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To my agents, Annelise Robey and
Christina Hogrebe, for being extraordinarily patient.
Thank you!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Prologue
Sixteen years ago…
“COLIN REESE, YOU disappoint me,” Mrs. Norton, the principal of Tall Pines High School, said with an exaggerated sigh.
Colin shrugged. He’d developed shrugging into a highly complex sign language. This shrug said, I’d love to care, but I really don’t.
“You’re a senior, Colin. I would have thought you were old enough—and mature enough—to have moved beyond these juvenile pranks.”
Colin sent her a slight grin and shrugged again. You’d think, wouldn’t you?
“Defacing school property…” Mrs. Norton patted her hair, making sure her bangs were still lacquered in place, a sign that she was really upset. Colin had been in the principal’s office enough in the past four years to read her like a comic book. “We could have you arrested, Colin.”
“Oh, come on, Mrs. N.,” he protested, the statement outrageous enough to prompt more than a shrug from him. “Putting a statue of Eamon Stanfield in a dress isn’t defacing school property.”
“You made him look like a hooker.”
“No, I made him look like Sexy Mrs. Santa,” Colin corrected, quoting the mail-order catalog. “It’s Christmas. I thought it’d be festive.”
“You put makeup on him,” Mrs. Norton added. “The janitors are having a hard time getting the lipstick off.”
Don’t laugh, he warned himself. His latest prank may have gone a bit too far. “I’ll wash off the old guy myself,” he volunteered.
Mrs. Norton sighed heavily. “You continually pick our town’s most honored and cherished traditions to poke fun at, Colin. Last summer, you put pickled herrings in the planters at the Ladies’ Auxiliary Orchid Show—”
“That was never proved,” Colin said.
“Then there was the incident with the Otter Lodge fountain being filled with Jell-O…”
Colin opened his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Again…”
Mrs. Norton frowned. “And the bronze plaque that had the names of all the town’s founding fathers, including Eamon Stanfield, went mysteriously missing last semester.”
“Hey,” Colin protested, “I had nothing to do with that one. I don’t steal.”
“What I want to know is—when is all this nonsense going to stop, Colin?”
Colin felt a surge of anger. “When I get the hell out of this town.”
Mrs. Norton looked surprised, then supremely saddened. Colin immediately felt like a jerk.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to hurt anybody. I’m blowing off a little steam, that’s all. They’re stupid little jokes, meant to be funny, not destructive. I mean, I see the absurdity in a lot of our traditions, and nobody else seems to.”
“What you see as absurd,” Mrs. Norton said stiffly, standing up, “a lot of us see as sweet and comforting. And every little act of rebellion you commit doesn’t make you look sophisticated. It makes you look mean-spirited and petty.”
Colin grimaced, roiling in his own unhappiness. “I’m sorry,” he apologized—and he meant it.
“I’m suspending you for a week, Colin.”
He nodded. He’d been expecting that. “I’ll head on home.”
“No, you’ll wait here,” she said. “Your mother’s on her way to pick you up.”
“My mother?” He winced. “Why? I just live a few blocks away.”
“I had to call her, Colin.” Now Mrs. Norton seemed smug. “Besides, I wanted to talk about plans for the Spring Fling and then the grad-night party, since she’s head of the committee.”
Of course she is, Colin thought and wallowed in his misery.
“She was very, very upset to hear what you’d done to the statue,” Mrs. Norton added. “I imagine she’ll have some words for you when she gets here.”
He nodded unhappily. Some words. A mild way to put what promised to be a very unpleasant episode.
He sat out in the lobby of the administrative office wearing his best trademark scowl.
“Oh, Colin,” Ruthie, the front-office secretary, said with a small shake of her head. “How can such a sweet kid get into so much trouble?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t giggle just a little seeing Eamon Stanfield all tarted up,” he coaxed.
Ruthie glanced at the principal’s office, making sure the door was closed. Then she broke out into a wide grin. “It was funny,” she admitted. “Especially since, from what I understand, Eamon Stanfield would keel over dead before wearing ladies’ clothes.”
Colin grinned back. “Exactly.”
“Which is why we’re in so much trouble.” Ruthie sighed.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Before he could get an answer, the door opened. A young girl, about sixteen years old, walked in. She was wearing a navy-blue plaid pleated skirt with a big safety pin in it and a moss-green sweater set. She was also wearing stylish boots—a nod to the weather. Her pale cheeks were rosy from the cold, and she wore her long auburn hair in a simple ponytail.
“Hi, Ruthie,” she said. “Just wanted to drop off the money for the Spring Fling fund-raiser from the booster club. We raised even more this year than we did last year.”
“Emily, you are a doll,” Ruthie said with approval, taking the envelope. Then she looked pointedly at Colin. “Never in here for any trouble.”
“I know,” Emily replied. If Colin didn’t know better, he’d think she sounded annoyed by the comment.
Ruthie’s voice dropped. “Is your father still upset about the…statue incident?”
Colin sank lower in his seat. Emily Stanfield. Of course he knew her. She was only a living, breathing legacy of Tall Pines, Connecticut. Her family had been in the town since the beginning; it was her great-grandfather’s statue that he’d dressed up in the red minidress. She was on almost every committee or volunteer organization imaginable. As a sophomore, she’d already been voted onto the homecoming court. She might as well have an entire wardrobe with I Love Tall Pines emblazoned on it in big sparkly letters. Like all her forebears, she’d probably live in this little town till she died.
She was the complete opposite of Colin, the angel to his devil. She even looked angelic. Which might explain why he couldn’t stop staring at her when he thought she wouldn’t notice. He chalked it up to a perverse fascination—as if by studying her he could figure out how she avoided the frustration and rebelliousness that the town of Tall Pines seemed to invoke in him on a daily basis.
Emily nodded. “I told my father it was a senior prank.” She shot a quick glance over at Colin, her blue eyes meeting his green ones. “I said it was a tradition. He’s still sort of steamed, but he’s calming down.”
“So…no police?” Ruthie said.
“No police,” Emily assured her, and Colin felt his muscles unknot with relief. Then she shot him another glance, only this time the smallest ghost of a smile haunted her lips.
He found himself smiling back with approval. She was awfully cute for a sophomore. Not to mention cute for a Tall Pines poster child.
“Colin Reese, are you insane?”
He blinked, wondering the same thing himself, although he was still staring at Emily as he thought it. He turned his attention to the woman yelling at him. “Mom?”
His mother stormed into the lobby, looking like the Angel of Vengeance in a lavender-blue pantsuit. “I have had it with you, mister,” she said sharply. “I swear, if you weren’t so close to graduation, I’d send you off to…to military school!”
He sighed. This was going to be a bad one, he could tell.
“You’re coming with me.” She held the door open. “And you wait till your father gets home!”
Colin sighed, rolling his eyes. Ruthie sent him a look of sympathy. Emily, he noticed, had a mischievous smile. Then, to his shock, she winked at him.
Which was why he was smiling as his mother yanked on his arm and dragged him out the door. He barely heard her as she launched into yet another tirade on the problems with his behavior and why couldn’t he be more like his sister and brother and why in the world he had a problem with the small town.
“For God’s sake, Colin,” she said, exasperated, “can’t you think of one thing, just one thing, that represents Tall Pines that you don’t feel like mocking and making fun of?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking hard.
Emily Stanfield, his mind supplied. Given the chance, he got the feeling he’d take her very, very seriously. But he couldn’t admit that, so he stayed silent and let his mother continue her litany. He’d be out of here by June, anyway, and then all of this, including Emily Stanfield, would be a thing of the past.
EMILY WATCHED AS Colin Reese stalked off, his mother lecturing him in a growing crescendo of chastisement.
“That kid.” Ruthie let out a long breath. “It’s hard to believe he’s Ava Reese’s son, you know?”
Emily didn’t say anything, although she knew what Ruthie meant.
“So have you decided who you’re going to the Spring Fling with, Emily?” Ruthie asked.
Emily cleared her throat. “Not yet,” she said. “Too busy, and it’s not for months yet.”
“Still dating that Rothchild boy?”
It was funny, Emily thought. Ruthie knew about everybody in the school. Granted, it wasn’t that big a school, but Emily wondered halfheartedly if the kind woman didn’t have better things to do with her time than track the little social dramas of teenagers.
“I wasn’t really dating him,” Emily demurred, her voice almost prim. “Anyway, I’d better get going. Don’t want to be late for Biology.”
She fled the office, heading up the hallway. She couldn’t stop thinking about Colin.
She’d had a crush on him for years, since she’d been in elementary school. It wasn’t just that he was good-looking, although he was—devastatingly so. It was that he was so…reckless. Daring. He’d been voted Most Likely to Do Anything two years in a row by the yearbook committee. He was in trouble a lot, but she also knew that he was very sweet—she’d seen a bunch of bullies picking on a younger girl because of her thick glasses and braces, and Colin had sent the bullies away with the mere threat of physical violence. He’d then made sure the girl was all right, saying a few quick words and sending her a lightning-fast smile. The girl had stared dreamily at Colin, and so had Emily, touched by his thoughtfulness.
It was silly. Everyone knew that Colin was practically building a tunnel to get out of Tall Pines, and Emily doubted she’d ever leave. But it didn’t stop her from dreaming.
1
“SO IS HE HERE YET?”
Emily Stanfield smiled coyly at her best friend, Sue. “You’re the desk manager. You tell me.”
Sue made a face. “I knew I should’ve stayed at the inn. That way I could’ve called you when he checked in.”
Emily shook her head. “Impossible. First of all, this is Ava Reese’s annual Secret Santa party we’re at. It’s more than a tradition, it’s an institution. We couldn’t miss it.” Much as she’d wanted to this year.
Sue sighed. “True, true.”
“And secondly—” and Emily let her voice drop to a whisper “—there’s no guarantee I’m going to sleep with this guy…this J.P. Webster.”
Sue made a sound of protest. “But you said…”
Emily put a hand up, stopping Sue, then glanced around. No one was listening, thankfully—folks were too intent on their gift swapping and drinking from Ava’s generous open bar.
“I said I was finally going to do something about my two-year celibacy. And I meant it,” Emily declared, her body sending a pleasant zing dancing over her nerve endings at the thought. “But I’ve never even seen J.P. before. We’ve only exchanged emails.”
“My sister got married to a guy she met on the Internet,” Sue countered.
Emily rolled her eyes. “The last thing I need is to get married. I’m just…I just want…” She searched for a noncrude way to put it.
“You’re just looking for someone to stuff your stocking.” Sue winked.
So much for noncrude. Emily felt her cheeks redden. “Well, that’s not how I would’ve put it. But…well, yes.”
“So why shouldn’t it be this J.P.?” Sue pressed. “You guys have been e-mailing for almost two years now.”
“About business stuff only.” J.P. Webster worked for a big hotel chain and taught a class on hotel management online. Emily had taken the class, then asked some questions after it was done. J.P. had been tremendously kind and helpful. They were exchanging e-mails once a month lately, and the correspondence had turned more friendly than academic. “Maybe he’s ugly. Maybe he’s old. Maybe he’s gay, for all I know. We’ve never flirted or anything.” Emily frowned, thinking about it. “We get along really well. Like we’re old friends.”
“Well, maybe he’s young, cute and ready to be really, really friendly.”
Emily smirked. Privately, that’s exactly what she was hoping.
For the past few years Emily had lived for one thing and one thing only: the Stanfield Arms, the hotel she’d created from her family’s mansion, one of the oldest buildings in Tall Pines, Connecticut. She’d buried herself in work and she hadn’t even bothered with a relationship. Part of that was because she’d been far too busy, but part of it was also because of Tall Pines itself. A definite problem with living in such a small town was that with everyone weighing in on your dating decisions, if things didn’t work out, not only would you face a postmortem from everyone on why the relationship ended, you were face-to-face with your ex almost every day. She’d experienced it in action. It was nightmarish.
So the hotel filled her days, but lately her nights were leaving her more and more restless. After Thanksgiving, she’d made the decision: she was going to have a physical relationship, something brief and discreet, preferably with an out-of-towner who would then leave. So far, the only prospect was J.P., who’d suggested staying at the hotel over the holidays.
Please, please let him be cute.
“Come on,” Emily said. “Let’s swap our gifts and get out of here. I want to head back to the inn.”
Sue smiled knowingly. “Attagirl.”
They walked over to the crystal bowl that held the names of everyone at the party on slips of paper. Sue drew a name first, grimacing as she read it.
“Damn. I got old Reverend Smith,” she said. “I don’t think he’s going to like the Chocolate Orgasm hot chocolate I brought.”
Emily laughed, drawing a slip of paper. She opened it, staring at the name and frowning. “Colin. Colin who?”
Sue’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute. Colin Reese?”
Emily felt heat explode in her chest. “No. It couldn’t be,” she murmured. “He hasn’t been back in town for the holidays since high school.”
Sue shrugged. “I’m not surprised. He hated this town.” She nudged Emily. “Didn’t you have a crush on him? Way back when?”
Only for ten years, Emily thought, her heart rate picking up speed. She shook her head. “Okay, I’m going to give him the gift and get the heck out of here.”
“I’m planning on grilling you the minute I get into work tomorrow,” Sue said. “I want every detail about J. P. Webster!”
Emily chuckled. “If there’s anything to tell.” She was trying not to get her hopes up too high. She hugged Sue goodbye, then went in search of Colin.
She found him sitting in the living room, half-hidden by the enormous Christmas tree, drinking eggnog. She paused for a minute, trying to get her bearings.
For a woman who hadn’t had sex in two years, the sight of Colin Reese was enough to blow out all her sensual circuits.
He was wearing a gray sweater that molded itself nicely to his broad shoulders, and his dark brown hair was still flecked with streaks of copper, even though it was cut shorter than she remembered…back when she used to stare at him, all those years ago. His eyes were still the same deep, deep green, she noticed, as he gazed absently across the crowded room.
Her palms started to sweat.
Just get it over with, she chided herself. No matter how much she’d fantasized about him, he was not a candidate to end her sexual drought. For one thing, he was the town’s black sheep—if word leaked out, she’d never hear the end of it.
She gripped her gift bag, took a resolute breath and walked up to him. “Hi, Colin.”
He looked at her, obviously distracted. Then he stood and focused on her, gracing her with a slow visual perusal and a lazy smile.
“Well, hi.”
She smiled back, ignoring the tingle of excitement his drawled greeting sent shooting through her. “Merry Christmas. I’m your Santa this year.”
“I’m in luck.” His deep voice sounded sinfully smooth, rich and luscious as a dark chocolate truffle.
She handed him the bag, watching as he opened it. He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Scented candles,” he said with obviously fake enthusiasm. “Thanks.”
She couldn’t help it. She giggled. “Sorry,” she said when he looked at her inquisitively. “Women usually outnumber men two to one at this party. Scented candles are normally a slam dunk.”
“Well, maybe I’ll enjoy them with a cup of tea and a bubble bath,” he joked. Unfortunately his comment caused her wayward mind to conjure up a picture of him naked and waist deep in hot water, the chiseled planes of his chest lit only by candlelight….
“So, um, what have you been up to?” she asked hastily, trying to dispel the image.
He shrugged. “I’m working on a new building. In Paris. I start after the new year.”
“That sounds exciting,” she said wistfully. “I’ve never been to Paris. Never took the time.”
They stood there for a second in awkward silence.
Just tell him goodbye, she thought. Then get back to the hotel and find out if J.P. is as cute as he is nice.
“So, er, what about you?” Colin asked before she could open her mouth and make her escape.
“Same old, same old,” she said noncommittally. “The inn’s doing really well. In fact, I have to—”
“The inn?” He frowned. “What inn?”
He’d been gone for a while, she realized. “I turned the Stanfield mansion into a hotel, what, four years ago,” she supplied. “It took two years to renovate, and then the past two I’ve been building up—”
“Stanfield,” he said, then his eyes widened. “Wait a second. You’re Emily Stanfield?”
That’s when it hit her. He hadn’t remembered her. He hadn’t even known who she was until just now.
Glad I made an impression, she thought, her flush of infatuation chilling as though she’d been dropped in a snowbank. “Well, it’s been great catching up, but I’ve got a hotel to run, so…”
“A hotel. Right here in town,” he mused, and to her shock, he took her hand before she could turn and walk away. “Emily Stanfield, you’re more than my Santa, you’re my godsend.”
She chuckled nervously, trying to ignore the sexual heat that his warm palm was sending up her arm. “That seems a little excessive for candles.”
He smiled slowly, his eyes dark and persuasive, his voice going low. “Please, please tell me you’ve got room at the inn.”
“What?” She blinked, confused by his sudden change of topic. “For who?”
He took a step closer to her, and she could feel the heat coming off his body as if she were standing in front of a fireplace.
“I was hoping,” he said, “that you might have room…for me.”
“I REALLY APPRECIATE this,” Colin said, sitting in the passenger seat of Emily’s Volvo, his bags in her trunk.
“Your mom may never forgive me,” Emily answered with a rueful sigh, “which is going to make being on the Easter Festival committee with her next year a little unpleasant. Why couldn’t you just stay at her house again?”
Colin grimaced. “My brother and sister and their spouses and kids are all staying there. I was sharing a room with my eight-year-old nephew, and with two more days till Christmas…”
“Been driving you crazy, huh?” There was a hint of a smile in her voice.
“You have no idea.”
Colin closed his eyes, remembering the scene at the breakfast table that very morning. They’d taken turns subtly—and not-so-subtly—grilling him. Why was he moving so far away? What happened to his last girlfriend? Why was he traveling all over the place and changing jobs so often? When was he going to settle down? And the perennial why couldn’t he find a nice girl and move home to Tall Pines?
He’d known it was a bad idea to stay at his parents’ house for the week before Christmas, while his apartment in Paris was being readied. He just hadn’t known how bad it was going to be until it was too late. The past three days had been hellish. He’d even suggested checking in to a hotel in a nearby town.
“And be so far from the house?” his mother had protested, scandalized. “With bad weather threatening the roads? You might miss Christmas with the kids!”
She’d had a point and he’d conceded. He did want to spend Christmas with his nieces and nephews, who were still small enough to make the whole thing fun.
Of course, his mother had neglected to mention the fact that there was a hotel right here in town.
He glanced over gratefully. Emily was staring intently at the road. Her auburn hair was swept up in a smooth French twist. Her high cheekbones and patrician nose, combined with her flawless skin, made her look cool and perfect, like a marble statue. Only the flash in her violet-blue eyes betrayed an inherent warmth.
No, he corrected himself, remembering. More than warmth. Heat. He’d definitely felt heat from her gaze when he’d looked over to find her standing in front of him.
Which called to mind his first look at her—crisp white blouse with a discreetly low neckline, knee-length black skirt, black nylons, black boots. Combined with her tasteful jewelry and her wire-rimmed glasses, she’d looked sophisticated and proper, sort of like a professor.
He’d always had a thing for prim teacher types. They usually hid anything-but-proper desires, and he had a sneaking feeling that Miss Stanfield was no exception.
Who would have thought that Emily Stanfield, daughter of one of the founding families and walking infomercial for all things Tall Pines, would have grown up to such a hottie?
“You’re lucky I had a cancelation,” Emily said, still not looking at him. “It’s one of my smaller rooms, but I think you’ll find it quite comfortable.”
Colin cleared his throat, feeling as if she could read his mind and realize the direction his thoughts were heading. “I’m surprised your family was okay with turning the mansion into a hotel,” he said, fishing around for a safe topic.
She paused for a second. “My mother moved to Florida with her new husband. She doesn’t really care one way or the other. My father probably would’ve minded, but he died five years ago, so…”
Colin felt guilt wash over him. “Oh, jeez. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“You haven’t been here. I didn’t expect you to.”
He sighed. “And the town? They were okay with it—you opening a hotel?”
“There are some people who are still getting used to it,” she answered. “You know how Tall Pines is.”
He clenched his jaw. Everything had to be preserved, as if the smallest mailbox was some kind of historical monument. If there was a town more resistant to change, he never wanted to visit it. “Yeah,” he muttered, “I know how Tall Pines is.”