“Wait. That guy isn’t you, Lana. You’re always welcome here.”

Maybe he sounded like a complete fool saying so, or at least a little desperate, but to earn a smile like the one spreading across her gorgeous face? Rick was more than happy to be a little desperate for Lana any day.

This time when she went up to her toes to kiss his cheek, her lips lingered.

“How about this. I won’t let him come back here. But if the offers stands, I’ll definitely take you up on it.”

Would the offer stand? Absolutely.

Chapter 6

“Are you sure this is the proper attire?” Lana glanced down at herself. “I’d hate to embarrass myself.”

Dressed from head to toe in her own winter ghillie suit, Zoey gave an emphatic nod, furry strips of white and pale-gray fabric swinging with the motion. “We need to be in camouflage. This moose is a trickster.”

Lana had dropped Jake off with Graham and then met with Zoey out in the woods, off a section of road she wasn’t familiar with.

They’d come prepared. Thermos filled with hot coffee, zero-degree winter gear beneath their ghillie suits, granola bars in their backpacks. Two large flasks of a very spice-heavy eggnog the Lockett patriarch had brought over for Zoey to try and Easton’s livestock tranquilizer gun, complete with moose-sized darts. The rest of Graham’s truck bed was filled to bursting with all the garish holiday inflatables, weathered plastic light-up figurines, and used polyvinyl Christmas trees one could obtain on the sly.

Strings of lights and power cords overflowed from piled-up buckets. They had two lawn chairs to sit on while hiding in the shadows of the surrounding trees and heating pouches for their gloves if they got cold. And lastly, one satellite phone to call in their capture (and subsequent victory), borrowed from a very hesitant Ash, who promised hell to pay if they broke it.

If one were to catch a Santa Moose, there was only one way to do it—set a Christmas trap.

At first, they’d started small. After all, most of what attracted the moose was blinking lights. Lana wasn’t sure where they were or where the power cords Zoey kept stretching were running to, but they’d divvied up the work. The more decorations they set up, the more focused Lana became on not only setting the scene but telling a story. Theirs was a Christmas town filled with hope, full of cheer, and even perhaps full of romance.

Lana had seen the way Mrs. Claus was making bedroom eyes at Frosty’s button nose.

“Lana? Does any of this strike you as a little perverse?”

“Nonsense. It’s perfect.”

They were crouched out in the woods, doing their best to blend in with their surroundings. Between them, they had recreated Santa’s workshop closest to their hiding spot, complete with elves at their toy-making table and all the reindeer happily munching away at brightly lit Christmas light cookie piles.

“This can’t be good for the environment. Global warming is a thing, Lana.”

“Oh, it’s definitely a thing. I make it a priority to actively invest in sustainable businesses. Pass me the tranquilizer gun.”

“Why do you get the tranq gun?”

“Because of the two of us, I’m the only one with specialized training.”

“Making out with a guy from the Chicago SWAT team does not make you an expert shot, Lana.”

“Hiring a professional is a perfectly acceptable way of learning how to defend oneself. His attractiveness doesn’t make my training any less lethal. And that was years ago.”

A sound in the distance caused them both to tense. “Is that—?” Lana started to ask.

“Not unless moose have started stomping through the woods.” She stood, turning toward the direction they’d parked the truck. “Graham, is that you?”

“Sorry, Zoey Bear. I know you have a thing for Easton, but I decided to rescue you this time.”

“How did he find us?” Lana asked.

Zoey snorted. “Serves me right for leaving him a note about where we’d be.” Hands on her hips, she glared at the man emerging from the woods. “Rescue me from what? Our awesome plan of awesomeness? Don’t lie. You got bored and wanted to poke your big fat nose into our plans.”

“I got lonely,” he practically purred in her ear. Anyone else would have melted at the sheer sexiness of the smoldering look Graham gave her. Not Zoey.

“You’ll live. Now go away. We’re busy.”

“I can’t. I caught a ride here. You have my truck, remember?”

“Not my problem. Now scoot.” Zoey pushed on his flat stomach. The result was Graham gazing down at her like she was the cutest thing in the world.

It was very cute, but Lana was super-duper single, so she looked away, taking a long drink of eggnog. “If you want to go home, I can stay here,” Lana told them.

“Naw, I’d hate to ruin the fun.” Graham winked at her before turning back to Zoey. “It’s a little mean to set up where I had to say goodbye to Ulysses, don’t you think?”

“I think it’s the only spot I knew that wasn’t in town and was a known moose hangout.”

“Why didn’t you ask me? I know plenty of places.”

“Because that would be asking you for help. And this is a female bonding activity. No men necessary.”

Graham opened his mouth, but Zoey scrunched her nose at him. “Female bonding, Graham. So butt out, big guy. There will be no additional bonding from you.”

He held his hands up in innocence. “I wouldn’t dream of it, darlin’.”

“Good.” She pointed two fingers at her eyes and then at him. “I’m watching you.”

Chuckling, he snuck an arm around her, ghillie suit and all. “You weren’t answering your phone,” Graham said. “I—wait, is that a gun?”

“This is eggnog,” Lana provided helpfully, waggling her thermos at Graham.

“Are you seriously out here with alcohol and guns—?” he started to say.

Zoey cut him off. “A tranq gun. And we’re just having eggnog. We’re not drinking.”

“Tranquilizer guns—”

“One. It’s a singular gun.” At Lana’s correction, Graham growled in exasperation, but Lana only grinned. “It’s annoying, isn’t it? Taste of your own medicine.”

“You actually set a trap.” He seemed equally horrified and impressed.

“Yes, until you stumbled onto it and ruined everything. Do you know how hard it is to stretch power cords to this part of the woods?”

“If you plugged them into Rick’s barn, it’s going to blow a fuse any second. I can’t believe the power even ran this far.”

“It’s Rick’s barn?”

Zoey blinked innocently. “Oh, did I not mention that?”

Suddenly, a loud crunching sound of a branch being stepped on caused them all to turn. It was dark and very hard to see, but Zoey pointed into the woods, saying in excitement, “It’s the moose!”

There was definitely movement through the trees, coming straight for their Christmas trap.

“Umm, Zoey, I don’t think—” Graham started to say as Lana lifted the tranquilizer gun to her shoulder.

Now, Lana didn’t make a habit of getting sloppy with her moose catching tranquilizer gun safety. But she also had worked hard for this single opportunity, and she wasn’t going to waste it by being slow on the draw. Unfortunately, about the time she squeezed the trigger, Lana realized that Rick looked a whole lot like a moose when coming out of the woods on a snowy winter evening.

It wasn’t funny. Accidentally shooting someone with a tranquilizer dart intended for a large animal was a great way to hospitalize someone. Which was never funny. But the dart didn’t hit Rick; it just sort of grazed him in the process of flying through the air and thwapping into the tree next to him.

They all stood there in silent horror, listening to that thwap echo through the forest.

“Umm…you just tranquilized Rick.”

“I didn’t tranquilize him,” Lana said, feeling a little light-headed as she hurried across the clearing. She tripped on a Ninja Turtle dressed as a Christmas caroler. “Rick, are you okay?”

“Lana?” He was looking between her and the Christmas town with surprise and confusion on his face. “What are you doing out here?”

“Umm…” She hedged. “It was a moose-catching, female-bonding, trying-to-earn-the-town’s-trust…thing.”

“Did you shoot at me?”

“I promise I did not shoot at you,” Lana told him.

“You didn’t shoot at him.” Zoey pointed to the bit of fabric pinned between the dart and the tree trunk.

Rick rolled his shoulder to better see his triceps. Yep. That was one torn jacket. In a very calm voice, he said, “I think you hit me.”

She quickly pulled Rick’s jacket off his arm and down to expose his shirt underneath. “There’s no way. Not with all these layers of clothing.”

It was only a tear in his shirt and…oh.

“Well…okay,” Lana hedged. “It’s maybe a teeny bit of a flesh wound.”

Graham groaned. “Of course you shot him.”

“I didn’t shoot him. I nicked him. Nicked isn’t shot.”

Zoey tilted her head. “I think we may need to get him to the hospital. Nicked or not, that’s a powerful combination of—” Lana tuned her out as Zoey began to list the ingredients of the tranquilizer dart.

“Rick, dear. Zoey’s right, we need to call for an ambulance.”

“Nope, no hospital.” Rick shook his head. “I’m fine, I’m…whoa.”

“—and it’s going to stay in his system for up to thirty days, so no one should eat him.” They all turned and looked at Zoey. “What? I’m just saying. I do my research, okay? If you didn’t want research, you shouldn’t have involved me in this.”