Just Right

Excerpt:

Chapter 1

Maybe if she hadn’t been bitten by the neighbor’s pug when she was eight.

Maybe if it hadn’t taken twelve stitches.

Maybe if she hadn’t spent three nights in the hospital after it got infected… Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Avery Conrad had to quit blaming everything on her childhood. Especially since she was almost thirty and currently hanging from the light pole in front of Greg’s Hardware Store on Main Street in Love, Pennsylvania. The giant red-and-white candy cane strapped to the pole had blocked her from shimmying to the top. There was not enough money in her bank account to pay for any damages to the town’s Christmas décor. Even if they had enough of said décor to tastefully decorate a town four times the size of Love.

Currently, considering the events that had necessitated her precipitous climb, she was very thankful that her best friend for the past five months just happened to be a former circus performer who had tried, with minimal success, to teach Avery a few “tricks.”

The next time she saw Jillian, she’d have to report that she’d mastered the pole-climbing part of the contortionist-hanging-by-her-hair routine. Necessity was the mother of survival, or however that old saying went.

Pursing her lips, she looked at the dogs sniffing the bottom of her temporary residence. Black, long-eared, long-haired, and quite loud. Their teeth were rather large, too, thank you very much.

Her eyes drifted a little farther to the scuffed hiking boots of the man who had spoken to her less than a minute ago. In what had to be only the second or possibly third time in her life, she’d not been able to gather her wits to answer back. Yet. She’d have to get down from the light pole before she could comfortably read him his pedigree. There was just something gauche about her current position that negated the authority she hoped to convey.

“I said they’re harmless. I promise.”

His deep voice reached her, reminding her of the tympani part in Nielsen’s 4th symphony.

“I was bitten when I was younger.” She tightened her grip, thankful she hadn’t put her gloves on. She probably wouldn’t have gotten up the pole while wearing them.

He gave a low command, a word she couldn’t hear, and the dogs trotted the few steps to his side. Once they had stopped barking and his voice could be heard, they seemed to listen fairly well.

Avery put her forehead against the cold pole. Flakes of snow drifted past her nose. She could pretend to be comfortable and want to stay in her current position, which would be ridiculous and an obvious lie, of course, although hardly shocking to anyone in town. She could get down and give the guy the tongue-lashing he deserved, but that would mean getting close to the despicable dogs. Or she could slide down and stride away, ignoring the very large man and his ugly dogs.

Avery slid awkwardly down the pole. It was high time she faced her fear of dogs.

Her feet landed with a plop and a scrape as her right foot slipped on a soft patch of ice. Her legs shot out from under her and she flailed with both arms and feet, trying to regain her balance before she landed with a thump on her bottom, one leg stretched out on either side of the pole.

Her butt stung, but her pride stung more.

She could make this look like she did it on purpose. It would be a stretch, but she could bluff her way through. She had to get up first.

A single car ambled down Main Street. The horn honked. Avery threw up a hand without looking at the driver. Better to assume they were laughing with her and not at her. Although, the close-knit folks in Love had already pegged her as crazy. Sometimes, it was just better to play along.

With one hand on the pole, she scrambled to her feet. Unfortunately, because she was being careful to avoid the ice patch, she leaned too far to the left, lost her balance, stumbled, and smacked her head with a hollow bong against the green metal of the pole.

Pain pulsed in her head and radiated down her arms to the tips of her fingers, which throbbed. A small shower of red and silver confetti rained around her from the candy cane at the top of the pole. Any second now, it would cut loose, dropping down and smacking her on the head. That seemed to be the direction her life always went.

She might have been able to pretend she landed on her butt on purpose, but there was no way she could pretend she meant to smack herself in the head with the pole.

At least she was on her feet.

She glanced up, only to meet the beady red eyes and glistening white teeth of a ferocious hunting dog. Saliva dripped to the ground as the dog licked its chops, no doubt thinking her Armani wool, cashmere-lined jacket looked an awful lot like a hot dog bun, and thinking she, of course, would taste an awful lot like a hot dog.

“Please call off your dog.” She meant to say it with authority to the man now in front of her, but it came out on a scratchy whisper. What kind of man allowed his dogs to stand over a helpless woman, salivating and dreaming of banquets and hotdogs? A total jerk, obviously.

His hand fell back to his side. Probably, he had extended it to help her up, but she hadn’t noticed and it was too late now.

“Gladys, sit,” the man said with a suspicious hitch in his voice.

Her jaw clenched. He was laughing at her. Usually she didn’t have a problem laughing at herself. After all, this kind of thing happened to her all the time. All the time. But to have this arrogant stranger and his snarling, starved dogs…

Wait. “Gladys?” What kind of person named their dog Gladys?

“Yeah. I guess I should have called her Bruiser or Fang or Eats Ladies for Leisure…” There was that deep, tympanic vibration again. The vibration struck her right under her diaphragm and caused an unfamiliar heat to expand under her heart. She sucked in her stomach to stop the odd sensation.

“You can stop laughing at me anytime. Don’t you have somewhere to go?”

“Wanted to make sure you were okay. That was quite a hit you took.” He jerked his head up, pointing with his chin. “Thought the candy cane might get loose and make it a two-for-one.”

“Wouldn’t have surprised me,” Avery mumbled, for some reason finding it hard to let go of her irritation. Maybe because both dogs were now looking at her like she was lunch. At least the throbbing had slowed to a dull thump focused solely in her head.

The man bent and picked up the bags she’d dropped. He held them out to her, his fingers long and calloused. Brown. The thumb nail was black, like it’d been smashed by a hammer.

The man nodded at the pole. “I’m sorry about that. They know they’re going hunting tonight and they’re excited.”

The vibrations hit her diaphragm again. Taking a deep breath to shove the unfamiliar sensation aside, she snatched the bags filled with Christmas decorations and lights out of the man’s hand.

Avery looked up. Way up. Man, sometimes it sucked to be short. She was going to drown in snowflakes if she looked this guy in the eye while she talked to him.

“Whether or not they’re going hunting, there are still leash laws in this town.” It was never easy to sound condescending to someone who was almost a foot taller than she. “In the future, you could avoid this whole, unpleasant scenario if you simply remember to keep your animals leashed while within the town limits.”

“Yeah, lady, I could.” One side of the man’s mouth hitched up, revealing a fascinating dimple at the edge of his lip. “But I don’t know why I’d want to. It was pretty impressive watching you shimmy up that pole. I sure hope you’re registered for the lumberjack contest at Love’s Christmas celebration later this month.”

Avery planned to march in the parade, playing her tuba. Nothing more. Hopefully, shortly after that she’d know if she had been accepted to the Washington D.C. Eveningtide Orchestra. “I’ve never been mistaken for a lumberjack,” she said, unable to soften her words with even the hint of a smile.  

His lip hitched up a little more and the dimple deepened. “It wasn’t a mistake.”

“Of course, it was a mistake. I’m barely five feet tall. Your wrists are bigger than my biceps, which you’ll have to take my word on, since I’m not taking my coat and sweater off in this cold. Not to mention, if I took off my outerwear, your dogs might decide that’s a dinner invitation.”

“Yeah, I suppose that little old lady they had for breakfast didn’t stick to their ribs very well.”

Avery couldn’t keep her mouth from dropping and her eyes from widening in the second before she realized that he was kidding. Probably.

She eyed the dogs and inched backward. Just in case. Her back hit the pole and she stopped.

“Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas” grew loud, then soft again as a young teen opened the hardware store door and walked out. He nodded at them before he turned and shuffled down the otherwise deserted sidewalks. Unfortunately, the dogs didn’t take their eyes off Avery.

Something that looked like regret or possibly pity flitted across the man’s face. “I’m sorry my dogs scared you.”

“You’re not acting sorry, and they’re still here.”

“They’ll leave when I do.” A muscle ticked in his strong jaw. “When I was training them, I never thought to include a command for them to go sit in a corner while I helped an otherwise elegant woman down from a light pole. I’m shortsighted that way.”

Avery’s lips twitched. She buttoned them down. After all, she would have walked away from this conversation five minutes ago if she weren’t terrified to turn her back on those ferocious animals. “Where I come from, dogs do not go off their leashes. For any reason.”

“I was born in this town. And these dogs were born and bred to be off-leash.”

“Not in town.”

“They haven’t touched you.”

“They don’t need to touch me to make it clear as day they want to eat me.”