Kissing Under the Mistletoe by Marina Adair

Author:Marina Adair
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary
ISBN: 1612185851
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

“I’ll take him,” Gabe said, grabbing for Randolph.

“No.” Regan pulled her shirt back on and snatched the deer by the antlers. “You buy me some time. I’ll hide the deer.”

“Why don’t we just tell them the truth and then this whole mess will be over?”

She jerked her head from side to side.

“Then why don’t I say I had him?”

“I can’t let you lie too,” she said, feeling tears prick her eyes. “And I can’t tell them the truth because then they’ll know I deceived them. I am the webmaster for the Safe Return of Randolph hotline, and ChiChi made me a junior detective on the Where’s Randolph campaign. If they find out that I took Randolph and threw Santa through ChiChi’s rear window, the only three people in town who have been nice to me from day one will hate me.”

Gabe stroked her face and she leaned into his hand. “They won’t hate you.”

“I’ll take him back tomorrow. I promise. I can get Ava to watch Holly.”

Gabe sighed. She could tell he didn’t want to let her go. Or let this charade go on any longer. But she meant what she said. The Mrs. Clauses were the closest thing Regan had come to having a mother figure in a long time. She didn’t want to lose that.

Hugging Randolph to her chest, she ran behind the corkscrew shrub and, making a mental note to join a gym immediately, made a wheezy lap around the building. Darting behind her car, she waited until Gabe approached the orange SUV, then slid Randolph in her trunk, closed the lid, and snuck up her steps.

She shut the front door, emptied her pockets into the Dirty Jar, gave Holly a kiss on the forehead, and hightailed it to the bedroom. Yanking off her hoodie, she pulled on the first shirt she could grab. She was just smoothing out her hair when she heard the doorbell.

“Mommy!” Holly leaped up off the carpet and scrambled to the window. “We have our first visitor.” She peered out the window and started jumping. “It’s Gabe and the Mrs. Clauses.”

Whoops. Regan had started calling them that at home, but she never thought about Holly repeating it. Especially within hearing range.

Regan opened the door and barely had a chance to step back before the three Mrs. Clauses, each in a pink Santa hat, each holding a Christmas offering, and each with a pop-up chair slung over her shoulder, chimed in with a “Merry Christmas.”

All three women stood on the stoop and blinked up innocently at her, and Regan got a bad feeling in her gut. She eased the door a little more closed than open and placed her body between the welcoming committee and the entrance to her house.

“Merry Christmas,” Regan replied, tugging down the bottom of her shirt, which felt like it was creeping up, and hoped she looked halfway presentable. Her cheeks were still flushed and her breath was coming in low spurts. Partly from the jog and partly from Gabe’s magical lips.

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