Read Christmas on Main Street for Free Online

cupcake.
    “I was hoping it’d get you to smile at me again. Like old times.” He flashed a grin, the one that was such a surprising contrast to his rugged, almost harshly hewn looks. The one she’d never been able to resist.
    Oh no. Kelli felt the moisture stinging at the back of her eyes and lowered her lids, fighting to control her tangled, complex emotions. Then finally she lifted her gaze to his steady, watchful one and gave him the smile he’d been waiting for.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    “Friends?”
    Because it seemed so important to him—and she reminded herself that he could, after all, be going to war, and she’d never forgive herself if he were injured, or worse, killed, thinking she was still angry at him—Kelli lied.
    “Friends.”
    His shoulders visibly relaxed as he blew out a breath. “Great.” His eyes warmed even further as his gaze skimmed over her face, and for one vivid, heart-stopping second, as they lingered on her mouth, she thought he was going to kiss her.
    But, of course, he didn’t. Instead he settled for the kind of quick, safe hug she might have received from one of her own brothers.
    “Well.” He flashed a quick, satisfied grin that told her he had, to his mind, fixed things and moved them back to the relationship they’d shared before her flash of temper had blown it up. “I’d better let you get back to work.” He skimmed a finger down her nose. “Enjoy the cupcake.”
    Then he turned and began strolling back up the center aisle.
    When he turned around halfway to the doors at the rear of the room, her foolishly romantic heart hitched. Her lips parted, ever so slightly.
    Waiting.
    Wanting.
    “Break a leg,” he called back to her.
    “I think that’s just for the actors,” she said.
    Since he’d already turned away again, her words were directed at his back.
    “What’s wrong?” Adèle asked ten minutes later. She might be in her seventies, but her eagle eyes never missed a thing.
    “Nothing,” Kelli lied, cursing as she touched up some painting on the backdrop for her class’s play.
    “You’ve seemed out of sorts since you arrived.” Zelda looked up from where she’d been going through the music with two volunteer audio/visual students from Shelter Bay High School.
    “I’m fine.”
    “Then explain the bags beneath your eyes.” The former prima Bolshoi Ballet principal dancer might be somewhere between seventy and a hundred, but she was still as sharp as a stiletto.
    “Okay, maybe not exactly fine,” Kelli admitted. “But I
will
be dandy once tonight’s over. I’ve just been stressed out from the pressure of needing everything to go perfectly.”
    Both women laughed at that idea.
    “All your actors are five years old, dear,” Adèle pointed out gently. “I doubt you can count on perfection.”
    “It’d definitely be a second Christmas miracle,” Zelda agreed.
    Which was unfortunately true. And if it had been any other year, Kelli would have admitted that she found the children’s little screwups charming.
    But this was not any other year.
    “I just want to avoid us trending on Twitter or becoming a worst-ever Christmas play YouTube hit,” she muttered as she dabbed some cadmium-orange paint onto a snowman’s carrot nose.
    “Things went very well in dress rehearsal,” Adèle reminded her. “I wouldn’t worry if I were you.”
    Easy for her to say.
    “You have seemed unusually tense the past few days,” Zelda said thoughtfully. “Maybe going to Hawaii isn’t such a bad idea.”
    “That’s off the table.” Kelli moved on to covering up some dings on a red sled filled with presents.
    “Oh?” Adèle turned from hanging up the costumes on a wheeled rack. “Are you and Bradford going somewhere else together?”
    “I broke up with Brad after the boat parade,” Kelli said.
    “I’m sorry,” both women said together.
    Kelli shrugged. “It’s been coming. It seemed best just to get it over with so he can take someone else to the New