Christmas on Main Street Read Online Free PDF Page B

all that attention on him. Especially since he’d always been the Boy Scout of the Douchett family.
    Since her uncharacteristic behavior had created the scandal, Kelli was honestly surprised he’d spoken to her at all today.
    Unfortunately, while their friendship might have gone up in flames on the pyre of his male cluelessness and her disappointment and jealousy, the one thing that hadn’t changed was that Cole was still hot.
    Make that
two
things.
    Because, dammit, her raging crush on him was still alive and well.
    And that was ridiculous. She was twenty-five years old. An adult. A professional, an honors graduate whom parents trusted five days a week with their precious children.
    Crushes were for silly young girls who cut photos of Justin Bieber from
Popstar!
magazine and
Twilight
fans who wept copious tears in darkened theaters as Bella chose Edward over a brokenhearted Jacob, causing him to run off into the woods to live as a lone wolf.
    How pathetic was it that just seeing him today, just hearing that deep, husky voice that she’d imagined too many times in her fantasies saying her name, had her remembering how knee-weakening the right kind of heat in the right places could be?
    She’d already had her heart broken once by Cole Douchett.
    She would not, Kelli vowed, make that same mistake twice.

5
    Kelli couldn’t believe it. With all the flights between Oregon and Hawaii, there wasn’t a single seat on any plane flying out of Portland for her? Not even in first class—not that she could afford such luxury on her teacher’s salary. Was no one staying on the mainland for Christmas?
    If she were willing to go after the holidays, as long as she would settle for a middle seat in the very back of the plane, she could buy a ticket for an inflated last-minute price.
    But by then she wouldn’t need to escape because Cole would be gone from Shelter Bay.
    Which was what she wanted.
    So, why, she asked herself a few hours later, did the sight of him walking into the cafeteria, familiar pink bakery box in hand, cause her heart to hitch.
    “Well, this is a surprise,” she said.
    “I ran into your mother this morning at the market,” he told her. “She said that you couldn’t get tickets to Hawaii.”
    “That was fast, even for this town. Since I struck out only last night.”
    He tilted his head. Frowned. “She wasn’t gossiping, Kelli. I just asked her how things were going and it came up.”
    Had they been talking about her? Her mother had always liked Cole, who’d spent as much time at the Carpenter house as he had his own home.
    “So, anyway,” he said, “I brought you this.” He held out the box, wrapped with white ribbon with
Take the Cake
written on the top in white raised script.
    “You brought me a cupcake?” She could have easily been addicted to the shop’s cupcakes if she weren’t strict about how often she allowed herself to visit.
    “I was walking by and the aroma wafting from the place drew me in. I was planning to get a box for the family when I saw this tropical one in the case. The bakery’s owner bills it as tasting like a piña colada.”
    “It does.” Which was what had gotten her thinking about Hawaii in the first place.
    “After sampling one myself, solely in the interest of making certain she wasn’t engaging in false advertising, I decided she had nailed it. So, I brought you Hawaii in a cupcake.”
    Kelli couldn’t quite repress the giddy sense of pleasure that he’d been thinking of her. And had bought her something he knew she’d enjoy. Somehow it was better than a pirate’s trove of jewels.
    “Thank you. That’s very thoughtful of you.”
    “Don’t go giving me too much credit, Kels,” he said. “There was more than a little selfishness involved.”
    “Oh?” She opened the box and breathed in the scent of rum, coconut, and pineapple. A bright yellow and white paper umbrella had been inserted in the middle of the toasted coconut frosting. Hawaii in a