Hottie for the Holidays (Three Steamy Holiday Rom Coms)

“Oh, Lula…” Carter reached out, pulling her into his arms.

But she put her hands on his chest and pushed him away. She didn’t deserve comfort and neither did he. “We killed her,” she said. “We killed my aunt with some stupid prank, and that’s why I am the way I am. That’s why I’ve made the decisions I’ve made and become this pathetic person I’ve become.”

Carter scowled and his eyes hardened. “Hold on a second. We didn’t kill anyone, and you’re not pathetic.”

“Yes, we did. And yes, I am,” she said, fighting the tears pressing at her eyes. “You don’t know me anymore, but the people in this town do. Go ask around and learn the truth. Then see if you still want to spend time with an old stick-in-the-mud like me.”

Lula wrenched the door open and slammed inside, flipping the lock behind her and ignoring Carter’s call for her to come back. She pounded up the stairs to her apartment, tears streaming down her cheeks.

In truth, she’d mostly forgiven herself for Aunt Louise—she hadn’t meant any harm or realized her aunt’s health was so fragile, or she never would have laid a finger on Louise’s gnomes. So that wasn’t really why she was upset. She didn’t know exactly what or who to blame. She only knew that she felt miserable and deflated, like a balloon lying in a sad rubber puddle on the floor.

When she closed the door behind her at the top of the stairs and turned to face her reflection in the full-length mirror on the opposite wall, the sight of her tear-streaked face was strangely surreal. She stepped closer to the pale, fragile-looking woman in the glass, feeling like she was seeing herself clearly for the first time in years.

When had her cheeks grown so thin? When had she started dressing in over-sized clothes that hung shapelessly on her body? When was the last time she’d cut her hair or done anything just for the sake of feeling pretty and proud of the way she looked?

She’d been treating her body like an old car she used to get from place to place but didn’t truly care whether it lived or died or if she vacuumed the old peanut shells off the floorboards. She’d been ignoring the aches and pains that had crept into her bones as she stopped exercising and started spending long hours hunched over her crafting table. She’d turned a blind eye when her split ends grew split ends and pretended she didn’t notice the frown beginning to crease the center of her forehead.

Looking at her reflection now, she saw a woman at a crossroads. Down one road lay more long nights alone, more hunching in her shoulders and hollowing in her cheeks, and the early old age she’d taken as a matter of fact just a few days ago. But down the other road…

She didn’t know what lay down the other road, and that was the reason she’d pushed Carter away and locked the door behind her. She was terrified of that other road, terrified of the uncertainty and the risk, and what would happen if she let herself believe in second chances.

But maybe, she thought as she wiped the tears from her cheeks, she was even more scared of the road she had already been traveling: the one with so little love or laughter, with no one who wanted to hold her close or banish the shadows from her heart.

6

Carter

Day two of the twelve days of Lula and Carter was an epic failure.

Carter waited on Tea for Two’s front stoop for more than an hour, but the noon opening time came and went, and the shop remained dark. Lula didn’t come downstairs or answer his calls. Finally, a little after one, he admitted defeat and returned to his hotel room.

He continued to call the shop line all day—cursing himself for not getting Lula’s cell number—but every call went to voicemail. Lula was avoiding him. Under normal circumstances, he would have given her some space for a day or two before trying to resume contact, but he only had twelve days.

Besides, he hadn’t liked the look in her eyes when she’d left him on the front porch. He was worried about her. So come six o’clock, when he stepped into the early winter darkness to see all the lights in Lula’s shop and apartment still dim, he decided to reach out to her cousin, who Lula had said owned a lingerie shop just down the street.

Lavender and Lace was closed when Carter arrived, but the lights were on, and when he rang the bell, Mia appeared at the front door almost immediately.

“Hello there,” she said, smiling up at him. “Your ears must have been burning. We were just talking about you.” She waved him inside. “Come on in. Lula got here about an hour ago.”