Page 33 of The Mistletoe Kisser

She frowned. “I’m not sure how offended I should be by that.”

“Sorry. Hungover. My internal filter isn’t working yet. What were you glittering?” Despite the throbbing headache, he was surprised that he had the energy to be curious.

“Holiday wreaths.”

“Oh, God. I knew you were one of those obsessive Christmas romantics,” he accused.

“Lighten up, Grinch. It’s for a fundraiser. I fell asleep at the table on some dumb glitter explosion bow. Woke up looking like I’d gotten in a fight with TinkerBell.”

“It’s not a bad look on you.”

Her eyes narrowed in his direction. “You’re imagining me in pasties right now. Aren’t you?”

He sucked in a breath of sharp winter air and choked.

“Wow. I was just kidding,” Sammy laughed.

“I was thinking about… how I need to find someone named Rainbow so I can get out of this sparkly holiday hallucination.”He’d most definitely been imagining her in pasties.

“Rainbow Berkowicz?” she asked with an arch of her eyebrows.

“Is there more than one Rainbow in this town?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“No. I don’t think I would,” he countered.

“She’s bank president. Are you trying to get a meeting with her?” She started for the fence and he followed.

“Not trying. Succeeding,” he insisted. “One meeting with this Rainbow person and I’ll be whining about being hungover on a cross-country flight.”

“That’s the spirit,” Sammy said. Then she wrinkled her perky nose. “Except she’s not taking any meetings until after the holidays.”

“That’s ridiculous. No one runs their business that way,” he scoffed as he fell into step with her.

She shrugged. “Her mother-in-law is coming into town for the holidays and it takes Rainbow a few days before and after the visit to prepare and recover.”

“Are you related? Does she live with you?”

She laughed. “No. Why?”

“I find it disconcerting that you know that much about someone you don’t live with.”

“Welcome to Blue Moon, where everybody knows everything about everyone else,” she quipped.

“It sounds unhealthy. I don’t even know the first names of everyone in my department at work,” he told her. “I’ve only met three of the neighbors in my building.”

“That’s depressing,” she said, strolling toward the fence with her hands in her vest pockets.

“That’s not depressing. That’s normal. It’s called having privacy.”

“Or is it called being too wrapped up in your own agenda to bother getting to know anyone?” she asked. “Around here, we care about each other. We lend hands and bake casseroles and do favors.”

He smirked. “You sound like a docent at a visitors center.”

“Would a docent wear pasties under her vest?” The sound of her unzipping that vest and the ludicrous possibility that shewasn’tteasing him distracted him enough that he nearly impaled himself on a fence post. The air left his lungs on a grunt.

“Serves you right,” Sammy teased. She climbed up on the fence and swung her leg over the top. “Can you get out this way or do you need me to open a gate for you?”