Chapter Two
“Okay, let’s get over to that Tree Lighting Ceremony!” Nick put a firm hand on Emme’s lower back to guide her right back out the door of The Spigot, briskly aiming her away from his cousins. And the rest of Nosy St. Helena.
“I’ll see you guys over at Community Park!” called Emme brightly to Shay and Frankie.
Frankie, pregnant, immediately made for the chair that Nick vacated and leaned in for a kiss and belly pat from Nate.
Shay waved them on and took some flyers for St. Paw’s Holiday Adoption Fair up to the bar.
“I was supposed to be helping pass those out, you idiot.” Emme put both hands on Nick’s chest in what would look to the outsider like a show of affection, and gave him a less-than-gentle shove.
Nick tensed at the contact. He felt a jolt of energy go through him when she pressed up against his chest. He inadvertently wondered what her hands would feel like on his chest without the layers of sweater and jacket, and breathed in hard.
“Easy fix,” he said quickly, nearly taking out another bar patron as he pivoted and made like a linebacker back through the door of The Spigot. “Stay right there!”
Nick ran over to Shay, pointed to her stack of flyers and charmed her with the DeLuca smile.
Shay waved again to Emme as Nick returned with the entire stack, and gave a curious little quirk of her eyebrow.
Emme narrowed her eyes at him as he pulled her down the street, passing the flyers out to families old and young who were on their way to St. Helena’s annual Holiday Tree Lighting.
“That was my new boss, you know,” she said, her voice arid.
“I know,” he said confidently. “She’s married to Jonah Baudouin.”
“Right, you’ve told me about the famous feud over the years. Can I repeat, that was my new boss, Nick!”
He smiled at her and kept passing the flyers out and wishing everyone holiday cheer. He hoped that would diffuse the situation, but she stopped and planted her hands on her hips.
“Exactly what was the epic fake liplock back there for?”
“Those guys,” he said, flailing his arm in a giant desperate wave. “My great big crazy Italian side of the family.”
He brought his voice down to a conspiratorial level. “My Great Aunt Chi Chi has decided to marry me off. So the entire West Coast branch of the DeLuca family has apparently decided that I’m going to be Bacchus on the St. Helena Founders’ Float in the Holiday Parade.”
His voice went up as they walked, “They want to dress me up in a toga and parade me on a float in front of all the single ladies in town, and say they intend to have me engaged by Christmas. You’ve got to help me, Em. Just for a few weeks. Pretend to be my girl.”
Emme hesitated, and he instantly knew what a mistake it was to involve her. He saw a flash of something pass through her eyes.
Emme was always a good sport, always the friend he could rely on. But she was a girl, too, and he had the sinking feeling he’d gone too far in asking this.
She looked down, paused a long beat. Then she met his eyes.
“Well, boyfriend of mine,” she smiled disarmingly and poked him in the gut. “I’m going to be in the parade, too, it turns out. Shay invited me to help build this year’s St. Paw’s float, and I’ll ride on it to help show off some of the animals up for adoption.”
“So I’ll be able to keep an eye on my special guy when he’s going down the street in his toga and make sure the local cuties leave him alone.”
He searched her face for a clue to what she was really feeling, but she just offered him a razor smile and took his arm to steer him over nearer to the faux reindeer in the town’s holiday tableau. For a second, Nick thought she was going to unhitch the fake reindeer and start whacking him with it. Completely deserved, he thought too late.
She leaned in close, slipping her arms around him and saying in a low voice, “you have family members that I know of at 10 o’clock and 3 o’clock, and a set of oddly interested star-spangled little old ladies at 7 o’clock that are watching us. You’re gonna owe me big time for this, buster!”
And she brushed his cheek with a sweet kiss, resting her arms lightly around him for the rest of the tree-lighting, as DeLuca’s he hadn’t seen since he was a child came up and welcomed him and his girl, wishing them happy holidays.
“How are we going to do this?” he murmured near the end of the ceremony.
“Oh, it’s easy,” she said dryly. “We’ll call it Operation Gingerbread Girl. As in, cookie cutter. They never need to know. And you won’t get caught in some nutty modern-day arranged marriage.”
Nick tilted his head and looked at her, realizing what a schmuck he was and what a smart, great, beautiful girl she was.
“I owe you,” he said seriously.
“Oh, I know,” she said breezily. “And I’ll collect, too.”
***
By the first Thursday in December, Emme determined that she was in love with every single resident of the St. Paw’s Animal Shelter, and that she would do everything in her power to help Shay find all of them forever-homes in time for Christmas.
But less than a week had gone by since her arrival in St. Helena, and while she loved the four-legged creatures, she felt like her two-legged supposed best friend, Nick DeLuca, deserved a big old lump of coal in his stocking.
And Nick definitely didn’t deserve a kiss under the mistletoe that Shay hung over the front door at St. Paw’s, even though she kept fantasizing about it every time Shay’s cute husband, Sheriff Jonah Baudouin stuck his head through the door to collect a kiss from the owner of St. Paw’s.
No. She needed to stop thinking about kissing Nick. Under any circumstances. Their arrangement was one that best friends made because they had each other’s backs, and was only for show, to help him out with a meddling family.
Emme hadn’t seen Nick in a few days, because she was busy starting her internship at the shelter and the DeLuca’s kept him incredibly busy running around the vineyard and town. He’d wave wildly every time he passed the front door of St. Paw’s, on the way to something or other.
It was as if he knew the sprig of mistletoe was hanging there, and he was avoiding opening the door for that reason.
Emme felt irrationally up and down, and put all of her nervous energy into helping with various tasks around the shelter.
But this morning, he didn’t wave and run past the door. Instead, he loped through it, ignoring the tiny bells attached to the mistletoe sprig.
“Nate gave me a couple hours’ break,” he said loudly across the counter. “Thought I could come help out.”
Then, more quietly, “we need to talk.”
They each grabbed a leash and took a dog, Emme a chihuahua mix called Lola and Nick a fluffy mutt called Zeus.
“You might need to re-name him, he’ll end up with a god-complex,” said Nick.
“Don’t you listen, Zeus,” said Emme. “He came in with that name, and answers to it. And it’s a good one, people will notice him. Besides, he’s the fluffy sweet boy!” She made over both Zeus and Lola, encouraging them on their walk.
“So,” said Nick. “My family.”
“Your family,” said Emme. “As you know, it’s just me and my Dad. And we get on, well, okay. I see him every once in a while.”
Nick knew there was far more to it than that, that Emme became the son her Dad never had, after her Mom left both of them for a well-heeled CPA with a timeshare in Florida. Emme was loyal, and sweet, and had never gotten over her mother leaving them. Because she didn’t just leave her Dad, she really did leave both of them. She had a new set of kids within three years, and doted on them, seeing Emme every-other-holiday, and finally, less and less over time.
“Right.”
“And your family – well, I love Etta, and I’m going to be the first to say that your Mom is not a part of this. She just married your Dad. I don’t see her as part of this giant madhouse of a family.”
Nick looked at her wistfully. “I always wished that I was part of this giant madhouse of a family growing up. They’ve always been nice to me, but it’s been Great Aunt Chi Chi that really reaches out to us. She’d help us fly out over Spring Break, or for a week in the summer. She did the same with my cousin Chiara and her family, from up in Oregon. Chi Chi’s pretty special.”
“She is special, I can tell,” said Emme. “But she’s also, may I say, completely interfering. In all of their lives. And. That. Is. Not. Cool.”
“Wow,” said Nick. “Say it like you mean it, why don’t you.”
“Nick, the parade float is cute and everything. You’ll be an amazing Bacchus,” said Emme. “I just don’t get why Chi Chi seems to have designated herself Mater Familias in Charge of Getting Nick a Wife.”
“You saw my four guy cousins,” said Nick. “And you haven’t met Abby yet, she’s the girl. Chi Chi has in some way, shape or form been involved with all of them getting together with their spouses. She is – well, I was going to say she’s a traditional Italian nonna, but she’s not really traditional in any logical way. But Mater Familias, yes, she’s definitely got matriarchal tendencies.”
“Big time.”
“She’s kind of a matchmaker.”
“Well. It bothers me. As you friend, on your behalf, it bothers me.”
“She means it with love.”
Emme stopped. She realized that part of what bothered her was that Nick’s Great Aunt Chi Chi knew she was there in St. Helena, that they’d managed to match up their internships to be in the same time and place. And it sounded like Great Aunt Chi Chi must have discounted her presence there in St. Helena.
Emme wanted to matter to Nick, too, and she felt unexpectedly frustrated and hurt. And mad.
“Did she ever ask about me?”
“What?”
“Did Chi Chi ever ask, hey, Nick – I know there’s this girl who is a good friend who is coming to work in St. Helena for a season the same time you are? Which would indicate a level of planning? I mean, I know we’re best friends, but why did she not ask the question?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your great aunt, who is planning on marrying you off after making you wear a toga in public! Why did she not ask if we were a thing?”
She went off at the mouth. “This whole big family thing is overrated. They’re interfering, and they really have no right to. And as your friend, it really makes me mad!”
Nick stared at her. “Are you mad because they’re interfering in my life, or are you mad because my Great Aunt didn’t think to ask if we were an item before she decided to marry me off?”
Emme chuffed out a breath, about to stomp on his toe with her stormtrooper boot.
And all of a sudden, Nick pulled her in for a kiss.
Emme’s breath got knocked of her, it was so sudden. And so perfect. The kiss started firm, then moved to soft as Nick broke it off, then kissed again repeatedly, softly on her lips.
The dogs gave a little excited bark as their leashes got tangled.
That’s when Emme heard the voices across the path on Community Park.
“Don’t know what they were arguing about, but that’s the best end to a Lover’s Spat I’ve seen all week,” trilled a high-pitched geriatric voice.
“Get a room!” called out another senior lady. “Come on, Priscilla, let’s set up on this bench over here! The firemen are due on their daily job any minute!”
And Nick kissed Emme again, for a good long time. At least, until she had to stop and decide for the better of their friendship – and their fake courtship – not to say anything more about his family.
But deep in her heart, she wondered what it would be like if their courtship were real. And she was perversely hurt that someone wouldn’t even ask if they were an item.
“The plight of the Girl-Bro,” she thought darkly.