Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 145731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
That’s what I’m picturing in these places. Not me dating him. Not really. Especially since practice-dating him is simply part of my work. And really, what better place to show the man that love doesn’t hurt—that it can heal—than in this town?
At the end of Main Street, I take a right, putting dating behind me.
Time to focus on my family.
I wind through some neighborhoods and up a few curving hills, climbing until the curves become switchbacks. More snow blankets the lawns the higher I go. When I turn onto Elmhurst Lane at last, the snow-capped mountains looming nearby, I’m flooded with fond memories of my childhood.
Mainly pelting my annoying older brother with snowball after snowball. My aim is insane. Jason’s, not so good. I also regularly schooled him in sledding competitions—including official town contests—which I won.
I can’t wait to remind my brother when I see him. I turn into my parents’ driveway then cut the engine. I pop out and draw a deep inhale of the cool, crisp mountain air.
Home.
And this year, I’m in a better place. Well, that’s not hard, considering last year I discovered how I’d been fooled by my ex. I spent the holiday season licking my wounds.
I square my shoulders and shrug off the past.
I take a bite of a snowball cookie and moan. “This,” I say, pointing to the baked good as powdered sugar sticks to my mouth, “is proof that happiness is often directly related to sugar.”
In the farmhouse kitchen, my mom smiles, her brown eyes crinkling at the corners, her highlights glinting in the early afternoon sun. It streams through the windows, casting rays across the blender, the red-and-white canisters of flour and sugar, and the kitchen island—home to more cookies than any one person could eat.
But I might try to hit a cookie-eating record, especially since Mom and Dad are known around town for their prowess in this department. Neighbors whisper for months, wondering what new recipes the Marlowes might debut each year, and if there’s anything anyone can do to make sure they’re on the Marlowe Christmas Cookie Distribution List. It’s the must-have invite of the holiday season.
I take another bite of the shortbread and nearly die of culinary delight.
“Is there anything better than Christmas cookies?” my mother asks proudly, as she unties her Christmas apron and hangs it on a nearby hook.
My dad narrows his brow, like he’s hedging his bets. “I can think of a couple things,” he says, then wraps an arm around her and nuzzles her neck.
“Eww. Gross,” I say, since I’m required to say that when my parents subtly reference sex.
But also? They’re relationship goals. They’ve been together forty years, and they’re still in love. It’s never in question. Their love is obvious in everything they do. In how he holds her hand and looks at her like she’s the star of their show. In how she makes time for him, puts him first, and saves him the best cookies from her batch.
“Bet you’d really think this is gross then,” my dad says, then plants a loud kiss on her lips.
She kisses back, almost, but not quite, melting into the kiss.
I feign a gag. “So gross,” I say, but I also use their distraction to snag a seven-layer bar. How could I not? They left them out on the counter. They were calling to me.
“Young lady,” my mother chides, wrenching apart from Dad. Dammit. Evidently, she has eyes all over when it comes to cookie theft. “I’ll be giving those out tonight to the neighbors.”
“You let me have a snowball,” I point out.
“That was from the sampler platter. We need all the seven-layer bars,” she says, then wiggles her brows. “But I have an idea.”
I give her a look. “Are you really going to make me bargain for baked goods?”
“Oh, she will. You know she will,” my father says warily while busying himself sorting cookies into recyclable Christmas baggies.
Mom wiggles her brows, and Dad slinks by, whispering, “Stay strong.”
Uh-oh.
Mom draws a deep breath. “Here’s my idea, and I think you’ll be rather…chuffed.”
Did my mother just adopt a British accent there at the end? Along with a Britishism? “Okay. Why will I be chuffed?” I ask, my tone laced with skepticism.
“Because as you know I’m friends with Molly Abernathy, and we were all hoping to set you up with her son, Oliver.”
I can usually handle curveballs, and really, I should have seen this one coming. The matchmaker’s parents want to match her. Of course they want to do it over the holidays too. I part my lips to protest, but my defense isn’t remotely ready.
“She likes the idea, Christine,” my father says, pleased, and completely misinterpreting my reaction.
“So much she’s speechless,” Mom says, beaming.
But all I can think is I can’t go out with the handsome, intelligent, charming man since I’m practice-dating Rowan. How can I date the local art history professor while I’m prepping Rowan to find love? Only, how do you say that to your parents? It’s unconventional, to be sure, my practice dating arrangement.