“Exactly what a criminal mastermind would say.”
Cassidy gasped, mock offended. “Wow. I shared my chocolates with you and everything.”
“I’m just saying…” Liam gave her a sideways glance, the corners of his mouth twitching. “If another string of lights goes missing, people are going to start asking questions about the new girl in town.”
Then he looked at her—really looked at her. His gaze flicked from her flushed cheeks to the curve of her smile, then lingered just a second too long on her mouth.
“And don’t think those sugar-coated lips of yours would get you out of trouble.” He winked.
Cassidy’s breath caught at the same time her foot hit a patch of ice.
“WHOOPS!” It came out like a shriek.
She slipped and pitched forward. Her back foot didn’t have enough purchase to stop her.
Liam caught her before she could faceplant on the pavement—but the momentum and the sheer amount of ice were too much.
The air whooshed out of her lungs. Christmas lights blurred in front of her eyes.
One second, she was upright. The next, she was flat on top of him, sprawled chest to chest. Her cheek pressed into the soft flannel of his shirt. Warm. Familiar.
The rest of him was solid muscle.
Liam groaned. “You okay?”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
Cassidy tried to scramble off him, but as she pushed herself up, her feet slipped again. And somehow—really, it was rather unfair at this point—she ended up straddling him, right in the middle of Oak Way.
And that’s when she felt him, the undeniable hardness of him pressing up between her thighs.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Mrs. C. said, looking down at them with a mug of mulled wine in her hand.
“But you might want to go somewhere private. Lots of families around,” Mrs. Bishop added with a whisper.
Cassidy’s cheeks flamed.
Liam, on the other hand, just tipped an imaginary hat. “Evening, ladies.”
“I cannot believe my luck,” she said, moving more slowly this time to stand. “I swear this wasn’t the plan,” she mumbled.
Liam’s lips twitched. “If it were, I’d say it was rather impressive.”
“I’m not usually this clumsy… Actually, that’s a lie. I’m always clumsy. But you were walking so fast, and I was thinking about the Gingerbread Jerk…” Or not exactly, but that was close enough to the truth. “Wait, are you hurt? Of course you’re hurt.” Cassidy reached out her hand to help Liam the rest of the way up.
“I’m fine,” he answered through his teeth, pushing off the frozen ground back to standing.
Cassidy decided it was best that he hadn’t accepted her help. There was no guarantee she wouldn’t slip on the ice again.
“I didn’t break your leg, did I?” Cassidy thought back to how hard she’d landed on him and winced.
“No. I hurt it last week on a run. Hamstring injury,” he added, taking a tentative step, which resulted in a pronounced limp. He definitely didn’t have that before.
Cassidy felt awful. So far her opening week had been a rollercoaster. From the high of launching her dream shop to the low of sneezing herself silly in front of the town, slipping on ice, and—let’s not forget—literally crushing on a Christmas hater.
Because that’s what this was, wasn’t it? A crush. A full-blown crush on Liam freaking Hawthorne—a man who scowled at Christmas lights and said things that made her knees feel like melted chocolate.
And now, as if her pride wasn’t bruised enough, someone out there was sabotaging holiday displays. The Gingerbread Jerk mystery had everyone buzzing, and she couldn’t shake the creeping feeling that her cozy new world might be more fragile than she thought.
