Page 5 of Scrooged All The Way

Almost.I just had to be patient a little longer.

Even the sun seemed to be as greedy I was to see her. It shined a little brighter just as she appeared, stepping out of the library surrounded by the happy smiling kids she read to.

It was my favorite part of my Thursdays.

The one and only day I let myself come into town during the day. I watched her smile and hug the kids before she waved goodbye while they ran to their parents, each one carrying some kind of ornament I was sure she had helped them make.

Her blonde hair was longer than she’d worn it when I first met her, now hitting the center of her back in waves, cascading over her shoulder like glimmering gold. She was so damn pretty every day, but today’s outfit had to be my favorite.

With Christmas around the corner, by the looks of it, my girl was ready to celebrate. She wore a red long-sleeved turtleneck sweater that hugged her curves and had paired it with a green and red plaid pleated skirt that hit a couple of inches above her knees. Her legs were covered in red tights and black leather booties that brushed her ankles. She waited there long after the kids were gone as she looked around, and my gut twisted. I wondered if she was waiting for someone.

She chewed on her lower lip, and my body craved to do it for her. Her shoulders slumped slightly, as if she was disappointed whoever she had been waiting for didn’t show up. I frowned as this ugly thing in my gut started to grow to life. What if someone had slipped in while I was busy trying to keep my hands to myself?

Something about that thought had me starting my truck. If I weren’t busy looking over my shoulder when I reversed, I would have noticed my girl’s eyes shined to life.

Not because someone else had shown up, but because she’d noticed me.

2

JUNIPER WINTERS

“And then what happened?” My best friend, Rory, asked. I watched her grab an apple from our small kitchen before making her way to our living room to sit down at her end of the couch.

“Nothing,” I sighed, dropping down on my couch. I avoided looking at her because I knew what she was thinking.

“Maybe…” she started to say, and I made a face. “I think this crush of yours—”

“Rory. It’s not a crush,” I argued and glanced at her. Sure enough, Rory shot me a look like‘really?’

“Babe, you’ve talked to him what, once?”

“Twice,” I corrected, and she rolled her dark eyes.

“In three years!” She laughed and shook her head. “And when you met, you were dating his son.” She loved to remind me of that fact.

“I would hardly call letting Randy hang out at the toy drive and a movie dating. It was hanging out at the most. And I was going to let him down gently after baking him some cookies.”

“You should have told him to go to hell when he tried to paw at you during that bonfire!” This wasn’t the first time Rory had said that, and I knew she was right. Aurora Rangel was usually right, not that I would ever willingly admit that to her. “You’re too nice for your own good,” she huffed, again not the first time she’d said that.

But I wasn’t as nice as she thought I was.

There was no way I could be because as she’d pointed out, I’d been crushing hard on my sorta ex-boyfriend’s dad for way too long.Three years.My eyes dipped to the screen on my phone, and I sighed.

It was almost the third anniversary of the night everything in my life changed.

Of the night I’d met him and had fallen head over heels in love. All with one look and a short car ride home. I’d regretted not taking him up on his offer of baking cookies and ordering pizza.

The possibilities of what could have happened that night were the fuel for my nightly fantasies.

After meeting him, I did everything I could to accidently bump into him when I was in town. Then, last year, on the anniversary of meeting him, I’d pulled over on a road I knew he took after work with hopes he’d stop if he noticed my car.

Which he had.

Once again, I had ridden in a truck next to him. I’d babbled on and on and even invited him to my birthday party. One that didn’t exactly exist, but because it was my birthday, I’d talked Rory into hanging with me there until a little after ten when she called it quits and we headed home because he didn’t show up.

I could have sworn that the attraction I felt was a two-way street. That the way he watched me from afar on Thursdays wasn’t just my imagination playing tricks on me. That the little things that seemed to happen to make things in my life a little better weren’t somehow because of him.

I would have put my life on the line with the way I felt like someone was watching me when I was in town—not in a creepy way, but in a cherished one—was because of Dash. But the more time passed, almost three whole years, the more I was starting to lose hope. Maybe my grinch-like older mountain man wasn’t interested in me.