Page 96 of Mistletoe All the Way

Instead, we track down the Maine coon with the tufty ears and eyes that can read your mind. I give him the shot while Chris gives him a treat. It’s not usually a two-person job, but it keeps my mind on work, even though Sal looks at me like he’s saying, Yeah, sure it does.

When we’re done, I head to the town square for the photo op, where the woman with the secretly naughty T-shirt hidden under her jacket waits, with a glint in her eyes, and her phone camera ready.

She hands me the ornaments she made in class. “I know how much you love decorating, Cowboy Vet,” she says dryly.

I don’t love it, but I do it anyway.

I climb a ladder and hang the mini homemade wreaths high on the towering evergreen already draped in lights. Eloise snaps pictures, and so does half the town. I try to ignore the crowd—the phones, the murmurs, the other contestants placing ornaments.

Spotlights have never been my thing. I still don’t like them. I wish I didn’t need them.

But as I hook on the little wreaths Eloise made the day I met her—mason jar lids wrapped in yarn with tiny ribbons tied just so—I find it remarkably easy to tune everyone else out.

Because all I can think about is her.

Her hands twining yarn.

Her quiet concentration.

Her efforts to spread a little joy.

Maybe even make up for the joy she never got as a kid by choosing to be happy, to embrace the holidays. I descend the ladder, and I’m not thinking about this T-shirt I hate.

I’m thinking how much I’m going to miss the woman who made it when I’m gone.

When I reach the snowy ground, she’s not the first to greet me. Henry is setting a hand down on my arm, followed by a gravelly but jovial voice. “What are the chances I could convince you to hang this ornament for me?” He dangles a Rudolph ornament from his index finger.

Seems like helping him out is the right thing. “Sure.”

He looks around carefully, then lowers his voice. “Thanks. I don’t like heights.”

I feel a kinship of sorts. “I don’t like crowds,” I admit, then take the Rudolph, climb the ladder again, and hang the ornament high up on a bough above mine, letting the little reindeer look over the town.

I climb down once more.

“You’re a lifesaver,” he says, then nods to Eloise. “Why don’t you and the lovely lady come over for a drink later?”

I’m taken aback for a second. “How did you…”

“Know?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Some things are just obvious.”

I don’t love to socialize, but I say yes to the invitation because it involves Eloise.

29 O COME, ALL YE HORNDOGS

Eloise

Who wants a jingle fizz?”

The question floats in from my grandma’s kitchen as the new Leslie Odom Jr. Christmas album plays softly on her sound system. We’re in her cottage, which means I’m a little too close to my parents for comfort. But they’re at a firm holiday party—surprise, surprise—so the coast is clear.

“What’s a jingle fizz?” I ask, sinking into the dove-gray couch in her living room.

“And why does it sound dirty?” Noah adds. He’s next to me, but not needlessly cuddly close. Thank god. Over-the-top PDAs make me suspicious.