Page 9 of Chasing Cheer
That caught Ash’s attention, though every word she said made him want to know more. He was normally so good at reading people, which came in handy as a business owner. But with Holly, he felt he was only glimpsing the tip of an iceberg, the shape of which he couldn’t even begin to guess.
“Interesting. I took a few market-research classes in business school, though there was too much statistics involved for my liking.”
Holly laughed, and the sound sent a little trill through him.
“I love statistics. It’s something I can wrap my brain around. And I’m constantly trying to improve my process. There are so many variables to—” Her face flushed. “Sorry. I’m probably boring you.”
“Not at all. As long as I don’t have to do any calculations, I could listen to you talk about variables all night,” he teased her, and the sight of Holly’s smile warmed him all the way through.
ChapterEight
The first thing Holly did when she woke up the next morning was study her watch. A niggling feeling still warned her that the thing must be broken. After her walk the previous night with Ash, the Cheer meter had signaled that she’d met her quota for the cycle, stunning Holly. She still had weeks before the next full moon.
While she could capture some Cheer over her quota, the reserve storage wasn’t infinite. Maybe she could actually return to the North Pole early, spend some more time in the studios, or record her latest findings on Cheer. The cycle must be an outlier. Either that, or there was some source of Cheer in Emerald Hollow that exceeded all others Holly had encountered.
The outlier theory seemed more likely. She’d gotten lucky. If she returned to Emerald Hollow next cycle, she would probably only be able to store a normal amount of Cheer proportional to the amount of time spent there. Still, that did give some credence to her idea of exploring small towns. She would have to visit a few others to see if they yielded similar results. She had so many lines of research to focus on that it was difficult to know where to start. Holly jotted down a few thoughts in her gingerbread-house notebook.
Her other question was why her Cheer wasn’t going down anymore. She’d been on the lookout for negative emotions all evening after she returned to the hotel, but there were none. That was impossible.
Negative emotions were common even in happy places—nervousness, fear, jealousy, frustration, or restlessness. There had to be at least some of them occurring in the Emerald House. The only explanation she could come up with so far was that whatever had caused her Cheer to spike was also somehow blocking out the negative emotions. That idea was fascinating and one Holly intended to chase down.
Finally, she got dressed to go to the restaurant for breakfast. As she pulled on her red sweater from the night before, her mind stuck on all the near catastrophes that had occurred during her conversation with Ash on their walk in the woods. She groaned. He had asked so many questions, and her answers were woefully inadequate.
And Holly had also spotted Ivy watching in the woods. Though she knew Ash wouldn’t be able to see the reindeer, that Ivy had shown up out of nowhere, while Holly was floundering through their conversation, hadn’t helped her spirits. Ash probably thought she was standoffish, but her mind had been occupied with too many things she couldn’t make sense of.
She had tried to stay as close to the facts as possible, as was always her practice. Shedidtravel frequently, and shehadheard about the fall festival and decided to investigate it. To the best of her ability, she had told Ash the truth. She had thrown in the part about having lots of friends in Canada based on her experience with Lia. If she simply said no, she didn’t have any family waiting at home, Ash might think her strange.
And she’d nearly slipped when he asked about her work.Why did I spill that I took over the family business?She normally just told people she worked in marketing, though it rarely came up at all. Her interactions with people were too brief. Even Lia didn’t know much more than that about her work.What is going on with me?She blamed it on the incessant vibration and heat on her wrist. Emerald Hollow was not normal. She just had to find out why.
* * *
At the restaurant counter,Holly requested a few pastries to go and said she would be back soon for a table. The server had merely nodded politely and handed her a white paper bag with the Emerald House logo on it—the lettersEandHover a few pine trees.
Holly went outside with the bag of pastries, ready to surprise her reindeer. Though they were probably full from having access to a whole forest the previous night, she felt like spoiling them. As she crossed the front lawn, Ash emerged from the parking lot and waved at her.
“Holly, hey!” he called warmly.
“Hi, Ash,” she said, keeping her tone polite, though she did feel unusually glad to see him. Despite the disaster that had been their conversation the previous night, Ash was easy to be around.
“Got any plans today?” he asked, striding toward her and shoving his hands into the pockets of his light jacket. His short brown hair rustled slightly in the autumn breeze.
“Oh, I’m not sure yet.” She couldn’t very well tell him that she planned to explore every inch of the town to figure out what was causing her Cheer meter to go haywire. Her watch was currently vibrating and putting off as much heat as ever against her wrist. “I thought I’d do some sightseeing.”
Ash scratched his cheek, where a bit of dark stubble was beginning to appear. “Nice. Well, if you need any suggestions, just come find me. I’m working until two, but after that, I’d be happy to show you around. Unless you prefer exploring on your own. That’s fine too.” He added the last sentence in a rush and cast his eyes off toward the forest.
Holly wasn’t sure how to respond. She wanted to do some serious sleuthing around town, testing her Cheer meter on some of the other locals. Still, with a strange tightness in her chest, she couldn’t deny wanting to spend more time with Ash. She chalked it up to her extreme curiosity.
“Thanks. I’ll let you know.” She smiled at him.
They held each other’s gazes for a moment before Ash cleared his throat.
“Sounds good. See you later.” He turned and walked toward the door of the Emerald House, pausing only to hold it open for a couple walking out. Holly continued down the drive and around the corner to the clearing where her reindeer were waiting.
“I hope you all found some comfy twigs to sleep on last night.” She gave Gale a pat on the head and the first of the four pastries. Ivy and Clove gathered around her excitedly, but Dasher stood steady and upright, like the well-trained reindeer he was, waiting politely for her to come to him. Clementine would want Holly to lecture Ivy and Clove on their manners, which they had been trained on for months, but they were just too cute.
Holly gave them their warm pastries immediately, and they rubbed their antlers happily against her hips. She pressed past them and gave Dasher his pastry, whispering, “Good boy,” as she rubbed the side of his head. He looked pleased by the compliment, which the two younger reindeer hadn’t received, and took the pastry gracefully from her hand.
“I’m off to do some investigating here in Emerald Hollow. Is that okay with everyone?” The reindeer all stomped their hooves in agreement, and Holly gave them each a few more grateful pets.
