Maggie Shayne - An Enchanted Season

More? Either that was a sign of how pathetic she viewed his life, or she cared enough to spend a ridiculous amount of time and money foisting Frosties on him. He was hoping it was the latter. Charlotte was heading back to the door but he sprang into action, not wanting her rushing around in the snow on his account. Beside, he didn’t know what the hell to do with any of that stuff in the bags she’d already brought in. Decorating wasn’t something he’d picked up on in the police academy.

“I’ll get them. You stay here and start unpacking. Put everything wherever you want.” Will shoved his feet into boots sitting by the door on a mat and held his hand out for her keys.

When she put them in his hand, she gave him a strange look, head down, eyes peeking up at him from under her pale eyelashes. “Okay,” she said, and her voice was a little husky, her fingers brushing across his skin.

Holy crap.

Something had just changed between them. Bam. Just like that. It was different. Every day for ten years it had been the same—they were best friends, they cared about each other—but all of a sudden it was off. She was different. A little nervous, hesitant. Sly.

Alright then. This was good. He thought.

Will turned to the door. “I’ll be right back.” Because he was going to run.

CHARLOTTE LET OUT THE BREATH SHE’D BEEN HOLDINGwhen Will went out his front door, his boots loud and aggressive as he obviously jogged down the stairs to the parking lot. She wasn’t sure she could do this. He’d given her a funny look when she’d handed him her keys. Like he knew she was up to something.

Which she was. She had a mistletoe sprig in one of those bags loaded up with lust symbols, and if she were smart, she’d toss it in the trash pronto before Will even came back. And she would not visualize his zipper going down ever again.

If he ever dropped his trousers in front of her it was going to be of his own free will.

Which would be never.

Argh. She was back to the beginning again.

Charlotte yanked a snowman votive out of a box and plunked it down on Will’s coffee table. She was noticing a snowman theme in Bree’s shopping. That was the third happy chunky snowman she’d pulled out in one form or another. No mistletoe in this bag. She turned and searched a different bag. Not in there, either. A quick search revealed it wasn’t in any of the four bags she had hauled into the apartment.

Would it be a bad thing if Will was carrying the bag with the lust-loaded mistletoe? Did he actually have to touch it, or if it was just in his vicinity, would it affect him? Could he be walking up the stairs, suddenly overcome with random lust, encounter the twenty-something waitress in 2B taking out her trash, and think it was her he wanted? Dang, Charlotte should have asked Bree for better instructions. All her sister had told her was to hang it up anywhere. That’s it. Nothing else to go on.

So the only thing she could really do was act normal.

Which wasn’t achieved by her yelling, “Give me those!” and yanking the final three bags out of Will’s hands the second he crossed the threshold.

“Uh…okay.” His eyebrows shot up. “Did I bring the wrong bags or something? I can take this back down if there’s something personal in them.”

Like what? Condoms or sex toys? Her face went hot. She was a wreck. An absolute appalling mess of a woman who was so in love with her best friend she was capable of mentally undoing his clothes. “Your Christmas present is in one of these.”

It was a decent save, pulled straight out of her behind. His face relaxed.

“You shopped for me already? You must really like me.” He swiped his finger over the tip of her nose and gave her a grin.

“I can live with you,” she said, because it was an auto-type response and she was trying desperately to act nonchalant, friendly, and totally nonsexual. Then she realized how exactly that sounded—like she wanted to live with him or something—and mentally kicked herself. Whirling around, she burrowed into a bag, ripping out a couple of red pot holders. Pot holders? Why the hell had Bree thought Will would want festive Christmas pot holders? Will was a guy. He probably used a dishtowel and cussed in pain when he lifted a lid.

“You’d love living with me,” he said, shaking up a snow globe and watching the flakes settle. “You could toss all my boring bachelor furniture and do an extreme home makeover.”

If he only knew how many times she had mentally decorated a house for the two of them, right down to a locker in the garage for his sports equipment and a drawer to lock his gun in. “You would be in for the shock of a lifetime if you let me into this place with the authority to decorate.” And was that her testing the waters? Because she actually felt like she was asking permission, like if he was willing to let her decorate for him, then in some way that indicated an emotional depth greater than friendship. It was a massive leap in logic.

“Why? You have good taste. Classy.” His eyes dropped down to her chest. Briefly. If she hadn’t been hyperaware, she might not have even noticed it. But there was no denying he had looked at her breasts. “Nice sweater, by the way. It fits you really well.”

The lusty green sweater. Holy crap. It was working, because in eight years Will had never once commented on how her clothes sat on her body. “Thanks. It’s new.”

“I know. You’ve never worn it before.” He glanced down at her chest again, she was certain of it. “Green looks good on you.”

“No, it doesn’t. Not really. I look better in red or pastels. But thank you.” Where the hell was that mistletoe? The whole situation was making her nervous as hell. She couldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t sleep with Will to satisfy her own curiosity if he was doing it under the influence of magic. She would be way too aware the entire time that what she was experiencing was false.

“I think you look good in everything, actually. Except for black. You’re too…feminine for black.”

Okay. Charlotte glanced over at the man she’d known for nearly a decade. The mistletoe must go. He was acting random and strange. And he was giving her a look that she knew. Couldn’t misunderstand. She wasn’t naïve nor was she clueless. That was a look of lust. It was in his rich, brown eyes. It was in the way he was standing, legs slightly apart in his jeans, the T-shirt straining over his muscular chest. He’d gone out for the bags without bothering to put on a coat, despite the foot of snow outside, which she found highly sexy. He’d always had very short hair, and it went well with the chiseled cheekbones, stubborn jaw, and the ever-present five o’clock shadow. Will was rugged, the epitome of masculinity, and for the first time in her memory, he was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman when he wants to get in her pants and do bad boy things.

Which aroused, frightened, and confused her. So when in doubt, avoid. “Where would you like to put your Christmas tree?” she asked him, standing straight up and assessing his apartment. “And why haven’t you bought more furniture?” He only had one sofa, a paltry end table, a coffee table, and a flat-screen TV. Half the room was empty. And he had always eaten his meals on the couch or at the breakfast bar because he had no table and chairs. “You’ve been here almost five years, and you said you were going to decorate about two years ago.”

“I didn’t say decorate.” He tossed the snow globe up in the air and caught it. “I said I was going to get new furniture. Men don’t decorate. They buy stuff and put it in their apartments.”

“Whatever you want to call it, you still haven’t done it.” Charlotte picked up the remote for his iPod and turned it on, searching the menu for Christmas music. He didn’t appear to have any. Big surprise.