A Chance This Christmas(17)
“It’s not golf, dude,” Luke reminded him, levering himself off the desk to peer critically at the board. “And we’re just seeing who goes first.”
The groom wore a top hat with a sprig of mistletoe in the brim, the Bob Cratchit look a smart nod to the holiday theme without lugging around a set of antlers all night.
“But it’s a tiebreaker round,” Gavin argued. “It’s go time.”
Although, in all fairness, he hadn’t expected a question about Rachel Chambers to knock him off his game quite so much. Good thing he hadn’t been on a snowboard run or he would have wound up head first in a drift for the first time in a whole lot of years.
Luke’s assessing stare moved from the board to Gavin. “So maybe you’d better answer my question before you take any more turns.”
Built like a rugby player, Luke Harris had a quiet way about him that intimidated some people. Gavin had been scrapping with him since they were pre-teens though, so the flexing jaw and brooding scowl didn’t work on him.
“We’re not dating,” Gavin informed him, picking up a bottle of spring water off the sofa table full that was of snowman knickknacks and sprinkled with fake snow. “But I have to wonder why it matters so much to a man getting married to someone else in a few days.”
Luke frowned while Gavin guzzled down the water. The stress of this night called for a beer, but he was too deep in training to make indiscriminate choices about what he put into his body. He wasn’t eighteen anymore.
“Just what are you implying?” Luke’s dark eyebrows furrowed.
“Only that your old grudge against Rachel makes it look like you care. When obviously, you don’t.” He shrugged, setting aside the water bottle and stepping away from the taped line on the floor that was the official spot to stand when throwing darts.
“Of course I don’t have a grudge.” Luke huffed out an exasperated sigh before he tipped his top hat back and scratched his forehead. “Hell, you know that. But I still don’t trust her.”
Gavin’s eyes went to the open door to the hallway, making sure they were alone as a man took the karaoke microphone—the bride’s father, he guessed—crooning about chestnuts roasting over an open fire. The guy was pretty good.
“What have you got against Rachel?” Gavin kept his voice low anyway, wondering what his date was doing right now. He hated leaving her side after the openly hostile greeting they’d received. “You admitted to me a long time ago that she broke up with you before you proposed. What did she do so wrong?”
If even Luke still held a grudge, how would Gavin ever help Rachel make peace with anyone in Yuletide? If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose any influence he had with the town council and his idea for the fundraiser would never get off the ground.
Let alone approval for all the changes he wanted to make on the Jingle Elf house.
Luke shoved his hat back down into place. “I never told anyone this except for Rachel, but I asked her father for permission to marry her ahead of time. And after Chris Chambers wished me well and told me that I had his blessing, I told him what I was planning—the whole skywriting thing in front of the town.”
Gavin’s thoughts rushed to fill in what that meant.
“You figure he timed his departure to coincide with a day when everyone would be distracted?” he guessed.
“Right.” Luke nodded, scraping his dart off the desk and passing it from hand to hand like a hot potato. “And despite the proposal and all the drama of that day when the locals were putting Rachel on the spot, asking her where she’d been or if she’d said yes, she never once sought out her father?”
Gavin shook his head, unable to make the leap in his friend’s logic. “I don’t follow. So what?”
“She was only eighteen and all of Yuletide was demanding answers from her about why she skipped the parade and why she wouldn’t marry me. Wouldn’t it have made sense to call in her father—affable Chris Chambers, the founder of Yuletide and everyone’s favorite perennial Santa—to run interference for her?” Luke quit tossing the dart back and forth. He met Gavin’s gaze with an unblinking stare. “I’ve always wondered if her dad warned her he was leaving and she knew perfectly well he was already long gone by then. She could have been covering for him.”
“Impossible.” Although even as he said it, he wondered if he was quick to defend her because it was a reflex, or because he truly believed in her. “The cops questioned her—”
Was he still letting an attraction to Rachel overrule common sense? It made him wary that everyone else suspected her of something.
“We don’t know how much they asked her though. They were following the money. And I’m sure she didn’t know he was taking those town funds until afterward.” Luke flicked the fins of the dart with his finger. “But she could have known he was leaving and did him a favor by not calling attention to him that day. She certainly couldn’t have helped him any more if she tried.”
That last part was true enough. But none of the rest.
“No.” Gavin didn’t buy it. “You ended up helping him far more than she did. Chris Chambers saw a good time to leave and he took it. Your proposal was the perfect cover.”
“Maybe.” Luke moved to take his next shot while the party outside suddenly quieted. “I just know she and her mother sure never suffered financially afterward. I’d have a care about how close you let Rachel get to you, Gav.”