Eggnog and Candy Canes: A Blueberry Springs Christmas Novella by Jean Oram Page B

never come out.
    “So? Everyone get what they want for Christmas?” she asked, after clearing her throat.
    “Not yet,” Nash replied under his breath. He gave her a look so loaded with meaning that her stomach did a flip and her cheeks burned with anticipation of what he might be thinking.
    Things were getting hot in here, that was for sure.

    * * *
    She probably shouldn’t be making out with Nash in the pantry under the stairs. But his lips were so good.
    And yeah, her pissed-off brother and his wife—Nash’s ex-fiancée, aka Katie’s BFF, aka Katie’s sister-in-law—were cluelessly playing with their son in the living room, which put a tiny bit of a damper on things when Katie thought about it.
    So she didn’t think about it.
    Which was quite easy, seeing as Nash was a killer with those lips of his. All she had to do was tip her head back, wrap her arms around his strong shoulders and go along for the ride. A hot and heavy feeling settled in her gut and she wound a leg around Nash’s hips. In the process her foot bumped a stack of cans on a shelf, sending them banging to the floor.
    Nash let out a pained squawk, which was stifled against Katie’s mouth.
    They stilled, listening for approaching footsteps. Either everyone knew the two were making out in here or they were deaf as could be.
    Right.
    Cue up forthcoming awkward and embarrassing moment, multiplied by the number of family members on the other side of the door. Katie should straighten her Rudolph sweater, head out there with a dusty can of green beans from the back of the pantry and declare that they’d found them at long last. Assuming her lipstick wasn’t smeared all across her face. She was pretty sure it was, actually.
    She grabbed Nash, surprised at how soft his perfect, short hair was as she added another kiss to their growing history. His hands ran up her back, skating in circles as he explored the way their bodies fit together. And that? How they fit together? Awesome. Completely and utterly. With Will it was as though there was always an extra hand in the mix or their lips didn’t quite match up properly. But with Nash…it was like in her romance novels. Real life could mimic her favorite books with this man against her lips. And how incredible was that? It made her want to do wild and crazy things to see if she could play out a whole three-hundred-page love story with her hunk.
    The pantry door whipped open, spilling light into the enclosed space.
    “Are you two for real?” Beth stared at them, her eyes brimming with tears. “Don’t you know I’m pregnant and can’t take this kind of…of…”
    Nash was at Beth’s side in a flash, consoling her, as Katie fought off the sting of being second fiddle. Maybe she should start crying, to see if he’d come to her side. He was the man Katie wanted. He wasn’t Beth’s—why couldn’t they see that?
    Wait. Stop that train before it hurtled off the tracks and hurt someone. Nash was not the man she wanted.
    “Sorry,” she said curtly. “Mistletoe.” She pointed to the garland her mother had strung around the pantry’s small door frame. Walking away, Katie smoothed her sweater, pivoting into the main floor washroom to assess the lipstick damage, so she wouldn’t murder her best friend for snagging Nash’s attention so easily.
    * * *
    There was stomping on the front porch where Oz had cleared a small patch, so people could come and go without a foot or two of snow falling into the entry whenever the door opened. Katie, who had been avoiding everyone by hiding elbow-deep in sudsy water as she tackled her mother’s worst pots and pans, went to the door, hoping her family—and Nash—remained downstairs, where they were checking out her father’s new flooring.
    Katie wiped her hands on a Christmas tree tea towel, peeked out the lace curtain on the small quarter window and almost laughed at how her mom’s lit-up lawn ornaments were leaving eerie glowing patches of evil red and green