all about profit. I don’t go out of my way to hurt anyone.”
“You don’t?” she threw back along with a few more eye daggers.
“No,” he hissed, but that wasn’t the whole truth.
He’d never turned the tables and put himself in the shoes of the person whose business he’d taken over.
She huffed an unconvinced breath as she put on her coat and gloves, then picked up the last box.
“Let me carry it,” he said, gesturing for her to hand it over.
“No,” she answered, balancing the box between her arm and her hip, then opened the door.
“Bridget, let me help. I’m not going to walk alongside you, doing nothing, while you carry that giant box.”
“I don’t need your help, Scooter, the fancy bakery owning businessman.”
Dammit! Now he had to piss her off.
“I do own everything you’re carrying. I could demand you return my property,” he parried back, pretty sure that would rile her up.
“Wow! Just wow!” she murmured, then thrust the cookies into his arms.
He took a step back, nearly falling over. He’d forgotten about her freakish baker strength.
She charged down the sidewalk, mumbling something—most likely cursing him. He stayed a step behind as they walked, no, not walked, dashed toward the town square.
She could really move when she wasn’t stoned.
He blew out a tight breath, and since she wasn’t about to shoot the shit with him, he did the only thing he could and took in Kringle Village. It lived up to its Christmassy name. Shrouded in fresh snow, twinkling lights outlined every shop, and no door was without a wreath, decked with bows, berries, and ornaments. With its Bavarian Alpine ski-lodge feel, it did have a certain charm. Even a Grinch like himself could see that.
He turned his attention to the brunette beauty leading the way. The sound of laughter and children hooting and hollering grew louder, and it wasn’t long before they arrived at the square, and he spied the photo booth.
The location of another kiss that had left him, Mr. Manhattan Womanizer, besotted like a lovesick teenager.
That kiss in the snug space seemed like it happened a lifetime ago.
He stared at the festively decorated photo booth as a couple ducked in to have their picture taken.
He glanced at Bridget. Last night, that was them.
And last night was another first for him—or rather—another Bridget Dasher first.
After their night of funnel cake thievery and photo booth fawning, she’d fallen asleep in the truck on the drive back with her head resting on his shoulder. He’d carried her inside and got her ready for bed. And then, he’d pulled up a chair, removed the photo strip from his wallet, and stared at the pictures. He couldn’t help himself. He looked so damn happy in them. And that kiss—that kiss would be forever captured in the last frame. She’d smiled when he kissed her, and the photo also caught his hint of a grin the moment their lips met.
He’d be lying if he said his fascination with her ended with the pictures.
Once he’d tucked the photo strip back into his wallet, for the second night in a row, completely enchanted yet again, he’d watched her sleep.
Yes, he wanted to make sure she didn’t fall into a psychotropic coma or whatever could happen after ingesting enough THC to subdue an elephant. But that didn’t stop him from twisting a lock of her hair around his finger, just as he did when they were strangers sharing a night of passion in a hotel suite.
“Soren, what are you doing?”
Bridget’s words pulled him from his daze.
She glanced at the photo booth. “Is that it?”
He nodded.
“I don’t remember a whole lot,” she said, but she was a terrible liar. The tremble to her bottom lip gave away that she remembered just as much as he did.
“It’s better that way. It wasn’t a big deal,” he replied, luckily a good enough liar for them both.
A storm brewed in her eyes. Part anger and part outright confusion; she stared at him.
Seeing him—all of him.
A chill passed through his body that had nothing to do with the temperature, and all he wanted to do was confess like the sinner he was. Confess everything about his parents, his lonely childhood, how he hated who he’d become, and what the Abbotts meant to him. Like a tidal wave forming in the depths of the ocean, poised to crash upon the shore in a fury of sound and energy, he wanted to let everything out as if she possessed some special power to