She’d been left in no doubt that he could pull off their fake relationship. She just needed to remind herself that it was fake. An act. It would be easy to forget if subjected to too many kisses of that caliber.

“Holy cow!” Winona’s astonished exclamation pulled Suzanne out of the seductive web of last night’s kiss. “I have no words,” she said as they both stared at the twenty-foot-tall inflatable Santa Claus tied down to the roof of the shop. In his hands he held a sign that said, Happy Birthday, Jesus.

If anyone was going to hell, it was the makers of that abomination.

Chapter Eight

By four thirty, Suzanne and Winona were sitting in front of the fire as they indulged in a celebratory glass of red wine. The one from last night, which Grady had left on the bench top. They were laughing at the sweater Suzanne was wearing with dancing elves on a red background and Jingle My Bells knitted in cursive white print at the bottom.

She’d come across an entire aisle full of tacky clothing and gone a little overboard buying five pairs of sweaters in matching his-and-her styles. They were perfectly, kitschily awful. As were the T-shirts she’d bought, including sizes and styles for her parents, too.

Suzanne didn’t even hear Grady arrive until the door swung open and both she and Winona turned with a start to see his very distinct silhouette in the doorway right beneath a terrible plastic sprig of mistletoe. Suzanne’s fingers tightened around the wineglass. Do not think about kissing Grady under that Mistletoe.

Oops. Too late.

“Why is my cabin lit up like the Fourth of July?” he demanded, with barely a nod at Winona and absolutely no preamble.

“It’s not that bad,” Winona dismissed as Grady shut the door behind him.

All the windows had been frosted in fake snow and outlined with pink and green globes. The front porch railing and uprights were wrapped in lights, and a fringe of multicolored icicle lights draped off the gutters. They twinkled on and off in no particular sequence, and occasionally all flashed in unison.

“You want to hope Santa’s not an epileptic,” he grouched.

“I doubt he’d have a sleigh license if he was,” Winona quipped.

She seemed completely unfazed by Grady’s mood, and Suzanne wished she could be half as cool and confident. But then Grady stripped off his heavy coat and hat, hanging both on a hook near the door, and Suzanne was just grateful for the ability to make words at all.

He didn’t bother to ruffle out his hair, which was suffering somewhat from being confined in his hat, because Grady didn’t appear to give a shit what his hair looked like.

“How did you get them on the cabin without breaking your damn fool necks?”

Had Suzanne been in her right mind, she’d have told him women could do all kinds of stuff, including finding and climbing ladders and using tools like hammers, and very few broke necks or nails doing it. But the way his plaid shirt and jeans fit his body sapped all her fight.