Free Twelve Dates of Christmas: The Ballad of Lula Jo (Lonesome Point) by Jessie Evans Page B

path was blocked by a line of holiday floats. The parade didn’t start for an hour, but the floats were already swarming with people stringing lights and putting on last minute touches. People who turned to stare as Lula came running toward them, heels clacking on the pavement, with Carter not far behind, shouting for her to stop.
    With a whimper, Lula dodged to the left, into the abandoned parking lot of a darkened, two-story office building. Her toes were screaming and her ankles were twinging, but she pushed herself to run faster. She couldn’t face Carter, not now, when all her romantic dreams were so recently dead and her heart was smashed to pieces, like the gnome she’d hurled to the concrete as she fled her shop. She had to keep ahead of him, just long enough to find a place to hide.
    She rounded the corner of the office building and hurried back toward the sidewalk, intending to cross the street and get lost in the chaos of the carnival. But then she saw the fenced-in Dumpsters to her right and aimed her body toward them, slipping through the gate and closing it with seconds to spare as Carter called out again behind her.
    “Lula, please wait! I need to talk to you!”
    Lula fought to keep quiet, holding her breath, as his footsteps sounded on the concrete outside, afraid he would hear her ragged exhalations. But the sound of his footfalls continued past her hiding place and moved off toward the street. After a few silent moments, Lula released her breath with a whoosh, sagging against the fence as she turned to survey her surroundings.
    What she saw made her scream, a wild yelp of surprise that leapt from her mouth before she could contain it.
    There, less than five feet away, stood a row of Christmas gnomes, lined up as if they had been caught mid-escape from the Dumpsters. Before Lula could imagine where they’d come from—or calculate the odds of coming face to face with antique gnomes from the same collection as the one she’d so recently smashed—the gate screeched open behind her.
    “There you are,” Carter said, breathing heavily. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? I heard you scream.”
    “Go away,” Lula said, dividing her attention between Carter and the gnomes, some crazy part of her insisting the vintage ceramics weren’t to be trusted.
    “What happened?” Carter asked. “Lula, I can’t make this better if you don’t talk to me.”
    “Why should I talk to you when you’re on the next plane out ?” she asked, fighting a fresh wave of tears. His words had turned the perfect Christmas Eve into a sequel of that horrible night, eleven years ago.
    But instead of ducking his head in shame, Carter let out a relieved sigh. “God, is that all? It’s nothing, L.J. Just a ten day trip, two weeks at most, and then I’ll be heading straight back here to you.”
    Lula frowned, her forehead furrowing as she looked from him to the gnomes watching their quarrel from the shadows and back to Carter again. “I don’t believe you. You said you were here to stay, you promised. And now, just when I thought everything was wonderful—”
    “Everything is wonderful, babe! Please, listen! I can explain.”
    “I don’t want to listen,” she said with a sniff. “I can’t live through this again! If you’re going, then just go. Leave and never come back.”
    “Does this look like I planned on leaving and never coming back?” Carter reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small box, opening it before he held it up between them.
    Lula’s mouth fell open and her angry words drifted away as Carter dropped to one knee on the sticky concrete beside the Dumpsters.
    “Tallulah Josephine Watson, I didn’t intend to propose in a place like this, but all I want in the world is standing right in front of me,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “You are my biggest dream and my greatest adventure. I need to go to London to settle some unexpected business, but as soon as I’m done, I’m coming right