How could I not be? Going after her during that rainstorm a year ago had been the best decision of my life. Stumbling into someone else’s beach wedding with a sprained finger and mud-stained clothes, had somehow made me the luckiest man alive.
I just needed her on the same page. Maybe she already was. She’d confided in me about her magic, trusting me with her secret. Then she’d given me the most humbling compliment I'd ever received. No one had ever seen anything in me worth believing in—until her.
There was no going back to theusfrom before. The idea of being anything less than her gold-star proof that soulmates exist made it hard to breathe.
Though that also might’ve been from the smoke.
That’s when the alarm went off.
The shrill beeping shattered my thoughts. Valerie yelped, dropping the spatula.
She waved a dish towel through the haze. “False alarm! Everything’s fine! It’s just electronic enthusiasm because the bacon is coming out so well!”
I crossed the kitchen in three strides and grabbed the smoking pan off the burner.
“No, don’t help! Everything is under control,” she shouted over the beeping, still flapping the towel.
“Uh-huh.” I reached up and hit the button onthe alarm.
The silence that followed was almost louder. Valerie turned, blowing that damnable strand of hair out of her eye again, her face flushed.
“Cereal?” she asked. “I’ll let you have all the marshmallows.”
That did it.
I seized her by the waist and lifted her onto the counter. She gave a startled laugh, palms bracing on my shoulders. I reached up and tucked the errant strand of hair back into her messy knot, my knuckles grazing her cheek on the way back down.
“Grant,” she whispered.
“Spells,” I murmured back. “You’re terrible in the kitchen.”
“I can bake, I promise.” She blinked up at me, her beautiful mouth parting into an exaggerated pout. “Give me another chance with cookies. I won’t let you down.”
“You forget,” I said, flattening my palms against the counter on either side of her. “I saw the dessert you brought to the Thanksgiving potluck this year.”
Her eyes narrowed, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “Those gingerbread men had it coming.”
“Unruly gingerbread men? That’s your defense?”
“I swear, Your Honor. They attacked first.”
The wordsI love yourioted in my chest, loud and reckless, demanding to be set free.
I kissed her instead.
Her hands slid up, fingers sinking into my hair, and I tasted the faint sweetness of sugar on her lips. She made a soft sound that wrecked me completely.
Best. Christmas. Ever.
When we finally broke apart, I pressed a cup of coffee into her hands and brushed a quick kiss on her nose. She was officially banned from kitchen duties until she took lessons.
My mind filled in the rest: lessons, preferably with me, wearing one of thoseKiss the Cookaprons… and little else.
But the universe clearly had other plans. Because just as I was thinking of ways to ruin her apron in the best possible way, our interloper apparition appeared.
Daniel Keene.
Formerly known as Mr. Snow. And I still had to tell Valerie what I’d found in the attic.
