Wrapped Up In Christmas

Chapter Fourteen

Watching Bodie and a handful of others work to break down the tent, Sarah stood in the lightly falling snow, holding Harry’s leash and her stuffed elf.

Maybelle joined her. “How was the sleigh ride?”

“Good,” she said, keeping her eyes trained on Bodie.

They’d sold out of ornaments. Maybelle, her father, and the other volunteers were just packing everything up when Sarah and Bodie returned. They’d had plenty of volunteers. Bodie had asked Sarah to stay back with Harry while he went to help. She hadn’t argued. She’d needed a few moments to contemplate her and Bodie’s kiss.

He hadn’t wanted to kiss her. Why had he been so reluctant to play along with a quick, staged kiss beneath the mistletoe?

While Bodie helped the men take down the tent, was he thinking about their kiss, too? Wondering what it meant?

“Good,” Sarah repeated without meaning to.

Sarah didn’t have to look at Maybelle to know her brow had lifted. She could feel that arch.

“That’s all I get? A one-word answer twice over?”

Rubbing her gloved hand over her elf to smooth down its floppy ears, Sarah fought grimacing. What would Bodie say if he could even hear them—if she told Maybelle the truth, that the sleigh ride ended with a kiss that had her head spinning?

She’d never again see mistletoe without thinking of Bodie. How could she? Bodie’s second kiss had been sweet and tender… just what a kiss following a magical sleigh ride should be.

But that didn’t mean she should or even wanted to tell Maybelle about it. She didn’t know what their kiss meant.

Who was she kidding? Nothing. The kiss meant nothing. No big deal, remember? Wasn’t she the one who had told Bodie that? So why was she twisting herself into knots over a mistletoe kiss when she knew better?

Bodie was leaving. She needed to just forget that kiss had even happened.

“It was cold.” Sarah kept her voice rather blah and didn’t meet Maybelle’s eyes for fear the woman would see right through her. Instead, she wished she could read what was going on inside Bodie’s head as he worked alongside her father and people she’d known all her life.

“That doesn’t sound like fun.” Maybelle’s gaze bore into her. “Rosie mentioned the Harveys had some nice additions this year.”

Maybelle’s nonchalant tone did nothing to hide that she was fishing for details.

In Sarah’s fluster over her and Bodie’s kiss, she’d forgotten all about Rosie and Lou. Now there was a subject that might deter her friend from further prying.

“How did their sleigh ride go? Has Rosie finally admitted she has feelings for Lou? I mean, she did make him her grandmother’s cinnamon bread.”

“Apparently that stuff works. He admitted he’s crazy about her.”

Maybelle’s sassy tone suckered Sarah in and she couldn’t resist looking at the woman.

Maybelle’s pale blue eyes lit with delight when they connected with Sarah’s. No doubt she knew she had Sarah under her power, and she’d soon confess everything.

But her friend had a bombshell of her own to drop first.

“Lou asked Rosie to marry him at the end of their sleigh ride.”

Surprise and excitement filled Sarah. “Seriously? That’s wonderful.”

Not looking surprised or excited, Maybelle nodded. “Lord only knows why that man wants to marry her.”

“Did she say yes?”

Maybelle snorted. “What do you think?”

Sarah’s heart sank. “She said no?”