It took Mackenzie less than forty-eight hours to seriously regret agreeing to steer the Starbright Festival plans. If the binder of doom wasn’t enough, Debra also sent over another box worth of notes and files, covering everything from the regulations on twinkly light displays (white, yellow, and blue were allowed, but apparently pink was forbidden), to the size of holiday trees that should be ordered, and even a file of potential Santa Claus actors ranked on beard length, friendliness, and their CPS background check. By Friday morning, she was meeting with the Mayor, trying to take notes fast enough to keep up with his enthusiastic plans.

“The Cape usually gets over sixty thousand visitors in December alone,” Albert said excitedly. “But this year, I really want us to hit the big one hundred.”

Mackenzie gulped. “That’s . . . ambitious.”

“There’s nothing like it!” Albert declared. “The Starbright Festival celebrates every religion and race, all coming together to share the magic of the holidays. And you know, tourism is the engine that keeps the Cape alive,” he said over the top of his half-moon glasses. “Every person through that square doesn’t just come to marvel at the lights, they book a hotel room and buy dinner and gifts for everyone back home.”

“You don’t need to convince me,” Mackenzie said, pausing to flex her hand. It had cramped from taking so many notes for her to-do list. “I get half my business during the holidays.”

“And it’s that kind of creative, entrepreneurial spirit I know will make this year’s festival a huge success!” Albert stood, and Mackenzie took that as her cue, too. “If you need anything, let me know. Now, what do I have next?”

“Chamber of commerce,” his secretary Franny said, appearing briskly in the doorway. “Over in Provincetown.”

“Ah, that’s it! What would I do without you?”

Not much, Mac was sure. Franny was the secret power behind Town Hall, and had outlasted every mayor since before Mac could remember, quietly ruling from behind her non-descript secretary’s desk. Once, a newly-elected mayor had decided to try and shake things up and brought in some highly-trained administrative assistant for the job. She’d lasted three months before losing her position in a surprise recall vote—that was a surprise to nobody.

Now, Mackenzie knew, if there was a secret to successfully pulling off this gig, Franny had it.

“Is that a new scarf?” she asked, following Franny back to her desk. “I love the color.”

“They’re in the basement.”

“Excuse me?” Mackenzie blinked.

“Supplies from last year,” Franny said, giving her a knowing smile. “That’s what you’re after, isn’t it? Not sure what state they’ll be in, but you’re welcome to go down there and figure it out.”

“Thank you,” Mackenzie breathed. She’d caught a glimpse of the budget line, and wasn’t sure how she was supposed to equip the whole town with festive cheer for such a small amount. “I figured all that fake snow had to go somewhere.”

That somewhere was the second-level basement, deep below the town hall. Mackenzie ventured down the staircase, her enthusiasm dimming as she made her way past clean, bright storerooms, down into the dusty, dark depths of the basement. A dim gloom greeted her, and she fumbled around until she found a light switch. The bulb flickered ominously overhead.

“I’ve seen this movie,” she said to herself, shivering. “It does not end well.”

But she was a grown woman. She wasn’t afraid of the dark. She squared her shoulders and set about hauling down boxes marked with Debra’s familiar scrawl. “Tree decorations,” she read aloud, coughing as a cloud of dust billowed up from the box. “Menorahs. Sex toys.”

Wait, what?

Mackenzie gingerly peeled open the tape on that one, not sure what she would find. To her relief, it was a collection of holiday ornaments, complete with battery packs. Clearly, Debra had decided to have some fun with her packing—and, most likely, some of that prize-winning eggnog.

“No thank you,” Mackenzie said aloud, eyeing the spikes on the two-foot light-up holiday tree. “Ouch.”

A noise came from somewhere behind her. Her heart leapt, and she spun around. “Hello?” she called, brandishing the ornament in front of her. She peered into the shadows. “Is anyone there?”

Another noise came, louder this time.

“I’m warning you!” Mackenzie yelled. “I’m armed!”

“Whoa!” A reply came, and then Jake was stepping out from behind a teetering shelf of boxes. He took in the sight of her, and then laughed. “What were you going to do, brain me with Santa?”

“Jake!” Mackenzie exhaled in relief, her heart pounding. “What are you doing here? Trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Sorry.” He looked around at the dim, cluttered basement. “Wow, this place is a death trap.” His gaze stopped on the box she’d just opened. “Sex toys?” he said, eyes widening.

“Just Debra and her unique sense of humor.”

“Shame.” Jake flashed her a grin, and Mackenzie’s heart kept on racing. Even in the shadows, she could see the stubble on his jaw, and the way he filled out that navy cashmere sweater. She still couldn’t get over how his body had changed, or how his blue eyes crinkled at the edges now: a man’s smile, not a boy’s.

Her stomach turned a slow pirouette.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said, trying not to be flustered. “What are you doing down here?”

“Helping you.” Jake casually reached for the nearest box like it was no big deal. “Now, who wants to untangle half a mile of Christmas lights?”

Mackenzie didn’t move. She fixed him with a look, and he finally explained. “Debra roped me into it. She said you were drowning, and in desperate need of a strong man to do some heavy lifting. So here I am.” He reached up, and hauled another box down, and Mackenzie was momentarily distracted by the way his sweater rode up, revealing a strip of tanned, taut stomach.

And as for those arms . . .

She flushed. “You don’t have to,” she said quickly. “I can handle it.”

Jake raised an eyebrow, and looked around at the basement—boxes strewn all over the floor.

“It’s OK,” he said, giving an easy shrug. “I have plenty of time on my hands. And besides, it could be fun.”

Fun? Working in a dim basement in close proximity to all those muscles . . . Mackenzie gulped. That was one word for it.

Tempting was another.

“Sure. Great,” she said brightly. “You can take that row on the left. Anything in good condition, we’ll be hauling upstairs. Franny says we can use the storage buildings out back until everything’s ready to install.”

She turned away, and started blindly going through the nearest carton, praying he wouldn’t say anything about the kiss—or his voicemail, that still sat, unanswered on her cellphone. She must have played it a dozen times over, but she hadn’t called him back. She didn’t know what to say.

Well, that wasn’t true. She just didn’t know what to say aside from, Kiss me again. Now.

“Look, Mac . . .”

Mackenzie glanced up, and found him looking at her with an awkward expression on his face. It was so familiar, it took her breath away, like he was seventeen all over again, reluctantly explaining to Chrissy Jenkins that he’d already agreed to take Mac to senior prom—just as friends.

It had cut her then, and it still did now. In an instant, Mackenzie realized what was coming: that same sincere rejection she’d watched him dish out to a dozen unlucky girls.

She couldn’t be one of them. She couldn’t bear him thinking she was another adoring fan-girl, eager for a moment of his time.

“Look, about what happened on Halloween,” she said suddenly, before she could lose her nerve. “I know I should have said something, but I was tipsy from Bert’s punch, and the costume, and the wig . . . Well, you know I can’t hold my liquor.” Mackenzie flashed a smile, hoping she was a good enough actress to pull it off.

“That’s the truth,” Jake answered slowly, his expression unreadable. “But, about that night. Maybe we should talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about?” she asked brightly. “I could tell you didn’t recognize me. I was just planning on teasing you a little, but, well, one thing led to another. It happens,” she said, breezy. “No hard feelings, I hope?”

“Not from me.” Jake still looked unsure, so Mackenzie dialed up the “casual detachment.”

“Good! So, we can just pretend like it never happened then. And you can tell me how you wound up on the cover of Men’s Health wearing nothing but a speedo,” she added, with a teasing grin.

Jake groaned. “You saw that?”

“Oh boy, did I see it.” Mackenzie grinned, a sincere smile this time. “Someone pinned a copy to the town noticeboard. Your mom must be so proud!”

Jake laughed, looking embarrassed. “My agent made me do it. It was all staged, I swear.”

“Oh, so you don’t hang out in the gym in your underwear, surrounded by bulldogs?” she asked. “There goes my vision of your glamorous life.”

Jake snorted. “Yeah, think five a.m. workouts and running drills all day.”

“Poor baby,” Mackenzie teased. “It’s so hard living the dream.”

Jake smiled at her, a real smile that warmed her heart and made her feel like no time had passed between them at all.

“I missed this,” he said, like he was reading her mind. “Us. You.”

“Me too,” Mackenzie said quietly.

He exhaled. “It’s been . . . a tough year. I haven’t laughed like this in, well, a long time.”

The accident. She had almost forgotten the reason he was back in Sweetbriar at all. Mackenzie felt the strongest urge to go wrap her arms around him, hold him tightly, and kiss away the pain in his eyes.

But she could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, so she gripped an ornament instead, and gave him another bright smile. “I’m here to help. And so are you, so best get lifting. Chop chop.” She grinned. “What’s the use in being my errand boy if you’re not going to earn your keep?”

---

Mackenzie kept her head down and tried to focus on the task at hand—and not the gorgeous man just a few feet away, close enough to touch in the cluttered, dusty basement. But the universe seemed determined to taunt her, flooding her mind with flashbacks to their kiss, and making her wonder why she couldn’t just tug him closer and do it all over again.

Because that had been a moment of madness, she told herself sternly, putting three life-size plastic reindeer between them. And besides, that wasn’t her. That was the woman in the wig. She’d just managed to laugh the whole thing off and save what was left of her pride, and a repeat play wouldn’t exactly help with the whole nonchalant story she was spinning now.

The only thing worse than not kissing him again would be his inevitable rejection when she did.

“I can’t believe this stuff,” Jake said, sorting through a stack of old papers. “I mean, who thought this would make you want to celebrate the holidays?” He held up a poster showing a terrifyingly blonde child gripping a candy cane. “He looks like he’s about to curse you, not bring on good cheer.”

Mackenzie stifled a sigh. Sure, there she was trying her hardest not to fall at his feet, crying, Take me now!, and he was musing about the historical significance of candy canes. “I think we can leave all that stuff down here,” she said instead. “It’s just the decorations we want.”

Jake paused and looked around at the many, many boxes they’d already stacked by the stairs. “Just how many snowman ornaments do we actually need?”

“Well, every store is supposed to put up a display,” Mackenzie started. “Then there’s the town square, the park, all the public buildings . . . And I only made it halfway through Debra’s instructions.”

“In other words, the North Pole will move a little south this year.” Jake shook his head. “You know, I don’t remember it being this crazy when we were growing up. We had the tree-lighting and carols, but that was about it.”

“That’s because we were too cool to go in for all this tourist stuff,” Mackenzie teased, with a nostalgic smile. “We would fill up on cookies and hot apple cider, and then go to the movies instead.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jake said, grinning back at her. “You in?”

Mackenzie laughed. “I think a hundred thousand hopeful tourists would have something to say about that.”

She put her hands on her hips and looked around, doing a mental inventory. “We’ve found everything except the snowflakes. Can you see any more boxes anywhere?”

Jake checked the shelves. “No, we’ve got everything, I think.”

Mackenzie shook her head. “They have to be here somewhere. They’re my favorite, they go up on the gazebo every year. The light catches them just right,” she said, remembering. “like you’re in some winter ice palace, surrounded by snow. It’s actually how I first started working with clay—I wanted to make them myself, for a project in art school,” she confided. “I tried paints and different types of glass, but nothing worked until I started firing the glazes; it was the only way to get that glistening effect.”

She stopped, feeling self-conscious. What was she doing, rambling on about snowflake ornaments when Jake clearly couldn’t wait to get out of there?

She was just turning back, when she spied another box lurking in back on top of a cabinet. The snowflakes? She reached up on her tiptoes.

“I can get that,” Jake said, moving closer.

“No, it’s fine.” Mackenzie stretched, grasping to get it. It was lodged behind something, and she had to tug to get it free.

“I’m the errand boy, remember?” Jake tried to move her aside and grab it, but Mackenzie stubbornly kept pulling. She’d been doing just fine before Jake Sullivan came back to town. She was independent and capable, and she could reach a damn box without needing a man to get it, and push her up against the wall, and make her moan—

Wait, that wasn’t the point here.

Mackenzie blushed, and finally stepped aside to watch Jake reach up with all six-foot-two of taut, lean muscle and effortlessly pluck the carton down. He opened the lid. “No luck,” he said. “Unless you want to decorate the gazebo with reels of old microfiche.”

“Never mind,” Mackenzie said quickly, still feeling flustered. “I’m sure they’ll turn up. Like you said, we have more than enough.”

She turned away from his broad shoulders before she did something really stupid.

Like kissing him again.