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Despite her very public night job she now held, no one had found her, partly because of the disguise she wore onstage—and that was one of the reasons she wore it, to limit any obvious connection between her two selves—and partly because of how well the residents of Mistletoe protected their own.
But the main reason her cover hadn’t been blown—besides her legal change of name—was that the only outsiders she mixed with were the customers who came in to order plants and floral arrangements from Under the Mistletoe.
Or such had been the case until she’d fallen all over the gorgeous stranger who’d kissed her until she felt as though she was going to die.
Smart. Real smart. A veritable genius of a cookie.
She dropped her forehead to the vanity’s surface and groaned—which only made things worse because it brought to mind all the things he’d made her feel. She’d forgotten how sweet it could be to slide her tongue against a man’s seeking to enter her mouth.
Such an exquisite pleasure, that first sweet connection, its wetness, its promise, its warmth. She’d enjoyed a comfortable sex life with Marshall—until he’d begun finding his comfort elsewhere—but she never had seen stars.
She could get used to stars, she told herself, sitting up to study her reflection. She didn’t know what she was looking for, something different or new, a visible indication that something within her had changed because of a starry kiss.
She knew that nothing had, that nothing could have. She’d been on her stranger’s table and in his lap no more than seconds, and her mouth had been pressed to his, seeking, searching, aching, almost no time at all.
The only thing to change had been her perfect record at staying smart. Five years sober, and she’d fallen off the wagon because of a man. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If her actions became a time bomb and blew up in her face, she would have no one to blame but herself.
“Argh,” she roared, surging up off the bench. She needed someone to talk to. Reassurance that she hadn’t screwed herself. A reinforcing slap to the head telling her that everything she wanted was not in a stranger’s kiss—no matter that it had felt as if that was exactly where she would find it.
3
“DO YOU BELIEVE in love at first sight?”
Alan Price, Club Crimson’s manager and overflow bartender, stared at Miranda as if she’d grown two heads, which she supposed was about the size of it. She had her Miranda head, and her Candy head, and Alan was one of the few people who knew both well, working with her here at the club, and having lived next door to her when they were kids.
“Was it love at first sight with me and Patrice?” he asked, clipboard in hand while he did his nightly inventory, a shock of his sun-bleached hair falling forward to hide his frown. “Is that what you’re asking?”
Miranda settled more comfortably onto the bar stool in the now-empty lounge, leaning an elbow on the bar and propping her chin in her hand. “Tell me about meeting Patrice. I’m in the mood for a good love story.”
Alan had calmed her down with a couple of drinks when she’d blasted into the club after her dressing-room panic attack, promising her the crowd had thought nothing of the spice she’d added to her show.
He’d calmed her enough, in fact, that she was almost ready to call it a night, to head back to her dressing room, to strip off Candy…and then hope her ancient import started when she went out in the cold to go home. One of these days, she really did need to spring for a new car.
A reformed ski bum, having shed the bum part for respectability, Alan shook his head as if too busy cleaning up to humor her. “You know how I met Patrice. I’ve heard her tell you the story more than once.”
Feeling all fluid and relaxed, Miranda sighed. “She’s told me, yes. I want to hear it from you.”
He took away her wineglass, added it to the crate of dirties destined for the kitchen before he left for the night. After that, he pointed at the clock on the wall at the end of the bar. The hands, shaped like corkscrews, were edging toward 1:00 a.m., the club having closed at midnight.
He yawned for emphasis. “She’s waiting for me to get home. If she calls, I’m handing the phone to you.”
“And I’ll tell her it’s your fault, not mine,” Miranda said before sticking out her tongue, the back and forth a familiar pattern from their years as friends.
“How the hell in any universe is it my fault?”
“You could be halfway through the story by now, for all that you’re dawdling.” Men. Why was it so hard for them to talk about their emotional investments? They certainly had no trouble talking about their portfolios. It wasn’t like she’d asked him to open a vein and bleed out his feelings for Patrice all over the bar.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t copping to love at first sight he was dodging. Maybe it was the embarrassment of not having been on his game when they met, she mused, smiling to herself as she recalled the story Patrice had shared.
“I was skiing,” he told her, obviously taking note of the look on her face and scowling as he wiped a rag over the bar, his motions so furious that she thought he’d rub away the finish. “I crashed, broke my leg. Patrice was on the patrol team that rescued me.”
The short, to-the-point, testosterone version. She wanted more. She wanted all the heat and the want and the feelings. “What about the eye contact? The jolt to your heart? The tingle you felt when she pulled off her gloves and laid the backs of her fingers against your cheek?”
“That was frostbite.”
Miranda laughed, the sound echoing loudly in the quiet room. “You, Alan Price, are so full of crap. You felt it all just like Patrice did, and you know it.”
He stopped scrubbing the already clean bar, and gave her a look, color high on his sharp cheekbones. “Then you didn’t need to hear it from me, did you?”
“Sure I did. You’ve restored my faith that men will be men, and nothing there will ever change.” He’d also reminded her that she wasn’t missing out by being alone, no matter how magic a man’s kiss. “Just the facts. No embellishments. No personalization. No deeper meaning.”
His expression was very male and almost angry. “We feel things, Miranda. We may not talk about them, but they’re there.”
Well. That shut her up. She reached for his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m tired, and tonight threw me off-kilter. I guess I’m the one looking for deeper meaning, though I’m not sure why. Maybe I just need an explanation for what I did.”
“And I told you. Candy hit a hell of a groove, that’s all. The audience enjoyed it. There isn’t any deeper meaning, so stop wasting time trying to find it.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one whose lips still felt the kiss, whose pulse had yet to quit racing. She toyed with the seam in the bar’s padded edge, picking at threads that weren’t there. “Let’s hope it was a one-time thing. With Marshall’s retrial coming up, Miranda can’t afford for Candy to start getting careless.”
“Does that mean you haven’t changed your mind about singing at the Christmas dance?”
“No. I haven’t.” She wouldn’t take Candy Cane out of Club Crimson, even as a favor to Patrice. She’d reiterated to Alan and his wife all the reasons why when first asked to perform at the Mistletoe County High dance.
“The kids would love it,” Alan said, wooing her by wiggling both brows. “All they know is the legend of the sexy redhead who sings at the inn.”
And if Miranda had her way, that was all the students would ever know about her. “The kids would not love it. I’m an old fart who sings old-fart songs. If anyone needs to perform for them, it’s Zoe.”
Corinne’s younger daughter was seventeen and as brilliant a singer as her sister. Her voice was a deep, throaty alto, incredibly rich and mature for a girl so young.
Zoe was the reason Miranda had used a chunk of her obscenely large divorce settlement to establish the Candy Cane Scholarship for the Arts, and why she continued to funnel into it all the money she made at the club.
Even if Corinne had her reasons for not accepting Brenna’s offer to repay the misappropriated funds plus interest, Zoe was too good to be hidden away. A legitimate study of voice and music seemed to Miranda the perfect compromise. The scholarship was her way of putting her money where her mouth was.
Miranda looked back at Alan. “I wish Patrice would add her to the program. Zoe could use the exposure.”
“She’s going to,” Alan said, thrilling Miranda to bits. “But the kids know Zoe. Patrice was hoping for a big-name headliner.”
“I heard her sister’s in town,” Miranda said, thinking about Corinne and her relationships with her girls. Sooner or later mother needed to meet older daughter halfway—even if only for the sake of the younger. “Patrice should try to snag Ravyn.”
“That might work if Patrice were willing to forget everything Mistletoe stands for and invade Ravyn’s privacy, which she’s not going to do. And if Brenna and Corinne weren’t on the outs. There’s no way Patrice is going behind Corinne’s back just to make points with the kids.”
Miranda knew he was right. As cool a coup as it would be for the senior class to have Evermore’s lead singer at their Christmas dance, there were a whole lot of circumstances in the way of it happening.
Besides, with Ravyn—Brenna—estranged from her family, her visit to Mistletoe sans the band pretty much confirmed the rumors of her romantic liaison with right-wing and conveniently newly single congressman Teddy Eagleton, who Miranda had seen in the lobby earlier in the day.
Whatever the two were doing here, mentioning it to Corinne was nothing Miranda wanted to do. Especially since the other woman might soon be dealing with the reporters turned away by security from the inn. Having experienced the same, Miranda had great sympathy for what Corinne had ahead of her.
“You finished with that?” Alan asked, looking over Miranda’s head.
She started to tell him that he’d already done his conscientious-bartender-and-childhood-friend duty and taken her wineglass away. Then he realized she wasn’t the one to whom he was speaking.
She glanced over her shoulder and peered into the dark. A man was walking toward them from the club’s far corner, a coffee cup and saucer in hand.
He was tall, and he rolled with a swagger, his legs long, his hips and waist narrow, his shoulders wide beneath the dark jacket he wore with his jeans…his jeans…
She’d sat in the lap of a man wearing jeans, a man who’d watched her show from the club’s far corner. Crap and double crap. She turned back quickly, hissing at her ex-friend to get his attention.
“He’s been here all this time and you didn’t tell me?” Dear God, had she given herself away? Had he overheard Alan call her Miranda? Had she confessed that she was still reeling from the contact of their lips and their tongues? “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Alan smirked his ex-friend enjoyment of her distress. “Patrice said you’ve been extra moody lately. I figured you might need to get laid.”
“I hate you, you know.”
“I know. I hate you, too.”
Thank God she hadn’t taken off her wig. That was the only thought that crossed her mind before the stranger who kissed like a god climbed onto the stool beside her, filling the space as if it had been waiting a lifetime for him to find it. Uh, yeah. This couldn’t be good.
“Thanks for the coffee,” he told Alan, giving Miranda his profile to study as he handed the cup and saucer across the bar. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it to my room, or even remember where I put it.”
As hard as she tried not to, Miranda couldn’t help a soft laugh; the sound had him swiveling slowly toward her, cocking his head, drinking her in until she forgot to breathe and changed her mind about this being good.
“Laugh at me, laugh with me. I’ll take either one.”
Oh, he was sharp. And gorgeous. Somehow she’d missed the full extent of his gorgeousness when she’d been in his lap, but there was still nothing she wouldn’t give right now for a big fat hole in the ground.
A hole swallowing her would keep her from looking at his mouth. His mouth, his lips, his tongue, his teeth. She remembered them all. She wanted them all. She wanted more.
She wanted him. She’d been right the first time. This was not good.
“Caleb McGregor,” he said, offering her his hand.
After a moment, she took it. “Candy Cane.”
“According to the marquee,” he said, before letting her go.
Touché, she thought, refusing to confirm his assumption with body language or voice. “I’m not sure if I should thank you or beg your forgiveness.”
The mouth that had been all over hers and made her into a marshmallow smiled. “There’s nothing to forgive, and I’m pretty sure I’m the one who should be thanking you.”
He was smart. Smooth. Cutely self-deprecating rather than smarmy. Or maybe that was the kiss talking, and she should be listening to her survival instincts instead. “You were a good sport, and I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I don’t usually get that…personal with the audience.”
He paused a moment, taking her in. “Then I’m glad I was there when you decided to change things up.”
Spice, Alan had called it. Adding spice to Candy’s routine. If only it were that simple, adding, changing, but the truth rarely was. And this particular truth wasn’t easy to admit.
There had been no conscious decision in what she’d done. Her brain had had nothing to do with her sliding into his lap. Hormones and lust were responsible for her pressing her mouth to his and giving him her tongue. She’d seen him. She’d wanted him. She’d taken him.
And now here he was, sitting beside her, close, his knee brushing her thigh when he swiveled on the stool, a whiff of Scotch and coffee reaching her nose along with the scent of something earthy and warm.
She needed to excuse herself. To go. She was in so much trouble here. So, of course, she went ahead and made it worse. “What brings you to Mistletoe, Caleb? You’re not here alone, are you?”
“Actually, I am,” he said, bursting that insulating bubble.
Kiss or no kiss, his having a companion would’ve put him off-limits. Now he wasn’t, which was going to make it hard to say no—to him, to herself…especially with Alan’s comment about her needing to get laid echoing with more veracity than she liked.
She pushed aside the noise of that echo, focusing on Caleb’s hand that rested flat on the bar. His fingers were long, thick, the backs broad and dusted with golden hair. She closed her eyes, opened them slowly, hoped he couldn’t read her mind because, oh, there were so many places she wanted his touch.
“Alone? Really?” She cleared her throat. “I’m surprised.”
He glanced over, arching a brow, questioning, curious. “Surely you get the occasional single up here.”
She stared at him, studied him, liked too much what she was seeing…his stylishly mussed hair, a warm brown toasted with highlights…his eyes that were a gorgeous blend of gold and bronze…his mouth that she was certain did more things than kiss well.
Good. Not good. She didn’t know the difference anymore. “I don’t mingle enough with the guests to be sure, but I can’t say I’ve seen anyone not part of a couple.”
“Well, now you have,” he told her, teased her. “Seen someone who’s not, and mingled.”
She looked down, went back to picking at the bar. “I’m just breaking all sorts of rules tonight.”
“Must be the company you’re keeping.”
“I can’t think of any other reason.” It was hard to think of anything with her heart in her throat, choking her, cutting off her ability to breathe.
He watched her hands, then looked up, his eyes saying more than his words, saying that he knew what she was feeling, the extreme pull she was fighting. That he was fighting the same. “Can you think of one that would keep us from getting a drink?”
She nodded. “The bar’s closed.”
“That’s a hard one to get around,” he said, adding, “though I can think of one solution.”
“No,” she told him. Absolutely not. “I won’t come up to your room for a nightcap.”
“Rules?”
“Rules,” she said, and nodded again.
“Too bad about the rules,” he said, and she laughed. And then she stopped because he leaned close to say, “You’re a hell of a kisser.”
Well. She’d been hoping to hear him tell her goodbye. Or hear that he wasn’t much for obeying the rules. He seemed the sort, a bit brash, a bit dangerous. He’d obviously convinced Alan to let him hang out long after closing.
“It was all part of the act,” was what she finally said, ignoring the flutter of her pulse as he breathed her in and sighed, and the tongue of flame in her belly when he came back with, “The hell it was,” a response that begged the question, Where do we go from here?
Alan clearing his throat pushed her to answer. “If you can stomach the mess, I have a bottle of Drambuie in my dressing room.”
He didn’t respond right away, looking her over, staring into her eyes. His were hard to read in this light, but that didn’t lessen the impact of his gaze, or the heat simmering in the air around them.
She wasn’t sure if she should take back the offer, if she’d been too forward in making it. If he had wanted nothing from her. Or had just wanted an acknowledgment that the kiss had been way out of line.
That wasn’t how she’d read him, but she was so out of practice with men—
