Holiday Wedding (11 page)

“S.W. stands for Santa's Workshop.” She thought back to the old man she'd just met. He'd said it was his workshop. Did that make him Santa?

Drew parked the car and they got out. “Why would Luke want to get married in some tourist trap when we have a perfectly good Santa's Village set up at JDL Toys?”

“That's a good question.” Luke was definitely up to something, but she wasn't quite sure what. A woman wearing a long green wool coat greeted them with a smile that lit up her face. Vivian had been correct—if this was Natasha, she was definitely on the short side.

“Lauren. Drew.” She waved. “How was your trip in? Are you all settled in at the cabin?”

“Yes. Thank you. You must be Natasha.” Lauren extended her gloved hand. The fact that this woman knew they were staying at the cabin really didn't surprise her. It was becoming clear with each interaction that all of the town's residents had gotten the memo.

“Yes, I am. It's so nice to finally meet you both. Let's get you inside. It's been a bit frosty on the mountain this week.” The petite woman spun on her heels and headed toward the first of the red and green houses.

Drew leaned in. “What did she mean by ‘
finally
meet you'?”

Lauren shrugged, and he hummed the
Twilight Zone
theme.

“Stop it.” She gave him a playful swat. “Natasha seems sweet.”

“Yeah, and that's probably what Hansel and Gretel said about the lady they met before they entered the Gingerbread House.”

“Well, it's a good thing Luke's the one with a sweet tooth and not you,” she teased as they caught up to Natasha and entered the first building. Inside, her mouth dropped. The open space was packed with Christmas trees, sparkly decorations dripping from branches. A model train circled above them while holiday music filtered through the air. A big sign hanging on the wall read “Toys this Way” with a bright red arrow pointing to the left.

“Is this a toy store?” Drew loosened his scarf.

“Oh, no.” Natasha laughed as if he'd said the silliest thing on earth. “We make toys here, not sell them.”

“And that's why you call this place Santa's Workshop.” Drew crossed his arms, obviously convinced he'd solved the mystery. “Makes total sense … a little cliché.”

“Well, we've had that name for quite a while.” She reached out and offered to take their coats. “We open Santa's Workshop on October first every year. Visitors from all around stop in and help us make toys for kids in need. All the toys we make are then donated to charities up and down the East Coast.”

“Do you charge an admissions fee?”

Lauren pulled off her gloves and slapped Drew with one. Typical Ebenezer Drew always looking for ways to turn a profit. “How many toys do you make?”

“Thousands.” Natasha grabbed a green bowl full of candy canes and offered them both one. “Many of our town residents help out, too.”

“How wonderful.” Lauren could stay there forever soaking in all the Christmas merriment, or at least the rest of the day. She highly doubted her partner in crime felt the same way and was kind of surprised—given his aversion to Christmas—he hadn't bolted for the door.

Drew watched the train set circling overhead for a few seconds, then turned to Natasha. “We should probably get started. Can you show us the room the wedding reception will be in?”

Natasha's eyebrows burrowed. “We don't hold wedding events here.” She laughed at the thought. “Goodness, no.”

“You don't?” Lauren asked, taking her eyes off the trees.

Drew didn't wait for Natasha's answer. “There must be a mistake. My brother sent us here to look at a space for his wedding. Is there another place with the initials S.W.? A hotel, maybe?”

Natasha motioned for them to follow her. “The only hotel in town is the Snow Frost Inn. We did speak to your brother and arranged for you both to visit this morning. I don't know anything about your seeing a reception venue, but this morning you'll be making toys.”

“What!” Drew shook his head and Lauren could tell her ex was going to lose it any second. She'd been around him enough to know what it looked like when one twin pushed the other over the edge, and Drew was just about to plummet.

Lauren linked her arm through his. “Come on. We're not going to blow our first assignment.”

An hour later, Drew plopped down next to Lauren. Their workbench was full of toy trains they'd assembled and painted. Additional visitors sat throughout the room, working on their toys, enjoying complimentary Christmas cookies and hot cocoa, and listening to holiday music.

Lauren waved her paintbrush in the air. She'd just finished the tiny white trim to her red wooden train. “Isn't this fun?”

“Yeah, a blast.” Drew had been quiet for most of the hour but, to Lauren's delight, had finally picked up a paintbrush. Maybe there was help for him yet. If there was a place for Drew to finally let Christmas into his heart, this was it.

“Come on. It's therapeutic, and just think how excited some kid is going to be to get this train set.”

He nodded, but lowered his voice. “What they do is wonderful, don't get me wrong. But how is our wasting time in this place going to help us accomplish the job we came here to do? I thought we were planning Luke's wedding, not on some Christmas version of
The Amazing Race
.”

“I love that show.”

“Lauren, not the point.”

“I know.” She dipped her paintbrush into the bright red paint and grabbed another unpainted wooden train. “Do you trust your brother?”

“Not on your life.” He pushed off his chair. “I'm calling him now and ending this.”

Lauren sighed. Not even being in a town saturated in Christmas cheer could defrost Drew's cold heart. Her own broke watching him pace back and forth.

He did have a point that they were probably wasting precious time that could be spent on the wedding or preparing to sell the Happily Ever After dolls. As she continued to paint her train, she realized she was okay with that.

“Care for more cocoa?” A young man dressed in a red sweater vest with a green scarf around his neck offered to refill her cup.

“Sure. Thank you.”

“Your friend mellow out?”

She couldn't help but smirk. “You noticed?”

“That he'd rather slide down Snow Frost Mountain on his butt naked than be here? Yeah, it's pretty noticeable.”

The image of a naked Drew sliding down the slope brought out more than one giggle. “He's really trying to adjust his attitude toward the holidays,” she fibbed and reached out her hand. “I'm Lauren.”

“James.”

“It's nice to meet you.”

“Well, we're happy you are here. It's all the town's been talk—” He paused. “I should get back to work. I'll see you around.”

“Wait.” She reached for his sleeve. “What were you going to say?”

“Merry Christmas?” he asked, with a sheepish grin.

“No. You implied the town's talking about us.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why is our being here such a big deal?”

James smiled and reached down for a paintbrush. “We grant wishes.”

“Right, Natasha told us that these toys go to disadvantaged children. That's absolutely wonderful. Maybe next year, JDL Toys could get involved somehow. I'd love to partner with you.”

“I'm sure the big guy would like that. He's been spending a lot of time in the city these days.”

“We'll set up a meeting.” She reached in her purse for a business card, handing it to James.

“Great, but definitely in the spring. He goes on an extended vacation after the holidays.” James nodded to a table where a woman was waving him over. “I should probably get back to work. I'll see you tomorrow, Lauren.”

“See you,” she chirped. “Wait, why will I see you tomorrow? What will we be doing?”

He winked. “You'll see.”

• • •

Lauren sliced the velvety white cake with her fork and took a bite. Her eyes rolled back as her tongue soaked in the sugar. “Drew, you've got to try this one.” She glanced behind her at her ex, who hadn't let up in trying to reach his brother.

His insistence that he talk to Luke was starting to get on her last nerve. If he acted like this the entire trip, it was going to be a long two weeks.

He finally came over and slid on the bar stool, eyeing the Santa cap on the bakeshop owner's head. “Don't you find it odd that everyone in this town has an abundance of Christmas spirit?” he asked, pointing to the hat.

“I think it's charming.” She sliced into another cake. “Who knows? After a week or two, maybe some of it will rub off on you.”

“Doubt it. Christmas is about fighting crowds, standing in line, and spending too much money on an overpriced gift for a kid who probably didn't deserve it.”

“Says the VP of the most successful toy company in the world.” She reached for the chocolate cake, knowing that chocolate was his favorite. Although Drew didn't have the sweet tooth that Luke did, he never turned down a chocolate cake. She'd always made a point to make sure he had one on his birthday.

What kind of cake had he had this year in Tokyo, and who'd baked it for him? She shuddered as Olivia's face popped into her head and mentally drop-kicked it out of her mind.

Perhaps a small bite would help Drew ease into the wedding cake selection task at hand. “How about trying this one?” She pushed her fork through the decadent slice and held it to his lips.

“I'll pass.”

“Suit yourself.” She turned the utensil toward her and brought it up to her lips. “You have no idea what you're missing.”

“Okay, I'll try.” He snatched her fork, took a bite, and then sliced into the cake for another.

“Do you remember the wedding cake that we chose?” she asked.

He grinned. “Yeah, it had some exotic fruit in it.”

“It was Haupia.” She could almost taste the thick coconut milk and sugar from memory alone.

“Wow, you remember that?”

“I remember a lot of things about that day.”

“Didn't exactly go down as the wedding of the year, did it?” He pulled the chocolate cake closer to him and dug in.

She'd known one bite, and he'd be a goner. “No, it didn't. You know what was funny about the cakes?”

“They all had exotic fruit in them?”

Her lips turned up into a half-smile. “Well, that, too. What I was going to say is we didn't pick them out. Kate and Miles did.”

“No, we went with the haupi-dippity-cake.”

She laughed at the butchering of its name. “Haupia, and we only chose that one because Kate and Miles said it was their favorite.”

“Yeah, come to think about it, I didn't really care for any of the cakes. Too exotic.”

“None of those cakes was ‘us.'” She raised her fingers in air quotes.

He grabbed a clean fork from the counter. “Well, payback's a bitch. Let's find one for Luke that doesn't have sugar in it.”

“Now, come on. That would be mean.” She studied the cakes in front of them. Two appeared to be some sort of chocolate cake and three were white buttercream. “These do look more traditional than the choices we had.”

“This one has my vote.” Drew grabbed Lauren's fork, giving her the last bite of the cake he'd polished off.

The decadent chocolate melted on her tongue. “Very good,” she had to agree.

“Done. Let's go back to the cabin and work on our marketing plan for the Happily Ever After dolls.”

“Not so fast. We're not skimping on our wedding planning duties. We need to taste all of them or Miles will kill me.” She motioned to the untouched slices. “How about one of these buttercream cakes or a red velvet one, maybe?”

“Why do we have to choose one?” He pushed off his stool. “You're much better at this kind of stuff than I am. I'm going to try reaching Luke again. He can't avoid me forever.”

Lauren watched her ex move toward the bakeshop's window. A few seconds later she caught his end of the conversation as he tried to sweet talk Luke's assistant into patching him through. Would Drew be able to make it till next Friday if Luke kept ignoring him? And why exactly was Luke ignoring his brother, for that matter?

She reached over and picked up a wedding cake binder the bakeshop owner had left for them. Flipping through its pages, Lauren's eyes rested on a decadent white cake with a huge red bow on the top. The tiers were decorated with piped red ribbon and sparkly snowflakes.

Her heart skipped as she thought about her own special snowflake still inside her purse.

She hadn't made her wish yet. It would be so easy to wish for her life with Drew back, but was it really that simple?

The bakeshop owner appeared and leaned over the counter from the other side. “How's the tasting going?”

“They're all so delicious. It's hard to pick one.” She nodded toward Drew. “My partner in crime had to make a call, but I'm not letting him off the hook.”

The bakeshop owner laughed. “Yes, it's important that he like the cake he's going to remember for the rest of his life.”

Lauren blinked. She must think the cake was for them. Her finger pointed to the page open in the binder. “This cake is gorgeous and perfect for a winter wedding.”

“It sure is,” the bakeshop owner agreed. “I made the exact cake a couple of years ago for a darling couple. They loved it.” She leaned in and winked. “That bride had gotten the last Christmas wish on the tree, too.”

Lauren smiled politely. What was it with this town? Not only did they know her name, they also seemed to know her whereabouts.

The old woman excused herself to the kitchen, saying to just holler if they needed anything.

Lauren focused on the slices in front of her, realizing she was probably going to make this decision on her own. Chocolate or buttercream? Drew's suggestion of mixing them up had been a silly one. She paused—or was it?