Well, that and Clark allowed her one free punch to his stomach. The old woman had surprising strength for her age; no doubt a bruise started forming almost immediately. The rest fell together at Miss Carolyn’s instructions. She yanked children out of bed and hustled parents into costumes. They organized a feast and reset everything in the town square.

And by the time the clock struck 9 that morning, everything seemed poised to work. Clark would win the girl, save the town, and give them all the Christmas they deserved.

Only…it didn’t work. Kate stormed out before he could even tell her the good news. Before she even had time to hear his apology. Or fall in love with him again.

“All right, everyone.” Clark cleared his throat, a strangled sound as his trachea contracted and tightened. “I’m going to go—uh, to go investigate.”

Depositing Bradley—who gave him an unsubtle wink and thumbs up once he landed safely on the ground—Clark bolted. He didn’t know how to lose her like he’d lost her yesterday.

The streets and buildings around him blurred as he picked up speed (no easy feat in the Ebenezer Scrooge costume, which rarely saw this much physical activity), and he blew past every door and obstacle on his way. Even if she was halfway to Argentina by now, he was determined to find her.

Determination went unrealized when he skidded to a halt in front of the gazebo in the dead center of the town square, where he found Kate, facing away from him, sitting in a puddle of skirts on a set of wooden steps. She flinched as his footfall hit the wood a few paces behind her.

“I don’t have a car and these heels are killing me. That’s the only reason I’m still here.”

It was then he realized she hadn’t been shaking with noiseless sobs, but fooling with the difficult laces of the Victorian heeled boots on her feet. From directly behind her, he couldn’t tell the difference, but once he stepped to the side, he saw the fight firsthand and the determined way her teeth dug into her bottom lip. In the cold, her skin both paled and reddened at the same time, the high contrast giving her an otherworldly glow amid the thousands of lights strung up across the square from the buildings on either side of them. Clark didn’t want to think about the electricity bill they’d rung up over the last few days.

“Can I sit down with you?” he asked, pointing to the sliver of space between the end of her billowing skirt and the side railing of the gazebo’s steps.

“Why?”

Good question. A smarter man might have gotten down on his knees and begged forgiveness. Right? Clark didn’t watch many movies, so his vocabulary of romantically tinged apologies was severely limited.