LITMIR.BIZ

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off the frozen lake beside them. Kai and I left them to it, instead opting for the warmth of the lodge and a little hot chocolate to take the chill away.

      Once I’d made a pot of cocoa we stood nursing steaming mugs in front of the potbelly stove, which belched its usual greeting. We sat for an hour, chatting, and then lapsed into silence.

      “It’s so quiet,” he said suddenly. “No puppy, no banging of pots. It’s weird how you get used to a choir of sounds, until they’re gone.”

      “I know,” I said. “The lodge is going to be so lonely when you all leave again. Isla has moved in with Micah, and Amory, Cruz and Scotty will no doubt find a nice cozy cottage, and you… you’ll be heading back to San Francisco. Soon it’ll just be me, rattling around the big old lodge again.”

      And you and Bonnie Tyler will be back to sobbing into your wineglass. Shut up, brain.

      Kai gave me an understanding smile. “It’s like we’re big kids at camp, having the most magical time, and then it’s going to be over, and become a distant memory that makes us smile. Cedarwood certainly gets under your skin.”

      “It does…” It was bittersweet, hearing him talk in such a way. “I wonder what it’ll be like having real guests stay here? It’s not like I can force them out of bed to have coffee with me, or yell at them for leaving their clothes everywhere. I’m really going to miss having Amory here.” And you.

      “You’ll get used to it. Soon you’ll be so busy you’ll fall into bed and forget you ever lived any other way.”

      “I don’t think so. These times where we’ve shaped the lodge, and have all come together to make things happen… it feels so special, and so different. I don’t know how long I’ll have Amory and Cruz for, not really, and the same with Isla and Micah. And then there’s you. I just hope you’ll all come back some day. That we’ll make it a tradition to celebrate Christmas or New Year together.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. I wanted everything to stay like it was, right then, at that moment.

      “Count me in,” Kai said.

      “You’d come all the way back here every Christmas?”

      “Why do you act so surprised?”

      I shrugged. Kai could be so hard to read at times and I often couldn’t distinguish between what I wanted him to say and what he really said. “I just am.”

      Quietly he turned to me and put a finger under my chin, tilting it up so we were gazing into each other’s eyes. “Clio, you have no idea how people see you, do you?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “People want to be around you. That’s why they come here and don’t want to leave. It’s not just the scenery, the picture-perfect setting, it’s you as well. You paint this picture of a different kind of life, and you sprinkle your magic dust over it, and they’re spellbound. People want to be where you are. Cedarwood has its own pull, but then there’s you…”

      I let out a nervous laugh. “I…”

      “You’re intoxicating, and you have no idea how special you are. When we were here renovating with the team, did you not see everyone coming to you every five seconds with inane questions they knew the answers to? Six phone calls from one painter, to query the color you told him a hundred times already? The way they tell you joke after joke just to hear you laugh?”

      I double-blinked, sure he was making it up. The team was tight-knit, and we’d had a barrel of laughs. “They were just good guys.”

      “They were. But you have this extraordinary power over people, Clio. You make them want to be in your spotlight. They want to be your friend, your confidante. Anything to be near you.”

      I couldn’t reconcile the person Kai was speaking about with myself.

      His finger smoothed a trace down my cheek and I felt myself lean in to his warmth. “Believe it, Clio.”

      Any rational thought escaped, and I was lost in his deep, ocean-blue eyes. Kiss him, Clio. Before I could debate with myself, I reached up to cup his face and pressed my lips against his. A frisson of desire raced through me, provoking jelly-legs. Kai stepped closer, pushing his body hard against mine, and kissed me back, deeper and more slowly. Heat flooded me, and it was all I could do not to gasp when he broke away, with heavy-lidded eyes. How did he learn to kiss like that? It took my breath away.

      A second later Amory appeared in the doorway. “We found the cutest cottage… Oh, um, never mind,” she said, ducking back behind the door.

      Kai dropped his hands and laughed, calling out to her. “It’s OK, Amory. I’m going to help Micah and Isla with the chalets. I’ll talk to you later, Clio.” He headed out, giving me a look that said this isn’t over as he walked away.

      Knowing what was about to come I went to follow, but Amory hooked my elbow as I walked past. “You’re not getting away that easily,” she said, eyes bright. “What happened? Your cheeks are rosy pink and you’ve got those dazed-up manga eyes happening. He kissed you, didn’t he?”

      “I kissed him!”

      “And?” she said, hopping from foot to foot with excitement.

      “And then again you walked in! Do you have some kind of radar?”

      She cupped her face. “God, I want to slap my own face! We need a signal, like a napkin on the door handle, or a…”

      I laughed. “Amory, it wasn’t planned! It was a spontaneous thing! It’s not like I plan to swoon my way around the lodge, flinging myself against every surface so he can ravish me!”

      “Why not?” she asked, her face a mask of seriousness. “It’s your lodge!”

      I sat at the kitchen table and cradled my head. “Urgh. I’m thirty-three, almost thirty-four in fact, and I’m acting like a lovestruck fool. He completely befuddles me, and the brain in my head goes on vacation.”

      “Lust, pure and simple,” she said with a firm nod. “I’ve seen it before; you’ll survive.”

      “It’s more than lust.” I wanted to snatch the words back as soon as they escaped. “Well, what I mean to say is, it’s just, it’s not…”

      She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Clio, you like the damn man, and he clearly likes you. It’s really a very simple equation. Girl tells boy, or boy tells girl, hey, I really like you, and I want to take this kissing thing a few steps further…”

      I held up a hand. “Oh, my God, please don’t school me on how to date a guy.”

      She huffed. “Someone needs to!”

      “They do not!”

      She stared me down, and I knew by the set of her lips that she had a trump card. Damn it, she always had one up her sleeve. “OK, tell me the last guy you admitted your feelings to?”

      “You want me to go back through my past boyfriends?”

      She wrinkled her brow. “Clio, you dated them for about five seconds. I don’t think you committed to anyone in the whole time you were in New York!”

      Damn it, she had a memory like an elephant. “There’s no point dating someone when they’re not The One. Why waste my time?”

      “Stop trying to avoid the question. Who have you ever told you’re keen on them? Given them the green light? Fluttered those silky long lashes and said with real words, ‘I, Clio Winters, think you’re a bit of all right, and I’d like to invite you to share my thousand-thread-count cotton sheets for the evening’. Give me a name. One name.”

      I let out a peal of laughter. So, I really liked expensive sheets? They made good bedfellows! “I can rely on my sheets, you know? They’re always there, just how I left them. I get into bed and they wrap their silky threads

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