by Taryn Quinn
A giant snow globe had been set up near the shore. Fake snow whirled inside as children leaped around like little maniacs. I hoped the structure didn’t take flight in the wind, but it seemed securely tethered.
If not, Sheriff Unfriendly would have something else to grouse about.
Christmas carols played brightly from unseen speakers, and the scent of real roasted chestnuts carried on the air. I drew in deeply and considered making a lunch of them—after I worked on my sketch.
I dug out my newest acquisitions from my bag and flipped to the first page in the pad. I skated my fingertips over the fine weave of the paper. It wasn’t super high-end, but there was nothing like the promise of a fresh start.
Perhaps that was what Crescent Cove could be for me too. Even if I hadn’t realized I was searching for one.
I started sketching the snow globe first to warm up my fingers, stiff from the cold. I rarely remembered to put on the gloves, which was a problem when stilted movements would affect the piece.
The shape took form quickly. I added in the snow now playfully meandering from the thick clouds above, an interesting juxtaposition to the world of faux flakes inside the dome. Kids tumbled over one another while their smiling parents lingered outside, talking and sipping cups of coffee or cocoa. I wondered if they’d laced them with something stronger. If those screeching children were mine, I’d probably imbibe before mid-afternoon too.
I swallowed over the sudden lump in my throat, moving my fingers faster to compensate. Coming from a large family myself, I’d never had the great desire to have kids. I’d grown up with the triplets climbing over everything that was nailed down—and some stuff that wasn’t—and the idea of willingly filling my own quiet home with so much noise and activity was…
Not so bad. Not anymore.
I sat back on the bench and finished one of the kids’ faces. I couldn’t see that clearly from this distance, but I imagined her cheeks were flushed, and her long braids were bobbing over her shoulders.
Braids. Like my pink-haired mystery woman who might never be anything but that.
Quickly, I flipped the page and moved the charcoal in rapid strokes. I was guessing at her shape, especially in this stage of undress. In any stage of undress. Bulky winter coats could hide a lot. I didn’t even know her true hair color or its texture.
But I had a good imagination.
She came together even faster than the snow globe. All sinuous lines and curves. A hint of fullness here and there. Rounded and then slight. Long hair trailing down her back like water, free and flowing. And that scarf still wrapped around my neck protecting her modesty—just barely. The soft material cupped her and teased at what she might reveal if the urge struck. Those tantalizing bits of fringe trailed along her inner thigh, caressing her flesh like a lover.
Or like a man driven to sketch her, since he might never see her again.
I spent the most time on her lips. Their perfect bow, the divot on the top one, the slight dent in the bottom. So plump and glossy and bitable. This was the only part of her I felt like I knew without question, though I wouldn’t mind a lifetime to learn about the rest.
“Oh my God. What are you doing? Are you—is that—oh my God.” At my side, a woman covered her mouth.
I blocked my sketch pad with my arm. This little town was driving me nuts. “It’s my girlfriend,” I said quickly. A lie, sure, but not entirely.
Fine, yes, entirely. One kiss—no matter how hot—did not a relationship make.
“Where is she?” the woman asked accusingly, glancing around. We were surrounded by some adults, but children were definitely more prevalent.
“I’m going to meet her now.” I flipped the snow globe sketch over to cover the scarf one, although in retrospect, that might not have helped considering the subject of that one was kids. Which she noticed with a narrow-eyed stare the sheriff would have applauded. “I’m an artist,” I muttered. “I’ve sold pieces. I have an agent.”
“You aren’t from Crescent Cove.” Her statement whipped my skin with as much force as the snow-laden breeze. “Are you here for the festival?”
“I live in Syracuse.” Defense and outrage laced my voice as I stood and shoved my supplies into my messenger bag. “I’m a professor, dammit.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She crossed her arms. “I’m friends with the sheriff, you know. So, you might just want to find your girlfriend,” I half-expected her to do air quotes, “and move along.”
Clearly, there was no point trying to explain myself. The woman in my sketch was quite obviously a fully grown woman, but maybe that also made me a pervert. The suggestion was there.
I’d been branded with a scarlet P in bucolic Crescent Cove.
With a quick salute, I crossed the snowy slope to the sidewalk. I was probably being a fool by sitting around and sketching as if the woman I sought would just fall into my lap.
Last night had been my chance, and I’d lost it. But maybe I would get a good commission out of the piece I’d just drawn, so it wasn’t all bad.
I headed up the street, dodging dogwalkers and joggers and pedestrians toting a million shopping bags. It would be impossible soon to get through town. If Dare wasn’t quite done with my car, it looked like I’d be spending the rest of the day in my room at the bed and breakfast. Ideally, I’d manage to dodge the far-too-nosy proprietress, Sage Hamilton, who had practically asked for my time of birth so she could run a report on me.
Seemed a common thing in this town.
I didn’t get it. The place was crawling with tourists, and from what I’d seen with others, they seemed to be treated well. But something about me set off alarm bells or something. Not that Sage had been mean to me. Far from it. She’d acted as if she expected me to buy a home in town immediately, as if I’d fall under the Crescent Cove spell and never leave.
As if I could do nothing else.
I watched a couple embrace, the woman reaching up to cup the man’s cheeks. Something about the moment pulled at me, and I knew I’d be sketching them later as well. The whole scene tugged at me. Her bright blue coat and her flushed cheeks and the snow swirling around them as he hauled her up off her feet so that she came half out of her impractical soft-soled shoes. She should have boots in this weather. The snow was piling up again, despite the heavy crowds clogging the sidewalk.
Everyone had somewhere to go. Someone to be with.
Except me.
I yanked out my phone. Maybe it was time I called Dare to nudge things along. At least I had some inspiration for my holiday break so I could spend time sketching around the family stuff, of which there would be plenty. My mom usually put up three or four trees and blasted Christmas music at levels typically reserved for teenagers.
And then I saw a flash of pink in the crowd.
Time stopped. My heart, my brain, and even my muscles went numb. Then I sprung into action.
Clutching my phone, I weaved through the festivalgoers, mumbling apologies, keeping my gaze firmly on my prize. She was moving quickly, but I was determined.
I just had to see if it was her. If it wasn’t, I would give up and move on.
Somehow.
I surged forward and tapped the woman’s shoulder. She looked back at me as hope briefly bloomed in my chest—
And it wasn’t her. Not even close. Her face was all wrong. Her eyes were too close together, her lips were too thin. She smiled at me as I backed away, feeling like the most colossal idiot who had ever lived.
Until I turned my head and glimpsed the curvy woman standing in front of the café across the street.
Her hair wasn’t pink. Wasn’t even that light. At this distance, I could’ve mistaken her features. But I knew it was her.
Proving yet again I had no business in such an upstanding town, I dashed across the street outside the crosswalk. She didn’t notice me as I jogged up to her, but that gave me time to study her face.
It was definitely her, and she was even more beautiful than I remembered
. Even if now her hair was brown.
I unwound her scarf from around my neck, and her gaze shot to mine. “You lost this.” I lifted the scarf. “And I’ll return it, if you’ll spend the rest of your life with me.”
Three
The air was brisk, and snow snapped in the air. It also swirled around the man I hadn’t been able to get out of my mind for the last day.
Making out under the mistletoe wasn’t exactly in my life plan. Then again, having three jobs kind of killed all ideas of romance. So much so that the kiss seemed like a fuzzy flash in a dream. The kind you wake from with a gasp and can’t quite shake.
Because surely that didn’t happen in real life to a woman like me.
It happened in those Hallmark movies I secretly binge-watched in July and November through December. I couldn’t help it. Those happy hours were a soft paintbrush over my usual lonely Christmases. Add in the Polaroids I took of styles for my look book, and watching those movies was almost like homework in between the moments of longing.
But it wasn’t real.
And neither was getting kissed by a stranger.
Even if this stranger had stunning gray eyes that matched the perpetually overcast sky of my hometown. Intelligence sparked there and made all sorts of crazy thoughts flutter in my brain like the flakes that spun around on the shelf of snow globes that lined my bedroom bookcase.
And because I wanted to step closer to him, I folded my arms over my bulging look book journal against my chest. He was holding my favorite cashmere scarf. The one I’d bought myself for graduation. Okay, so cosmetology school wasn’t exactly like a college graduation, but I had a brand spanking new certificate that said I could cut hair in the state of New York. For me, that was a big thing. It had warranted a rare splurge of spending on myself.
His long, slightly dirty fingers were holding out the scarf to me like a gift. Well, it wasn’t quite dirt on them, but they sure weren’t clean.
I glanced down at those fingers and quickly tucked the urge to snarl at him that he was ruining the fine fabric under the polite smile I pasted on my face. “Forever shouldn’t be offered up so easily for a scrap of cashmere.”
He brought the crimson scarf up to his whiskered chin and slid it down his neck. “It’s a lovely scrap of cashmere, and I wish I could say it still smells like you.” He inhaled and something warm and foreign unfurled in my belly. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case. But I remember how you tasted. And that’s why vanilla is my new favorite flavor until the end of time.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Then go to The Rusty Spoon and have yourself a vanilla milkshake. I highly recommend it.”
A flash of teeth gleamed from his full lips. He had just enough scruff to make my palms itch to touch, and a head of thick hair that the hairdresser flourishing inside of me wanted to get a hold of. But it was the lonely woman inside of me who was the real troublemaker. She wanted to step closer and see if that kiss was just a fluke.
But she was me, and that wasn’t happening.
“Then come with me.”
“What?” I blinked out of the haze that seemed to descend when I was with him. “No. I have to work.”
“Then after work.”
I shook myself out of the stupor. “I don’t know you. I don’t go out with strangers.”
He held out his hand. “Callum MacGregor.”
Of course he had a hot name. Hell, it was a Hallmark movie name. Not a real guy. Not a George or Gary or Greg. Nope, he was a Callum.
I glanced down at his hand, but I didn’t take it. I only hugged my notebook tighter. “Look, I’m flattered. And that kiss was…”
“Amazing. Stupendous. Life-altering.”
I frowned. “It was a kiss.”
He stepped forward. “You felt it. I know you did. You pulled me closer.” His attention dropped to my mouth, and he reached for me.
I stepped back, my spine going rigid. “It was stupid.”
His eyebrows snapped down. “No it wasn’t. It was the best thing that has happened to me in a damn long time.”
“Then you need some new hobbies.”
“I have plenty of hobbies, thanks. More than I can keep up with. What I don’t have is your name.”
I took another step back and slammed into the handle of the door to Brewed Awakening. Flustered, I dropped my notebook, and he swooped down to pick it up before the snow soaked into the pages.
“Hey. Give that back.”
He took my arm and gently moved me aside as a trio of girls came out with their coffees cupped in their hands as they talked animatedly about some guy from a TV show. I smiled at them awkwardly. They were regulars in the café.
The shorter one of the three glanced at me and then at my hot mistake, tilting her head with interest. “Who’s your friend, Ellie?”
I resisted the urge to growl at Katie. Now he knew my name.
“Ellie, is it? It suits you.” His long, dusty fingers clutched my idea book easily. As if they were born for such things. Long fingers that had cupped my face so tenderly, though they’d been much cleaner then. Hygiene was important, dammit.
I reached for my notebook again, and he held it just out of reach. “He’s no one. Stranger danger.”
Katie’s demeanor changed in a second. All three girls advanced on him. “Is he bothering you?”
Callum held up his other hand. “No trouble. Just trying to get to know the woman I’m going marry.”
Katie’s sky blue eyes went shiny. “Marry?” She curled her fingers around her to-go cup and brought it up for a quick sip, foam teasing her top lip. “Like love at first sight?”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Keep the book and my favorite freaking scarf for all I care.” I rushed around the girls and grabbed the door handle. “I’m going to be late, and Macy will kill me.”
“Excuse me, ladies,” Callum said with that charming drip of honey voice before he followed me inside. “C’mon, I’m harmless. There was an instant connection between us. You felt it too, or you wouldn’t be so pissed at me.”
I shrugged out of my coat. Before I could get it all the way down my long-sleeved uniform shirt, he was there to help. I huffed out an annoyed breath even as his snow-tinged cedar scent slid around me. The same scent that had chased me into dreams last night. My skin prickled where his calloused fingers grazed my wrist.
He draped my coat over his arm, and I did growl this time. “I don’t have time for this.”
“I’ll hold onto it until your shift is over.” He tucked my look book into the messenger bag over his shoulder. “It’ll be safe with me. Same as you, Ellie. I promise.”
“That’s what murderers say.”
His eyebrow spiked. “You know a few murderers?”
“No, but I watch plenty of true crime shows. Ted Bundy was super charming, wasn’t he?”
“Not really. If you looked closer, his eyes were dead. Any woman with half a bit of awareness would see the same. You are far too wary to get tricked like that.”
Tell that to my last boyfriend who got me to pay for half of the things he called essentials that he was short on cash for. Like his cell phone service and that nifty iPad I got him for Christmas last year.
I narrowed my eyes. “Or you’re charming enough to tell stories like that to make a woman feel safe.”
His hand darted out to circle my wrist. His gray eyes went dark in reaction. “I feel your pulse skittering. You feel this thing between us too.”
“Could just be fear.”
“Not of me. I’m harmless, unlike my triplet brothers. They’re hell on earth.” He pulled on the lapel of his sweater. “Would a serial killer wear a cardigan?”
Probably not and no one should look so good in that stupid brown sweater, but he did. “Maybe a smart one would. You seem like a smart guy. Maybe too smart for your own good.”
“That’s what my mom tells me.” His long lashes swept down as he focused on my mouth again. “And I will say I’m smart enough not to let you get
away again.” Then his gaze crashed into mine once more. “Not without examining just what’s between us.”
“You’re not from Crescent Cove or you’d be running for the hills, buddy. There’s no dating in the Cove. There’s only forever and so many babies you could rename us Bunny Cove.”
There. That should send him running. Most men who were smart and under thirty-ish escaped while they still could.
I couldn’t quite tell his age. There were lovely crinkles at the corners of his eyes, but that could just mean he liked to be outside.
Dammit, I needed to stop staring at him.
He swallowed tightly, and the flare of fear that he’d vanish just like I thought was quickly banked.
Or maybe I was afraid he’d stay. I couldn’t decide which one was scarier.
He slid his fingers down my hand to tangle with my fingers. “That just makes me want to hear more.”
“No, you don’t. You want to turn right around and head back to wherever you come from.”
“Wrong.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “I’m actually trapped here until my car is done.”
“I—”
“Yo, Vanilla, I’m pretty sure my schedule still has your name on it.”
My shoulders rose to my ears at Macy Gideon’s shout. She was my boss for a little while longer. However, she’d used my order nickname so I wasn’t in real trouble.
I shook him free and pointed at him. “If you leave with my notebook, I’ll find you and chop off those dirty fingers.”
He laughed and looked down at his hand. “Sorry, I was sketching in the park.”
Of course he was an artist. If there was a guy who was ill-equipped to be an adult, I was going to be attracted to him. Not this time. I was going to be strong and not fall for someone who had no future stamped on his forehead.
I turned to head into the back of the café where a line of people were waiting to be served. I hurried to the cash register and quickly tapped in my login, and then grabbed an apron from the drawer and tugged it over my head.
