Read Online Do You Believe in Santa? by Sierra Donovan - Free Book Online Page B

Jake two blocks around the corner to the little park that encircled Prospect Lake, the town’s fishing spot. The timing had been perfect; by seven-thirty, the sky had just begun to turn golden, the color reflected in the water. The handful of fishers on the other side of the lake were gathering up their gear before it got dark.
    â€œI didn’t even know you had a lake here,” Jake said.
    Mandy successfully navigated the ring of escaping vanilla before it reached her right hand. Her left hand stayed entwined with Jake’s as their elbows rested on the railing—not very practical for eating ice cream, but his fingers laced through hers felt wonderful.
    â€œIt’s more of a glorified duck pond.” She looked down at the water a few feet below as some of the resident birds drifted closer. She ventured another bite out of the thin, creamy chocolate shell, releasing chaos as more vanilla escaped. She caught it with her tongue, trying to keep up. “They have to stock the lake with fish. It’s man-made. If all the tourists knew about it, it’d be empty in a day.”
    â€œYou do a lot of that up here, don’t you?” Jake had already eaten his way through his ice cream’s chocolate shell and was nearly down to the cone. “You like to keep things just small enough.”
    â€œIt’s nice.” She ventured a glance away from her unstable, trickling ice cream to look at Jake, surprised to find him watching her rather than the lake. “What about you? You do a lot of trying to make things bigger.”
    â€œIt’s my job.” He squeezed her fingers lightly. “And it’s an unfortunate fact of life. If things don’t grow, they have a tendency to die.”
    â€œWe’re not trying to turn into Mount Douglas.” Mandy chased another round of vanilla around her cone, now self-consciously aware of Jake’s brown eyes following her progress.
    â€œYou couldn’t. You don’t have a ski resort.”
    â€œWe don’t get enough snow. We’re not as high up.” A big section of chocolate slid precariously down its melting vanilla base; Mandy barely caught it in her mouth before it fell to the ground.
    â€œExactly. So you need to make the most of what you do have.”
    â€œHow can you advertise peace and quiet?” How could you successfully argue a point in the middle of eating a dipped cone? “If we get too busy, it won’t be peaceful and quiet anymore.”
    â€œIt’s a delicate balance,” he said. “But if you want your businesses to stay healthy . . .”
    Jake trailed off, and she felt his gaze as she circled the melting vanilla before it reached her hand.
    He said, “I’m going to have to help you with that in a minute, you know.”
    She glanced at Jake. His expression hinted at an interest in something more than ice cream. And somehow, he’d managed to get safely all the way down to his cone.
    Mandy’s face warmed. “You’re better at multitasking than I am.”
    She lowered her eyes and concentrated on catching up with him. Jake seemed to be done with his discussion of controlled economic growth, at least for the moment.
    As far as she could tell, he made sense. Maybe a little too much sense. It was hard to think of Tall Pine in terms of profit and loss. It was home, and while she knew tourists were good for business, she’d never thought very hard about what brought them here. Except for snow, and that was one thing no amount of planning could control.
    As the sky deepened to a light orange, Mandy finished her ice cream, saving the last bit of cone for the ducks that still drifted lazily in the water. The birds had learned long ago that the presence of humans, sooner or later, added up to food. She tossed the piece into the lake and watched the ducks converge on the spot. The winner dipped its head into the water with a soft plunk. Others swam nearby, hoping