Read Online Any Given Christmas by Candis Terry - Free Book Online

purposely choose to eat sticks and bugs when there’s a good burger joint on almost every corner.”
    The show his father referenced was a new episode of Man vs. Wild . Before he’d landed back in Deer Lick, Dean hadn’t even known any man-vs.-whatever shows existed. His sixty-five-inch big screen at home remained locked on a sports channel. Whether home alone or playing Texas Hold ‘em with the guys, he kept it on as background noise.
    He wasn’t one who usually stayed in the same place for long periods of time. Even in the off-season he’d grab a plane to Cabo or to a celebrity golf tournament. Or when in town, he’d visit players and their families or hang out with his closest friends. He smiled. Or he’d be sweet-talking a supermodel out of her skinny jeans.
    Men like you are cowards. You only see the end game. Meaningless sex. A one-nighter, nooner, or whatever time of day you manage to find a willing body.
    Shit.
    He sat up.
    How had crazy reindeer-suit-wearing Emma popped into his conscience?
    “Nothing to do?” Kate asked him as he watched her hang a glittery snowman ornament on the tree in the corner of the living room.
    “Thinking of making a bag of microwave popcorn.”
    “Maybe you could help me decorate?”
    “Apparently you’ve forgotten the time I broke the heirloom tree topper.”
    “Right.” She reached for a shiny glass candy cane. “Tell me again how it is that you can throw a perfect spiral into a pair of gloved hands yet you can’t manage to hang an ornament without breaking it?”
    “Leather. Glass.”
    “Ah.” She nodded and her red hair brushed across the back of her blue Stallions sweatshirt. “Got it.”
    He sighed. How did people around here manage not to go crazy in the winter months? How had he lasted eighteen years in a town that barely registered on a map?
    “I saw Emma Hart at the Gas and Grub earlier,” Kate mentioned. “Why don’t you call her up and ask her out?”
    Because he’d like to keep all his limbs intact?
    He could swing a bat in any direction and still hit on the fact that Emma Hart didn’t like him. Why? Who knew. He never had issues with other women. Emma was just odd. Cute. But odd.
    Besides, he dated women with long, long legs. Women with names like Desiree and Layla. Hell, one time he’d even dated a woman named Delight. And she had been. He didn’t date short women with attitudes who had old-fashioned names like Emma . She might as well have been called Gertrude or Harriet. He didn’t do groupies, married women, or women looking to put a ring on their finger. And he didn’t do old-fashioned. Period.
    At his no-response response, Kate tugged the sparkly green and red garland into place. “So you’re not going to call her?”
    He exhaled. “Your matchmaking efforts are getting old, Kate.”
    “That Emma is a real sweet girl, Son,” his father added. “You’d be smart to act before some other guy grabs her attention.”
    Two words that didn’t belong in the same sentence. Emma and sweet.
    “Suit yourself,” Kate said with a shrug. “Doesn’t matter, really. I saw Jesse Hamilton heading in her direction. I think he’s got a thing for her.”
    Jesse? So who was Oscar? Emma had mentioned the name the night he’d almost mowed her down on his way out to Kate’s. If she’d had someone waiting for her at home, why would Jesse Hamilton set himself up for rejection?
    “I’m pretty sure Jesse was about to ask her out, anyway,” Kate continued. “Probably just as well. I don’t think she likes you very much.”
    No. Shit.
    Everyone liked him. Everyone except her . What was wrong with that woman?
    Two hours and two episodes of Cupcake Wars later, Dean thought he would lose his mind. He needed to get up off the sofa and get out of the house. Maybe he’d hit up the Naughty Irish bar and see what his old friend Oliver and his wife Maggie were up to. Too bad he couldn’t play a game of pool. That would eat up a few hours. Or he could cruise