Sweet Romance for Christmas! SANTA CAM by Maria Hoagland (A MyHeartChannel Romance – with a giveaway!)

Santa Cam

Pulling back the curtain, he watched thick flakes swirl through the light of the streetlamp in front of his house. At least a couple of inches had accumulated—not bad for a place where he hadn’t expected to ever see snow. He itched to go out in it, but it wouldn’t be fun alone.

He found the number in his contacts and called, hoping Talia had her phone on do not disturb if it was too late for him to be calling. She answered on the second ring.

“Are you afraid of the little storm, Cam?” she crooned before he could say hello.

Point for her. Her spunkiness was exactly why he liked spending time with her. “Do you have an early morning?”

“No . . .” She drew it out, slowly enunciating the word. “Why?” she followed up quickly.

He ignored her question. “How adventurous are you feeling?”

“Why?” This time she asked with more suspicion. While she didn’t exactly answer, at least this time she sounded a little more eager.

“Put on your snow boots and parka. I’m coming over.” He was going to make an order, but decided he ought not to leave it there. “Okay?”

“But it’s snowing . . .”

The unspoken sentiment was that she was worried about him driving and getting in an accident. He’d grown up driving in this kind of weather. “That’s the whole point. And why I suggested boots and a coat.” If that was her only objection, he wasn’t going to let that keep him from coming. “I’ll see you in a few.”

Getting out the door took more work than he’d planned. First, Cam had to dig through a few boxes to locate the appropriate winter attire. While looking, he ran back and forth to the stove, throwing together a thermos-ful of his mom’s hot chocolate. As long as he didn’t scald it while scrounging for matching gloves, it would be a nice addition to the evening he had planned.

Dressed in normal winter clothes but with a Santa cap on his head, Cam knocked on Talia’s door just before midnight. She opened to him, pulling on her knit cap and stepping outside.

She rushed to the balcony railing and put gloved hands in the puff of accumulated precipitation to look over it. “It’s so beauti—”

He didn’t let her finish her statement before he blasted her in the back with a snowball he’d had behind his back. It exploded like a bombshell, the white of the snow stark against her black coat, and she laughed, scooping snow from the railing for a retaliatory snowball. She wound up and let loose, and the ball hit him square in the chest, tiny ice shards ricocheting onto his face.

“I was going to thank you for driving over here in this.” Her tone teasingly insinuated she no longer felt that way. She scooted farther down the landing, capturing more snow but never taking her eyes off Camden. “But I know why you came now.”

“Is that right?” He tossed a handful of snow in her general direction, but it didn’t go higher than their waists and then floated like pixie dust onto her boots.

They sparred down three flights of stairs, and only once did he need to reach out to keep her from slipping down several steps. They made their way across the first-floor walkway, tossing half-formed snowballs at each other and trying to keep quiet so they wouldn’t wake anyone in the apartments. When they made it into the open lawn, however, she slammed him with a good one at the base of his neck, and snow fell down the back of his coat.

“Just for that . . .” He lunged at her, grabbing her around the waist and swinging her around. If there’d been more than the inch or two, he would have dragged her to the ground, but as it was, everywhere they scraped snow away left soggy mud.

She strained against him for half a second, but when he loosened his grasp, she grabbed him around the arms, pinning them to his sides, and jostled him back and forth as he had her. Her mischievous smile was inches from his, and without thinking, he leaned forward until her lips were under his.

He hadn’t actually planned this, had not come with this intent in mind, but there she was, laughing and happy and oh so beautiful in the moonlight.