Brenda Harlen - Merry Christmas, Baby Maverick!

“Am I late?” Kayla asked.

“No, I was probably early,” Natalie admitted. “I needed to get out of the house and away from all the talk about weddings.”

She nodded her understanding as she reached for the door handle. Natalie’s brother had also recently gotten engaged. “When are Brad and Margot getting married?”

“That was one of the topics of discussion. Of course, Brad was married before, so he just wants whatever Margot wants. But Margot lost her mother almost three years ago, and her father’s been AWOL since the infamous poker game, so as much as she’s excited about starting a life with my brother, I think it’s hard for her to be excited about the wedding, and I don’t think my mother’s being very sensitive about that.”

“Believe me, I understand about insensitive mothers,” Kayla told her friend.

They paid their admission at the table set up in the foyer for that purpose then made their way toward the gymnasium.

“I always get such a creepy feeling of déjà vu when I’m in here,” her friend admitted.

“I know what you mean,” Kayla agreed. “It doesn’t help that Mrs. Newman—” their freshman physical education teacher “—works at the concession stand.”

Natalie nodded her agreement. “Even when I count out the exact change for her, she gives me that perpetual look of disapproval, like I’ve just told her I forgot my gym clothes.”

Kayla laughed. She was glad she’d let her friend drag her out tonight. Not that much dragging was required. Kayla had been feeling in a bit of a funk and had happily accepted Natalie’s invitation. Of course, it didn’t hurt that A Christmas Story was one of her all-time favorite holiday movies.

“Oh, look,” she said, pointing to the poster advertising a different feature for Saturday night. “We could come back tomorrow for The Santa Clause .”

“Well, I’m free,” Natalie admitted. “Which tells a pretty sad tale about my life.”

“Actually, I’m not,” Kayla realized.

“Hot date?”

“Ha. I’m helping out at the theater in Kalispell tomorrow night.”

“Well, even working in the city has to be more exciting than a night off in this town,” Natalie said. Then she stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh. My. God.”

“What?” Kayla demanded, as alarmed by her friend’s whispered exclamation as the way Natalie’s fingers dug into her arm.

“Trey Strickland is here.”

Her heart leaped and crashed against her ribs as she turned in the direction her friend was looking.

Yep, it was him.

Not that she really believed Natalie might have been mistaken, but she’d hoped. After a four-month absence, she’d now run into him twice within hours of his return to town. Whether his appearance here was a coincidence or bad luck, it was an obvious sign to Kayla that she wouldn’t be able to avoid him while he was in Rust Creek Falls.

Natalie waved a hand in front of her face, fanning herself as she kept her attention fixed on the ginger-haired, broad-shouldered cowboy. “That man is so incredibly yummy.”

Kayla had always thought so, too—even before she’d experienced the joy of being held in his arms, kissed by his lips, pleasured by his body. But she had no intention of sharing any of that with her friend, who she hadn’t realized harbored her own crush on the same man. “Should we get popcorn?” she asked instead.

“I’d rather have man candy,” Natalie said dreamily.

Kayla pulled a ten-dollar bill out of the pocket of her too-tight jeans and tried to ignore the reason her favorite denim—and all of her other clothes—were fitting so snugly in recent days. “I’m going for popcorn.”

“Can you grab me a soda, too?” Natalie asked, her gaze still riveted on the sexy cowboy as he made his way toward the gym doors.

“Sure.”

“I’ll go find seats,” her friend said, following Trey.

Kayla just sighed and joined the line for concessions. She couldn’t blame her friend for being interested, especially when she’d never told Natalie what had happened with Trey on the Fourth of July, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be around while the other woman made a play for him.

When she entered the gymnasium with the drinks and popcorn, she found Natalie in conversation with Trey. Though her instinct was to turn in the opposite direction, she forced her feet to move toward them.

Trey’s gaze shifted to her and his lips curved. “Hi, again.”

“Hi,” she echoed his greeting, glancing around. “Are you here with someone?”

Please, let him be here with someone.

But the universe ignored her plea, and Trey shook his head.

“Why don’t you join us?” Natalie invited, patting the empty chair on her left.

“I think I will,” he said, just as an elderly couple moved toward the two vacant seats beside Natalie.

Trey stepped back, relinquishing the spot she had offered to him. Kayla didn’t even have time to exhale a sigh of relief before he moved to the empty seat on the other side of her .

She was secretly relieved that her friend’s obvious maneuverings had been thwarted, but she didn’t know how she would manage to focus on the screen and forget that he was sitting right beside her for the next ninety-four minutes.

In fact, she didn’t even make it through four minutes, because she couldn’t take a breath without inhaling his clean, masculine scent. She couldn’t shift in her seat without brushing against him. And she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that her naked body had been entwined with his.

She forced her attention back to the screen, to the crowd gathered around the window of Higbee’s Department Store to marvel at the display of mechanized electronic joy and, of course, Ralphie, wide-eyed and slack-jawed as he fixated on “the holy grail of Christmas gifts—the Red Ryder two hundred shot range model air rifle.”

“Are you going to share that popcorn?” Trey whispered close to her ear.

“I am sharing it,” she said. “With Natalie.”

But deeply ingrained good manners had her shifting the bag to offer it to him.

“Thanks.” He dipped his hand inside.

She tried to keep her attention on the movie, but it was no use. Even Ralphie’s entertaining antics weren’t capable of distracting her from Trey’s presence. It was as if every nerve ending in her body was attuned to his nearness.

It probably didn’t help that they were in the high school—the setting of so many of her youthful fantasies. So many times she’d stood at her locker and watched him walk past with a group of friends, her heart racing as she waited for him to turn and look at her. So many times she’d witnessed him snuggled up to a cheerleader on the bleachers, and she’d imagined that she was that cheerleader.

Back then, she would have given almost anything to be in the circle of his arms. She would have given almost anything to have him just smile at her. She’d been so seriously and pathetically infatuated that just an acknowledgment of her presence would have fueled her fantasies for days, weeks, months.

When his family had moved away from Rust Creek Falls, she’d cried her heart out. But even then, she’d continued to daydream, imagining that he would come back one day, unable to live without her. She might have been shy and quiet, but deep inside, she was capable of all the usual teenage melodrama—and more.

Sitting beside him now, in the darkened gym, was a schoolgirl fantasy come to life. But he wasn’t just sitting in the chair beside her, he was so close that his thigh was pressed against hers. And when he reached into the bag of popcorn she was holding, his fingertips trailed deliberately over the back of her hand.