Tangled with the Tight End (Evergreen Lake: Under the Mistletoe)

Chapter 1

one

NORAH

As I load boxes of cookies, pastries, and cupcakes into a moving cart, my mom walks through the door. At nearly 55, she looks young, there are some silver streaks in her short hair and the wrinkles on her face have grown more prominent over the last few years.

“Good afternoon, dear.” She marches over and kisses my cheek. She’s lost weight since I took over ownership of the bistro after she and my dad retired, leaving her quite fetching in her jeans and dark blue puffer jacket.

Clearly, she’s not sampling the products as frequently as she used to, and I might’ve taken over that habit as well as the shop.

“Good afternoon to you, too, Mom.” I smile as I breeze past her, adding another white box, labeled Lips & Hips Bistro, on top of the other containers.

The eatery was named Evergreen Bistro, but when I brought it out last year, I changed it to Lips & Hips Bistro and redesigned the logo. It went from a simple gray rectangle to a black oval with ornate hot pink lettering and the silhouette of a sexy female chef.

“On your way to the lodge?” My mom leans against the island and watches me.

“Yes, I’m on my way out the door.”

When she doesn’t say anything else, I turn and study her. Her eyes fill with worry. “What’s wrong?”

She sighs and unzips the front of her jacket to the base of her neck. “We made a mistake selling you the bistro.”

“What?” My heart skips a beat. “Why? I realize I’ve changed some things and added some new menu items, but business is going well.”

I rotate my shoulders as tension shoots down my spine. Not that everything doesn’t ache at this point as I’ve been baking since 3 o’clock this morning and barely had any sleep. “And the shop at the lodge is selling amazingly. It’s only been three months, and I’m making a profit.”

“That’s what’s wrong.” Her face is pink as the heat in the kitchen tinges her cheeks. But she’s in Mom Lecture Mode, so she doesn’t have time to walk to the other side of the kitchen and hang up her coat. “You’re too busy. All you do is work. When your dad and I retired, we anticipated grandchildren to babysit.”

“Well, that’s not happening anytime soon.” I ache to rake a hand through my hair, but I need to get on the road, and with another box left to fill, washing my hands would take too long. And from the sound of this conversation, I’m losing a good ten minutes already.

Unless I can distract her.

“You and Ethan broke up almost two years ago.” She unzips the jacket the rest of the way and sheds the outer garment to expose a thick sweater. The temperature the week before Thanksgiving at Evergreen Lake is cold on the outside and warm on the inside, so it’s prudent to dress in layers. “He was such a good boy.”

A good boy? Seriously? I fight not to roll my eyes and fold my arms over my chest. “He was the one who refused to move back here after college. Did you want me to stay in Las Vegas?” As we talk, I fill the last box with premade sandwiches, soups, and containers of pasta.

“No. No, of course not.” She marches to the wall and hangs her coat on the hook beside mine.

“Besides, he’s married, and they’re expecting a baby.”

“That’s the problem. You should be married and expecting a baby. Eden is married with a one-year-old.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. After all those years of, ‘If your best friend jumped off a bridge, would you do the same thing?’ and now, she’s using peer pressure to force marriage and children on me?

God, my neck hurts. I rotate my shoulders and drop my arms to my sides. “Maybe marriage isn’t for me.” I stomp across the floor, toss my clear plastic gloves into the trash, and shove the hot water on. The water splashes into the stainless-steel sink as I wait for it to change from cold to at least lukewarm before using it.

While I understand her desire for grandchildren, there aren’t many prospects for baby daddies at Evergreen Lake. I’ve known all the men in this town since grade school, and the only one that appealed to me was Ethan McDaniel. We dated from sophomore year of college to our senior year, but he had different goals in life. I missed the quaint small town we grew up in, and he’d rather have bamboo shoots shoved under his fingernails than show up for more than Christmas.

“How about Sawyer?”

I pump the soap lever with so much force that the bottle slips out of my hand, dropping into the sink with a clank. Sawyer Mitchell? He ate glue in kindergarten. Gross.

Okay. Fine. He likely hasn’t eaten glue in twenty years, but still. “That’s not happening, Mom. Just because you’re friends with Sawyer’s mom doesn’t make us a love match.”

As I scrub my hands, I sigh. Maybe that’s what I need, a matchmaking service. Is there a matchmaking service for men looking to start over in a scenic mountain town in Nevada with an ambitious cook? One who loves cream cheese pinwheel pastries of any flavor, cranberry chicken salad sandwiches…and is ten pounds overweight?

And let’s not forget dealing with a future mother-in-law who’s obsessed with her daughter and having future grandchildren.

“He’s a nice guy.”

I glance at the clock above the sink. Shit. I’m late. I should’ve been at the lodge five minutes ago. “We can talk about this later. I need to get to the lodge.” I march over to her, kiss her cheek, and smile. Without my parents, I’d be stuck flipping burgers at a fast-food restaurant. “I love you and Dad. Thank you for always being in my corner.”

Her shoulders relax as she wipes her hands on the front of her jeans. “We’re the lucky ones.”

I scurry around, collecting the last of the merchandise that needs to go to the shop, and toss on my plum-colored coat. The one that makes my mom’s jacket look in style as she shrugs on a spare apron.

“I’ll help Maddie out front.”

“Mom, you don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.” Her eyes narrow slightly. “I might as well work since I’m never having grandchildren.”

Ugh. “Fine. Have fun.” I wave, wheel the cart down the ramp, and load it into the van. The outside of the van boasts a huge replica of my logo which glows with frost under the crisp morning sun that’s breaking over the horizon.

Ten minutes later, I’m climbing the swerving road that leads to the lodge. It’s beautiful. And cold.

I twist the knob for the heater and shiver. It’s always 10 degrees colder up here than it is in town. The lodge is over 150 years old but new owners came along and completely rehabbed it from new electrical wiring to updated windows and refaced logs.

It probably would’ve been easier to tear it down and rebuild from the ground up, but they wanted to stay true to the past.

I ease through the parking lot, which is already filling up for the upcoming holiday, and stop in the unloading zone in front of the lodge. Most of their supplies come in through the back, but my shop is off to the side of the main lobby.

After shutting off the engine, I pocket the keys and open the side door. A blast of cold air whips my ponytail, causing it to smack my cheek. A hat and snow pants would’ve been a good idea. I wheel the first cart to the sidewalk with my mom’s voice still rattling in my ear.

As I travel through the lobby, I wave at Tucker, who’s manning the front desk, and smile at Clarissa, one of the women who runs my shop.

“Hey, Norah.” She grins and moves around the front counter, taking the cart off my hands. “I was about to give up on you.”

“Mom stopped by.”

“Oh….” Her brows arch upward as she chuckles. “That explains it. Did she want to tell you about a new recipe she found for you, or was it the husband thing again?”

I brace my hands on my hips. “Which do you think?”

“Husband.” Her eyes danced as she grasps the cart handle. “Doesn’t she know finding a guy in Evergreen Lake is impossible?” She smirks and waggles her eyebrows. “That’s why I’m up here at the lodge where I can hook a big spender, or just a guy I don’t already know.” She raises one shoulder. “I’m not picky.”

“Right.” I shake my head and turn on my heel. “I’ll be right back.” Clarissa isn’t a gold digger. She’s a sweet, practical girl two years younger than me and knows that the prospects in this town are as rare as finding a specific grain of sand in the desert.

“Ugh!” I smack into something that’s solid and at least eight inches taller than me. The collision knocks the air out of me and is followed by the clatter of something heavy and a litany of muttered curse words.

What in the fuck? I step back as my eyes travel up a man with coal-black hair and piercing blue eyes. Piercing blue eyes that are staring death daggers.

“Watch where you’re going.” The hard angles of his cheeks flex as he barks at me. “Irresponsible, incompetent staff.” The muttering starts again as he rights the piece of luggage that fell off the portable silver rack. The onyx leather luggage has a gold-plated insignia with cursive initials that are indistinguishable from where I’m standing.

“Excuse me.” I straighten my back and tip my chin upward. Here’s Clarissa’s rich fish. He straightens another bag. The man’s hands are freaking huge. Holy cow. I thought Marco’s hands were big. “You came out of nowhere.”

“No.” His eyes snap in clear irritation. “You came out of nowhere. I was on my way to the elevator, and you plowed into me.”

“I’m sorry. I must’ve been thinking about something.”

The man’s chest fills the black ski jacket until it almost bursts at the seams. And those thighs. Holy hell. Don’t look.

“Well, don’t because you obviously can’t think and walk at the same time.”

Asshole. His thighs aren’t worth the attitude coming out of his mouth. I cross my arms over my chest. “Seriously? Are you going to use that line? You probably use ‘Are you a campfire? Because you’re hot, and I’d like s’more’ to pick up women.”

“What?” The muscle in his jaw ticks as the lines above his eyebrows deepen. “What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re old and predictable.” What’s wrong with me? The man is probably only in his early 30’s, but it was all I could think of to insult him. It’s not like I have experience being catty. I typically get along with everyone.

“I’m telling your boss.” He twists on his heel and freezes as a little boy I hadn’t noticed before jumps from sofa to sofa in front of the stone fireplace that takes up the end wall of the lobby. The opposite wall is glass and overlooks the view of everything from the mountain to the lake in the valley below.

“Gino!” The man barks louder at the kid than he did at me. The boy jumps off the sofa and lands on the floor with a howl. “Stop jumping and get over here. Now.”

What an ass. The kid is probably three years old, and this asshat isn’t even concerned about him. I rush over to him, crouch down, and pull the boy to his feet. “What hurts?”

His bottom lip quivers. “My butt.”

“Gino, get over here.”

I whip around and glare at the man. “Wait a second. Let me make sure he’s okay since you don’t have the emotional capacity to show concern for your child or have concern for anything but yourself, for that matter.” A tear slips down the boy’s cheek. They resemble each other but one has emotions and the other is a heartless joke of a man.