A Christmas Proposition

“That’s work.”

“You can’t work all the time.”

“I can. I do.”

Yeah, this was getting her nowhere.

“Your head is the perfect shape. Not everyone can wear their hair that short.”

“The deep car chatter continues.”

“I’m just saying, I’m sure you can find a date even though your personality is basically the worst.”

His shoulders jumped in what might have been a laugh, but no smile yet.

She smiled, enjoying a challenge. “So? Do you date?”

“Not as much as you do.”

She ignored the jab. “Are you seeing anyone right now?”

“Yes. You. Exclusively.”

He didn’t take his eyes off the road to look at her so he didn’t see her bite her lip in consideration. As segues went, this was pretty much her only chance.

“I talked to Penelope about how to handle the Blake situation. Know what she said?”

“Stay out of it and let her do her job?”

Almost verbatim, but that wasn’t what Stef was getting at.

“She said that if I were anyone else, she’d suggest I get married.”

“She would suggest you pretend you’re married?” he asked, his tone flat.

“No. She would suggest I literally get married. Marriage licenses are public record. Any reporter worth her salt could verify if it was real or not.”

Emmett said nothing.

“I’ve been scrolling through my phone in search of Mr. Stefanie Ferguson, but no luck. I’m almost halfway through the alphabet.”

He changed lanes, the mar in his brow deepening.

“You’re going to have a lot of wrinkles when you’re old because of the frowning. Did you know that—”

“It takes more muscles to frown than smile? Yes. I knew that.”

“Anyway, when I find my husband-to-be, it’ll only have to last until the election. Once Chase is reelected as mayor, I can annul it, no harm no foul.”

A minute of silence passed, the only sound in the car a Mariah Carey holiday tune playing quietly on the radio. Emmett stabbed a button on the steering wheel to shut it off.

“You have to take this exit for where we’re going.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I know so.” She held her phone up and showed him the map.

“Where is that?” he asked, even as he dutifully changed lanes.

“I lied about San Antonio. We’re going to a town called Harlington. It’s just outside—”

“I know Harlington.” His visage darkened.

“You do?” She’d assumed he was from a similarly wealthy Dallas background as her family. At least upper middle class. “Here. This exit.” She rested her cell phone on the dash, and though he mumbled a swear word under his breath, he pulled off the exit.

“From here take route—”

“I can read the map, Stefanie.”

Yeah, proposing should work out great, she thought with an eye roll.

She waited a few more silent minutes before turning on the radio again. The Sting song didn’t cause her driver to visibly wince.

Her email notification lit up her phone and she opened her inbox to read Margaret’s reply, whose answer was an exuberant “Yes!”

Evidently Margaret’s son was a minister and available on Christmas Eve for a midnight wedding. In the next paragraph of her reply, Margaret went on and on about the beautiful decorations in the sitting room of her old Victorian house.

Stefanie responded with a quick message. I’m working out the marriage license now.

Little did Emmett know, the address she’d keyed into her map was for city hall downtown.

Five (#u7f37cb16-ca47-5398-8f88-56c798742046)

“Which building?” Emmett drove through the thick traffic of downtown Harlington.

Yeah, he knew this town. He’d grown up not far from here. Before he’d escaped to go to college. Before happenstance had put him at the same wild frat party as Chase Ferguson. They’d stopped in the center of the room en route to flirt with the same girl. Neither of them had won the girl, but they’d forged a strong friendship.

From there, Emmett’s world had forked. He’d left behind his former life as a rough kid from a lonely home. He’d dropped out of college and never finished, but his old man hadn’t noticed. Van Keaton had been lost in his own prison of grief since the Christmas that’d robbed both him and Emmett of all that was good.

Since then, Emmett had been determined to create good. In addition to working with Chase as his head of security, Emmett had also learned how to invest well. Hell, he’d mimicked his friend’s financial habits, had read every book Chase recommended and had listened to countless podcasts on the topic. It never would’ve occurred to Emmett that he could live the way he lived now if it wasn’t for the Fergusons. They took the idea of “living well” to an advanced level.

Emmett’s work at the mayor’s office might as well be his source of oxygen. He had the Fergusons, who had been a placeholder for the family Emmett rarely saw. His father was a lonely man determined to bask in his own misery, so Emmett let him do it. And he’d never gone home on a holiday. Van didn’t do holidays. Not anymore.

And neither did Emmett.

Stef squealed from the passenger seat, going on about how “beautiful” the red bows and pine boughs tied to paint-chipped lampposts were, but he could only offer a grunt.

Those tattered pine boughs had seen better days and the red ribbons drooped. The shop windows downtown covered in spray snow would require tedious scraping with a razor blade to come clean, and the strings of white lights wrapped around every lamppost served as a reminder of what once was but could never be again.