“Riley, wait!” Mike exclaimed as she headed for the door. “You can’t leave!”
Riley picked up her pace. “Watch me!”
When she got to the elevator, she impatiently pushed the button several times. “Come on. Come on. Let’s go. Get me out of here,” she said under her breath.
But when the elevator door opened, she was swallowed up in a group of singing Christmas carolers coming out the elevator. They looked just like the carolers in her hotel lobby. They were happily singing “Deck the Halls.”
“Deck the halls with boughs of holly . . .
Fa la la la la, la la la la (fa la la la la, la la la la) . . .
’Tis the season to be jolly . . .
Fa la la la la, la la la la (fa la la la la, la la la la) . . .”
“Seriously?!” Riley exclaimed, feeling anything but jolly as she dodged one caroler after another to get inside the elevator and then pushed the “down” button as if her life and sanity depended on it.
Chapter Four
Luke stood next to Mike and watched Riley storm off the set. Cleary, Luke thought, she wasn’t having a good day. First, he’d barely saved her from falling when she was running into the building earlier, and now she was running out the studio. He shook his head in amazement.
“I don’t think she’s coming back,” Luke said.
“Riley!” Mike shouted again.
But she was already gone.
“She better come back,” a producer said, glaring at Luke. “We’re live in ninety seconds.”
Luke looked at the livid producer and held up his hands in front him. “Hey, you’re talking to the wrong guy. I don’t have a horse in this race.”
The producer whipped his attention over to Mike. “You get her back here or you’re going on. We still have three minutes to fill.”
Mike, as cool as ever, smiled at the producer. “Not a problem. Luke can go on. He’s the resort manager where Riley’s hosting the Christmas Camp. He can tell you all about it.”
Luke’s jaw dropped. “What?!”
An audio tech was already trying to get Luke mic’d up.
Luke took a step back. “Wait. Stop. No,” he told the tech. “I’m not going on.”
Everyone looked at Mike.
Mike locked eyes with Luke. “You have to. Riley’s gone.”
“Yeah, I’m aware,” Luke said. “I saw her storm out of here. But I’m not doing any interview. I’m a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. I was only supposed to come to meet your author. An author you told me was this wonderful, charming, friendly woman who my guests would love.
“We’re on in forty-five seconds,” the director shouted.
Mike kept smiling his confident smile. “Look, Luke. I’m helping you out here, remember? I’m getting you publicity. That was our deal. So just go talk about your lodge, the Christmas Camp, what Riley’s going to do, whatever you want. It isn’t brain surgery. Just fill the time, get your free publicity, make everyone happy.”
Luke looked at Mike as if he’d sprouted two heads. “You want me to go on national TV, in front of millions of people, and just . . . wing it?”
Mike smiled and patted him on the back. “Exactly. No big deal.”
Luke couldn’t believe this was happening. He hated doing interviews and public speaking, and besides, the only thing he knew about Riley was from the press packet Mike had sent him, and that only talked about her novels. He was starting to think this whole Christmas Camp idea was a bad idea. A really bad idea. Of course, it had all been Mike’s brainchild.
Mike had been one of his college roommates. The two of them, along with their other roommate Jeff Jacoby, had done everything together. When they had graduated, they’d promised to always have one another’s backs, no matter what. While Mike had gone on to be a top publicist and Jeff had earned his own accolades as an architect, Luke had been interested in the field of hospitality and finding creative and cost-effective ways to help make hotels and resorts more sustainable and eco-friendly.
Over the years, Mike had helped them both, usually offering unsolicited advice about how to get press for whatever projects they were working on. So when Jeff’s dad, Ben, who owned the charming Holly Peak Inn up in the mountains of western Massachusetts decided to franchise his annual Christmas Camp for grown-ups, a Christmas-themed week filled with holiday activities to help people “disconnect to reconnect with what truly matters most at Christmas,” Mike had stepped in to help with publicity.
When Mike recently learned Luke’s mom, Margaret, was selling the family’s Christmas Lake Lodge so she could retire in Florida, he’d persuaded Luke to hold one of Jeff’s dad’s Christmas Camps at the lodge not only to help get publicity before the sale but to help Jeff’s dad with his franchise…and help Mike’s own client by having Riley host it.
While Luke had been apprehensive about holding a Christmas Camp at the lodge, Mike had suggested that instead of a week-long event like the one’s Jeff’s dad did, they could just do a Christmas Camp weekend so it wouldn’t be as much work to put on, especially since it was so last minute. Even just a weekend would still generate some great publicity.
But for Luke, it had really been his mom’s enthusiasm that had been the deciding factor to hold the event. She loved the idea of a Christmas Camp. She adored all things Christmas and thought it was the perfect way to have one last memorable event at the lodge before they sold it. She’d said this way they could honor their family’s history of hosting other
