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“In my opinion, you don’t have a choice, Joy. We can’t lose our chance at the Harrington account. The tree lighting is just the icing on the cake. Yes, we do a lot of those here, but it might be nice to be in the audience, appreciating the lights without worrying about whether all the bulbs are working, whether they’ll come on at the right moment, or any of the other millions of things we handle before a tree lighting. Right?”

“I guess, yeah,” Joy admitted. “He did say he’s getting two rooms, so I don’t have to worry about sharing one with him.”

“Well, based on what you told me about the kisses today, maybe sharing a room would top off the tree lighting with some fireworks.” Marci wagged her brows suggestively until Joy huffed, dropping her hand onto her hip.

“You’re incorrigible!”

Marci’s laughter followed her to the door. “And you love it. Tomorrow morning, I’ll start looking for families for the Wednesday night event while you put everything together for the meeting with Mark Stanton. We have to nail that presentation.”

“Fine,” Joy said, turning and walking toward the door, holding onto furniture as she moved through the room. Something was bothering her left ankle, but she hadn’t had time to look at it. “I’ll go, but I’m not letting my guard down around Kian Van Adler. He could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Marci stopped and held the door open. “Seems to me you already let your guard down, but you keep telling yourself that.”

Then she winked and closed the door behind her. All Joy heard was laughter as her best friend descended the stairs. She groaned in frustration at how right her friend was.

23

#Ouch!

Joy lowered herself into the desk chair and grimaced. The walk through the mall this morning required both crutches and a heavy limp, despite the fix she’d attempted to make to her AFO last night. She had a blister over her left ankle bone where the AFO had begun rubbing against it for no apparent reason. Actually, that wasn’t true. Joy knew the reason; she just didn’t want to admit it.

A knock on her office door surprised her because it was barely 9 a.m. “Come in!”

The door opened, and Kian stood at the entrance, holding a box of CinnaPOP Poppers in one hand and coffee in the other. “Hi. Have you had breakfast?”

“Nope,” she answered, motioning him in. “Don’t just stand there with a box of CinnaPOP. Bring those bitches over here.”

Smiling, he walked in, set his offerings on her desk, and lowered himself into the chair across from her. Opening the box, Joy popped a cinnamon roll into her mouth and bounced in her chair as she chewed.

“Oh, yeah, baby,” she moaned. “That’s the good stuff. That’s foreplay, in my book.”

“Noted,” Kian said, pulling out his phone and typing. “CinnaPOP Poppers turn Joy on. Make a note to buy stock in the company.”

“You’re hilarious,” she said, laughing as she grabbed a cup of coffee to wash down the roll. “But they’re delicious. That said, it’s pretty early for you to be here.”

“I wanted to catch you before the mall opened and you got busy.” He pulled an envelope from his pocket and set it on her desk.

“What’s this?” she asked, wiping her hands before taking the envelope.

“Our itinerary for Monday.”

“I don’t think we need an itinerary, Kian,” she said, shaking her head.

He motioned for her to open it, so she pulled out the paper, surprised to find a handwritten note. “Joy, will you go on a date with me Monday night?”

Lowering the paper to the desk, she glanced up at him. “You’re serious?”

“As serious as I’ve ever been about anything,” Kian confirmed. “We have business to take care of, but after that, I’d love to take you for hot cocoa and cookies at the park and to watch the tree lighting. If that’s going to be too hard to navigate, I wouldn’t mind holding hands in the movie theater and stealing popcorn from your bucket.”

Biting her lip, a shot of pain zapped her ankle. Joy couldn’t help but wonder if it would be too much to do the meeting and the tree lighting. It would require a lot of walking, but with the blister the way it was, she should be doing the exact opposite and staying put. Doing the math in her head, she had four days to heal it, but Saturday would be a long day on her feet, so it would likely only aggravate it more.

“Either you don’t want to go and you’re trying to think of a way to let me down easy, or you’re trying to figure out whether you can do it with that heavy limp you’ve got this morning.”

Leaning back in her chair, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t have a limp. That’s just how I walk. Besides, I’ve been sitting since you arrived.”

Kian laid his finger aside of his nose and winked. “So you think. I was coming in the door as you were headed to your office. I saw the way you were walking, and it’s not your normal gait. I noticed yesterday that you were splinting that left side a bit.”

“So observant,” Joy muttered, hating that her secret was already out. “I have a blister on my ankle from my AFO, but I’ve treated it. If I’m careful, the sore will heal.”