Sweet Mistletoe

by Elizabeth Bromke

  “Wait a minute.” Shelby held up her hand and studied him closely. “You had a date for Christmas Eve…”

  “Yes. Well, not a date—we were just going to meet—”

  “And you stood her up. Inadvertently stood her up. Because of Dad’s heart attack.”

  He couldn’t read her tone or her expression, so he just shrugged. “Yes.”

  Shelby nodded slowly, her gaze drifting past him to the ocean as she lowered her voice to a murmur, recanting his confession. “You had a blind date from Mistletoe on Christmas Eve, and you stood her up, because we all rushed to the hospital with Dad.”

  Confused, he nodded along. “Yes. But like I said. Not a date. I just—I wanted to bring someone to the party so Mom wouldn’t hound me. That’s it. But I feel bad, you know, and so I’d like to reach out to her and explain myself. But not over chat; that’s just… tacky, I think.”

  Shelby turned to look at him, her eyes narrow slits. “You stood her up. Your Mistletoe date. On Christmas Eve?”

  He looked right then left and nodded again. “Yes, but like I said—it wasn’t serious, Shel. I just needed a date, but I wanted to—”

  She held her hands up. “I understand. I completely understand.” Her eyes shimmered, then she frowned again. “But what does this have to do with New Year’s Eve?”

  “Okay, well, I’m willing to make a deal with you.”

  “Go on.” Her look of suspicion returned.

  “I’ll bring Dad to my place on New Year’s Eve. I’ll get him all set up. I’ll watch football highlights with him—whatever… if you can help me track her down.”

  She crossed her arms smugly. “You’re asking me to look up private contact information on one of our clients. Don’t you think that crosses a line, Knox?”

  “Oh, yeah, no. No, no. You don’t need to… give me her phone number or anything. Um,” He drew the back of this hand across his forehead, despite the brisk breeze. “Maybe you can just find out where she would be at a certain time of day. And I can bump into her?”

  Shelby let out a sigh, and a smirk curled up the side of her mouth.

  He shook his head, letting out a breath he’d been holding since he’d arrived back home. “You know what? Forget it. It’s not worth it. Like I said. I don’t know her. It was just a—it was nothing.” He pressed his hands together in mock appreciation. “Forget I mentioned it.”

  Then, he turned to leave.

  “Wait.”

  He paused.

  “I can help, but first you have to promise to take Daddy.”

  Chapter 23—Paisley

  Even though she took a hard stand with BeachBum, he kept creeping into her brain like a dream she couldn’t shake.

  All it proved was that Paisley was desperate for a date. Even if she didn’t need a serious boyfriend to satisfy Mr. Cook and the fine people holding the purse strings, she could use a night out with a handsome man.

  Of course, who knew if BeachBum was handsome to begin with? Maybe Shelby was right, and he was a weirdo. Maybe that’s why he didn’t meet her.

  Still, she felt a pang of guilt for shutting him down so completely.

  It was important that Paisley shake him out of her mind and refocus on the New Year’s Eve party. It could be her saving grace, anyway. Maybe she didn’t need a boyfriend to save her company. Maybe she just needed a good handful of holiday success stories. Certainly, if Mr. Cook saw that Mistletoe was moving into the new year with some solid testimonials and a talk-of-the-town event… he’d have to renege on the threat he’d made to her.

  But there was no party without a venue. Shelby said she was working on that right now, as Paisley sat uselessly in her office, scrolling through ads and confirming new subscribers and doing the little menial tasks the tech and marketing teams would be doing if they weren’t off for the holidays, snuggled up in cabins for their mountain getaways, ski trips, and all the amazing things a person could do when they had people to do things with.

  She let out a sigh and glanced at her phone.

  A new text.

  It had better not be BeachBum. Not after she formally told him she had no tolerance for what he’d done.

  It wasn’t, though.

  It was Shelby. Knox just got here. Gonna talk to him and call you ASAP. Mom says she’ll withhold his inheritance if he won’t comply…

  Paisley laughed. The Calhoun family unit sure was a boisterous bunch. No doubt about that. Being on the outskirts of their family felt like falling in love with a favorite TV show or a soap opera. Lovable characters with a few aggravating ones thrown into the mix for comedic relief. Bridger being the antagonist. Betsy the over-the-top Southern mom. Knox the enchanting prince…

  She shook the thought and focused on her screen.

  With a bit of time to kill, she played around with some e-Invites and ad copy for the party. Just in case.

  This just in! Santa is making a second stop before the New Year. Just thirty minutes south of Charleston, he’s ready to refill your stocking…

  Ew. No.

  Missed your Christmas kiss? Round two starts at 9 o’clock on the beach. Mistletoe invites you to join us for our first-ever holiday mixer. BYO holly berries.

  Eh. Even weirder.

  Feeling lonely this holiday season? Mistletoe Matchmaking invites you to join us for our first-ever holiday mixer, After the Mistletoe. Take a sleigh ride down south for our festive countdown. Sweet singles welcome!

  She reread the words and nodded to herself just as her phone chimed to life.

  Scrambling to answer it, she nearly knocked the darn thing clear across the room. “Hello?” she gasped into the phone, her heart pounding to hear what Knox had to say.

  “Whoa, Nelly,” Shelby replied. “It’s just me. Not BeachBum.”

  “I didn’t think you were him,” Paisley replied lamely. “I’m working on some ad copy in case we move forward on this. I mean, we need to push this out yesterday. It’s cutting it close, Shelby. You know?”

  “Well, are you ready for this?” Shelby asked, her voice teasing.

  “Yes…” Paisley’s answer drew out over several beats.

  “I had a long talk with my brother. Knox.”

  “I know his name,” Paisley answered, her eyebrows knitting together in suspicion.

  “I mean, we really talked, you know?”

  “Mhm.”

  Shelby went on, “Anyway, it turned out that he needs a favor from me, too.”

  “What kind of favor?” Paisley’s heart thumped in her chest, ridiculously. Knox was Shelby’s brother. He was taken, apparently. Handsome as a devil, but taken and a brother, and probably nothing like BeachBum, who could string together a stupid sentence like a poet and was probably some fraud with a fake account, luring girls under false pretenses.

  “It’s a brother-sister thing,” Shelby replied.

  Paisley’s heart sank. “Oh. Right. Sorry to pry.”

  “No, no.” Shelby’s voice lifted her back up. “The good news is that I got him to take our dad on New Year’s Eve. So, the house is ours. The party is on.”

  “The party is on,” Paisley repeated, opening her draft back up on the computer screen. “That’s great!”

  “There’s only one catch, though.”

  “Oh, come on. What?” She hated to be short with Shelby, but this was getting ridiculous.

  “It’s my mother,” Shelby answered. “She says you need to come stay here this week. She says if we’re putting on a mixer, then she needs all the help she can get.”

  “Of course I’ll help,” Paisley answered, affronted. “I’ll do everything! But I can commute. No need for me to take up space, especially with your dad in his condition and—”

  “She won’t take no for an answer,” Shelby said.

  “Shelby,” Paisley lowered her voice, “I don’t think I can survive that long in Indigo Bay.”

  “What’s wrong with Indigo Bay?” Shelby asked.

  A lot, was what Paisley wanted to sa
y. A good-looking brother. The reminder of the date that never was. A well-meaning café owner who took pity on Paisley. A lack of easy access to the office, her escape. And an extra thirty-minute drive away from BeachBum—who lived in Charleston and would maybe fight for her. Who knew? Maybe she’d turn desperate enough to take back a guy who stood her up? “It’s not Indigo Bay. It’s any small town. I can’t survive in a small town, Shelby. I’ll just help during the day and come home at night. It’s fine.”

  Shelby huffed over the line. “Honey, if you can’t survive a few days in a small town, you’ve got bigger issues than being in a small town for a few days,” Shelby pointed out then added, “I’ll see you tonight. Pack your party dress.”

  Chapter 24—Knox

  After he shook on the deal with Shelby, their mom came out of the kitchen with a tea for Knox and a hot cocoa for his sister, and they disappeared back inside to call the president of the company and coordinate party-planning efforts.

  All of it sounded brutally painful to Knox, so he saw himself out, promising to be back the next day to check on his father.

  But he didn’t get far when his phone rang.

  Beau.

  “New Year’s Eve plans. What are they?” Beau jerked the conversation immediately into gear.

  Knox blew out a sigh. “Babysitting my dad, apparently.”

  “Babysitting your dad? And what does that entail?”

  “Who knows, Beau? By the thirty-first, I’m just hoping I can run out for a burger if I want.”

  “That bad, huh?” Beau’s voice dropped low.

  “Actually, no. He’s doing fine. Stable. His doctor made a house call this morning if you can believe that. The meds are paying off, as are the non-stop re-runs of Green Acres.”

  “Oof. So, it is bad.”

  Knox let out a short laugh. “Naw, really. If anything, he’ll come out of this a better person. My mom took away his bell before lunch, so now he’s totally helpless.”

  “You mean you think he won’t be a control freak anymore?” Beau referred to Bridger’s most prominent character flaw. It could be an attribute in the military, but dictating the lives of those around him had turned relationships sour.

  “Think of the doctor-mandated bedrest as exposure therapy. That’s what I said to my mom. And that’s when she snatched his bell and told him he ‘could watch Green Acres for the next five years and see if she cared. She had more important things to do.’ And that’s a direct quote, by the way.”

  Beau laughed. “To be fair, Betsy Calhoun does have more important things to do.”

  “Oh, yeah? Like what?” He didn’t mean to be scornful but from his vantage point, his mother had concerned herself mainly with the home and hearth and Bridger. And what with the home impeccable and the hearth fire burning, and Bridger laid up…

  “May told me about the party.”

  “Oh, good Heavens,” Knox groaned. “How do they do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Share information faster than the speed of light?”

  Beau grunted something about small-town women and their natural-born instinct to spread the good word before adding, “So, anyway, are you going to this thing?”

  “What, the matchmaking party?”

  “Yeah. May says it’s called Under the Mistletoe.”

  “No, it’s After the Mistletoe,” Knox corrected.

  “Oh, right. Well, are you going or aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not going. Like I said, I’m on Dad duty.”

  Beau replied, “Oh, well, me too. In a different way. I guess they got May on cocktail duty or something. Or maybe it was spiced cider. They used a bunch of fancy Christmas words. Who knows what those women are up to.”

  “As long as they don’t drag me into it, I don’t care,” Knox declared. “I’m done hanging lights and trimming trees. Time for a new season, don’t you think?”

  “Aw, heck, naw. Now I disagree with that. I love Christmas. I could leave my lights up all year ‘round. Really, I could. But anyway, did you ever get in touch with the gal from the dating app?”

  Knox cringed inwardly. He wished he could just drop the whole thing with Beau. Blowing out a sigh, he answered, “Yes and no. We had a brief exchange, and she doesn’t give second chances.”

  “Ouch,” Beau replied. “Well, do you really want to be with someone who doesn’t give second chances, anyway?”

  A frown shaped Knox’s mouth as he considered the point.

  No.

  As a matter of fact, he hardly wanted to be with someone at all. And least of all with someone with so little compassion. Maybe he could move on from CarolinaGirl after all. Maybe they would have made a bad match.

  Chapter 25—Paisley

  That evening, Paisley showed back up at the beach house at precisely eight o’clock with one suitcase and two duffel bags and a spark in her heart. She wasn’t thrilled about bunking up in Fort Calhoun for a week, but at least she’d have complete control over the party planning.

  Earlier, they’d pushed new ads through on social media, alerts to the clients via email and in-app messaging, and even convinced their marketing rep to launch a physical flyer campaign. The stack would be hot off the printers by noon the next day, and a courier would drive them down to Indigo Bay.

  All of it was happening quickly, and the biggest monster they would be up against were singles with previous plans, so Paisley prayed Betsy and Shelby would design a party so sweet, it might immediately convince potential clients that their night would be better spent thirty minutes south… in a small town where, instead of a ball drop, they’d have to make do with sparklers in the sand around a bonfire. To Paisley, it sounded quite preferable.

  “First things first,” Betsy Calhoun announced as she slid two steaming mugs of coffee across the bar. “I get to know Miss Paisley.”

  “Mom,” Shelby groaned. “We don’t have much time for introductions.”

  “No, no. If I’m part of the Mistletoe team, I need to know what makes my boss tick. What drives you, Paisley? Where do you come from, and where are you going?”

  Paisley paled at the question, hesitating just briefly before she managed a smile and replied, “Well, okay then.” And with that, she let out a breath and launched into what could only be called her origin story. How her parents were in a car crash when she just a little girl. She’d been at the babysitter’s. Her aunt flew into town for the funeral, then some days later, collected Paisley up as if she were a little lost puppy and herded her back to West Virginia, where they lived out the rest of Paisley’s childhood.

  The disruption to her life was so great, she retreated inside herself entirely, thwarting convention in favor of reclusion for so long that by the time she got to college, she was confused by the hyper social world. Confused, but intrigued. Curious. Interested.

  “Studying math and science insulated me, but just attending classes and walking across the quad, I remembered what life was like before my world ended.”

  Betsy and Shelby sat rapt, neither one familiar with such personal tragedy.

  “A few of my classmates asked me out, and we’d go, but I always felt like I was settling. I made girlfriends, and we’re still in touch, which is nice. They’re the ones who pushed me to go on dates. But they were also the ones to remind me that I deserved the best I could get. It was a mixed message, you know? I had that in my head plus my aunt’s adages about setting a high standard… and I think, in the end, it was too high.” Paisley blinked, as if a spell had broken. “Maybe it still is.”

  Betsy squeezed Paisley’s hand. “I can understand that, sweetheart.”

  “But what about changing careers? I’m just as interested in that as I am your love life. Or lack thereof,” Shelby asked.

  Paisley snorted. “Gee, thanks.”

  But Shelby’s face only hardened. “No, I’m serious, Paisley. From software to matchmaking? Was it just the tech side you were interested in?” She paused and pressed her hand to her heart
. “I mean I personally love love. I love it in every shape and form. I love to go on dates—first, second, and third—I love to hear about other people’s dates. I’ve always been a matchmaker.”

  Betsy jumped in. “She introduced both her sister and her brother to their eventual spouses, you know.”

  Paisley frowned. “Really?”

  “Mhm. That’s right. But I won’t do that with Knox. No, sir.”

  “Why not Knox?” Paisley asked strictly out of curiosity.

  Betsy answered on the heels of an eyeroll. “Shelby set Knox up with her best friend. They were young—too young, I s’pose. Fresh out of high school for the friend and fresh out of college for Knox. He broke her heart, and Shelby never has forgiven her brother.”

  “Oh,” Paisley replied, still bewildered at the scope of such a grudge. That she would have wanted Knox to end up with that girl, whoever it was. Not that she wanted to be set up with Knox. But she was surprised.

  Shelby must have caught the confusion in her expression because she added, “I have forgiven Knox. Don’t listen to her.” She hooked a thumb at her mother. “But after that, my so-called best friend decided all Calhouns were evil. It was a big event. A falling out, if you will, and I held it against Knox for years. Unnecessarily, I’ll admit. But I realized then and there that having hard feelings against my own kin wasn’t worth a billion bucks. So I decided to leave him alone.”

  “I still bug him about it. All the time. So does Bridger. We don’t want Knox some wound-up weirdo bachelor with nothing more than gray-haired Hickory and a stack of papers to grade. We want him happy just like the rest of the kids. That’s why when Shelby told me that Knox—”

  “Mama, hush,” Shelby snapped. “If I told you once, I told you twice. Zip it and leave it be.”

  Paisley frowned. “Leave what be?”

  “Nothing. Mama would have loved to set the two of you up.” She flashed a glare to Betsy. “But it’s a conflict of interest, and we aren’t meddling with Knox’s love life, especially not if it has to do with my boss.” She tried for a laugh, but it fell flat.