“Nothing, Dad. Hi.”
“Nothing?” Wendy disagrees and turns to Dad, all prissy and comfortable on her high horse. “Your son wants to kick me and my family out in the snow for Christmas.”
My father blinks uncomprehendingly.
“There’s been a double-booking,” Kelly Anne explains. “And we’re trying to decide which family should get the house.”
“Oh, okay.” He smiles at Wendy from under his white mustache. “Don’t worry, miss, no one will get kicked out in the snow under my watch—especially not at Christmas. Why don’t we all go inside and try to figure out the situation in front of a hot cup of coffee?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say from the start,” Kelly Anne says, gesturing toward the open door. “Shall we?”
“Ladies first,” my dad offers gallantly.
Wendy smiles at Dad and precedes him into the house, ignoring me completely. As she passes me, a whiff of vanilla invades my nostrils. I do my best to ignore the pleasant scent and to glare at Miss Contempt instead, hoping she’ll feel the burn of my stare on her back. But I get distracted again when she pulls off the beanie and jacket, and a cascade of white-blonde locks tumbles down her shoulders. The revelation is even more disturbing than her clear light-blue gaze. I stare mesmerized until she opens her mouth to mutter under her breath, “I guess like father, like son isn’t always the case.”
“What did you just say?”
She turns and fake smiles at me. “Nothing.”
Once both families are assembled in the open-space living room, the situation looks even more tragic than I initially imagined. There are people everywhere. Wendy’s sister—I assume the other blonde is her sister, given the resemblance—is seated on the couch next to a man, probably her husband, each feeding a bottle of milk to a baby. Skeeter and another guy in his early twenties are perched on stools at the kitchen island. Dad and an older woman have taken possession of the kitchen and are busy making coffee. Tess and her husband—Noah—are standing uncertainly by the French windows. The three members of the cleaning crew are sitting on the stairs, probably waiting for instructions. And a bunch of kids are running around the room too fast for me to count exactly how many.
And of course, there’s also Goldilocks crowding my personal space with her too-sweet vanilla scent.
Next to us, Kelly Anne takes in the scene, and her thoughts must echo mine because she asks, “How many of you are there exactly?”
Six
Wendy
“We’re nine in total,” I answer the real estate agent. “Five adults, two kids, and two babies.”
Kelly Anne looks over at Riven Clark, who until half an hour ago was one of my favorite authors on the planet, and asks, “And you?”
“Seven, five adults and two kids,” he replies, in a low, deep voice that’s too sexy for his own good. I peek at him sideways. Gosh, he looks even better than in the pictures on the back of his book covers. Unruly dark hair, mysterious brown eyes, full lips, and sexy, two-day stubble. Pity he turned out to be such a horrible person. Never meet your heroes; the saying was invented for a reason.
“For a grand total of ten adults, four kids, and two babies,” Kelly Anne summarizes.
“Safe to say we all agree we can’t fit both families in this house,” the great American novelist says.
The poor lady from the rental agency does her best to keep smiling. “Please allow me a few minutes to check what our options are with my colleagues at the agency.”
She takes out her phone and moves away from the crowd. The inside of the house is scorching hot compared to the freezing temperature outside, so I remove my heavy sweater and drop it on the back of an armchair.
Riven scowls at me, saying, “Don’t get too comfortable.” He moves past me to go talk to the pretty brunette by the French windows. His sister? His wife? Is he married?
Why do I care?
I don’t!
I join Joshua and another boy eighteen, nineteen years old tops, at the kitchen island.
“Coffee?” Riven’s dad offers each of us a mug.
“Thank you, Mr. Clark,” I say.
“You’re very welcome, Miss?”
“Wendy, Wendy Nichols.”
“What a beautiful name, and please call me Grant.”
I’m halfway through my cup of coffee when the real estate agent comes back. She claps her hands, asking, “Could all the adults please join me at the dining table?”
The table is a massive, rectangular slate of solid wood—natural oak, I’d say—and it miraculously seats ten people.
Amy declines the invite and prefers to remain on the couch with the twins, which leaves Kelly Anne free to take the last spot and look us all in the eyes with a grave expression.
“I’ve talked to my colleagues at the agency,” she intones. “I’m sorry to inform you there are no vacancies anywhere in town, nor at any of the ski resorts nearby. The only rooms we could find are at a motel off the highway in Salt Lake City.”
“My family isn’t spending Christmas at a highway motel,” I say with finality.
“I’m truly mortified my agency put you all in this situation,” Kelly Anne continues. “Especially since it’ll be Christmas in three days. At the Richter Real Estate Group, we pride ourselves in providing an excellent experience for all our customers.”
“We understand, Kelly Anne,” Mr. Millions of Copies Sold says, surprising me with the tameness of his answer, until he adds, “I’m sure you can refund the Nicholses their fare and they can be back home in time for Christmas.”
“What?” I snap. “The plane tickets, too?”
From the couch, Amy shouts, “I’m not putting the twins back on a plane today, tomorrow, or any day sooner than a week from now. And before anyone suggests it, I’m not putting them back in a car seat either, unless it’s to go somewhere super close. They’re done traveling for the day. Right, little munchie-pies?” She coos at them, and then, back to her normal voice, she adds, “So you people had better figure something out.”
“Well, someone has to go,” Riven says. “And it won’t be my family.” He purses his lips in a stubborn, bratty—although sexy—pout.
“Actually…” Kelly Anne wrings her fingers, “… what if we could find a solution to host everyone here?”
“What?” Riven sputters. “Are you seriously proposing to cram sixteen people into a house that barely fits half that number?”
“We can try,” the agent insists. “You still wouldn’t have to pay April’s rent, Mr. Clark. And your family, Miss Nichols, would get a full refund of course.”
“That all sounds very nice,” Riven says. “But it’s just not possible.”
“Son.” Grant puts a hand on Riven’s shoulder. “It’s Christmas. Do you really want to send these people on the street to spend the holidays in a cheap motel?”