Sweet Mistletoe

by Elizabeth Bromke

  “Because that would ruin the whole point. A matchmaker who uses her own service? People would find out. It’d work against us. I’m certain. And I want to go lower-tech, anyway. That’s why I’m nervous, remember?”

  “You want face to face. You want the boutique, personalized thing, don’t you?” Shelby asked.

  “I don’t want a boyfriend at all, actually. Not a casual one. Not a serious one. I just want our company to take off. I don’t want to lose our investors. I want to make it through the holidays in one piece with new clients who made resolutions to find love and still keep my clean condo in the city, free from scruffy men’s work boots or sloppily bunched hand towels left on the bathroom sink or—”

  “Wow.” Shelby crossed her arms over her chest. “This is worse than I thought.” A playful grin danced on her lips, but Paisley frowned.

  “Let’s look for new investors,” she replied.

  A smirk took the place of her vice president’s smile. “No, no. I think we can solve this another way.”

  Paisley grimaced. “And what’s that?”

  “Your family lives in West Virginia, right? I vote you take a trip out there. You need a change of scenery. I believe that a change of scenery can do wonders for a girl. Get down to your roots, you know? Reconnect with an old flame or maybe just an old friend.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

  Paisley cringed.

  Family.

  Her parents died in a car crash, and Paisley went to live with an aunt in Appalachia until she could hightail it out of there for college. Her aunt passed just one year earlier. When Paisley met Shelby just before then, that aunt was the family she referred to.

  Now, she was officially family-less.

  She tried for a smile, but Shelby narrowed her gaze on Paisley, seeing through whatever it was she was about to concoct as an excuse.

  Just as Shelby opened her mouth to say something, the company secretary cracked the door open. “Miss Barrett? Miss Calhoun? I have a message for one of you. Or both.” The woman waffled. “I’m not sure who, exactly, but it’s regarding the fundraiser this weekend?”

  Paisley lifted an eyebrow at Shelby. “Fundraiser?”

  Shelby grimaced. “I might have committed Mistletoe to a community fundraiser tomorrow night,” she answered meekly.

  “Community fundraiser?” Paisley turned to the door. “What’s the message, Andie?”

  Nervous, Andie pulled up a square note and read carefully, her voice an apparent imitation of whomever had called and left the message. “The raffle basket must be dropped off by nine o’clock tomorrow morning along with contact information.” Her gaze lifted to the women. “That’s all she said on the phone.”

  Sighing, Paisley thanked Andie then turned her attention back to her vice president. “Care to explain? Which community? What funds?”

  “Okay, so I forgot to tell you, but my hometown is having this amazing gala to benefit the local animal shelter, and my mom said they needed more baskets. I figured we could use the exposure, and it’s a tax write-off, so—”

  “Indigo Bay?” Paisley replied, her mind conjuring images of Paisley’s tiny hometown on the beach. She’d never been, herself, but she couldn’t imagine that a small-town animal shelter fundraiser would do much to fix the current predicament Mistletoe faced. Or rather, the current predicament Paisley faced.

  “Yes, it’s the Indigo Bay Animal shelter,” Shelby answered.

  “And what, exactly, are we donating?”

  Shelby’s eyes lit up as she launched into a detailed overview of this supposed raffle basket Mistletoe had promised to put together. “Okay, sooo… I’m calling our theme: Date Night for Dog Lovers.”

  Paisley sighed. Here they went. Shelby’s enthusiasm for quirky things was an attribute. A benefit. But now wasn’t the time for cutesy stuff. Still, she wagged her hand to hear more.

  “Eek, yay!” Shelby went on. “Okay, so I’m thinking a bottle of champagne, dark chocolate—which we have to be sure to label as human food, of course, since you know it could kill a sweet pup—a few romcom DVDs, candles, a gift certificate to a local restaurant—I’m thinking Sweet Caroline’s simply because it’s such a local fave—doggie treats and toys, obviously, and then, are you ready for this?”

  Paisley couldn’t help but smile and nod.

  “Okay, one free client consultation with Mistletoe and a full month’s subscription.”

  Paisley’s smile slipped as she considered it. “I’m not sure, Shelby. That’s quite a giveaway, I mean—”

  “It’s just one person—one winner, Paisley,” Shelby reasoned.

  “Okay, so if it’s just one winner, what’s the point of the basket? They have to find a date first, right? Who will enter a raffle for a date-night basket if they’re also in need of matchmaking services? And doesn’t our basket then disqualify people who don’t need a date at all? Married couples and so on?” It was a tangle of contradictions. Paisley should have guessed as much.

  “I did consider that,” Shelby confessed. “But here’s the deal. The consult and subscription can be transferrable, you see. That way, whoever wins can pass it off as a gift to a friend or a daughter or son or—”

  “What daughter or son will appreciate that sort of gift?” Paisley shook her head. “I don’t know, Shelby. It’s… messy.”

  “That’s okay, though. We can afford to be a little messy. Remember what Mr. Cook said?”

  “He said I needed a boyfriend.”

  “He said he didn’t care about our marketing strategies. And yes, that, too. Anyway, I already committed us. So, we’re stuck, and if we only do the date night for doggie lovers basket and no business giveaway… then what’s the point?”

  Paisley leaned back in her chair and sucked in a deep breath. At last, she shrugged. “We’ve got nothing to lose. Go ahead.”

  “Perfect!” Shelby squealed. “I have to go then. Oh my gosh, I have to go right now. I need to put the basket together and drive down tonight and—” Shelby glanced up, and Paisley tried to plaster a fresh smile across her face.

  But she failed.

  “So, are you going home to West Virginia after all?”

  Shaking her head, Paisley replied, “No, no. I think I’ll stick around here. I have, um—my book club is having a holiday party next week, you know. And I really could work on our seasonal marketing regardless of what Cook said and—”

  “Oh my gosh, Paisley, I just had an amazing idea!” Shelby cried, leaning forward and gripping the conference table with her bare fingertips. Paisley admired the woman’s ability to pull off a pretty look with so little effort.

  “What?” she asked, suspicious all over again.

  “Forget West Virginia. Forget the app. Paisley Barrett, you’re coming with me. To Indigo Bay! To the gala! And after that, you can come to the Calhoun Family Christmas!”

  Paisley cringed inwardly. Shelby was sweet as Southern pie for the offer. But a foreign gala? A beach town for the holidays? Somebody else’s family?

  It sounded like a nightmare.

  But it was either that or dwell on the fact her current life was already veering toward nightmare territory.

  “Okay,” Paisley answered, sucking in a breath.

  Shelby squealed. “Really? You mean it?”

  A small smile pricked her lips, and she replied, “Sure. I mean, after that, I’ll have to buckle down though. I can’t afford to make it to the other side of December 25 without any prospect in sight.”

  Squeezing Paisley’s shoulders, Shelby narrowed her gaze. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll already have found someone by then.”

  Chapter 4—Knox

  Day one of Christmas vacation and Knox had already been summoned by half of his female relations to help with this or that.

  First, his aunt called at precisely six o’clock in the morning. Knox squinted at the ticking hands of his bedside clock before dragging himself up and stretching awake.

  “Only for you, Aunt Tiny,” he’d mumbled into
the phone.

  While he was at Aunt Tiny’s, his sister Bliss texted him.

  Knox, is there ANY way you could maybe watch the kids while I get ready for the gala?

  Her husband was volunteering to help set up, and she couldn’t set her hair with rascals wrestling at her feet.

  Then, just as he hooked the last of the faux icicles to Aunt Tiny’s eaves, his mother appeared in the driveway, emerging from her straight from the car wash, ruby-red sedan.

  Unlike Knox’s father Bridger—a Texan—Betsy Calhoun was Indigo Bay born and bred. Once Bridger retired from the military, they brought their family back to South Carolina and established a new base near Betsy’s kin in the small town. From that point forward, it was Knox, Bliss, Shelby, and Bragg helping to uphold Betsy’s long-running Christmas traditions. The most important being a week-long preparation for the Calhoun Family Christmas, a blow-out Christmas Eve party so long running and so lavish, it seemed to consume Betsy from August through January. First with the planning and later with the reflecting.

  Knox might have considered his mother’s arrival at Aunt Tiny’s to be a holiday coincidence, if not for the fact she carried a cardboard drink tray with three to-go coffees as she teetered on her heels through the frost-bitten grass toward them, wobbling with every other step.

  “Knox is the best Christmas decorator this side of the Mississippi!” Betsy roared as she neared them.

  He shook his head and started down the ladder.

  “Don’t I know it,” Tiny agreed from below. “Beau used to do mine, but it’s been ages. Ever since the babies started coming, I was left to the dogs, you could say. That’s why these weren’t up on December first, of course. I’ve just been frettin’ and frettin’ over who to ask to help me, and then I pictured sweet little old Knox, and I gave him a call, and now here he is.”

  Knox offered a smile down to Aunt Tiny, who beamed back up at him.

  He didn’t mind helping, but it seemed like his load became heavier each holiday season. As his siblings and cousins grew their families, all that they had contributed before slid on down to the last single man in the family: Knox. And the obligations didn’t just include Christmas, either. Whenever a family member needed a hand with some kind of setup or cleanup, he was the default choice.

  But it was worthwhile. So long as he didn’t have his own lights to string up or his own tree to trim, he could spare a day for those he loved most in the world. They were all he had. And he liked it that way.

  As if on cue, his mama lifted her voice up the ladder. “You know, Knox,” she chirped as he descended and accepted the warm beverage, “we really need to put up our second tree this weekend—I mean, my! Christmas is but a week away! One week! And, honey, your daddy isn’t gettin’ any younger. And what with Bragg off at his in-laws, all Bridger’s got around the house is me.”

  Ever since Knox’s younger brother Bragg had gotten married, their mother had begun using the word “in-law” like a weapon whenever the purpose suited her.

  A weapon against Knox for not having in-laws. A weapon against Bragg for having them and, in some cases, preferring them. And a weapon against Bliss’ husband to warn him against ever using a filthy term like that to describe her. “Just call me Mama Betsy, dear heart,” she’d cooed after Bliss’ wedding.

  “Of course I’ll help you with your second tree, Mama,” Knox grumbled good naturedly. “But in the future, I intend to tell Bragg that if he’s not helping around here, he can just stay with his in-laws until New Year’s Eve.” Knox braced himself against the last several rungs. He knew such a joke might cause a controversy.

  And it did.

  “Knox Lincoln Calhoun,” his mother hissed. “Bite your tongue.”

  He withheld the eyeroll and took a sip of the coffee, wincing as it burnt his tongue after all.

  His mother turned the conversation toward the weekend’s biggest event. Barks and Bows. A silent auction. A celebrity. Other important people. Indigo Bay’s most special Christmas gala.

  Knox promised himself he’d steer clear of the gala and anything else that might get him roped into some Calhoun family drama.

  Anxious to get his chores done for the day, he cut in politely, “Excuse me, Mama,” Knox said. “What time are you heading to the gala? Can I put the tree up tonight? Bliss has me on babysitting duty beforehand.”

  “Put the tree up while the gala’s going on?” Betsy all but fumbled her drink right from her grip.

  “Right,” he replied, shrugging and preparing to extricate himself from the clutches of those two gossips. “I’ll be in and out and home in time to catch Hallmark’s newest Christmas movie.” He threw a wink at his mother, but her mouth pressed into a thin line.

  “Very funny,” his mother answered icily. “You’re coming to the gala, Knox Calhoun. You’ll sit with us, and you’ll take me for a spin on the dance floor, and that’s that.”

  Knox smiled. “I’ll come for dinner, and I’ll make a donation, but that’s it.” He figured he wasn’t getting out of the gala. Not on Betsy’s watch. But that didn’t mean he’d have to hang around all night.

  “Where am I sitting?” Aunt Tiny asked.

  “You’re with us, too. And the VFW, of course. Bridger can’t seem to go anywhere without his old buddies. So, it’ll be the VFW boys, you, Beau and his family, Bridger, Bliss, Knox, and me. Oh, and Shelby. She’s coming in from the city. Oh, honey, did I tell you?”

  Knox started to retract his ladder and get it packed up as his mother pretended to whisper.

  “No, Betsy, what?” Aunt Tiny played along.

  “Shelby has invited a special guest to the Family Christmas.”

  “A special guest?” Aunt Tiny echoed.

  “Her boss.”

  “Oh, Betsy. Is he…”

  But by the time Betsy Calhoun corrected his aunt, Knox had loaded his ladder and waved to them from his truck. He had a full week of Christmas ahead of him, and lingering around to hear about his sister’s hot date was the last thing he wanted to do.

  Chapter 5—Paisley

  The gala had come and gone, and Paisley’s brief day trip down to Indigo Bay was just enough to add even further anxiety to the following trip back.

  She’d managed to keep a low profile there, sequestering herself at a private table from which Shelby flit back and forth. Shelby was her family’s darling and seemed to have a few flirtations ongoing the whole while. Their presentation of the basket was less a presentation and more of a quick drop-off, and Paisley didn’t even have the opportunity to meet Shelby’s family. She basically arrived just before the gala, found her seat, enjoyed a meal and a Christmas carol or two, then slipped back into the night, on the road home with enough time to enjoy a bubble bath, and a few chapters of a romance book as realty television blared in the background.

  The next morning, Shelby had called Paisley frantically wondering where she’d run off to, but it became clear that there was enough drama at the event that Paisley’s early exit wasn’t the biggest issue.

  “Do you know who won the drawing?” Shelby had hissed into the phone excitedly.

  “I was waiting for you to tell me,” she answered, enjoying a little moment of girl-talk.

  “Coach Kern from the high school.”

  “Sorry, Shelby. I don’t know ‘Coach Kern from the high school.’”

  “Oh, he’s just the hottest ticket in town is all. And now I know he’s single,” Shelby’s emphasis was clear.

  “Not interested, Shel—”

  “I’m not talking about you. Sorry to say, Paisley, but you’re not the only one with an itch to find a man.”

  “I don’t have an itch to find a man, I am being forced to find a man,” Paisley reminded her.

  “Regardless, I’m talking about me.”

  Paisley grinned. “Well, in that case. This is exciting news. Are you going to join the app so you can meet him?”

  “I don’t know,” Shelby’s voice fell. “Maybe. Or I may just ha
ng around the right areas of Indigo Bay hoping I come across him. Maybe he won’t need that free subscription. Maybe he’ll find me and he’ll invite me to walk his dog with him on the beach or—” Shelby sighed. “Anything is possible.”

  Happy for her friend, she wished Shelby the best of luck and asked her to keep her in the loop, which Shelby promised she would.

  The whole conversation reminded Paisley that she had one week to prepare for the Calhoun Family Christmas and exactly twelve days to find a serious boyfriend.

  Both timelines were impossible to work with, but something about her vice president’s family Christmas felt particularly daunting.

  Still, she’d taken Mr. Cook’s threat seriously. Her image could use some tweaks. Fewer pairs of high heels, more embroidered sweaters. Less makeup, more calories. Not that Paisley had any interest in letting herself go, that age-old moral issue that hung over any well-meaning woman.

  But would it hurt to go with normal scrambled eggs instead of egg whites? Could she shave fifteen minutes off her morning routine and opt for a hot bubble bath instead of an ice-cold shower, even if the latter did slap her awake.

  And alongside those small vanity measures, Paisley realized she did need to cast her line into the water. See what turned up.

  The only problem? She couldn’t very well cast her line into a competitor’s business.

  So, on nothing more than a whim, she pulled up her phone, logged out of Mistletoe’s admin interface, and set up her first-ever online dating profile.

  She entered the facts of her life carefully. Career—business owner. Hobbies—baking when I have time! Favorite movie—Haven’t been to the theater in a while… Lastly, location. Momentarily, she considered inputting Indigo Bay, South Carolina. But then she remembered that she was going for it. And Shelby’s pea-sized hometown wouldn’t offer enough of a pool. She’d have to stay local, so she selected Charleston.

  All those big questions felt too vague and too narrow all at once. Career and location—did they define her?

  She moved to the physical prompts. In Mistletoe, these were crucial. Their choice to keep the app photo-free meant that the blind date part of the experience could be a problem. As she’d written in her welcome email sequence to new clients, she knew to stay as honest as possible.