Page 14 of Sweet Summertide (Christmas Cove #4)

To say that Theodor was a city-kid was the understatement of a lifetime.

The truth was never more evident as he pushed through the lower pine branches and undergrowth of what he could only describe as a haunted forest. Haunted, not because of any particular creepy folk-story about the area’s history, but from the lingering fog playing tricks in the glow of the fading moonlight.

Like a scene from a Robert Frost poem, the sky was dark, but for the waning-moon hanging below the fog and kissing a distant hilltop.

Theodor, having departed his cabin at the Foundry under cover of darkness, hiked to the location of Blake Holly Hollis’ latest attempt to thwart him.

He’d come prepared wearing his cargo pants that he’d never worn for any outdoor pursuits, and a crisp navy-blue T-shirt.

He had his nosy friend, Alfonso, to thank for the advance notice of her subterfuge.

When Alfonso had delivered some food to girl’s night, he had inadvertently overheard Holly boasting about stopping Theodor’s bean delivery.

Some detective work by America’s husband, Leo, revealed the site.

Theodor possessed the other crucial piece: he knew exactly when the truck would be passing this stretch of road.

He could have just called the delivery company and had them go another way from the start, but he needed to catch Holly in the act.

He didn’t even care how she came to know about his delivery.

It didn’t matter whether she overheard the information or sought it out.

She had decided to use what she knew to hurt him, and he planned to chastise her for being so rotten.

The look on her face when he caught her would be the cherry on top.

His plan rested on catching her in the act and stopping her from interfering with traffic, while Alfonso waited to receive the shipment back at his shop. His patience was rubbed thin, but he was looking forward to keeping her occupied and getting to the bottom of why she was acting the way she was.

Stomping over the tender new growth of a leafy bush, he reached the side of the road that bordered the wooded area.

Skirting the road on the other side, he could hear the soft rolling water of a stream.

Up ahead, an elbow in the path left only one other way for the delivery truck to turn if necessary.

This was where she would be. He was certain.

Nearby, an ancient looking stone wall cut a line between the trees and invited him to sit while he awaited Holly’s arrival. He brushed some loose material off the stones and plopped down, removing his phone from his pocket. He checked the time and opened his favorite word game app while he waited.

He was only one word into his game when a twig snapped nearby. He froze and strained to hear another sound. Her giggle gave her away. She was close. He could almost smell her vanilla-scented shampoo through the fog but was unable to see her form.

He stood and leaned in the direction where he thought the sound came from, like her infectious laugh called to him.

If her crazy wasn’t so cute, he might be more cross with her, but he suspected there was more underpinning her actions.

Did she crave independence the same way he was screaming inside for his own?

Whether she knew it yet or not, they were two of the same kind.

He had fallen for the woman she had been on the train, and he held onto the belief that the real Holly would show back up if he kept showing up for her.

He came around a large tree trunk and stepped directly into Holly’s path.

She became a statue; no fight or flight at seeing him standing there, as though he might not actually see her if she stayed still.

There was no mistaking her for any other woman, and he let the ramifications fully sink in for her.

He leaned his back against the tree trunk and plucked a strand of long grass that tickled his fingers by his side.

Waiting, while she likely decided how she was going to lie her way out of this one, he played with the grass in his hand and glued his eyes to hers.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said with a shrug of her shoulder and tilt of her beautiful long neck. The orange traffic cones in her arms were hardly visible against her equally obnoxious safety vest and white shirt.

“I have to give it to you, you really commit to a bit, don’t you? But are we going to act like this is a totally normal thing to happen in the forest before dawn?” he asked.

She stomped and grunted. “How’d you find out I’d be here?”

“I’ll never reveal my sources.”

“It was Millie, wasn’t it?”

He shook his head, and a chuckle filled his throat at knowing she was frustrated. He liked seeing her on her heels. For once, she wasn’t in control here. “I can’t let you do this.”

Holly looked around him and then behind her. “I’m just out for an early morning stroll. What are you doing out here?”

“I’m here for you.”

“Creepy, and no thanks,” she said, dismissing him, and moved towards the road.

Theodor captured her wrist before she passed by and pulled her towards his body.

“Blake Holly Hollis …” He wanted to beg her to stop this game she was playing right now, but he felt the tension crawling like spiders under his skin.

“You like this.” It wasn’t a question. He saw it now in the flicker of light in her eyes, the same flash as he had seen at the dock their first evening together when they nearly kissed.

She released the cones. Heavy plastic crashed against the forest floor as she used both hands to squirm away from him.

Her struggle was ineffective, only managing to bring her body closer into his arms as though she hadn’t even been trying to get away.

If this rendezvous wasn’t so damn sexy, he might have thought he was scaring her, but she wasn’t scared.

She was excited by the tryst. And so was he.

The mouse was chasing the cat, and the cat was purring in his grasp.

Tiny little shocks shot around his body, and sparks ignited his fingertips wherever he connected with her skin.

Holly leaned into him, completely pliable in his arms. Her wet lips glistened, and he never wanted to taste something more.

This wasn’t the first time he craved her.

No, from the first moment she laughed with him on the train, he’d pictured himself holding her this way, feeling her full, strawberry lips against his, and playfully twisting her blonde ponytail in his hands.

Her questionable actions towards him were the only thing holding him back now. She had to be the one to make the next move, to stop playing him and start being with him. “What do you want, Holly? Because I don’t know if I can keep doing this. It’s torture.”

She closed her eyes and craned up on her toes, bringing her mouth dangerously close.

Her breath cooled his skin and gooseflesh pricked up on his neck and arms at their proximity.

She had him pinned against the tree with no answer to his query.

Flipping the tables, Theodor pulled her lower back in and crushed her against his body.

He spun around and pressed her back against the warm trunk, her toes barely reaching to the pine straw ground.

Theodor spoke into the silky skin below her ear. “I won’t ask you again.” Her breath caught and he knew what effect he was having on her. Her reaction was an answer in itself, almost.

“Teddy,” she whispered back. Hearing her sigh his name, the name only she called him, nearly undid him. If he wasn’t such a gentleman, he might have taken liberties right there. “I want … I don’t know what I want.”

Theodor shoved himself back from the tree and removed himself from her intoxicating scent.

He ran his fingers through his loose hair, wanting to pull it out, and settled on twisting his locks into a knot at the top of his head.

“You can’t honestly stand there and tell me that there’s nothing between us.

” He drew air deep into his belly, hoping to cool the irritation in his heart.

“You’re right. I can’t,” she said and stepped towards him.

“What?”

“I can’t tell you there’s nothing between us.

” Holly threaded her right fingers through his left and snaked her free arm around his neck, bringing her face to within a hair’s breadth of his.

“I can’t get you out of my mind. I spend more time looking for any glimpse of you standing in your shop than I spend looking around mine.

And at night … I just wish this wasn’t so hard. ”

“It doesn’t need to be, Holly.” Theodor appreciated her brief affair with the truth. “Can we agree to no more games?”

“I can’t promise you that,” she said and rested her lips on his, though he hesitated to give in.

Backing away, “I can’t keep doing this with you, Holly.”

“You don’t understand?—”

“What don’t I understand? I understand perfectly that you want nothing more than to win. I understand that you have no self-control or desire to know when you’ve gone too far, like causing my ingredients to be delivered late, vandalizing my store windows, or stealing my workers?—”

“I … I don’t want to be that person, but if you only knew?—”

“What I know is despite everything you’ve done, I like you, but I’d rather be nothing than whatever this currently is.”

“I like you too,” she said so softly that if not for the still forest, he might not have heard her.

He did hear her. “I know,” he said back in a hushed tone. “I just needed you to say it.” Theodor wrapped his arms around her waist until no space existed between their bodies. “Can we end this whole enemy’s thing and skip right to the lovers part?”

“I want to, I really do, but I have to win that money.”

Theodor threw his hands in the air. “Even if you beat me, there’s a half-dozen other shops that are vying for the same things. But somehow, I am the only person receiving your efforts. Why me?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a hitch in her voice. “I hadn’t really considered them.”

“Consider this, I haven’t spent a moment since we met thinking of much else than the way you would fit in my arms, like this.

” He took her by the waist and lifted her to his chest. Her legs wrapped around him and her arms folded together behind his neck.

She fit better than he imagined, which must have surprised her too by the way she stilled and held her breath.

“Now kiss me like you mean it, and let’s be done with this game.

” Their lips touched like magnets and the whole world illuminated around them.

“Hands up!” a female voice shouted. “Now!”

Theodor released Holly to the ground, and they faced the source of the bright headlights. Two squad cars lit them up from the road and two officers approached. “Everything will be okay,” he whispered to her.

“You’re under arrest.” One of the cops came around him and slapped cuffs on his right wrist. Pulling his arm down, she added the left wrist behind his back and began directing him through the woods. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney?—”

“What am I being arrested for? You can’t do this!” Holly argued with the other police officer.

Theodor twisted around to see her struggling with the handcuffs. “Just do what they say. I’ll get us out of this.”

The cop had continued reading him his rights, though it was all a blur while he was focused on Holly.

She was placed in the other squad car, and he wondered if she was just as confused and scared as he was.

A million past decisions played in his mind during the short trip to the pokey, but he was no closer to figuring out what he had done to deserve to be arrested as he sat squished in the backseat of the vehicle.