Divine intervention? Maybe. If what Jackson had told him about his little hometown was true, it could be exactly what this trip home needed—and exactly what a certain passenger in his car needed to get into the Christmas spirit.
As the data loaded on his phone, Will blinked, then grinned. Then grinned bigger. As fate would have it, Jackson Pope’s family was from a little town called El Muérdago. And muérdago, in English, means mistletoe.
Chapter 9
Lauren didn’t need a lot of sleep. But she did need more than zero hours, and after the spider fiasco, that’s exactly what she got.
Which is why she dozed off.
And why her little nap turned in to an all-out slumber—that crashy, deep sleep that makes you forget where you are—and who you’re with. Her awakening was a rude one when she realized she was, in fact, in a car with a whole lot of miles left to cover. And behind the steering wheel was Will Sinclair, who was, unfortunately, turning out to be a pretty decent guy.
The sun had set during her snooze, and unlike yesterday, they were still driving.
Good. Maybe he’d gotten it into his head that they needed to get home, get Christmas over with, and get back to real life.
Or maybe he’d gotten tired of her salty attitude and wanted out of this car as soon as possible.
She shifted at the thought, and then sat up. They certainly weren’t in the desert anymore. Even in the dark, she could see lush green trees and a light dusting of snow on the road.
“The princess awakes,” Will announced, far too cheerfully.
“Where are we?”
“A little off the beaten path,” he said, caution in his voice.
“A path that’s closer to Illinois?”
He pulled a face.
“Will?”
“It’s sort of an unplanned stop,” he said. “Not too far out of the way.”
She frowned.
“I heard about this great little town in the mountains,” he said.
Her ears popped. “We’re in the mountains?”
“Yes,” he pointed, “those big things over there.”
She wasn’t amused.
“It’s just a few hours out of the way.”
“Wait.” She sat up straighter. “A few hours? How many?”
“Just a couple. A few. Like three or four?”
“Three or four hours out of the way? One way or two?”
Another face. “It’ll be worth it?”
There was a question in his voice.
She groaned and faced him. “Even you don’t sound convinced.”
“No, it will. I was going to wake you and make sure it was okay, but you were so cute, you know, snoring and drooling and everything—”
“Knock it off,” she said lightly, but when she faced him, she realized he was serious. She’d been snoring and drooling?
“You know you talk in your sleep, right?” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned at her.
“No, I don’t.” Do I?
He tossed her a teasing look, and her heartrate kicked up. What if she’d said something embarrassing? Wouldn’t that be par for the course? She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants and searched her mind for something—anything—to say. “What exactly do you have planned for this ‘great little mountain town’？”
“So many things,” he said.
“And it’s adding how many hours to our trip?”
He shrugged. “Let’s just see where the road takes us.”
She chuckled, but not because she thought it was funny. She repeated, matching his inflection, “Let’s just see where the road takes us?”
“Now you’re getting it.” His smile widened.
“That sounds like something you’d embroider on a pillow,” she countered.
She could sense the amusement on his face, even in the dark.
“What’s it like not to take anything seriously?” She tried to keep her tone light, but it didn’t exactly work. She was annoyed. She didn’t have an indefinite number of days off of work, and she really didn’t love spending any extra time in this car with Will, trying to focus only on his bad qualities—especially since it was getting more and more difficult to do so the longer they were cooped up together.
“I take plenty of things seriously.” He focused on the road. “I just don’t take everything seriously. I guess that’s how we’re different.”
She chewed the inside of her lip.
“You know, I can’t tell if you’re being like this because you don’t want to go home for Christmas or because you just really don’t like me.”