Hottie for the Holidays (Three Steamy Holiday Rom Coms)

“I’m not afraid of them,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder as Carter took another left onto Rook Street. “Just respectful of the guilt-inducing power they wield.”

Carter sighed. “I guess that means you’re not changing your mind about closing down the shop and coming with me when I leave town this spring.”

Lula shot him a hard look, her pulse picking up. “You’re still going?”

“I’m still going,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road, guiding the reindeer back onto the Old Town Highway as a police car streaked by in the other direction. “My work here is almost finished. I want you to come with me more than anything Lu, but if you can’t, I’m still going. I have to.”

“But I thought…” she started. “What about—” She broke off, her throat tightening.

“What about what, babe?” Carter asked, sounding as miserable as she felt.

“What about the ring? My aunt said you bought an engagement ring a few days ago.” Lula pressed her lips together, fighting the urge to cry. “I thought that meant you’d changed your mind.”

He cursed softly, “I should have known better than to think she’d keep that a secret. Your Aunt Cathy is a busybody, you know that?”

“I’m sorry,” Lula said in a soft voice. “She didn’t mean anything by it. She was just excited for me, for us.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.” Carter pulled to a stop on the side of the road and turned to her, slipping a small box from his coat pocket and opening it to reveal a perfect little princess cut ring.

“I had a more romantic setting in mind,” he said with a nervous laugh. “But a proposal after a gnome theft is still pretty memorable.”

Lula sniffed, wishing she could get swept up in the moment. But if Carter was still leaving, if he refused to understand that she couldn’t abandon her shop and the town she loved to roam the earth, searching for treasure that might never be found…

“I love you, Tallulah Josephine,” Carter continued. “And I want you to be my partner in every adventure. Will you take this ring and run away with me?”

A sob rose in her throat. “Why can’t you stay?”

“I can’t make the kind of living I want to make here, Lu,” he said, his dark eyes pleading with her to understand. “I don’t want you to have to work all the time. I want to make enough money to give you everything you’ve ever wanted, and the only way I know how to do that is to keep doing what I’ve been doing until a job pays off the way it did for my dad.”

“But all I want is you,” Lula said. “I don’t mind working a lot. I like to stay busy. I’d go crazy sitting around the house, doing nothing all day.”

“And I’ll go crazy if I stay here and never find out what’s waiting for me out there,” Carter said before continuing on in an urgent whisper. “Please say yes, L.J. Come treasure hunting with me. It’s such a rush. I promise you’ll love it.”

“The rush. That’s all you care about.” Lula shook her head, dodging Carter’s hand when he reached for her arm, and jumping out of the sleigh. “Don’t touch me. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think I was enough for you.”

“Lula, please, don’t go,” he called out. “Come back!”

But Lula was already halfway down the street. She ran until she reached the front gate of Tea for Two and rushed through her small front garden, letting herself into the dark shop and locking the door behind her. Upstairs in her apartment, she threw herself on her bed and cried until her eyes felt like they were turning inside out, waiting for Carter’s voice to sound from below her bedroom window. But he never came, and eventually Lula fell into a restless, miserable sleep.

The next morning, she woke to the sound of the phone ringing. It was her mother, telling her that Aunt Louise had suffered a heart attack on her porch the night before. She’d passed away en route to the hospital. Apparently, catching the Gnome Thief in the act had been too much for the old woman’s heart.

Sick with guilt, Lula hung up and called Carter, needing to share the terrible news with him, no matter how angry or hurt she was. But Carter didn’t answer the phone, and when she drove to his apartment near the highway, his roommates said he’d packed his things and blown out of town, leaving no forwarding address.

By the time Lula took her seat at Aunt Louise’s funeral a few days later, she’d given up hope of seeing Carter again. He’d abandoned her, taking all the enchantment with him and leaving her to shoulder the shame and guilt of killing her poor aunt all on her own.