Page 10 of Meet Me at the Christmas Cottage (Jonathon Island #6)

Chapter Five

S he wanted to scream.

Three hours later, and she only had fifteen hundred words, give or take, to show for it. She backspaced her last sentence. Make that fourteen hundred eighty-nine. She ran her fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp. Her eyes landed on her empty mug. Tea. She needed more tea.

She pushed back from the table, then walked over to the stove and turned the burner on under the kettle.

Jonah had been sitting for a while on the couch reading but had disappeared about half an hour ago and hadn’t returned.

Maybe he was taking a nap. A nap sounded nice.

Maybe that’s what she needed to push through.

Ninety thousand. Ninety thousand. Ninety thousand .

Nope. She definitely didn’t need a nap. She needed to figure out what happened to the Pike sisters.

Bronte opened a package of her favorite tea, then poured the hot water over the bag and slunk back to the table.

The wooden chair was starting to hurt her rear end.

Now that the couch was available, she would move locations.

Maybe the yellow velvet couch held magical plotting powers, and if she sat there, her writing would start to flow.

She looked toward the stairs in the entryway. It didn’t seem Jonah was coming back anytime soon. Besides, he’d forfeited his spot when he’d left. Gathering her laptop, notebook, pens, and fresh mug of tea, she moved to the couch.

Tucking her legs underneath her, she grabbed the cozy, white throw off the back of the couch and put it over her lap before settling her laptop in front of her. This was better.

Okay, where had she been? Oh yes, the part where the mysterious Roarke arrives on the island. Of course, he was the one who was going to crush Marisol’s heart.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Where did she need to go from here? Words. She needed words. The couch wasn’t doing its job.

“Gaaah!” She screamed, picking up her pen and tossing it across the room.

“Aw. What did that pen ever do to you?” Jonah appeared behind her, arms full of boxes. “Having trouble?”

Bronte chose to ignore his question. Her? Having trouble? Psh. She was completely fine. Or would be as soon as she figured out where in the world this scene was supposed to go. “Where did you come from?”

“I was in the attic.”

Bronte’s face scrunched. “The attic? Why?”

“I was looking for these boxes. There are six more in the garage and the big one that holds the tree. I figured since we’re stuck here for a bit, we might as well decorate.”

“Decorate?” Bronte looked around the room. “It seems like your sister has really good decorating taste.”

“Not those kinds of decorations.” Jonah motioned to the boxes in his arms. “Christmas decorations.”

Putting the boxes on the hearth, Jonah turned back to Bronte, hands on his hips. He’d changed from his gray sweatpants and T-shirt into a pair of black joggers and a red hoodie. His socks had little images of Santa and reindeer, and Bronte would have rolled her eyes if they didn’t seem so…Jonah.

“Oh. Right.” Bronte melted a little farther into the couch. Of course it would be Christmas decorating.

She wouldn’t have any part in that.

She turned back to her computer and stared at the blinking cursor. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say the cursor was mocking her.

Looking up, she saw Jonah hadn’t moved, was still standing in front of her, his hands on his hips.

“What?”

“Do you want to help?” His eyebrows quirked in an unspoken challenge.

“With Christmas decorating?” Bronte scoffed. “No, thank you.”

“Come on. You need a break. You’ve been sitting at your computer for hours.”

“As one does when one is writing a book, Jonah.”

Jonah bent his knees and rolled his eyes. “Come on, Bronte. Help me for a few minutes and then get back to writing. You have to take a break at some point.”

Bronte chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t really do Christmas.”

“What do you mean?” Jonah frowned, standing back up. “Do you have some sort of religious objection to it?”

“No.”

“Okay, then how can you not do it?”

“I just don’t. It’s never been that big of a deal for me.

” But if she were being honest, she’d always wanted to know what it would be like to decorate for Christmas.

“Besides, my deadline always falls in January, so I’ve taken to renting a new place every year for the last few weeks of December and holing up to write. ”

“What about your family? Don’t you miss spending time with them?”

“No family. Foster kid.”

“Oh.” Jonah scratched behind his ear. “Well, surely someone invited you to spend Christmas with them. You and Lexi seem close. Or maybe you’ve got a special someone in your life…”

“Ha. Not anymore.” And even when she had, Brad hadn’t invited her to his family holiday functions. Probably should have been clue number one that things weren’t going to work out between them. “And yeah, Lexi invites me over every year. But like I said…Christmas just isn’t for me.”

“Well, I just find that to be unacceptable.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” Her hackles rose, but the big grin he flashed her lowered them again. There was just something really…okay, adorable about him. But adorable equaled distracting, and distracting meant no words on the page. “Ugh. Jonah, I can’t. I need to write.”

“Come on. This is a huge White Christmas tradition. My father’s father passed it to him, who passed it to me, and one day, I’ll pass it to my sons—or daughters. I don’t care, as long as there’s a lot of them.” He cocked his head.

“A lot of kids, huh? I’ve never thought having kids would be all that great.

” At least, she didn’t now that she couldn’t.

Bronte turned back to her computer, glancing at the dismal number she had written for the day.

Apparently, her brain had declared mutiny and decided this was the year the words dried up.

“Big families are awesome. There’s just something so cool about seeing yourself in someone else.” Jonah glanced to Bronte and winced. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. Really.”

“I promise it’s okay. I figured it out and put all my focus into my career. It’s the one thing I could control.”

Jonah nodded. “You never did find out if you had any other family?”

Bronte sighed and slammed her computer shut.

“No other family, Jonah. It was just me and my druggy mother, and then she lost custody of me when I was six and it was just me. Like I said, it’s fine.

I made my own family.” She motioned to her closed laptop.

Except, for now, it seemed that this family was holding out on her.

Jonah stepped back, hands held up in surrender, but even as he backed off, Bronte saw kindness in his eyes. “Fine,” he said, “but I’m not taking no for an answer to the Christmas decorating. You need a break, and this is the perfect way to spend it. Trying something new.”

“You’re Mr. Persistent, aren’t you?” Bronte folded her arms across her chest, as if that would protect her from Jonah’s compassion.

He just shrugged, giving her puppy-dog eyes. Ugh. As if he could get any cuter.

Well, if that was going to be the way of things, she didn’t see what a few minutes helping Jonah with decorating would hurt.

“Fine.” She threw her hands up. “But only for a little bit, and then I have to get back to work.”

Jonah pumped the air with his fist. “Yes! Come on, I need help getting the tree from the attic.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her off the couch.

Bronte frowned at the zing zipping up her arm at his touch. That had to be because she was on her fifth—no, sixth—cup of tea. It had nothing to do with finding this Army man attractive. Not that he wasn’t. Him in his hoodie, joggers, and Santa socks.

Anyway.

Bronte jerked her attention back to following Jonah through the house and into the garage, where the attic ladder unfolded from the ceiling.

A snowmobile sat up on a trailer, and a golf cart was next to it, a charge cord snaking from the back and plugged into the wall.

Skis, sleds, and other snow-looking items leaned against the wall.

“If you want to stand here, I’ll hand down the box with the tree. You’ll just need to guide it down. Then we’ll take care of those.” Jonah pointed to boxes stacked next to the ladder before disappearing into the attic.

Three trips and half an hour later, they had moved all the boxes marked holiday or Christmas into the living room. “It looks like Macy’s holiday department threw up in here.”

“Yeah. The Whites don’t do things halfway. Especially Christmas.”

“It’s going to take forever to get all of these up.” And she didn’t have time for that.

“It’ll be fun. We just need the perfect ambiance.” Jonah grabbed a remote, and with the push of a couple buttons, the fireplace flared to life. Another remote, and Christmas music started playing softly from a surround sound.

“Surround sound? That would have been nice to know when I was watching Star Wars the other night.”

Jonah grinned. “I love that you’re into Star Wars , by the way. Maybe later we can watch my favorite— Rogue One .”

Bronte snorted. “I knew you had good taste, but I’m really surprised you aren’t up in arms that Jyn and Cassian didn’t get their kiss before the end.”

“Let’s be honest. Jyn and Cassian should have kissed at the end of that movie, but they gave us so much more than a kiss. Their whole love story is”—Jonah put his fingers to his lips—“chef’s kiss.”

She found herself shaking her head and smiling at Jonah before she caught herself. She flicked her gaze back to her computer. It wasn’t exactly calling her name, but if it’d had eyes, they’d have been boring into her right about now.

She cleared her throat. “Well, if you don’t need any more help with the boxes…” Bronte thumbed over her shoulder toward the couch. With all the boxes everywhere, she’d need to move back to the kitchen table. “I’ll just…yeah.” She turned on her socked heel.