Luna stifled a smile, casting a glance toward the raven on her skull-pot. “Fairly sure. I don’t think these would fit her.” With that, she lifted the boots from the box, dangling them like ornaments. The little black buttons caught the light and glinted.
Mr. Grimm pressed his lips together and nodded. “Well. Those look nice.”
“Verynice,” Luna conceded.
“Who were they from? Your aunties?”
“No.”
“Some secret admirer perhaps?”
Her stomach made a foolish littleflip.Which was annoying. Because it hadn’t been foolishly flipping for weeks now. Not since Saint Jollify. Not since she’d pulled herself together, given herself that stern talking-to, and made certain that all foolish flips were well banished from both her heart and her stomach. But there it went again.
She shook her head. “The card says they’re from the Green Mother.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say.”
“Wow. A holiday miracle.”
Her mouth quirked. “I thought you weren’t religious, Mr. Grimm?”
“This holy experience may have just converted me.”
“Is that so?” She let the shoes drop back into the box and smoothed the tissue paper in which they nestled. “Does that mean you’ll be joining me at the midnight chantry service tomorrow night? For Green Yule’s Eve?”
His eyes met hers and held her gaze for a long, silent moment. A little spell of tension wound between them as her invitation hung unanswered in the air. Luna felt her sore throat thicken slightly.
Then, very slowly, he said, “Yes. Yes, I suppose I must.”
“It’s the only thing to be done following a sudden religious conversion.”
“Certainly. And . . . you’ll wear your new boots?”
“Of course, Mr. Grimm,” she answered softly.
Movement overhead caught her eye. Luna looked up and saw the mistletoe, poised on a pipe. It ruffled its leaves at her and began to descend on its vine. Luna grimaced, the momentbroken. “Oh dear.” She pointed. “It’s caught you this time, I’m afraid.”
Mr. Grimm’s head jerked up. He spotted the mistletoe, and fury washed over his face. “Damn it!” he growled, his hand reaching for the pruning shears.
“You know,” Luna said, even as he snatched the shears up and made ready to do battle, “you might have better luck getting rid of it if you just gave it what it wants for once.”
“Never!” he snarled. “I won’t give that damnable abomination the satisfaction of—”
What happened next, Luna couldn’t really explain after the fact.
It wasn’t a kiss.
Of course not.
Sure, her hand came to rest on Mr. Grimm’s shoulder for support, and she leaned in to plant a very light, very chaste peck on his cheek. Just enough to pacify the mistletoe and send it on its way. Nothing more. Nothing untoward.
Only Mr. Grimm turned toward her in the exact same moment, and . . .
It wasn’t a kiss. That fact was undebatable.
Not with his mouth open on the word “of,” and hers puckered in a little moue.
