Free The Christmas Cookie Chronicles: Carrie by Lori Wilde Page B

clothes into his hands. “Get dressed.”
    “Seriously? You’re throwing me out?” He tugged on his boxer briefs.
    She was getting dressed, too, pulling on her jeans, not bothering with underwear, zipping them up. She reached for a T-shirt, tugged it over her head.
    He jammed his arms into shirt, raked his hand through his hair. “Where’s my shoes?”
    The comforter had gotten tossed to the floor in their sexy adventures. She lifted it up, located his shoes. “A. Testoni. Wow, don’t these shoes cost like a thousand dollars or more?”
    “I’m surprised you know that,” he said, buttoning up his shirt.
    “What? Country hicks can’t read fashion magazines?”
    “I’m sorry, Carrie. I didn’t mean it like it sounded. It’s that you’re so real, so grounded. Why would you care about stuff like that?”
    She didn’t acknowledge his apology. He had sounded like a spoiled rich twerp. Why had he said that?
    “Why do you care?” she asked.
    He looked her in the eyes. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. Who needs a twelve-hundred-dollar pair of shoes?”
    “Apparently you do.” She padded to the window, opened it, and pushed out the screen. “Go out this way.”
    “Feels like old times,” he joked, trying to smooth things over.
    “Mark,” she said. “Nothing is the same. No sense living in the past. You are who you are. It’s okay.”
    He paused on the windowsill. One leg inside, one leg outside. That was when Mark realized there could be no spanning two worlds. He was either in or he was out.
    M ark owned shoes that cost over a thousand dollars, and he thought she was such a dumb country hick she wouldn’t recognize designer footwear when she saw it.
    Somehow, recognizing that he owned shoes that cost more than the monthly rent on the Yarn Barn brought Carrie’s silly little fantasy into perspective.
    After they’d made love she’d started letting herself think foolish thoughts she had no business thinking, that the sweetheart legend just might be true, that they could have their happily-ever-after ending. She’d known all along it was a fairytale. Why hadn’t she stuck to her guns? Why had she let her heart start to hope?
    He orbited a completely different solar system from her quiet existence here in Twilight. He had assistants that ran his Facebook page. Probably tweeted for him too. She might be a Christmas Scrooge, but ultimately, Carrie was happy here. She loved living in a small town. Loved being near her family. Loved running a yarn store. Loved entertaining the gossipy knitters. This was where she belonged. She had no need for shoes that cost a thousand dollars. Or a life in the Hollywood hills. Not that Mark had asked her to share his life.
    The shoes are just an excuse. You’re scared. The same way you were scared when Mark got the scholarship to Columbia and rocketed far away from you. He got what he wanted. So did you. You just want different things. It’s as simple as that.
    These same thoughts had been running through her head on a continuous loop since she’d thrown Mark out of her bedroom on Thanksgiving Day. She’d half hoped that he would call, but he hadn’t. Good, she told herself. Great. Perfect. That’s the way she wanted it.
    The whole rest of the miserable weekend, she’d groused and complained as her father and Barbara and her twin brothers and their girlfriends put up a tree and decorated the house. Carrie had refused to participate. Bah-humbug. Believing in fantasies got you nothing but heartache.
    It was Sunday evening, and she was rushing to The Horny Toad Tavern for a meeting of the First Love Cookie Cub. Most of the members of the Christmas cookie club, who also belonged to the Sweethearts Knitting Club, were meeting in the back room of the bar to plan the annual cookie-swap party. Even though Carrie was not a member of the cookie club—she was too grinchy for that—Patsy had phoned and asked her to drop by.
    She drove past The Merry Cherub, and her