On His List (Entangled Flirts)

by Wendy Sparrow

  Kate shivered again—a full body shiver that bumped her arm against their table, making it rattle.

  Rick laughed. “You know, for someone who works for a ski supply company, you could really never appreciate the product.”

  “Water skis. I live in the land of water skis. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “DeWinters was willing to throw a ridiculous amount of money into accomplishing this, and you are inventory manager for that line.”

  She wrinkled her nose. Something felt fishy about all this. “And they couldn’t come down to Florida to talk about water skis?”

  Rick slid his gaze up from the menu. “I might not have negotiated as strenuously as I could have.”

  She shook her head with a sigh. He couldn’t have known—even if her refusal to travel north was a source of amusement among the rest of the company. Besides, he might not even notice she was in his territory.

  After the waitress took their order, Kate pulled off her outermost layer of clothing—the huge parka. She still had another jacket underneath, but the parka could at least come off.

  The waitress delivered their drinks. Kate wrapped her hands around the mug of hot chocolate, brought it to her face, and inhaled the aroma. Oh, yes, this was the stuff. It was heavenly. Beautiful, decadent, and dark. It almost made the whole blasted trip worth it. It was impossible to get a decent hot chocolate in Florida. Warm places just didn’t have enough practice. She sipped and moaned.

  “Careful. You might just find something you like about Denver.” Rick leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “So, what sends a beautiful girl from Michigan to Florida, and what makes her hate snow?”

  Kate gave him a look.

  He shrugged. “I looked in your personnel file. I knew from your lack of accent you weren’t originally from the South and it made me curious.”

  She wrapped her fingers tighter around her mug. “Seven years ago, I was skating on a frozen pond, and I fell in. It took them nearly an hour to get me out. They thought for sure I was dead and gone for good.” She winced. “On the winter solstice.” She could feel it approaching, this anniversary of hers.

  Rick raised his eyebrows. “You’re making this up.”

  “No. Profound hypothermia. My heart stopped even. It froze me through. The doctors said the cold killed me and saved me.” She took another sip and sighed in relief. Even talking about it made her cold.

  “So…,” he gestured at her. “So…”

  It was a common reaction. No one knew what to say.

  “So?”

  “Well, you seem fine now.”

  “They tell me I am, but I’ve never been warm since. My body temperature is ninety-five degrees all the time. It freaks out doctors.” It freaked her out. It had been seven years, but she knew why it persisted—she just didn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. Every morning she woke up knowing it was impossible. “It’s like I have ice in my veins,” she whispered, staring at the fire.

  “And that’s why you live in Florida.”

  “That’s why I live in Florida and never leave.”

  “Never?”

  Another shiver shook down her spine. This time not just from the cold. This was taking a huge chance. Being here.

  Rick took her shiver as an answer. “Well, I hear Florida isn’t all bad.” His tone was warm and low, intimate. It wrapped around her like the heat from the fire.

  She gave him what she hoped was a friendly smile. “It’s not. You can walk outside in shorts year round.”

  “Well, maybe I should come visit more often.”

  Kate glanced up from her mug and met his eyes, and then something pulled her gaze away, a magnetic force dragging her vision from Rick’s attractive face. Over Rick’s shoulder, a man with blond hair and icy blue eyes sat at a table alone. He was staring at her. Staring into her. She trembled, not from the cold, but from the intensity of his gaze. His face and physique could have been carved from ice, he was so pale and his bones so sharply defined.

  He was here.

  The man she’d spent seven years avoiding was beautiful in a way no man had a right to be—slender, tall, pale, like the statues of Roman gods. Not bulky, just smooth flesh and tight muscles. Her fascination ran deeper than his outward appearance, though. She knew him. And, yet, she’d never seen him before—not here, not in this world. This was exactly what she’d worried would happen if she came to a snowy place, if she stepped back within his grasp.

  He looked so calm in the cable-knit, steel-gray sweater and black cords. Almost casual, like he belonged here. He hadn’t been there when they sat down, though it appeared as if he was just finishing a meal. Not even the draw of a crackling fire could have kept her eyes off him. If he’d been within a mile of her that day, she’d have known. He had that kind of presence. She knew he’d simply appeared, just now. As ridiculous as it was, that was what had happened.

  He smiled—just smiled—and a roar beat through her veins, a freight train of heat so at odds with how frozen he always made her feel.

  When she saw him, all she could think about was sex. Cold, frozen sex in a bed with sheets as white and as cold as snow. Sex that left her hungry, dissatisfied, and immeasurably chilled.

  The kind of sex they had every night in her dreams.

  She craved his presence as much as the warmth surrounding her but, at the same time, he terrified her. This terrified her. His ability to grab her attention, to hold her captive—was frightening. Like an unpredicted blizzard, he rushed in and buried her under this avalanche of awareness, of feelings.

  Jack. Jack was here.

  Damn him.

  “Kate? Kate?” Rick prompted before looking over his shoulder. The two men’s eyes met, and Rick’s jaw tightened as his body froze.

  Jack inclined his head and got to his feet, leaving a large bill on the table. He was tall—over six feet. The way he moved on a slow glide was almost otherworldly. No, it was otherworldly. Jack had one foot in a magical world and one in this one.

  As he walked by, his hand brushed hers where it rested on the edge of the table. His skin was freezing, but electric—like that first moment when she’d plunged through the ice. His touch felt as sharp as the frigid water. She heard the whispered words in her head, “at last…” on a long slow exhale. She couldn’t take it as anything less than a promise. She was his again. She’d stepped into Jack’s world, and she was his. She rubbed at her skin, but it was no use, every touch was as imprinted as a heavy winter boot in the snow.

  Her eyes followed him as he wove his way out of the restaurant, and it seemed to her that time had slowed and maybe even stopped—that the crowded restaurant was silent and still. She blinked, and he disappeared.

  She blinked again. Where had he gone? She looked around and tipped back in her chair to look for him. He’d been right next to the hostess’s podium then he’d just melted away. The noise. The crowd. It was all back to how it was before.

  “Where’d he go?” she whispered, already knowing how he’d disappeared. Magic. He’d appeared by magic and disappeared just the same.

  “Kate.” Rick reached across the table and grabbed her hand. The warmth of his skin on hers was jarring. It felt…wrong. She withdrew her hand from Rick’s and wrapped it around the mug. “Sorry.”

  She was imagining things. She had to be. She hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t touched her. None of that made sense. It didn’t. There was no such thing as magic. The dreams were just dreams. Her memories were just hallucinations from the cold and its long-term effect on her body.

  Even as her brain fought a good fight with logic, her heart knew. Her body recognized the man she’d been with thousands of times. Her heart had fluttered in her chest at the sight of him and he took her breath away, even after all this time. Jack had just reasserted his claim on her and she felt it to her very core.

  “Kate?”

  She glanced up, prepared to pay just the right amount of attention—enough to be friendly, but not en
ough to encourage Rick. The greater part of the population might dream of someone just like the man in front of her, but her dreams were icy and cold and full of a man who wanted her back in his frozen world.