“Do the other rooms have themes, as well?” she asked.
Luke laughed. “No. They’re decorated for Christmas, of course, but we don’t have themed rooms. Just this special one for you.”
“Yay, me,” Riley said, feigning enthusiasm.
When Comet looked at her and tilted his head, she felt like he knew exactly how she felt.
“I’ll go bring up your luggage,” Luke said as he turned to leave. “Then you can make yourself at home. Do you have more in the car? I didn’t see Harry bring in very much.”
“Nope, that’s it,” Riley said. “I travel light.”
“Great,” Luke said. “As long as you packed a lot of warm clothes to wear outside, you’ll be good to go. Like I told Mike, we’ll want to be sure to plan a lot of outside activities. That’s what the lodge is known for.”
“Of course,” Riley said. She didn’t have the energy right now to get in the conversation about her lack of winter clothing.
When Luke left, she fell back onto her sleigh bed, grabbed a Santa pillow, covered her face, and screamed. The sound was muffled and strangled.
When Riley sat back up, the first thing she saw was the life-sized cardboard Santa staring at her. She threw her pillow at him and hit him in the stomach. But instead of falling over, the Santa started laughing.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” the cardboard Santa said.
And then Santa got louder.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Riley said as she ran over to the still-laughing Santa.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!”
“No! No! No!” Riley answered back as she tried to figure out how to turn it off.
She had Santa upside down when Luke returned with her bags. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her.
“Problem?” he asked.
Riley scrambled to get Santa right side up again, but this only made him start laughing again.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” Santa said, getting louder with each Ho.
Luke came to her rescue and flipped the switch under Santa’s bag of toys. “Is this what you wanted?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “Thank you. I must have accidently set him off somehow. I didn’t want him disturbing Harry. You said he was right down the hall.”
Luke nodded. “No problem.” He pointed at her luggage. “You should have everything now. Let me know if there’s anything more you need.” He picked up the Santa pillow she had thrown to the floor and handed it back to her.
Riley took the pillow and carefully put it back on the bed. “I’m all set. Thank you for everything and for giving me another chance.”
“You’re welcome,” Luke said. “It’s Christmas. A time of forgiveness, right?”
She laughed a little. “Right.”
“Well, good night then,” he said as he left her room.
“Good night,” Riley called out after him.
As soon as he was gone, she marched over to the carboard Santa. “Look, Santa,” she said with her hands on her hips. “You being here staring at me isn’t going to work.” She pointed at him. “So it’s time for you to go night night.”
She picked up the Santa and struggled to get it over to the bed. It wasn’t heavy. It was just huge and awkward.
After she set the Santa flat on the floor, she got on her hands and knees and victoriously lifted up the red bed skirt so she could stuff Santa under the bed.
Only, the sleigh bed was on a platform. There was no space to hide the Santa.
“Oh no,” she groaned as she looked at Santa’s grinning face.
With a huff, she got back up, grabbed Santa, and put him back in his original spot in the corner. But this time he faced the wall.
“Looks like you’re getting a time out,” Riley said with a satisfied smile.
When she turned around, she saw Comet was watching her from the doorway.
She felt as if she had just been caught red-handed.
“Santa’s fine. I’m just giving him a different view,” she told Comet.
Comet looked like he wasn’t buying her Santa story before he disappeared down the hall.
A minute later, Riley heard a phone ring downstairs. It was one of those old-fashioned rings, a strange tone for Luke to pick for his cell phone. But it meant one thing. Cell service was working again!
She grabbed her phone and tried to get a signal but still nothing.
When she started pacing around the room, she felt as though the Santas were all laughing at her efforts. Frustrated, she finally gave up.
“I’ll just deal with it in the morning,” she said to herself. “I need to start researching Christmas activities.”
She grabbed her laptop and sat cross-legged on the bed. She wanted to write down her first impressions of the lodge in case they helped inspire ideas for her novel. While she’d meant to take notes about the lodge and Christmas Lake, instead, she found herself writing about Luke, using adjectives like headstrong, stubborn, and determined. She then added good son, loyal, and cares about the environment.
As she sat back and read back what she’d written so far, she couldn’t decide what she really thought about Luke. All she knew for sure was that if he needed her to be Miss Christmas, that’s what she’d be. He didn’t know about her past, and she wanted to make sure it stayed that way.
Now more than ever, she needed to keep her personal life personal, because the less Luke knew about her, the better.
Chapter Twelve
Luke answered the phone in the lobby on the third ring. With the cell service always going down, he was thankful his parents had insisted on keeping their landline.
As he picked up the handset of the black 1930s antique phone, he smiled. They’d also insisted on using his great grandparents’ original phone. He used to make fun of it when he was a kid, but now he appreciated it.
“Christmas Lake Lodge,” he answered, sitting down in
