A thought that had her realizing she’d committed to staying in Yuletide until then by promising Kiersten she’d work on the gowns. Would the locals leave her in peace to do her sewing? Or would too many Ghosts of Christmas Past, determined to bring up what they saw as Rachel’s misdeeds, visit her mother’s home?
Any answer she might have come up with for that question was drowned out by an outcry from downstairs. An argument, maybe? Rachel crossed quickly to the bedroom door, opened it and turned her head so her ear faced the opening.
Promptly, she heard a new karaoke song begin. The tune was familiar enough. But then the woman singing introduced some revised lyrics.
“Rachel got run over by a reindeer!” the voice crowed gleefully. “Walking out of my house, back to hers…”
Closing the door again, Rachel saw Emma had joined her in eavesdropping.
“Sounds ominous down there,” Emma observed, spinning around in her red lace and satin dress. “Good thing you have me to think about instead of the veiled threats to your life.”
Rachel gulped and wondered if Gavin had overestimated his sway with this crowd. “For a Christmas-themed town, we’ve got some bloodthirsty residents.”
Shrugging, Emma took up a spot in front of the mirror. “Personally, I think their anger is a little misplaced. It was clearly your father who embezzled all that money.”
“I appreciate that.” Circling her model, Rachel remembered why she’d liked Luke’s precocious little sister, even when his parents hadn’t been overly fond of having Rachel around. “And I had no idea my father was a crook until that day. I thought it must be a misunderstanding for weeks afterward.”
It hurt to learn someone you trusted was someone you never really knew at all.
“Were you able to forgive him?” Emma lifted her arms at Rachel’s gestured instruction.
The fabric pulled in all the wrong places and she added a pin where a little extra material would create a smoother look.
“I’m not sure that I have,” Rachel said between a few pins in her teeth. “But I was able to move past it.”
Emma nodded. “Then it’s a good thing you’re here. Because I’m starting to think the rest of the town has been stuck on it for way too long.”
Their gazes met in the mirror and Rachel sensed a possible ally in Luke’s sister. And while she was grateful to have someone on her side, she knew the rest of the town wouldn’t be as easy to win over.
*
In the Garretts’ den, a few doors down from the main gathering area of the bridal party welcome dinner, Gavin lined up the bull’s-eye on the dartboard for his next shot. He’d retreated here with Luke shortly after his tense conversation with the bride’s mother. Katie Garrett had been unimpressed by his assurances that Rachel wasn’t in town to cause trouble, but she’d at least given up trying to throw her out of the house.
Luke had been only too happy to take a break from the Christmas mayhem, suggesting a round of darts that had turned into three. No doubt they’d need to return to the party soon to mingle, but the guests seemed entertained by the games and karaoke. A screechy rendition of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” in the background might be tough on the ears, but the singer was obviously enjoying her two minutes of fame as she ad-libbed lyrics to stoke the crowd.
“This one’s for you, Yuletide!” she shouted over the microphone before the chorus.
It spoke to the strength of the party cocktails that the living room crowd went wild.
Gavin arced back his arm to make his throw.
“So are you two dating now?” Luke asked from where he sat on the front of a big oak desk.
Gavin’s shot missed the target.
“What happened to the ‘no talking while in the backswing’ rules?” he asked, his natural competitiveness extending to games of all kinds. He couldn’t miss one more if he wanted a chance to win.
“It’s not golf, dude,” Luke reminded him, levering himself off the desk to peer critically at the board. “And we’re just seeing who goes first.”
The groom wore a top hat with a sprig of mistletoe in the brim, the Bob Cratchit look a smart nod to the holiday theme without lugging around a set of antlers all night.
“But it’s a tiebreaker round,” Gavin argued. “It’s go time.”
Although, in all fairness, he hadn’t expected a question about Rachel Chambers to knock him off his game quite so much. Good thing he hadn’t been on a snowboard run or he would have wound up head first in a drift for the first time in a whole lot of years.
Luke’s assessing stare moved from the board to Gavin. “So maybe you’d better answer my question before you take any more turns.”
Built like a rugby player, Luke Harris had a quiet way about him that intimidated some people. Gavin had been scrapping with him since they were pre-teens though, so the flexing jaw and brooding scowl didn’t work on him.
“We’re not dating,” Gavin informed him, picking up a bottle of spring water off the sofa table full that was of snowman knickknacks and sprinkled with fake snow. “But I have to wonder why it matters so much to a man getting married to someone else in a few days.”
Luke frowned while Gavin guzzled down the water. The stress of this night called for a beer, but he was too deep in training to make indiscriminate choices about what he put into his body. He wasn’t eighteen anymore.
“Just what are you implying?” Luke’s dark eyebrows furrowed.
“Only that your old grudge against Rachel makes it look like you care. When obviously, you don’t.” He shrugged, setting aside the water bottle and stepping away from the taped line on the floor that was the official spot to stand when throwing darts.
“Of course I don’t have a grudge.” Luke huffed out an exasperated sigh before he tipped his top hat back and scratched his forehead. “Hell, you know that. But I still don’t trust her.”
Gavin’s eyes went to the open door to the hallway, making sure they were alone as a man took the karaoke microphone—the bride’s father, he guessed—crooning about chestnuts roasting over an open fire. The guy was pretty good.
“What have you got against Rachel?” Gavin kept his voice low anyway, wondering what his date was doing right now. He hated leaving her side after the openly hostile greeting they’d received. “You admitted to me a long time ago that she broke up with you before you proposed. What did she do so wrong?”
If even Luke still held a grudge, how would Gavin ever help Rachel make peace with anyone in Yuletide? If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose any influence he had with the town council and his idea for the fundraiser would never get off the ground.
Let alone approval for all the changes he wanted to make on the Jingle Elf house.
Luke shoved his hat back down into place. “I never told anyone this except for Rachel, but I asked her father for permission to marry her ahead of time. And after Chris Chambers wished me well and told me that I had his blessing, I told him what I was planning—the whole skywriting thing in front of the town.”
Gavin’s thoughts rushed to fill in what that meant.