25 Reasons to Hate Christmas and Cowboys by Elle Thorpe

Author:Elle Thorpe [Thorpe, Elle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: www.ellethorpe.com/newsletter
Published: 2019-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

11

Isabel

Johnny held my hand and steered with the other, crawling through the suburban streets of Two Creek Plains, pausing at each house that had entered the light competition. He had the heater cranked, and he’d found me a blanket that I had draped over my knees. I was warm and comfortable and Christmas music played softly in the background. Resting my head back against the seat, I stared out at the beautiful lights that decorated almost every house we passed.

“Careful there. You look like you might actually be enjoying this.” Johnny glanced over at me with a grin. “You keep staring out the window like that, and I’m going to declare myself the winner of our bet.”

I sat up straighter. “What bet?”

“Remember? The one where I right all your Christmas wrongs, and you owe me a prize? No wheedling out of it now, just ’cause the Christmas bug bit ya.”

I screwed up my face and scoffed at him. “Not a chance. Once you’ve moved to Grinchtown, there’s no coming back. We have great Christmas bug repellent round here.”

Johnny gave an overexaggerated nod. “Sure, sure. You keep telling yourself that.”

I bit my lip to stifle my smile. He was right. I’d never been this into the holiday season. I’d never been one to bake cookies or decorate my house or listen to Christmas carols. But I’d done all those things in the past few weeks and Johnny had made each one fun. Christmas wasn’t like this in Sydney. It was all hustle and bustle and commercialism and drinking and parties. Two Creek Plains was all community and family and snuggling by the fire with a good book…it was just wholesome in a way that I’d never experienced before.

I didn’t have to admit that I liked it though. I wasn’t about to let Johnny think he’d won, even if he’d been winning me over every day since he’d set foot in my store.

Johnny tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “You mind if we ditch the convoy? I want to get back to my place and make sure everything is perfect before the judges get there.”

“Sure. Don’t you want to see Charlie’s display though? The other houses we’ve seen so far are nice, but they got nothing on yours.”

Johnny steered the truck around the parked cars and accelerated down the road. “His place is on the way. We’ll stop by first.”

We were only a few minutes out of town when Johnny slowed the car again and I blinked up at the big house covered in the most lights I’d ever seen in my life. “Holy crap. Charlie’s house I assume?”

Johnny nodded. “I know it’s cold out…”

“But you want to sneak in and get a proper look?”

He nodded, killing the headlights.

I unclipped my seat belt and hopped out, my boots crunching in the built up snow at the edge of the road. We met in front of the hood, then wandered toward Charlie’s house. The gates were open, with a “Please come in, and look around” sign stuck to the metal bars, which made me feel better about snooping.

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