Jingle Spells Read Online Free PDF Page A

the eighteenth floor, now could I?”
    â€œGuess not.” He’d forgotten how much she enjoyed teasing him. It was easy to do, because he didn’t expect anyone to say things that weren’t true.
    â€œI’d love to have a cat, preferably a black one, but that wouldn’t be fair. I travel too much.”
    â€œI didn’t know you liked cats.” Cole thought of the lodge on Mistletoe Mountain, which was chockablock with cats, especially black ones.
    â€œIn our life at MIT, it didn’t come up. Both of us lived in places that didn’t allow pets.”
    â€œGuess so.” He was impressed with how she referred to that time so casually, as if the memories didn’t affect her at all. Maybe they didn’t. He might be the only one who had vivid color images of those days rolling through his brain. And right now that video was playing in a continuous loop.
    He gestured to the tree. “What about the lights?”
    â€œThey’re on a timer. The apartment is as maintenance-free as I can make it. I’m gone so much.” She reached for the handle of her rolling bag.
    He started toward her. “Let me get that.”
    â€œWhy? It’s my suitcase.” She released the handle, though, as if sensing he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
    â€œBut you’re my guest.” He came up beside her and grasped the handle.
    â€œYour guest?” Her eyebrows lifted. “I thought I was your independent contractor.”
    â€œYou would have been if you’d allowed me to pay you.” Instead of kissing her, which was what he wanted to do, he rolled the suitcase across the thick carpeting to the door. “But now that you’ve insisted on doing the job for free, that makes you my guest.”
    She followed him to the door. “I think you’re bossier than you used to be, Cole.”
    â€œNo, I’m not. I’ve always been this bossy.” Or so he’d been told by his siblings.
    â€œMaybe you’re right.” Once they were out the door, she locked up and dropped the keys in her messenger bag. “I might not have noticed it because we spent so much time in bed, and I kind of like a man to be bossy in bed.”
    His sharp intake of breath was pure reflex. He couldn’t have stopped himself from doing it if someone had put a gun to his head.
    â€œWhoops. Did I say that out loud?”
    He turned to her, his heart racing. “Yes, ma’am, you did.” He couldn’t tell from her expression if she’d truly slipped up or if the comment had been deliberate, like her line about the cat. She seemed unapologetic as she met his gaze, so he suspected the latter.
    She quickly confirmed his suspicions. “I’m trying to figure you out, Cole, and I’m having a very tough time doing it. Sometimes, when you look at me, it’s like the old days, as if you’re ready to gobble me up. But then you turn all logical and businesslike, and claim that the only thing you care about is shoring up the database. Which is the real you?”
    He gave the only answer he could come up with. “Both.”
    â€œWhat the heck does that mean?”
    â€œIt’s complicated.”
    â€œApparently. And you seem really stressed about it.”
    â€œThat’s because I am.” How he hated to admit that.
    She took a deep breath. “Okay. Can you explain what the issues are? Because I didn’t get that explanation ten years ago, and I’d appreciate hearing it now, before we hop on that plane.”
    He wondered how he’d ever expected to get involved with her on a business level and keep it from morphing into something more personal. Of course it would. They’d been together less than an hour and it already had.
    Facing her, he realized he’d missed a blindingly obvious fact. “That’s why you hacked in, isn’t it? To get that explanation.”
    â€œYes, it is. So if you’ll