Page 94 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses

“That’s a little harsh, I think. And, drop the Mr. Barkley, will you please?”

“Harsh?” She jerked her chin from his grasp. “I entrusted you with a precious gift. A gift you threw out like day old rubbish. A gift that’s given to you so often, and so freely, that you think nothing of it. While I...I thought” —she glanced away— “oh, what does it matter to tell you now?” Her mouth flattened into a thin line. “I thought I loved you.”

“Love? Me...Kat...what? What did you say?”

“I thought I loved you. Dear God, how could you believe anything else?”

“Love?”

“Yes, love. Absurd notion, isn’t it? After all, I did not even know you.” She laughed—a ragged, disagreeable sound.

Tanner nearly tripped over his feet getting to her. He gripped her shoulders, hands shaking. “No, no, Kat. It’s not absurd.” He would not let bitter laughter be the only thing to follow her telling him she loved him for the first time. “Jesus, why didn’t you ever tell me?”

She tilted her chin, flashed a mocking half-smile. “Oh, that would have been an amusing tale around the club, wouldn’t it?”

“No, Kat.” He pulled her close. “Don’t you see? I loved you, too. I tried to tell you, all those times you turned me away.”

“Of course, you did, Mr. Barkley.”

The shatter of glass across the room had them dancing apart. Tanner glanced back to find Kate studying her bandaged finger. “How, goddammit, can I convince you?”

“That summer is as dead as Charlie’s Christmas tree will be in another week.” A huff of breath, laugh or sigh, slipped from her. “Although, the attraction between us seems to linger. Wouldn’t you know, my mother was right? She always told me, the charming ones are the vipers.”

He took a moment to study the mistletoe under his boot, allowing the pounding in his head to slack off, the steady pulse beneath his skin to abate. With a deep inhalation, he gazed into her face. Color reddened her cheeks; her eyes were rounded, wary. He was getting nowhere quickly. Stepping back, he raised his hands in surrender.

She glanced around him, no doubt plotting her escape.

“Kat, we need to talk. You must understand we have to talk. Not now, not with all this” —he lifted his shoulder, gestured to the people on the other side of the tree— “going on. Meet me tonight. After the party.”

She frowned. “Talk? I don’t need to talk.”

“Is that right?”

“What happened between us tonight” —she threw her arm out, watched it tremble for a moment, then jerked the offending limb by her side— “is your idea of talking.”

“No...no kissing. I won’t, oh, all right, I won’t touch you. Okay?”

She snorted.

“I swear.”

“To use your vernacular: like hell.”

“We can talk about...about what happened. In Richmond. Anything. I’ll tell you anything. I just want you to give me some time to try and work this out.” Tanner sputtered to a halt, his voice low and strained, tense. Scared he would frighten her further, he coughed, swallowed, and tried again. “I’ll meet you behind your mother’s shop. Eleven o’clock.”

Kate blinked once. “I’m to freeze to death for this belated, and rather precipitate, spectacle of honesty?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“No.”

“Ten.” Jesus, he hated her for making him grovel—respected her for making him grovel.

She shook her head, but he noted the lack of conviction.

“I’ll be there, so you might as well show up.”

The wall sconce flickered, spilling golden light across her face. She drew her gaze to his, her eyes gleaming. She pressed her lips together, sucking the bottom one between her teeth.