idea. They’re extra busy in December. The place is loaded with Old World charm. All the rooms have feather beds, and yours is one of the few with a woodburning fireplace.”
“I admit that’s tempting.”
“There’s more. The proprietor, Mrs. Gustafson, bakes apple strudel every morning. She brings a tray to your door with warm strudel, fresh-squeezed orange juice and hot coffee.”
“Sounds pretty cozy.” Too bad when she pictured staying at the Nutcracker Inn, she automatically put Cole in the picture, too. He wouldn’t be there, and she needed to remember that.
“It is cozy. Or so I’m told by anyone who’s stayed there.”
“You mentioned hot coffee as if that’s a selling point. Don’t tell me you’re a coffee drinker at last.”
“Nope.”
“Wuss.” She used to tease him about that all the time.
He smiled. “Addict.” His gaze held hers, and his voice softened. “Whatever happened to those big glasses you used to wear?”
“Got contacts.” As she looked into his eyes, she remembered another very important thing. Before they’d been lovers, they’d been good friends. Sex had been an enhancement of that friendship, at least in her mind. But sex had raised the stakes, too. At the time he’d left, they’d been so deeply enmeshed that they couldn’t have dialed back the relationship to a friendship level.
After ten years, though, they ought to be able to do that. She’d like to stay in touch. Not many people communicated on the intellectual level that she and Cole had.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll take the job.”
His shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“I’m doing it as a friend, though. I’ll be insulted if you try to pay me.”
“That’s not right. You should be paid your going rate. In fact, because I’m hauling you away during the holidays, you should get more than your going rate.”
She folded her arms. “Then you’re willing to insult me?”
“No! But let me pay you. Please.”
“Nope. Either I do it because I’m your friend or I don’t do it at all.”
He opened his mouth as if to offer another objection. Then he closed it again. “All right. I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
Her traitorous pulse leaped at that comment, damn it. She’d have to ride herd on her emotions and not allow them to get the best of her. Agreeing to this might have been a mistake, after all.
Cole had what he’d come for, and now he wondered how in hell he’d survive the next few days in close contact with Taryn without doing something stupid. Like kissing her. She’d been dynamite at twenty. At almost thirty, her sexuality had gone nuclear. The men in Seattle must have been blind. They should have been lined up outside her door.
She was still tall, still slender, but her curves had a lushness that hadn’t been there before. How he longed to pull her into his arms and explore those curves. She moved with more grace and assurance than she had when they’d been in college. He knew, just knew that she’d be an even better lover now, and she’d been terrific back then.
They had to get out of her apartment and on that plane, where they’d be properly chaperoned. He glanced around her living space. Her computer was turned off and he didn’t smell dinner cooking. “How soon can you be ready to leave?”
“What time is the flight?”
“Whenever I tell them.”
She blinked. “Oh. You came in your own plane. I didn’t realize that. Is it tiny?”
“It’s the Evergreen corporate jet, which is a decent size.”
“Evergreen has a corporate jet? The Christmas ornament business must be booming.”
“We do okay. Can you be packed in about fifteen minutes?”
“Uh, I guess so. But aren’t you hungry? It’s dinnertime, and I could make us something.”
That wasn’t going to happen. Even if he didn’t have the jet waiting at SeaTac, he wouldn’t dare sit through an intimate dinner in this apartment. He’d noticed the wineglass she’d left on an end table. Wine, a little candlelight, the glow from the Christmas tree, and he’d be done for. They’d be stretched out on her pricey rug in no time.
The thought of that scene had a predictable effect. He walked toward the window and pretended to take in the view so she wouldn’t notice the state of his crotch. He had a spell for controlling an inconvenient arousal, but it involved muttering an incantation, which would make him sound crazy as a loon.
He was feeling sort of crazy, but he didn’t want her to know that. “The galley’s stocked and we can eat on the way,” he said. “It’s getting late. By the time we fly into Denver and make the drive to Gingerbread, it’ll be after midnight. We should get going.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She turned and started down a hallway. “Give me ten minutes to throw some things into a suitcase,” she said over her shoulder.
He watched her walk away and swallowed a moan of frustration. A pair of old jeans and a faded sweatshirt shouldn’t be the sexiest outfit in the world, but on Taryn, it was. Her cap of milk-chocolate curls made her look sassy and down-to-earth.
You could mess around with a woman like Taryn, because she wasn’t coifed and tailored. He’d always loved that about her. She could roll in the snow, run home to have sex, and never give a thought to how she looked. In those days, all he’d had to worry about had been her precious glasses.
Once she’d left the room, he called the car service he’d employed and told them to be waiting in front of the apartment building in fifteen minutes. Then he prowled around the living room and recorded impressions of who Taryn was, now. The fireplace mantle was crowded with framed pictures. These would be the family and friends he’d been destined to meet during that Christmas vacation when he’d abandoned her.
Knowing she was surrounded by loving people cheered him. Knowing she hadn’t found the right guy gave him an unholy amount of satisfaction. That was wrong of him, and he knew it. He should want her to find Mr. Wonderful, settle down with him and be blissfully happy.
For years he’d assumed that had happened, but after finding her cheeky message on his database, he’d investigated to the full extent of the internet’s capabilities. The evidence had been conclusive. Taryn didn’t have a man in her life.
Although she didn’t realize it, she currently had a wizard in her life. And if that wizard really cared for her, he’d keep his hands to himself and deliver her back to this apartment without ever once giving in to the urges that plagued him whenever they were together. Even if she wanted him to. And he could tell that she did.
After replacing each picture frame exactly as he’d found it, he wandered over to her Christmas tree. And there, nestled in the branches, was an Evergreen Industries ornament. He’d forgotten that he’d given her one right after Thanksgiving ten years ago, when they’d reunited after the long weekend.
He’d chosen it with care out of the hundreds manufactured that year. The round ball was green, but through a trick of the light and a sprinkling of wizard magick, it seemed to glow from within, as if it held sunlight inside. That theme was echoed in a gold filigree border circling the sphere with repeating sun symbols.
Cole loved the green ornaments most of all, because they symbolized the Evergreen family name, which in turn harkened back to the trees that stayed green all winter. The sun represented light,