A Season of You Read online

  “What happened to your car?” Mina asked, eyes narrowing as she continued to stare at the damage.

  “It, um…” He tried to think of a plausible excuse.

  “Did Stewie do that?” she demanded.

  “Kind of.”

  She glared. “Damn it, Will. You should have said something.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  She shoved the cookies into his hands, marched over to the car, leaned down, and stuck her head inside. “He ate half your seat.” She sounded horrified.

  “He was bored. It was cold.” He wasn’t entirely sure why he was defending her dog, but he was.

  Mina withdrew from the car. “That seat is leather and given how old your car is, I’m assuming it’s custom. I’ll pay for the damage.”

  “No. Thanks for the offer but it’s not necessary.”

  “My dog destroyed half your car,” Mina said. “I’m paying.” She walked back to him, looking determined.

  “Mina, I said it’s not necessary.”

  She frowned, dark brows drawing together. “Is this some weird guy thing?”

  “Define ‘weird guy thing.’”

  “A thing where your male ego can’t handle a girl paying for something.” She stuck out her chin, eyes more green than gray now, anger brightening them.

  Something to remember. Not that he intended to make a habit of pissing her off. Quite the opposite, in fact. “Nope. Not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “It sounds a bit … strange.” And someone who’d grown up with the kind of money her family had probably wouldn’t understand.

  “I’m used to strange. Try me.”

  He shrugged. “It took me a long time to restore this car. And I’ve paid for every last part of it myself. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay, that’s a little strange. But look at it this way. You’ve already paid for the restoration. This is just maintenance.” She watched him a moment, must have read the “no” in his expression. “How about you pay the bill and I give you the money?”

  “Nope, it would be the same thing.” He doubted Mina had ever had to scrimp and save to pay for anything in her life. It wasn’t her fault. But he’d worked for this car, squirreling away money here and there between trying to pay off his student loans and save to pay for the additional studies he’d taken in brewing and distilling.

  Her face twisted in frustration. “I can’t just let you be out hundreds of dollars because of your weird car fetish.”

  “I don’t have a weird car fetish. I’m just very fond of this particular car. And she’s definitely not weird.” He grinned at Mina, then reached out to pat the roof of the Mustang. “Don’t listen to the mean lady, Lulu.”

  Mina snorted. “You named your car Lulu?”

  “Your Jeep doesn’t have a name?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Well, no wonder it broke down and stranded you in a storm.”

  “I’m not sure that’s how flat tires happen, Will.” She smiled though. “But you’re trying to distract me from the subject on hand.”

  “Which is?”

  “I want to pay you back for the damage to your car. My dog did that. And that’s not okay.”

  She really wasn’t going to let this drop. Which meant Mina Harper thought she owed him a favor. For a moment, he kind of wished he was a douchebag who could leverage this opportunity into asking her for a date. But Mina had been through a lot. If he ever got a shot at her, he wanted it to be because she was into him, not because he’d guilted her into going out with him. Damn scruples. He held up the container. “You could pay me in cookies.”

  She shook her head at him, bangs flying. When they settled, she pushed them out of her eyes and pinned him with a “no dice” look. “I’d have to bake you cookies every week for a year.”

  “I am okay with that plan. I love cookies.” He cracked the lid of the container, inhaling the aroma of chocolate and sugar and butter that wafted out with pleasure. As his stomach threatened to rumble, he took out a cookie and bit into it.

  It tasted even better than it smelled.

  God. She gave good cookie. A batch of these every week, not to mention a chance to see Mina every week, would be one hundred percent okay in his book. He finished his mouthful, and then took another bite, tempted to stuff the whole thing into his mouth. Classy, Fraser. He swallowed and smiled at her instead. “Yep, I’m definitely okay with a cookie payment plan.”

  “My dog ate half your car, Will.”

  “Nah, it was more like a sixteenth. Less, probably.”

  “Still, cookies aren’t enough.” She bit her lip and for just a second he felt exactly what it would be like to close his teeth gently over that plump curve of her mouth and taste her.

  Fire flooded his brain and made him forget how to breathe for a second.

  Damn. He really needed to get it together. “Seriously, it’s fine.”

  * * *

  Mina felt her teeth clench. Will might be shrugging it off but there was no way repairing the damage Stewie had inflicted on the Mustang could be cheap. But he was going to be all male about it. That much was clear. She had the money but he wasn’t going to accept it. Which meant she was going to have to figure out another way to make it up to him.

  “How about dinner?” she blurted before her mind fully engaged.

  Will almost choked on the cookie he was eating. Coughed. Swallowed. “Excuse me?”

  Shit. What had she just done? Ask a man out for dinner and there was only one way he was going to interpret it. Damn. Stupid mouth. She tried to think of a way to backpedal. “I mean, um, Thanksgiving. What are you doing? Is the bar open?”

  Will shook his head, still looking kind of stunned. “No. We close for Thanksgiving.”

  “Then come to ours. Faith’s, I guess. At the big house.”

  For a second she saw disappointment in his hazel eyes. Crap. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But better to be clear about things up front. “Unless you’re going home for Thanksgiving, of course,” she offered to fill the silence that seemed to be stretching too long.

  Will shook his head. “No, we only close for the day. Stefan and I were just going to hang out.”

  Stefan. She hadn’t thought about Stefan. The brothers weren’t from Lansing, so they had no family here. So it wasn’t really fair to leave Stefan stranded. “He could come too. Faith and Caleb won’t mind.” And, added bonus, inviting both the Fraser brothers made the whole thing less date-ish.

  She couldn’t quite interpret the expression on Will’s face. But then he nodded. “Okay. Thanks. I’m sure Stefan would love to come.”

  What did that mean? That Will wasn’t happy about it? Or wasn’t happy about Stefan coming along? God. She needed to stop over-analyzing. Or she was going to start babbling. “Great.” She paused. “Come any time in the afternoon. We do this late lunch/dinner thing. We eat about two. Musician’s hours, I guess. Lou makes a great turkey. Takes days by the time she brines it and—” She stopped herself. Definitely veering into babbling territory.

  Will’s face eased. “Lou’s cooking? That should make Stefan happy. He bought one of her apple pies at one of the school bake sales a year or so ago and I think he’s been trying to recreate it ever since.”

  “No one beats Lou’s pie,” Mina agreed. Right. Time to make a graceful exit. “I should go. I have to get to work.”

  “You’re back at work already?”

  “Callie signed off yesterday,” she said. “And it’s just for the afternoon. Not a night shift.”

  “How many shifts do you work a week?” Will asked.

  “Four or five.”

  “Isn’t that a lot? I mean, people on the island aren’t that accident prone are they, that the search and rescue is busy every day?”

  “No, but someone still needs to man the phones in case something does happen. Most of the other volunteers have day jobs. I don’t. So it’s easy for me to cover nig
hts.”

  “Four or five shifts a week sounds a lot like a job to me.”

  She looked down at her shoes. “You know what I mean.” She didn’t need to work to earn a living.

  “So you spend four or five nights a week down in the S&R alone? Can’t they just redirect the phone to someone else’s line or something?”

  “Sometimes they do that. But if there’s an emergency, then having someone on the premises means they can start getting everything ready while the team is gathering. Saves time. And time is kind of important in those situations. A few minutes can make a difference.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Besides, I’m not alone, I have Stewie.”

  “Guess I can’t argue with that. The dog has strong teeth, we know that much.” He smiled at her, a lopsided sort of grin that made Mina’s stomach tense. Not unhappily. And that made her nervous.

  “Okay. So, I’ll see you on Thursday?”

  “Definitely,” Will said, smile widening.

  “Great.” She swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “Enjoy the cookies.” She turned and fled back up the alley toward her Jeep. Oh, God. She’d just asked Will to her family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Why on earth had she done that? And how on earth was she going to explain it to Faith?

  By the time Mina made it to Search and Rescue headquarters, everyone else on the team had already arrived.

  She said her hellos, answered the inevitable questions about her recovery, and then retreated to watch from the sidelines as the rest of the team did fitness drills to kick things off. Bill had banned her from doing anything too strenuous. So she was stuck timing drills and making notes. Still, she was glad of the distraction. If she’d been sitting at home, she’d just be obsessing about the fact she’d invited Will to Thanksgiving dinner. And about the fact that she was going to have to tell Faith what she’d done.

  “Bored senseless yet?” Bill said as he came to sit by her side, watching the team as they formed up for another round of suicide sprints.

  He knew her too well. “Not quite senseless.” She tried not to sound too grumpy about it. He was, after all, only following Callie’s orders. And it wasn’t as if she actually enjoyed fitness drills.

  But she didn’t enjoy sitting around either.

  Really, concussions sucked. Callie still had her avoiding anything that might strain her eyes. No painting. No drawing. Limited screen time. No reading even. There was only so much napping and listening to quiet music and podcasts a girl could do. She’d reached her limit at least a day ago.

  “It’s not forever,” Bill said. “As long as you learn not to keep banging that head of yours.”

  “Lesson learned,” she said. She couldn’t remember the actual fall but the aftermath was still fresh in her mind. Maybe because it wasn’t over yet. If it had been, she wouldn’t be having this conversation. “Next time I get a flat tire in a thunderstorm, I’m calling Nikolai.”

  Bill chuckled. “Smart choice.” He stared down at the milling figures. “You know, if you want to be really useful, there’s one thing you could do for me.”

  “Oh?” she said. She clicked the stopwatch into motion again as the team started their next set. “What’s that?”

  “Well, I need to go to San Francisco next week for a couple of days. Actually we’re leaving tomorrow. Marla has her checkup and some tests on Monday and we thought we’d make the most of it and have a break before the holiday crazy really hits.”

  “Tests?” Mina tried to keep her voice calm. Worry squirmed in her stomach. Marla was a breast cancer survivor. Was something wrong?

  Bill held up a hand, making an “all good” gesture. “Just routine follow-up. Nothing to worry about.”

  Mina let out her breath and hit stop on the watch, writing down the time while she let her pulse slow down a bit. “That’s good.”

  “Yes, but the mayor sucked me into this Christmas Festival committee of hers.”

  “She did?” Mina twisted to look at him. Bill, who ran Cloud Bay’s only garden center with Marla, when he wasn’t whipping the Search and Rescue team into shape, wasn’t much of a joiner. Didn’t have much time to be between the two. “How did that happen?”

  “Marla said it would be good for me.” He looked sheepish. “Marla loves Christmas.”

  “Ah,” Mina said. Bill would bend over backward to make sure Marla got whatever made her happy after almost losing her. She understood. “But what do you need me for?”

  “They have a meeting on Tuesday afternoon. It would be nice if someone from the team could fill in for me. Make sure we don’t get signed up for anything crazy.”

  She’d really rather stick a fork in her eye. A dull and rusty fork. Cloud Bay liked to pack its calendar full of various corny events designed to keep the tourists coming to the island all year round. None of them pulled the enormous crowds that CloudFest, the music festival her dad had started twenty odd years ago, did every summer, but they all helped the local economy. But a Christmas Festival was new. They’d always had a tree in the small town square near the docks at Cloud Bay and carol singing on Christmas Eve with presents for the kids who lived on the island, but not a full-on festival designed to attract tourists. It seemed like a reach. There’d have to be something seriously wrong with the weather before Lansing ever had a white Christmas. Surely people who went away for Christmas went to places where the weather was actually, well, Christmassy?

  Even if she still loved Christmastime, she would have thought it was a bit lame. But Bill didn’t often ask for favors, and filling in at a meeting was something concrete she could do rather than twiddling her thumbs. And, after all, how bad could one meeting possibly be?

  chapter five

  On Monday morning, Mina found Faith in the kitchen, sitting at the piano, idly picking out a melody. The song wasn’t anything Mina recognized but it had been a long time since she’d seen Faith go near the piano. So she paused to listen, not wanting to disturb Faith’s train of thought if she was possibly writing a song. And because she wasn’t looking forward to the conversation she was about to have. She should have told Faith about inviting Will and Stefan on Saturday, but she’d stuck her head in the sand. But now it was Monday and Thanksgiving was Thursday and, well, here she was.

  Ready to spill the beans. Kind of. But if she could delay it a few more minutes, then that was just fine with her.

  But apparently she wasn’t quite quiet enough because Faith swiveled around on the piano stool and wriggled her fingers in greeting. “Hey sis.”

  “Hey yourself. That sounded good. Working on something?”

  Faith shook her head. “Just noodling.”

  “Slow day at the office?”

  “Kind of. Leah’s busy at the studio and Theo’s off-island for a couple of days, doing some meetings in L.A. So I’m slacking off for the morning.”

  Mina doubted that. Faith had never really been one for lazing around. “Where’s Caleb?”

  “Lou roped him into doing a talk at the high school.”

  “Another one?” Lou had been shamelessly using Caleb White for school events since he’d moved to the island to live with Faith.

  “Well, I guess the kids don’t get the chance to meet too many professional athletes here. Makes a nice change from rock stars.” Faith smiled. “Besides, he’s thinking of running a tennis camp this summer, so it will help if the kids here get to know him.”

  “A camp for island kids?” That was a good idea. Lansing was small. Summers could get long for kids stuck here while their parents made the most of peak tourist season. At least for the ones who didn’t have jobs.

  “A mix, I think. Local kids, definitely, but maybe some others. He’s still figuring it out.”

  “Won’t that be kind of super busy with CloudFest?”

  “The plan would be to have it early summer. Before it gets too hot and yes, before, the CloudFest madness starts. There’s enough summer to go around.” Faith stood
and came over to kiss Mina’s cheek hello.

  “I actually called the office first, to see if you were there. When they said you’d gone, I wondered if you’d been dragged into the Christmas Festival planning.”

  Faith snorted. “Unless our esteemed Mayor Rigger has had a total personality transplant, I think that’s one committee I’m safe from being invited to.”

  “Angie’s okay. She’s doing a good job as mayor.”

  “She’s doing a good job at being a pain in the ass,” Faith said. “She came up with a new noise ordinance for summer. Or she tried to. Lou got wind of it and we managed to get the town council to shut it down.”

  “Yikes,” Mina said.

  “Yikes is right. So don’t get me started on the Christmas Festival. I mean, we’re an island off the coast of California. Our winters aren’t exactly snowy-wonderland-postcard-Christmas territory. How many tourists does she think we’re going to get?”

  Nice to see someone else felt the same way about the festival as she did. But Faith usually loved Christmas. “Is it the festival you don’t like or the fact it’s Angie running it?” Mina asked.

  “I’m thinking of the islanders,” Faith said. “People need some time off to enjoy the holidays with their families. They shouldn’t have to be putting on a show for tourists all year.”

  “People also need to earn a living,” Mina said gently. “CloudFest brings plenty of summer money, but it’s not easy for everyone to make it through the rest of the year.” Faith, as much as she would deny it, still spent a lot of time in the music world. Between that and running the business side of Harper Inc., she tended to run with people who weren’t exactly worried about where their next paycheck was coming from. “Angie’s just trying to do her best for Lansing.”

  “Why are you defending her?” Faith’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t even like Christmas.”

  Mina hid a wince. She’d liked Christmas just fine before Adam had died. It had been one of their favorite times of year. It was just Christmas without him she’d struggled with for the last three years. “I just think you need to try and get along with Angie. After all, your mom and her dad are kind of dating.” Which was the root of the problem. Mina had always thought Angie was fairly rational—she was closer to Faith’s age than Mina’s, so she didn’t actually know her terribly well—but when it came to Seth Rigger moving on after his wife’s death, well, Angie seemed to hold Faith personally responsible. Then again, the two of them had never really been close even before Lou and Seth got together.