bathing suit? Check, check.
Some gifts for her hosts and the guests? Check, check, check.
Plus she had a special surprise tucked away in a florist’s box in her room. She went to retrieve it now, glancing over her shoulder to see if Thad might follow, feeling giddy after her second glass of spiced wine.
Thad didn’t follow. What did she expect? He was working and she wasn’t the only guest. She retrieved the box and presented it to Gloria.
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
Gloria opened it and gasped. “Real mistletoe?” She grinned. “That’s so thoughtful.”
“Half Moon has the sweetest little florist shop, and the girl was so helpful. She...” Thad joined them at that moment and her sentence trailed off as she gazed up at him. More specifically, at the way his shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and opened at his throat, giving her a glimpse of the strong cords of his neck.
She’d like to sink her teeth into them.
“Do you want me to hang that?” His lips twitched and Jo’s gaze slid to his lips, imagining his mouth moving closer and closer to hers.
“Sure, that’d be great,” Gloria answered. Then she turned to the rest of the room and clapped her hands. “Okay, everyone, let’s get decorating. There are plenty in the boxes or you can come on over to the dining table and help make some.”
The last time Jolie had made a Christmas ornament was in grade school—when the whole class made them—and she eagerly joined Gloria at the large dining room table where there were bowls of multicolored candies, cookie cutters and molds of different sizes all laid out on cookie sheets.
Kaylee joined them. “Oh! Christmas candy ornaments. I saw this on Pinterest.”
Gloria explained how they were going to melt the cut rock Christmas candies into beautiful, tasty ornaments. Jo half listened to the instructions as she snuck glances at Thad out of her peripheral vision. He was hanging the mistletoe from the door frame that separated the large dining room from the great room.
While Gloria was busy explaining how to make the ornaments, Jolie was busy imagining a scenario under the mistletoe.
“So, we’ll just spray some oil on the inside of these molds and then place the candies loosely inside...”
She was accidentally standing beneath the mistletoe when Thad walked by. He looked up. She looked up. Their gazes met.
“We’ll pop them in the oven so the candies melt together...”
He bent down to kiss her and...shit! He’d caught her watching. Grinning, he stalked toward her, and Jo’s pulse fluttered in her veins as he closed the distance between them.
“Once they’ve cooled, we’ll tie ribbons to hang them and this is how they’ll look.” Gloria held up some samples of ornaments that looked like mini stained glass windows.
“Don’t mind if I do, Ms. Gloria.” Thad plucked a decoration out of her hand and stuck the candy in his mouth.
“Thaddeus Knight. That is an ornament for the tree. It is not for you.”
He bit down on the hard candy, snapping it in two, and offered the other half to Jolie. “It was all Ms. Jolie’s fault.” He winked.
She smiled up at him. It was impossible not to beam in delight when Thad was around. Except his grin froze when Gloria caught his eye. She scowled at him. It was only when she met Jo’s gaze that her smile reappeared.
Apparently she was very serious about these ornaments.
“Why don’t you go give Dillon a hand with the garland.” Gloria waved toward the other room.
“I’m thinking this candy operation looks like more fun.”
“Thad...” There was a warning note in Gloria’s voice.
What was that about?
Whatever it was, Thad ignored it. He propped his arm across Jo’s shoulders and said in a conspiratorial voice, “Now, ladies, did y’all know that the barn out there is haunted?”
“Haunted?” Kaylee asked, intrigued.
“Oh, yeah.” He winked at Gloria. “You remember, Ms. Gloria? There was that one time I was heading for the barn, needing to get something from the tack room at the back...” Thad scratched his jaw, all serious now. “This must have been a year ago now? Maybe a year and a half? Anyway, there was this awful strange sound coming from that room.”
“What kind of sounds?” Jo leaned closer.
“Scratching. Panting. A woman’s scream...or sigh. It was hard to tell.”
“No way,” Kaylee said, eyes wide.
“Yes, ma’am. I been careful going in there ever since. Never know what a body will find.” His grin was pure wickedness as he smiled at Gloria.
“Thank you for that, Thaddeus,” Gloria said, giving him a shove toward the great room. When she returned to the table, her cheeks and neck were flushed bright red. “Now, let’s make some ornaments.”
Jo had just started filling up her molds with candies when Gloria came to stand beside her. “I apologize for Thad.”
“What do you mean?”
She crinkled her nose. “He’s a flirt.”
“No need to apologize for that.”
“Just be careful.”
“Careful?”
“I...” Gloria frowned. “You know, even though he’s worked here awhile, we still don’t know all that much about him.”
“What are you saying? Don’t you trust him?”
She opened her mouth to reply, but Dillon appeared at her side at that moment, carrying an open box of ornaments. “Hey, Red. Curtis found these in the Quonset. They must be from Kenny’s family.” He picked out an ornament wrapped in tissue paper and passed it to Gloria, who unwrapped a pretty colored glass ball.
“Oh, this one’s beautiful.”
“What should we do with them?”
“Let me sort through them. I’m sure we can use some.”
Jo frowned after Gloria’s retreating back. Why would Gloria warn her about Thad? Was there something dark and dangerous in his past? The very idea got Jolie’s creative juices flowing and she considered all sorts of possibilities.
If Gloria’s intention had been to warn her off Thad, it was having the opposite effect, because all Jo could think about was ways to seduce him.
She smiled as a vivid image of how she could get him into her
