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, both physical and intellectual. He thought of Taryn as the embodiment of light, and he’d told her so when he’d presented her with the ornament.
“Yes, I still have it.”
He turned to find her standing in the living room wearing a tan parka with the hood thrown back, a khaki messenger bag over her shoulder. A small black suitcase sat upright beside her.
“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d gotten rid of it,” he said. He didn’t want to talk about their breakup, but he wasn’t sure how to avoid talking about it.
“I considered giving the ornament away, but quite honestly, it’s the prettiest one I have, and I couldn’t part with it. I don’t know how your company manages to make something glow like that when there’s no solar chip involved. Is the entire covering solar? Is that how it works?”
“Can’t tell you. Company secret.”
She cocked her head. “Do other ornament companies try to steal those secrets? I wouldn’t expect that, because it’s so contrary to the spirit of Christmas, but I suppose anything’s possible.”
“I doubt they could steal that particular secret.” The incantation involved was known only to the Winter Clan, and no other wizard would be able to make it work right. In the wizard world, this incantation had the equivalent of a fail-safe component attached to it.
“But maybe they’d try, and that’s why you’re so intent on shoring up your security system.”
“Something like that. Ready?”
She nodded. “Just need to put out the cat.”
“The cat?”
“Gotcha! There’s no cat, and even if there were, I couldn’t very well put out a cat on the eighteenth floor, now could I?”
“Guess not.” He’d forgotten how much she enjoyed teasing him. It was easy to do, because he didn’t expect anyone to say things that weren’t true.
“I’d love to have a cat, preferably a black one, but that wouldn’t be fair. I travel too much.”
“I didn’t know you liked cats.” Cole thought of the lodge on Mistletoe Mountain, which was chockablock with cats, especially black ones.
“In our life at MIT, it didn’t come up. Both of us lived in places that didn’t allow pets.”
“Guess so.” He
