Page 11 of Meet Me at the Christmas Cottage (Jonathon Island #6)

“Wait.” Jonah’s hand wrapped around Bronte’s wrist. They froze, both of their gazes dropping to Jonah’s hand.

A second later he dropped her hand and stuck his in his pockets, as if to keep them to himself.

“I mean. I thought you could…I thought you’d want to help set up and decorate the tree. It’s the best part.”

Jonah looked like a little boy who was asking for a cookie.

“I told you. I haven’t ever decorated anything for Christmas.” Bronte shrugged. “I’ll just be in the way.”

“Well, there’s no time like the present to learn,” Jonah pushed. “I promise you’ll have fun.”

“More than likely, I’ll just mess it all up.

” She hadn’t meant to say that. She’d meant to tell him that she had lots of work to get done and it was better if she left the decorating to him.

There was a reason the saying went You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Thirty-two wasn’t old old, but it was old enough.

Jonah scoffed. “Not a chance.” He stood up a little taller. “I’m not going to force you to come decorate the tree, but I promise you’ll have a lot better time than you’ve been having staring at that computer.”

Bronte looked longingly at her computer. Jonah was correct in his assessment that she’d have more fun decorating than she would working. At this point, she’d probably have more fun getting her wisdom teeth pulled. “Writing is normally the fun thing. I’m not sure what’s happening to me.”

Jonah tried one more time. “Maybe you’ll get some inspiration while we decorate.”

If there was even a sliver of a chance she’d get some inspiration…“Fine. I’ll help decorate the tree.”

“Awesome.” Jonah did a little jig that had Bronte giggling.

Giggling? Bronte didn’t giggle. She bit the inside of her cheek.

“I’ll start getting the tree base put together if you want to check the lights and see which ones work,” Jonah said

Bronte tugged a box labeled lights closer to an outlet and popped the lid off.

If she’d expected a nice, neat string of lights, she had another thing coming.

It looked like the lights had revolted and hosted a rave while locked in the dark side of the attic.

Untangling this mess was going to take her all day.

“Um, Jonah.” Bronte held up a tangle of lights. “Are these supposed to be this way?”

“Holland Renee.” Jonah put his hands on his hips. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told her that she’ll regret putting the lights up that way. She just never learns.”

“Looks like it’s just us regretting it this year. Holland is on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean without a care in the world.”

“This is true.” Jonah abandoned the box he was currently digging through, which Bronte was pretty sure was the IKEA version of an evergreen forest, to join in the quest to untangle the lights. How many strands were shoved in this box, anyway?

Forty-five minutes later, Bronte decided she was done with the whole Christmas decorating thing.

A group of kids was singing “Jingle Bells” through the sound system speakers, and between her and Jonah, they had only untangled four strands of lights—of which only one had all the lights working. Bronte could feel a headache coming on.

Sitting back on her heels, she rolled her neck. “You said this was going to be fun and there was no way I could mess anything up.”

“First of all,” Jonah started, freeing another strand from the mess, then pointing inside the box, “this is not anything you messed up. This is all Holland. And second, you aren’t having fun?

How could you not be having any fun? This is the most fun I’ve had in three months, four days, thirteen hours, and fifty-four minutes.

” Jonah wagged his eyebrows up and down.

“Apparently you need to get out more, and I’m really questioning what it is that you did three months ago that could be as fun as this.”

“Went swimming in a fountain with a beautiful German woman.”

The image of Jonah with another woman tugged at Bronte’s insides. Why should it matter if he had swum in a fountain with a beautiful German woman? She didn’t know Jonah. She’d just met him yesterday. Still, “Oh?” was all the response she could muster.

Jonah bumped Bronte’s shoulder. “She was ninety-seven years old and proving to me that she could still have fun.”

Bronte pushed up from the floor to get out from under Jonah’s gaze. “Ninety-seven, huh?”

“Yep, and I was only swimming in the fountain because she pushed me in first.”

Bronte barked a laugh. “I think I would have paid good money to see that.” She opened a box that contained old Christmas ornaments.

“I bet you would have.”

Popsicle sticks turned to stars. Construction-paper frames with little puffy shapes of trees and reindeer glued on, pictures of young Jonah and his sisters stuck inside. Family memories tucked away in a box.

What would Bronte’s life be like if she had a box like this from her own little ones? If instead of Bronte and Jonah, it was Bronte and her family?

Wait. Where were these thoughts coming from?

She’d decided long ago she’d be better off alone instead of taking the chance she’d end up like her mother, who was very much lacking in all things maternal.

Not like it mattered. Even if Bronte did change her mind, that choice had been taken from her.

Plus, she’d want a good man to raise kids with, and nobody wanted someone as broken as her.

She clenched her jaw. No, a box of family memories wouldn’t be in the cards for her. There was a reason her holiday tradition was just her and her made up worlds. That’s the way she liked it.

“Bronte?” Jonah’s hand on her arm startled her. “Are you okay?”

“What?” She sniffed. “Of course. I’m fine.

” She carefully placed the homemade tissue angel back into the box of ornaments and let the lid fall in place.

“Really. I’m completely fine.” She brushed at nonexistent tears on her face.

“I need to get back to work.” She pushed past Jonah, grabbed her computer, and made her way over to the table.

She didn’t have time for fun. She had too many words to write to take breaks for something as silly as decorating a Christmas tree. She’d already taken enough breaks over the past year.

This was work time. Focus.

If only a certain Army surgeon would stop being so distracting.

Bronte settled into the uncomfortable wooden chair and pulled her laptop close, but she couldn’t help sneaking glances at Jonah as he continued untangling even more lights while humming “Jingle Bells.” A flutter tickled her middle, and she knew she was in trouble.

* * *

Jonah watched as Bronte gathered everything and practically stomped up the stairs. She’d been sitting at the table for almost an hour, heaving sighs at least every ten minutes. Not that he’d been counting.

The Christmas tree was up, and he’d gotten enough strands of lights untangled and working to grace the tree with them.

The rest of the unworking tangled mess he put in a cardboard box to take out with the trash.

Seriously, why had Holland even kept them?

They were probably left over from when they were kids.

Decorating for Christmas had always been Holland’s favorite, and he suspected she had another box of lights—perfectly rolled and all working—hiding somewhere in the attic.

Having put the last of the ornaments on the tree, Jonah stood back to survey his work.

It would do. He put the storage boxes in one another, then stored them in the garage and went about vacuuming up the stray needles that had fallen off the tree.

Whoever said a fake tree was less mess hadn’t seen the twenty-year-old tree Holland White insisted on keeping.

Jonah added a new tree to the list of things he’d talk Holland into purchasing.

He should have sprung for a real tree—not that he was sure how’d he get it to the house in this weather. He hadn’t expected Bronte to say she’d never decorated for Christmas before.

Deciding the living room was clean enough, Jonah switched the music channel over to Die Hard and went about putting together soup for lunch. He fought a yawn. After lunch, he’d take a quick nap to combat this jet lag. Exhaustion had seeped into all his cracks.

While the potatoes, kale, and sausage simmered together in broth, Jonah rummaged around the kitchen for everything to make grilled cheese. Something about snow made him crave soup and grilled cheese. And a cozy nap on the couch.

“This is a good movie. I always have liked Bruce Willis.”

Jonah turned at the sound of Bronte’s voice. “It’s one of my favorites,” he agreed.

Her hair had been down earlier. It was now piled on top of her head in some sort of topknot bun, a pencil sticking from the middle of it.

“Are you always cooking?” Her hands disappeared in the sleeves of her black sweatshirt. Jonah was beginning to wonder if she had any other color in her wardrobe. Not that it mattered or was any of his business.

“What do you mean?” Jonah went from studying her to flipping over his sandwich.

“I came down this morning and you were cooking breakfast.” She pointed a sweatshirt-sleeve-clad finger in his direction. “You’re cooking again. Every time I come down from upstairs, I find you here cooking.”

“It’s happened twice.”

“I’ve only come downstairs twice.”

“Once at breakfast, and now it’s lunchtime. Would you prefer that I let you cook your own meals?”

Bronte chewed on this for half a second before she said, “No, actually. I prefer my food unburnt and edible.”

Jonah’s eyebrows rose. “Not much of a cook?”

Bronte shrugged as she slid onto one of the barstools. “I eat a lot of takeout.”

“What were you planning on doing while you were here? Walking to town for every meal?”

“Martha had given me some take-home boxes.”

Jonah remembered the takeout boxes he had found in the refrigerator. There had been a burger and an order of fries. “You were going to live off a soggy burger and a box of fries?”