Tanya Michaels - Mistletoe Hero

It’s for a good cause, he told himself. When that failed to lower his blood pressure, he reminded himself that it was none of his business whom Arianne bestowed her kisses on. Hadn’t he walked out of her life three nights ago? She certainly hadn’t made any attempt to contact him since, which was telling.

I miss her. He squelched the thought. Breaking off contact was for the best. If he felt her absence after only three days, what would it be like if he kept seeing her and then moved away? The Kennesaw job, which he knew he wouldn’t be getting, had actually been his strongest lead in Georgia.

“I like you, Mr. Sloan,” the interviewer had told him. “But the truth is, I’ve seen three other applicants who already have experience on all the machines we use. We also function as a pretty tight crew. You work alone on most of your jobs?”

Alone. Yep, that about sums me up. In the end Gabe had thanked the man for his time and got back in his truck, not sure if he was relieved, disappointed or both. He’d never thought he would be glad to see the Welcome to Mistletoe sign.

Then again, he’d never been driving back toward Arianne.

“Mr. Sloan?”

Gabe turned to find the mayor offering a handshake.

The other man nodded toward the partial ship deck. “Have we given this thing a test run into the pit yet?”

“Yes, sir. Nick Zeth and a couple of his firefighter buddies were knocking each other in, and everything held up just fine. But I plan to stay close today and keep an eye on it. Safety first, right?”

“That’s the spirit! And thanks again for putting this together. It’s never easy to ask constituents for money, especially in these economic times, so if we’re going to take donations from them, I’m glad we found a way to make it fun. Speaking for the citizens of Mistletoe, we appreciate your help.”

Gabe almost strangled on a disbelieving laugh. Fourteen years ago, he’d expected to be run out of town on a rail-with his father leading the charge-and now the mayor was thanking him for his efforts on behalf of the town?

“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you later,” the mayor said. “I suspect I’ll be taking the plunge multiple times today. Probably with my wife holding the other end of the sword.”

Festival-goers were beginning to descend on town square; the noise level was increasing exponentially. People calling greetings to each other, volunteers testing out the sound systems in the bingo tent and at the gazebo, kids crying and laughing. And somewhere close by, a man letting out a wolf whistle.

He thought he recognized Nick’s voice hollering appreciatively, “Helloooo, saucy wench.”

A woman’s laugh. Arianne.

“That’s Captain Saucy, Pirate Queen, you scurvy knave.” She sounded lighthearted and sexy.

It was frankly a bit depressing to learn that while he’d been standing here thinking about how much he missed her after such a short time, second-guessing how he’d left things the other night, her mood hadn’t been dampened one bit. Then again, Arianne had always been irrepressible. It was one of the things he loved about her. In a manner of speaking.

He rested one hand at the pocket of his jeans and strolled casually forward. Did he look convincingly like someone just scoping out the lay of the land, or was it obvious he was a poor sap pining for the sight of a beautiful woman and onetime lover?

As he rounded the corner of the library, he nearly collided with Arianne, which meant she’d been coming to see him. He smiled, feeling happier than he had all week.

“Hey, sorry about that,” he said. “I just-What are you wearing?”

“My swashbuckling pirate garb.” She cocked her hip, beaming at him. “You like?”

Too bad Gabe had only a false veneer of a ship and not the real thing. He wanted nothing more than to toss Arianne over his shoulder and take her to his bunk to have his wicked way with her.

Gold hoop earrings peeked out through her long blond hair, which was loose and flowing beneath a jaunty brown tricorn. Although the dark corset-style leather vest she wore stopped short of being inappropriately risqué, it did enhance her cleavage enough that he couldn’t stop remembering how she looked beneath her clothes. She had on a ruffled, off-the-shoulder long-sleeved cranberry shirt that hung down just low enough to cover her butt. Her dark brown leggings fit like a second skin, and he found himself fascinated by the thigh-high boots that somehow made her petite legs look a mile long.

At her hip hung a plastic cutlass, but he could have told her she didn’t need a weapon. One look at her and men would line up to surrender.

“Holly said she’d dress up for the booth, too,” Arianne told him, “but apparently our definitions of costume aren’t quite the same. She’s wearing a sundress with a bandanna around her neck, a black-and-white hat with the skull and crossbones on it and a parrot broach on her shoulder. Think I went overboard?”

“Isn’t that the theme of the day?” He managed a tight smile, still trying to get his desire under control enough to speak intelligently.

“Usually I pull out all the stops for Halloween, but I may not be dressing up this year, so today’s my one big hurrah.”

“You look…wow.”

“Thank you.” She ducked her head, and he realized that she seemed more timid today than he’d first realized. Was that why she’d been speaking so quickly-not babbling exactly, but not calm, either? She swallowed. “I was on my way to find you.”

“Yeah?” He must be the luckiest man in a hundred-block radius to have a woman like this seek him out.

“I wanted to know about your interview.” She shifted her weight, meeting his gaze, composed again. Had he imagined her flash of nerves? “How’d it go?”

“I didn’t get the job.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Was she? Would he want her to be?

“Gabe.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Are you busy after this? I was hoping maybe we could talk.”

“No-I mean, yes. No to the first question,” he backpedaled. Would they be able to reach some kind of compromise, instead of ending on Wednesday’s disastrous note? “After this, I’m all yours.”

GABE HADN’T PARTICIPATED in one of the town’s festivals since he was a boy, but even as distracted as he was today by thoughts of Arianne, he was enjoying himself. As predicted, the mayor and his wife put on quite a spectacle for the crowd when she forced him to “walk the plank.” A few of the Whiteberry faculty members chipped in to have Patrick thrown into “Davy Jones’s locker,” as a kind of initiation.

Patrick grumbled teasingly from within the ball pit, “Whatever happened to the days when folks said howdy by baking the new guy a cake?”

Lilah Waide also got tagged three different times by her students to go off the plank into the pit; by the third time, though, she’d caught a grinning Tanner actually giving the kids dollar bills.

“There will be payback,” she cheerfully threatened her husband as Gabe helped her out of the pit.

Quinn passed by midmorning to check in on the festivities and to rather thoughtfully bring Gabe a freshly made funnel cake-also known as an elephant ear because of its size and shape. Warm and gooey with powdered sugar, the fried dough dessert was almost too big for one person to eat alone, and he caught himself scanning the crowd for Arianne. Even though he knew that she was busy elsewhere, he automatically wanted to share this with her, see her smile at the first sweet bite. He wanted to kiss away the dots of sugar she’d no doubt have clinging to the corner of her lips.

The thought reminded him that she was working in the kissing booth. Now that he’d seen her attire for the day, the jealousy he’d battled earlier returned to gnaw at him.

“How are things going over at Arianne’s booth?” he asked Quinn, hoping he sounded nonchalant rather than covetous.

The look she gave him was far too knowing. “Have you seen the poster over there? It’s a big set of lips that represents how much money they’re trying to raise. Each girl colors part of it red during her shift to show whether or not she’s on target to make their goal. Poor Ari’s probably gonna end up kissing a lot of frogs today for the sake of the school. If it helps to know…”

“Yes?” Gabe prompted, surprised to see Quinn blushing.

“Lilah and I asked her to work some of the shifts at the booth, but that was before…you.”

Her words humbled him. He recalled too vividly how he’d hurt Arianne by making her think he wouldn’t want anyone to know that they were a newly formed couple. Who had he been kidding? It was Mistletoe; people would figure it out. By not openly acknowledging his budding feelings for Arianne, he wasn’t protecting her but merely fueling the potential for speculative gossip. He should be thrilled that people might link him and Arianne; she was certainly the best thing to happen to him in a long time.

“Quinn, you don’t owe me any explanations. But thanks for thinking of me.”

She shot him a mischievous smile. “Well, I just know how I’d feel if Patrick was over there working that particular booth. So I empathize.”

He dropped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed in a quick, casual hug and thanked her again for the funnel cake.

“I promise to be back later with something to drink,” she said. “But the cakes were too big for me to carry beverages, too!”

The festival committee had agreed ahead of time that the pirate plank fundraiser would only be open for certain posted hours since a lot of the officials who were being “dunked” also had other duties they had to perform while they were here. Gabe hung a sign that invited interested parties to come back in an hour, and used the break to check the platform stability and replace the dozen or so balls that had fallen out while victims were exiting the enclosure.