by Lori Wilde
The town square was bright and brisk and bustling, Christmas lights blazing from every establishment, bundled shoppers hustling and street venders hawking food, trinkets, and gift wrapping services.
Paige breathed in the excitement. In recent years, she’d lost her love of the holidays—following Mom’s new marriage and moving to Colorado, Dad’s prolonged illness, and then, last Christmas, Randy’s monumental betrayal—but this year it felt different.
Hopeful. A bit surreal. Skating between beguiling and overwhelming.
Buses of tourists deposited schoolchildren, senior citizens, and singles on pub crawls, overcrowding the uneven, cobblestones streets. The clip-clop of horses pulling carriages, decked out with lights and wreaths and mistletoe, rang out too loudly, too clear. The Christmas music blared over the sound system delivering relentless cheer. The profuse scent of cinnamon and pine and gingerbread spilled from shops and kiosks.
She wanted to embrace it all, but was still just a little too scared to fully let go. She’d trusted before. Had the rug pulled out from under her one time too many.
But in her heart of hearts, she was an eternal optimist.
Which was why she practically skipped down the sidewalk, an abundant smile sprucing up her lips, her pulse tap-tap-tappity-tapping. She’d been thinking about this all week.
He was waiting for her outside Fruit of the Vine. She instantly picked him out of the crowd. He had his hands in the pockets of his leather bomber jacket, and dark sunglasses perched on the end of his nose. He was leaning against the side of the building, looking all mysterious and insouciant.
Her heart stopped. God, he was amazing. How had she gotten so lucky to even have this tiny slice of his life? She inhaled, appreciating the preciousness of the moment.
The second he spotted her, Cash broke into a big grin, pushed off from the wall, and came to take her hand.
Breathless.
His touch left her breathless.
And when he slipped his arm around her waist to escort her inside, she feared she might never breathe again.
Paige had never been inside the wine bar. Fruit on the Vine was a fairly new addition to Twilight. She’d been scrimping and saving to get a car and her own apartment and wine simply wasn’t in the budget. Besides, she was far too busy.
The hipster count was high that afternoon due to the artisanal cheese festival in town, but Paige didn’t care. He guided her past men with thick bushy beards and short, slicked-back hair, and women in pastel Doc Martens. Both sexes wore an abundance of flannel and suspenders. On the small stage a big man was singing a bad karaoke version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” egged on by the crowd.
“You know a trend is no longer hip by the time it’s popular in Twilight.” She giggled as Cash led her up the stairs to the dimmer, alcove seating.
“On the plus side,” he said. “Hipsters don’t tend to be into country-and-western music. It’s why I picked the wine bar. Less chance of running into hard-core fans.”
Even though it was early, the place was filling up fast, and they managed to snag the last darkened booth in the far corner of the room. He sat beside her instead of across from her, pressing close, their thighs touching. She liked the intimacy.
A waitress came by, and Paige asked if they had sangria. They did not.
“Do you have ice wine?” Cash asked.
“We do.”
“What labels?”
She rattled off several.
“Two of the Cabernet Franc,” he said.
“What’s ice wine?” Paige whispered once the waitress had left, both fascinated and embarrassed that she was so unsophisticated.
“It’s a type of dessert wine made from grapes that have been frozen while still in the vineyard.”
“So we’re drinking dessert before we’ve had dinner? It feels decadent.”
“It is, and it’s very sweet. Just like you,” he said, leaning over to capture her lips.
Feeling girlish, she giggled and kissed him back.
The waitress brought two small narrow glasses filled with ice cold wine. Smiled. “It’s on the house. The owner is a fan.”
Cash raised his glass, smiled like it was the happiest day of his life. That smile curled deep inside her belly, took hold, grew. “To us.”
“To us,” she echoed, feeling slightly faint, hardly able to believe she was here with him, toasting their couple-ness.
They clinked glasses and took a sip and he kissed her again. The wine was nectar sweet and tasted like a golden sunset on a December evening over the lake. It started out cold, but by the time it reached her stomach she felt rosy warm and tingly.
“This is lovely.” She sighed, took another sip, and noticed light from the flickering candle on the table glinted off silver tinsel streamers dangling from the ceiling, and a bunch of tipsy young women at a big table in the middle of the room burst into loud laughter.
“Not as lovely as you,” Cash murmured, his arm around her shoulders, his distinctive masculine scent tangled up in her nose.
It was an amazing moment, but her happiness had a slippery feel to it, like an unbelievable fairy tale too good to be true. And when he kissed her again, she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed so tightly she feared he might complain, but he only hugged her back.
He tugged her into his lap, her legs dangling over his. This time his kiss was magnificently fierce, almost too fierce for public consumption. Good thing it was dark and they were in the corner and the drunken young women at the big table were drawing all the attention.
Cash stroked her cheek, twisted a lock of her hair around his finger, used it to tug her gently into another kiss. “You make me dizzy, Paige Hyacinth MacGregor, you know that?”
He studied her and they were so close she could see the starburst of darker gray in the middle of his eyes, the softness at the corners where his tender smile reached. Overcome, her heart clutched.
“Is that a good thing?” she whispered. “Or bad?”
Instead of answering, he kissed her long and deep. A soulful kiss thick with a rich undercurrent of meaning that she didn’t possess the ability to decipher. But she could feel the hard, rapid thump of his heart through his shirt that matched her own crazy rhythm.
Sexual tension sizzled and crackled, flaming high as dried logs in a fire pit, full of heat and oxygen, ready to explode into an orange shower of red-hot sparks.
She was afraid, so afraid all this deliciousness was going to blow up in her face. Her experiences with love had been tragic and unstable. She’d not ever felt anything this big, this combustible, and each time she was near him it only seemed to expand, stretching and pushing at the edges of possibilities.
On the first-floor level below where they canoodled in the loft, the front door opened, blowing in dead leaves, cold air, and a pack of young women who’d clearly already been drinking. Amy from the Twilight Bakery was in the group.
“Where is he?” one of the young women howled. “We heard Cash Colton is in the house.”
“Ah crap,” Cash said, hunched his shoulders and tugged the brim of his hat down over his eyes. “Trapped.”
“You don’t want to spend the rest of the night signing cleavage?” Paige teased.
“God, no. All I want to do is spend time with you.”
“Where is he?” Amy hollered from below. “Cashie, Cashie, come out, come out wherever you are.”
“Looks like we’re sunk,” Cash muttered.
“O ye of little faith,” she said. “There’s a back exit from the top floor of all the old buildings on the square. Come with me.”
He tossed a ten-dollar bill on the table to tip the waitress for the complimentary wine.
Paige took his hand and towed him to where a heavy curtain hid a hallway. Their boots clunked against the old wooden, uneven floor as they slunk past the curtain and down the darkened hall, lit only by one small wall sconce.
Behind them, they heard Amy’s voice and footsteps getting loude
r as she climbed the loft. “Cash Colton, where are you?”
At the end of the long hall was an exit door. She hauled him toward it, worried that Amy was going to push the curtain aside and catch them before they got out the door. His big palm was warm against hers and he squeezed her hand.
She pushed against the door handle, but the wooden door had swollen in the damp weather and was stuck.
“Stand aside,” Cash said, and put some muscle into it.
Behind them, Amy’s voice was high and quarrelsome as she spoke to the people in the loft. “Any of you bitches seen Cash Colton?”
Paige pressed into Cash’s back, trying to hide him from view in case Amy came through the curtain. Silly impulse, seeing as how he was a good eight inches taller than she was. But all she could think was, Protect him.
Cash hit the door with his shoulder at the same time he shoved on the handle. The door popped open like a wine cork leaving the bottle and, with Paige at his back, the momentum pushed them both out onto the narrow, rickety iron fire escape circa 1874-ish.
“Whoa!” he said, almost barreling over the rail. He put out a hand to steady her, steady them both. The exit door snapped closed behind them, leaving them peering down at the alley below.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and started climbing down the fire escape.
He hesitated.
She peered up at him. “What is it?”
An embarrassed expression crossed his face and he scratched his chin. “I’m a tiny bit acrophobic.”
“It’s only two stories.” Aww, his fear of heights was endearing. Who would have suspected someone as self-confident as Cash would get nervous over heights?
He eyed the fire escape. “The ladder is so old it doesn’t have a hinge or slide that allows it to go all the way to the ground. You have to jump.”
“It’s a short drop. See?” She made the six-foot drop to the ground. “Bend your knees.”
“That fire escape is damn unsteady.”
“Okay,” she said. “Either come with me or go back the way you came. Of course that means Amy . . . Which do you fear most? Her or heights?”
“Right,” he said, and scooted down the fire escape after her. When he got to the last rung, he hesitated.
“Amy,” Paige prodded.
“Gotcha.” Closing his eyes, he jumped to the ground.
“Yay.” Paige applauded. “You did it. Squashed that fear of heights.”
He straightened, regained his balance, and grinned at her just as the exit door on the second floor opened and Amy poked her head out. “Cash Colton, are you running away from me?”
“Yep,” he called, grabbed Paige’s hand and, laughing, they ran away down the alley.
“Where are we going?” Cash asked.
“Wait and see.”
Intrigued, Cash allowed her to guide him through the town square.
“Where’s the Land Rover?” she asked.
“Parked at the marina. I walked. Why?”
“We need it.”
He pulled his vehicle’s remote control from his pants’ pocket and handed it to her. “You drive.”
She looked utterly pleased and stopped long enough to plant a kiss on his cheek. Her lips heated his skin, warming him up straight down to his belly and beyond.
Hand in hand they strolled through the square, past the Twilight Playhouse, down the walkway toward the lake and marina. The air was fresh and smelled of impending snow. Christmas music poured from the outdoor speakers, providing a backdrop for the carolers singing on the corner. It was a snow globe town.
Attractive. Innocent. Untouchable.
Cash saw the appeal. Understood why people could spend their entire lives in a place like this one.
The walk took a leisurely twenty minutes as they took time to stop and exchange kisses in the glow of the security lamps lighting their way in the foggy darkness.
Damn, he’d missed her.
The recording sessions had been a big success. The hired band and sound guys had given him multiple thumbs-up. He’d done Sepia proud. Thanks to Paige and her muse power. Now, he was just waiting for Deet to give the songs a listen and get back to him, but he was confident his manager was going to love the recordings as much as everyone else.
“How was your trip?” she asked as they reached the Land Rover.
“Trippy.”
“Meaning?” Her hazel eyes hooked his.
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” he said, holding open the driver’s side door so she could climb up into the cab. “My first solo effort and it’s all due to you.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I had nothing to do with it.”
“You had everything to do with it.”
She buckled her seat belt and looked over to where he was still standing outside the Land Rover, his hand on the door. “Are you saying that if you hadn’t met me you wouldn’t have started writing songs again?”
“I would have cobbled something together but it wouldn’t have been phenomenal.”
“The songs are that good?”
“Beyond,” he said. “Since meeting you I’ve stretched and grown as a musician in ways I didn’t know were possible.”
“That’s great,” she said, but her mouth was tight, her eyes worried, as if it wasn’t great at all. She was upset with him on some level and he couldn’t figure out why. “C’mon, get in. We’re going to get you a tree from my friends, Joe and Gabi Cheek, at their Christmas tree farm.”
He slipped into the passenger seat, buckled up. “Any FYIs?”
“About?”
He shrugged. “Your friends. Christmas tree selection . . .”
“Are you anxious about meeting my friends?” She sounded amused.
Yes. “No, of course not.” He made a dismissive noise, pushing air out through his pursed lips.
“Joe and Gabi are amazing people,” Paige said. “They’ve never met a stranger. No worries. They’ll love you. They love everyone.”
As it turned out, Joe and Gabi did not love him.
The Christmas tree farm was bustling. Vehicles pulling in and out. Christmas lights strung everywhere. Kids running to and fro. The rolling land covered with trees stirred in Cash the memory of his grandparents’ small dried-up ranch. Bittersweet, those memories. He’d loved the land, loved working with livestock, but his grandparents’ small-minded judgment and closed-off hearts had pushed him to run away when he was fifteen.
But in this moment, his love of the land tickled him, soft as a feather. A tiny whisper carried on the rich smell of earth and air.
Home.
He had an urge to dig in the dirt.
“We need a tree!” Paige announced gaily to the lean-hipped man, about Cash’s age, who sauntered up to the Land Rover as they got out.
“We?” The man raised an eyebrow.
“Well, it’s really for Cash,” she said, and slung her arm around his waist. “Joe, this is Cash Colton.”
Joe narrowed his eyes, gave Cash a flinty stare. “I know who he is.”
A petite pregnant woman joined them. She put her left hand on her belly, extended her right. “Hi, I’m Gabi, Joe’s wife—”
“Cash!” A high-pitched feminine voice drew everyone’s attention.
He turned and saw a blonde girl who looked to be around ten years old bouncing over.
“Hey,” she said. “I’m Casey and your number one fan.”
“Hello, Casey,” he said, offering up his best public-relationships grin. “Good to meet you.”
“The first three letters of our name are exactly the same,” she said, sticking her chest out proudly. “We have so much in common.”
“Casey’s my daughter.” Joe gave Cash the stink-eye and slung an arm around Casey’s slender shoulders.
Casey squirmed away from her dad, leaned in close to Cash, and whispered, “I love your boots. Cool colors.”
At least someone was on his side. He gazed down at h
is black boots detailed with red accents and stitching. “Thank you,” he whispered back as if they were keeping big secrets, and cast a sidelong glance at Paige. She was pulling her bottom lip up between her teeth the way she did when she was nervous.
“How long are you in Twilight?” Joe asked, a frown cutting a crease between his eyebrows.
“Until the end of the year.” The vibe he was getting was not friendly. It was unusual not to be welcomed with open arms. Most people loved brushing shoulders with celebrity.
“Is that so?” Joe hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and Cash had the strangest vision of those belt loops as holsters, and Joe fingering the butts of two guns with Wyatt Earp imagery. “Where are you off to after that?”
“Who knows?” Cash shrugged, keeping it casual and examining a Virginia pine. The trees were beautifully shaped and planted in rows like soldier regiments. He’d give Joe props for doing his job well, but he wasn’t feeling the Christmas cheer. At least, not where he was concerned.
“LA,” Paige said, and it dawned on him she’d kept quiet for a while. “He’s going to Los Angeles after he leaves here.”
“That’s where my recording label is located,” Cash explained.
“You used to live there.” Joe picked up an axe, balanced it on his shoulder lumberjack-style, showing off the sharp, honed edge. “With Simone Bishop.”
“I sold my house in LA,” Cash said, well-aware this conversation could blow right up in his face, ka-blewy. He spied land mines everywhere.
“After Simone cheated on him,” Paige added, her voice even and noncommittal. “And broke up his band.”
“That’s how it went down.” What was going on here? “But things were already going south with Simone . . . and the band for that matter.”
“So you were already having trouble making things work.” Joe held on to the axe with hands encased in thick leather work gloves.
He met Joe’s hard, cold eyes. Hell, the dude looked like he wouldn’t mind dismembering Cash with that blade. Chop. Chop.
“Relationships go south on you a lot.” Joe grunted. “At least what I can tell from the Internet.”