Carla Neggers: Cut and Run

“Hey, toots,” he said with that slight, unreadable grin, his dark eyes on her. “Nice hair-same color as your eyes, isn’t it? Better watch out nobody comes along and hangs candy canes on your ears.”

“Matthew,” she said, hearing the hope and hollowness in her voice. Did he know? Could he hear how much she wanted to be near him? Almost four days without seeing him and it seemed an eternity. Their night together in Vermont had changed everything. Knowing him had changed everything. “I thought you’d still be working on your story.”

“Feldie’s sticking to the facts, which were straightforward enough. She isn’t printing a thing about the Minstrel’s Rough.” He grinned, loving the way she couldn’t keep still, the way she blinked, the way she stood there, gorgeous and green-haired and the only woman he’d ever want again. “So you’re safe from the IRS for now. Any plans for the stone-or don’t you want to tell me?”

She shrugged. “I think it should fade back into the mist of legend.”

“Back to being a paperweight for jam recipes, is it? Tell me, J.J./Juliana, what are you doing for the holidays?”

“Going to Vermont-finally.”

It was the truth, although she had hoped not to go alone. She’d considered various ways to get Matthew back up there with her, including letting him deal with the matter of Shuji’s car. “You lost my car!” he’d raged. “Is this what happens when Jelly Roll Morton gets in your veins? Get it back! ” But he’d headed to his house in California, trusting her. Abraham Stein was sending her a package to Vermont via courier. The Minstrel’s Rough was being returned to its place with her jam recipes. She’d considered various alternatives. Donating it to a museum, throwing it into the ocean, giving it to her mother or Abraham Stein or even Aunt Willie. But she’d decided to keep it. Only the Peperkamps knew for certain it existed…and Matthew.

That was the tradition, for four hundred years.

“Vermont, huh?” Matthew said. “Well, isn’t that a coincidence? I’m heading that way myself.” There was a tiny drop of perspiration on her right temple that he wanted to brush away with his thumb, but he resisted-for now. “There’s this little house I know overlooking the Batten Kill, it’s the coldest damn place you’ve ever been, but not when you’re under layers of quilts with a beautiful greeneyed blonde. She plays piano-classical, but I think she sneaks off and messes around with jazz once in a while. I don’t have any real proof. I haven’t known her all that long, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I’m in love with her.”

“Matthew, are you serious?”

“Of course.” He smiled. “There’s only one little problem: I’m not sure she likes my boots.”

“She loves your boots,” she said, suddenly breathless, “and your black leather jacket. She thinks they’re sexy. She thinks their owner’s sexy, too, and she’s in love with him.”

He laughed, looking at her. “I think some of your weirdness has rubbed off on me. Would Len throw me out if I kissed you?”

She grinned at him. “Do you care?”

“It’s worth the risk, but I’ll make it quick.”

He kissed her, but it wasn’t quick. They both saw to that.

“What about the Gazette? ” Juliana asked. “Isn’t Alice Feldon expecting a story from you?”

“Not anymore.”

“Are you quitting?”

“No, my love,” he said, kissing her again, “I’m starting.”

Carla Neggers lives in rural Vermont with her husband and their two children. Since completing her first novel at the age of twenty-four, she has written over forty books and has appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.