simply clicked. If Lana had to be honest with herself—which was more of a pain than she wanted to think about at the moment—her relationship with Zoey was the healthiest human interaction she’d experienced in her entire life. And it meant more to Lana than Zoey realized that they would be spending the holidays together.
Lana glanced around. “I was hoping Jake would be here.”