“You hungry?” Pete nodded down at the tray of gingersnaps in his hand.
The kid’s eyes went wide for just a breath before he returned his glance to his beat-up sneakers. “Those are for the real people, aren’t they? I mean, the people who paid for tickets, and stuff.”
Pete forced his words past the ache lodged firmly in his sternum. “Don’t worry, there are plenty. Plus, every good chef tastes his finished product, and it just so happens I made these myself.” He held up the tray in offering.
“Guys can be chefs?” The kid looked at him, dubious.
“Yup. In fact, most chefs are.” Pete took a cookie off the tray and popped it into his mouth like it was nothing.
“I didn’t know that.” He hesitated, but then slipped a cookie from the tray.
“I didn’t either, when I first started.” Pete shifted the tray to one hand so he could extend the other. “Pete Mancuso.”
The kid looked genuinely surprised at the equality of a simple handshake. “Uh, Lucas. Lucas Ford.”
“Well, Lucas, I heard the contestants are supposed to team up with someone to serve these cookies. I could use a right-hand man. You up for the job?”
“I don’t know.” Lucas’s eyes took an up and down trip over Pete. “Do I have to wear an apron?”
Pete didn’t even bother containing his laugh. Christ, this was a kid after his own heart. “I usually stick with a chef’s coat, but today I made an exception. I’m sure Marianna would let you slide, though.”
Lucas took a bite of his cookie, as if to buy time before he answered. “Okay. I guess that’s cool then.”
“Great.” Pete pointed to the prep area at the back of the main room. “While the apron’s optional, hand washing isn’t. Why don’t you go scrub up and find me when you’re done? Then we can tackle this crowd together.”
Lucas grunted an agreement before heading off, but Pete needed a minute before rejoining the fray. He let his eyes wander around the room until they automatically landed on Lily. The serious knit that usually graced her brow had softened to pale gold, and as she smiled, she looked as honest and pretty as a room full of daylight. She was clearly caught up in the moment, lost in what she was doing, yet sure with the sheer thrill of it.
As Pete watched her, with time both stretching out and stopping all at once, he knew exactly how she felt.
It took exactly twelve more minutes before Pine Mountain’s decorating committee got what they’d been hoping for with all that strategically placed Christmas greenery.
Not that Pete had been counting.
“Why, Lily Callahan! It looks like you and Pete are under a sprig of mistletoe.” A sweet-looking elderly lady pointed knowingly to a spot over their heads, and damn, Lily’s flush made the whole thing look completely genuine.
“Oh! I guess we are, Mrs. Teasdale. Did you know that mistletoe is most commonly found on apple trees? It dates back as far as ancient times.”
Mrs. Teasdale laughed. “Lord, child. You always did blurt the strangest things. Now go on and kiss that young man. You don’t want to bring bad luck to School Days, now do you?”
“No. I . . . I guess not.” Lily turned then, and Pete scanned her face with care. As badly as he wanted to kiss her, he wasn’t going to do it if he saw even the slightest hint of doubt in her eyes.
But she met his gaze with a very tiny, very certain nod.
He leaned down, purposely leaving a decent sliver of space between everything but their mouths for propriety’s sake even though his body screamed in protest. Lily’s lips were just as soft as he remembered, and even though he barely brushed them with his own, the taste of her sent a streak of heat to his very core.
Holy hell. If he were on Death Row, he’d choose this woman as his last frigging meal.
But then a smattering of applause filtered past his subconscious, reminding him not just where he was, but what he was doing.
And more important, what he shouldn’t be doing.
“Well, no bad luck there,” Mrs. Teasdale said with a twinkle in her eye as he and Lily parted.
“No ma’am.” Pete armed himself with a smile, realizing belatedly there was a zero percent chance the camera crew had missed the opportunity to capture the whole thing. Sure enough, a guy in a backward baseball cap stood less than five feet away, camera going full speed, bringing him even further back to reality. It was a publicity stunt, nothing more. The fact that he’d get a boost out of it while promoting a good cause didn’t hurt, either.
Pete spent the next two hours alternating between talking up School Days, trying to coax casual conversation out of Lucas, and kissing Lily at fairly regular intervals. The more they bumped into each other accidentally on purpose under the mistletoe, the happier the guests became. They gushed about the magic of the season, diving into their purses and wallets to make one last donation, and the camera crew ate it up like candy. By the time the last cookie had been served and the crowd dwindled to stragglers, Pete’s mood was damn near unbreakable.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe we hit every bunch of mistletoe in this place.” He gestured upward to a particularly large collection of greenery before tossing his apron into the bin Marianna had brought out for dirty linens.
“That may be an exaggeration.” Lily’s prim words were no match for the ear-to-ear stunner on her face. “But suffice it to say, our next spotlight will probably be as popular as our first.”
“Does it bother you?” Pete fell into step with her as they headed toward the exit. The camera crew had long since packed up for the night, allowing them to speak freely about Operation Mistletoe.
Lily’s brow puckered over her frown. “It was my idea, remember?”
He remembered, all right. “I just want to make sure you don’t have any regrets, I guess.”
“Regrets are a waste of time. It makes more sense to change things if you don’t like them rather than worry about what’s done.”
The matter-of-fact explanation made so much sense, was so undeniably Lily that he had no choice but to laugh. “Fair enough.”
Pete slid her coat over her shoulders before pulling on his own, ushering Lily through the double doors of the red-bricked community center. A now-familiar figure captured his attention from beyond the reach of the streetlight, and although the kid’s back was to them, Pete recognized him in an instant.
“Lucas!”
He stopped, but didn’t turn around for a long second. It gave Pete and Lily time to cross the parking lot, their breath scattering in smoky wisps from the bone-rattling cold.
“Lily, you met Lucas earlier, right?” Pete tipped his head toward the kid, who wore nothing more than a jean jacket that had seen better days. He had to be freezing.
“I sure did. He handed out every last one of my gingersnaps.” She gave Lucas a warm smile, and he returned it with a tentative one before stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“Everyone said they were good.” Lucas directed the comment more to the pavement than Lily, and it struck Pete how painfully shy the kid really was.
“Smart crowd.” He skimmed a glance over the scattering of cars left in the parking lot. “Are you waiting for a ride?”
“Oh, uh, no.” Lucas slumped further into his jacket, but didn’t elaborate. Man, the poor kid would never make it home without frostbite, even if he lived close by.
“Well you’re in luck. I’m already giving Lily a ride. Why don’t we take you wherever you’re headed, too?”
That got Lucas’s head to pop up. “That’s okay. I mean, it’s cool for me to walk.”
Lily’s expression turned to pure determination, but Pete gave her a tiny, silent head shake before turning to Lucas with the most laid-back glance he could work up. “That’s too bad. I was kind of hoping for some help.”
Both Lucas and Lily shot him quizzical looks, although hers wore a healthy smattering of what the hell are you up to? But this kid would only retreat further if they strong-armed him, even with the best intentions.
<
br /> It was something Pete knew by heart, and in that split second of realization, he knew exactly what he’d do with the contest money if he won.
“Yeah. Lily and I have a friendly debate going about which is better for a chocolate chip cookie. I’m a big fan of chewy, but she thinks thin and crisp is the way to go. I was hoping for a little input in case I decide to make them in the next round tomorrow, but . . .”
“Oh.” The word thudded between them, both hesitant and hopeful. “I kind of like both.”
“Maybe you could tell us why? There’s nothing better than an unbiased opinion,” Pete said, tipping his head toward the Jeep. “And I could give you a ride home, as my way of saying thanks.”
“Just for telling you what I think?”
But it was Lily who tipped the scales with her quiet, sincere nod.
“Absolutely, Lucas. After all, we could use the help.”
Chapter 8
Lily snuck a glance at her bedside clock for the sixth time in ten minutes and grunted her disgust. It wasn’t terribly late, but between her nerves over tomorrow’s elimination and the thoughts crowding her head from earlier tonight, the chances she’d actually drift off any time soon were slim to none.
And slim was looking pretty anorexic.
She forced herself to sink further down into the luxurious bedding, willing relaxation into her overwound muscles. She was in one of the most gorgeously appointed suites in the entire Blue Ridge, for God’s sake. Letting go of her tension should be a walk in the park in a place like this.
If only she could dislodge the image of her cocky counterpart from the front-and-center spot in her brain, maybe she’d get a little shuteye.
Okay, so their little performance tonight had garnered the results they’d hoped for, enhancing donations by creating good cheer and getting School Days’ name in the media. But it also had some results she hadn’t counted on, namely the heat brewing in some very delicate places, and the one thought Lily could no longer ignore.
She wanted Pete Mancuso. Badly.
Which was demented, not to mention totally irrational. He was a risk-taker—borderline arrogant, really—and he wanted to win this competition as much as she did.
But he’s also kind and smart and decent, came a whisper from within, and even though she wanted to ignore it, she couldn’t.
Pete had known exactly what to say to Lucas to put him at ease, from the minute they’d all climbed into the Jeep to the easygoing “See ya later” he’d given up when they dropped the boy off. Lily knew Pine Mountain well enough to recognize that Lucas lived in one of the most rural sections of town, and one of the poorest. Coming from a family of little means, it was easy for Lily to see the subtle signs in hindsight.
What she didn’t see was how Pete had picked up on them, and well before she had, to boot.
You could ask him, whispered the voice again, and okay, now she was really going crazy. She couldn’t just show up at Pete’s hotel suite at ten o’clock at night in her pajamas, asking him all sorts of personal questions. It was insane. It was impolite. It was . . .
Totally, unequivocally forbidden, and she wanted nothing more than to do it.
Before reason could glue her to the bed, Lily flung back the coverlet and stood up. So what if this was the most impulsive thing she had done since . . . well, birth. Pete broke the rules all the time. He probably wouldn’t think it was all that crazy to find her knocking at his door. In fact, he probably did this kind of thing before he even finished his morning coffee.
Lily jammed her feet into her shoes and scooped her hair into a ponytail. If worse came to worst, she could always excuse her visit with a baking question and be back in bed in five minutes flat. The presence of a backup plan bolstered her, guiding her feet right out the door and down the thickly carpeted hallway.
Lily had heard Pete ask the hotel staff for some extra coffee filters the other day, and at the time, she’d thought it a product of her meticulous brain that his room number had stuck in her head like molasses clinging to a measuring cup.
Only now she knew her brain had nothing to do with it.
Losing her nerve wasn’t an option, though, and now that she had a plan, complete with a solid backup, she’d damn well stick to it. Lily placed a businesslike knock on the door in front of her, straightening her shoulders with a nod. This was no big deal.
But then the door swung open, revealing a slightly rumpled pastry chef wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung basketball shorts and a smile, and Lily’s plan spontaneously combusted.
“Something tells me you’re not here to borrow a cup of sugar,” Pete said, and holy shit, how had she not factored possible shirtlessness into the equation? After all, plenty of guys slept without a shirt on.
Not to mention plenty more who slept in the nude.
“Oh!” Lily squeaked. She should’ve known better than to think she could pull off something this risky. “Ah, no. I just . . . I had a question.” Why, oh why hadn’t she come up with a getaway question before she’d knocked? The impossible silence hurtling over the threshold made her blurt the first thing that flew into her head.
“Did you know that there are six different kinds of peepholes you can have installed on a door for security?”
Pete’s brow popped, and he turned to look over one shoulder at the peephole in his door, muscles flexing just enough to make Lily lightheaded.
“You got out of bed to tell me that?” The smile tugging at his lips was undeniable, and the sight of it guided even more embarrassing honesty out of her, despite the risk.
“No. I got out of bed because I want to know why you were so nice to Lucas.”
Pete’s smile vanished, but he stepped back into his room. “Come on in.”
Lily tiptoed into his suite, which was a mirror image of hers, if a bit messier. Pete took a T-shirt from a duffel bag on the floor, pulling it over his head as he sat down on the half-made bed. Having no idea what the protocol was for barging in on someone like this, she perched on the edge of the desk chair across from him and just came out with it.
“I’m sorry for being so forward. It’s just that not a lot of people would’ve even noticed Lucas tonight, much less known exactly how to make him feel comfortable, but you did.”
He shrugged, a singular tight jerk of his shoulders to match his clipped response. “I was just nice to a kid who looked like he needed it.”
But Lily hadn’t gotten out of bed for canned generalizations, and she wasn’t going back to her room without answers. “I think there’s more to it than that.”
“What else could there be?”
Lily drew in a breath. Screw it. If she was going to hold back, she wouldn’t have knocked on his door in the first place.
“I don’t know, Pete. But the more time I spend around you, the more I see someone different from the hotshot pastry chef who smacked into me last week. And it wouldn’t be such a big deal, except . . .” She paused, her heart now kicking full-throttle against her ribcage. “Except I really like the guy I see.”
Pete jerked back to look at her. “I’m not as nice a guy as you think.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No?” His eyes went dark green and wide with surprise. He pushed off from the bed to cut the space between them to mere inches, kneeling in front of her to look her right in the eye. “If I was a nice guy, I wouldn’t be thinking about how much I want to kiss you right now.”
Lily’s breath sped up, her nipples tightening beneath the thin cotton of her pajama top as Pete edged between her knees, stroking his thumb over her bottom lip with excruciating care.
“You wouldn’t?” she whispered, and oh God, she’d never felt anything so right in her life.
He shook his head before dipping his mouth within an inch of hers. “If I were in any way decent, I wouldn’t be remembering how you taste like fresh peppermint, right here.”
Lily was helpless against the sigh pushing up from her chest, and Pete’s lips cu
rled into a wicked smile before he turned toward the shell of her ear.
“And if I were the guy you think I am, I damn sure wouldn’t be wondering if the rest of you tastes the same way.”
The words snapped Lily’s last tenuous thread of control, and she turned her mouth so close to his, she could feel the heat of his exhale.
“Then maybe I’m not the woman you think I am, because I want you to find out.”
They came together in a hot rush of breath and limbs and total desire, and she dug her hands into the soft material covering his shoulders, welcoming the feel of his body beneath. Pete let out a pleasured groan, rocking against her for momentum as he scooped her from the chair to his lap in one swift motion. Under any other circumstances, tumbling to the floor might be troublesome, but with Pete’s hard-in-all-the-right-places body beneath hers, Lily not only didn’t care, she never wanted to move from her spot.
“Oh, God, that feels so good.” Lily notched her body over his, covering his chest with her own as she pressed against him from shoulder to hip.
Another groan broke from his mouth, and he shuddered beneath her as her knees widened over the lean expanse of his hips. “Jesus. Lily, please be sure.”
She pressed her palms against the lush carpet, pushing up to look him in the eye. “No regrets, remember? I’m sure.”
His chuckle was a dark, seductive counterpart to the delicious tension pulling her taut. “Okay. But if we’re going to do this, let’s do it right.”
He levered to sitting, his hands covering the swell of her ass as he reached around to sweep her fully into his arms. In one fluid move, Lily was weightless as Pete stood and carried her across the carpet. He lowered them carefully to the bed, placing her in the center of his lap before sliding his hand over her heart to release the buttons on her pajama top one by one. The rasp of the fabric on her nipples was such a contrast to the cool air that Lily bit down on her lip in an effort to not cry out as Pete slipped it from the frame of her shoulders.
To her surprise, he didn’t move quickly or touch her with any of the hard passion of a few moments ago. Instead, he was reverent, touching her body in slow, sweet caresses as if she was a lazy Sunday morning and he had all the time in the world to savor her.
The Sugar Cookie Sweetheart Swap Page 31