woman who looked like she’d been deployed from Christmas central casting.
“Are you okay?” Bridget exclaimed, hurrying to his side.
Worry creased her brow as she extended her hand to help him up. He knew she was sweet. He’d seen through her vixen facade, but it turned out that she was also genuinely kind—another reason he could never be with someone like her. Still, he hated how easily she could awaken that lost, lonely part of him that longed for more.
“You must be Birdie and Scooter! Come in. I’ve got the oven all preheated for you,” the woman said warmly.
“You do?” Bridget asked as he came to his feet and stood beside her.
“It’s on your schedule. I figured since you got delayed in Denver and lost a day, you’d want to get started baking right away.”
Dammit! That’s right! His one-night vixen had a schedule.
Delores gestured for them to follow her inside. He dusted the snow off his ass and trailed a few steps behind the women, then stopped in his tracks and couldn’t hold back a grin.
This place was fantastic!
Antler chandeliers strung with white lights hung from exposed timber beams built into the pitched roof as the scent of evergreens and fresh-baked cookies wafted through the room. The main gathering space was part living room with plush seating and part dining room with a long rustic table running down the center. A decorated Christmas tree sat in each corner of the room, while stockings hung along the hearth. Everyone had a stocking with their name written in gold or silver glitter, and his Scooter stocking hung next to the one with Birdie written in swooping silver letters.
“It’s…” he began, but Bridget cut him off.
“It’s exactly how I remembered it,” she said, her voice full of wonder.
Delores straightened one of the stockings. “Your sister had the same reaction when she’d arrived. She said your family loved coming here for the holidays.”
Bridget nodded. “We did.”
“And your parents were married at the Kringle Chapel?” Mrs. Claus’s doppelgänger continued.
“Yes, they met when they were English professors at the University of Colorado. They’d invited my grandmother to spend their first Christmas here and chose to come to the Kringle Mountain House instead of staying in their cramped apartment in the city. They fell in love with this place and got married here a year later. But I haven’t been back since I was a teenager.”
“That’s a lovely story, dear, and we’re so happy to have you here celebrating not only Christmas but your sister’s wedding. The town of Kringle may be a bit different now than what you remember.”
Bridget walked down the center of the room, grazing her fingertips along the length of the rustic table as she stared at the mountains framed by the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the back of the mountain house, and he couldn’t help remembering her doing the same thing last night when they’d entered his suite.
Was that only last night? It felt like the two of them had been tangled together for eons—not hours.
“It’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Delores as her eyes shined with emotion.
“Is this them, Mrs. D? Robin and Vespa?”
He turned to see a young man saunter in from the kitchen. In sunglasses, a red and white slouching Santa beanie sitting cockeyed on his head and zipped into an oversized hoodie covered in poinsettias, or some other green pointy plant, he was the poster kid for grunge Christmas. The guy lowered his shades to get a better look at them, then quickly slid his glasses back in place.
“It’s Birdie and Scooter, dear,” Delores corrected.
The young man nodded slowly. “But robins are birds, and Vespas are scooters.”
Delores grinned at the guy as if he didn’t seem totally out of his mind. “This is Tanner Baker. He works part-time doing odd jobs at the Kringle Mountain House and in the kitchen at Kringle Acres.”
“Right on! And I also dabble in agricultural pursuits,” the kid answered, sounding as if he’d spent the last decade locked in a room watching Point Break and mastering the tone and cadence of pseudo-surf speak.
Delores grinned at the guy. “Our young Tanner is a Colorado renaissance man. Are your brownies and gummy bears ready, dear?”
“Bears are done, and three more minutes on the Baker’s delight brownies, Mrs. D,” he answered, procuring a plastic bag teeming with gummy bears and popping one into his mouth.
“Very good, and please leave the oven on, dear. Our guests are baking cookies for the residents at