he first week of December, a light snow dusted the streets of downtown Boise and covered the foothills in pristine white. Holiday wreaths hung suspended from lampposts, and storefront windows were decked out for the season. Bundled-up shoppers crowded the sidewalks.

On the corner of Eighth and Main, “Holly Jolly Christmas” played softly inside The Piper Pub and Grille, the muted Muzak a fraction or two lower than the steady hum of voices. Gold, green, and red garlands added a festive air to the second-story restaurant.

“Happy holidays.” Clare held up her peppermint mocha and lightly touched glasses with her friends. The four women had just finished lunch and were enjoying flavored coffee instead of dessert.

“Merry Christmas,” Lucy toasted.

“Happy Hanukkah,” Adele said, although she wasn’t Jewish.

To cover all bases, Maddie added, “Happy Kwanzaa,” although she wasn’t African American, Pan African, or had ever set foot in Africa.

Lucy took a drink and said as she lowered her glass mug, “Oh, I almost forgot.” She dug around in her purse hanging on the back of her chair, then pulled out several envelopes. “I finally remembered to bring copies of the picture of us all together at the Halloween party.” She handed an envelope to Clare, who sat on her right, and two others across the table.

Lucy and her husband, Quinn, had thrown a costume party in their new house on Quill Ridge overlooking the city. Clare slipped the photo from the envelope and glanced at the picture of her in a bunny costume standing beside her three friends. Adele had dressed as a fairy with large gossamer wings, Maddie as a Sherlock Holmes, and Lucy had worn a naughty cop outfit. The party had been a lot of fun. Just what Clare needed after a difficult two and a half months. By the end of October her heartache had started to mend a little, and she’d even been asked out by Darth Vader. Without his helmet, Darth had been attractive in a macho-cop sort of way. He’d had a job, all his teeth and hair, and appeared to be one-hundred-percent heterosexual. The old Clare would have accepted his invitation to dinner with the subconscious hope that one man would ease the loss of another. But though she’d been flattered, she said no. It had been too soon to date.

“When’s your book signing?” Adele asked Clare.

She looked up and slipped the photo into her purse. “I have one at Borders on the tenth. Another at Walden’s on the twenty-fourth. I’m hoping to cash in on all those last-minute shoppers.” It had been almost five months now since she found Lonny with the Sears repairman, and she’d moved on. She no longer had to battle tears and her chest didn’t feel so tight and empty these days, but she still wasn’t ready to date. Not yet. Probably not for quite a while.

Adele took a sip of her coffee. “I’ll come to your signing on the tenth.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Lucy said.

“Me too. But I’m not going near the mall on the twenty-fourth.” Maddie looked up from the photo. “With the place so crowded, I’m more likely to run into an old boyfriend.”

Clare raised a hand. “Me too.”

“That reminds me, I have gossip.” Adele set her mug on the table. “I ran into Wren Jennings the other day, and she let it slip that she can’t find anyone interested in her next book proposal.”

Clare didn’t particularly like Wren, thought she had a huge ego but little talent to back it up. She’d done one book signing with Wren, and one was enough. Not only had Wren monopolized the whole two hours, she kept telling anyone who approached the table that she wrote “real historical romance. Not costume dramas.” Then she’d looked pointedly at Clare as if she were a felon. But not finding a publisher for your next book would be horrible. “Wow, that’s scary.”

Lucy nodded. “Yeah, no one tortures verbiage quite like Wren, but not having a publisher would be frightening.”

“What a huge relief for the Earth Firsters. No more trees have to die for Wren’s crappy books.”

Clare looked at Maddie and chuckled. “Meow.”

“Come on. You know that woman can’t even construct an intelligent sentence and wouldn’t know a decent plot if it bit her on the ass. And that’s a lot of ass.” Maddie frowned and glanced about at her friends. “I’m not the only catty one at this table. I just say what everyone is thinking.”

That was true enough. “Well,” Clare said, and raised her peppermint mocha to her lips, “every now and again I do have an overwhelming urge to lick my hands and wash my face.”

“And I have a desire to nap in the sun all day,” Lucy added.

Adele gasped. “Are you pregnant?”

“No.” Lucy held up her drink, which was laced with kahlua.

“Oh.” Adele’s excitement was instantly deflated. “I was hoping one of us hurries up and has a baby. I’m getting broody.”

“Don’t look at me.” Maddie shoved the Halloween photo in her bag. “I don’t have any desire to have children.”

“Never?”

“No. I think I’m one of the only women on the planet who was born without a burning desire to procreate.” Maddie shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind practicing with a good-looking man, though.”

Adele raised her coffee. “Ditto. Celibacy sucks.”

“Double ditto,” Clare said.

Lucy smiled. “I’ve got a good-looking man to practice with.”

Clare finished her coffee and reached for her purse. “Bragger.”

“I don’t want a man on a permanent basis,” Maddie insisted. “Snoring and hogging the blankets. That’s the good thing about having big Carlos. When I’m finished, I throw him back in the nightstand.”

One brow lifted up Lucy’s forehead. “Big Carlos? You named your…”

Maddie nodded. “I’ve always wanted a Latin lover.”

Clare looked around to see if anyone had overheard Maddie. “Sheesh, lower your voice.” None of the other diners were looking their way, and Clare turned back to her friends. “Sometimes you’re not safe in public.”

Maddie leaned across the table and whispered, “You have one.”

“I didn’t name it!”

“Then whose name do you call out?”

“No one’s.” She’d always been very quiet during sex and didn’t understand how or why a woman could or would lose her dignity and start hollering. She’d always thought she was good in bed. At least she tried to be, but a soft little murmur or moan was as loud as she got.

“If I were you, I’d practice with Sebastian Vaughan,” Adele said.

“Who?” Lucy wanted to know.

“Clare’s hot friend. He’s a journalist, and you can tell by looking at him that he knows what to put where and how often.”

“He lives in Seattle.” Clare hadn’t seen Sebastian since the night of Leo’s party. The night he’d kissed her and made her remember what is was like to be a woman. When he’d flamed the desire deep inside that she’d almost allowed her relationship with Lonny to extinguish. She didn’t know firsthand if Sebastian knew the who, what, where, when, and why, but he certainly knew how to kiss a woman. “I don’t think I’ll see him for another twenty years or so.” Leo had spent Thanksgiving in Seattle, and the last Clare had heard, he planned to spend Christmas there also. Which was sad. Leo had always spent Christmas day with her and Joyce. Clare would miss him. “I’ve got to get going,” she said, and stood. “I told my mother I’d help her with her Christmas party this year.”

Lucy looked up. “I thought you refused to help her after last year.”

“I know, but she behaved herself over Thanksgiving and didn’t mention Lonny’s aspic.” She reached for her wool peacoat on the back of her chair and shoved her arms inside. “It about killed her, but she didn’t mention Lonny at all. So as a reward, I said I’d help her.” She looped her red scarf around her neck. “I also made her promise to stop lying about what I write.”

“Do you think she’ll be able to keep her promise?”

“Of course not, but she’ll try.” She grabbed her red alligator skin purse. “See you all on the tenth,” she said, bid her friends good-bye, and walked from the restaurant.

The temperature outside had risen, and the snow on the ground began to melt. Cold air brushed her cheeks as she walked along the terrace toward the parking garage. She pulled her red leather gloves from her coat pocket and put them on. The heels of her boots tapped across white and black tile as she hooked a right at an Italian restaurant. If she’d walked straight ahead, she would have ended up in the Balcony Bar—the place Lonny had always assured her wasn’t a gay bar. She knew now that he’d lied about that, just as he’d lied about a lot of things. And she’d been perfectly willing to believe him.

She pushed open the doors to the garage and walked toward her car. At the thought of Lonny, her heart no longer pinched in her chest. What she mostly felt was anger, at Lonny for lying to her, and at herself for wanting so desperately to believe him.

The temperature inside the concrete garage was colder than it was outside, and her breath hung in front of her face as she unlocked her Lexus and got behind the wheel. If she thought about it, she truly wasn’t all that angry anymore. The one good thing that had come out of her failed relationship with Lonny was that she’d forced herself to stop and take a good hard look at her life. Finally. She was going to turn thirty-four in a few months and she was tired of relationships that were doomed to failure.

The obvious ta-da moment she’d been waiting to reveal itself and solve all her problems had never happened. About a month earlier, while she’d been folding laundry and watching The Guiding Light, she’d realized that the reason she hadn’t been able to experience the big eureka moment was because there wasn’t just one—there were several. Starting with her issue with her father and sliding right into her subconscious desire to either rile or please her mother. And Clare had dated men who’d fit both bills. She hated to admit that her mother had that much influence on her personal life, but she did. To top it all off, she was a love junkie. She loved love, and while that helped her career, it wasn’t so good for her personal life.

She pulled out of her parking space and headed toward the toll booth. She was a little embarrassed that she’d reached thirty-three and was only now changing the destructive patterns in her life.

It was past time she took control. Time to break the passive-aggressive cycle with her mother. Time to stop falling in love with every man who paid attention to her. No more love at first sight—ever—and she meant it this time. No more settling—ever—and that included, but was not limited to, cheaters, liars, and fakes. If and when she got involved with a man—and that was a big if and a cautious when—he was going to feel damn lucky to have her.

The day before Joyce Wingate’s annual Christmas party, Clare dressed in old jeans and a cable-knit sweater. Over that she wore her white ski parka, wool gloves, and light blue wool scarf wrapped around her neck and the lower half of her face. She spent the afternoon adding the finishing touches to the outside of the house on Warm Springs Avenue.

The last two weeks since she’d met her friends for lunch, she’d helped her mother and Leo decorate the big home inside and out. A twelve-foot Douglas fir stood in the middle of the foyer, adorned with antique ornaments, red bows, and golden lights. Every downstairs room had been decorated with pine greenery, brass candlesticks, nativity scenes, or Joyce’s extensive nutcracker collection. The Christmas Spode and Waterford crystal had been cleaned, and the linens pressed and waiting in the truck of Clare’s car to be brought inside.

The day prior, Leo had come down with a cold, and she and Joyce insisted that he abandon the remaining tasks outside for fear his cold would worsen. He was given the job of polishing the silver and wrapping pine garland and red velvet ribbon up the mahogany banisters.

Clare had taken over outside, and every time she ventured into the house for a coffee refill or just to thaw her toes, Leo fussed and argued that he was well enough to hang lights on the remaining shrubs. He might have been, but at his age, Clare didn’t want to take a chance that the cold would get worse and turn into pneumonia.

The work outside was neither hard nor heavy, just freezing and tedious. The big house was festooned with lighted boughs that hung about the door, along the porch, and around each stone column. A pair of five-foot pepperberry reindeer stood in the front yard, and lighted candy canes lined the sidewalk and driveway.

Clare moved the ladder to the last shrub and untangled one remaining string of C-9 lightbulbs. After this string, she was finished, and she was looking forward to going home, filling her jet tub with hot water and sitting in it until her skin wrinkled.

The sun was out, warming the valley to a balmy thirty-one degrees, which was an improvement over the twenty-seven high of the day before. Clare climbed onto the ladder and wrapped the lights around the top of the eight-foot tree. Leo could have told her both the common and scientific name of the shrub. He was amazing that way.

The frozen foliage made a rasping sound as it slid across the sleeve of Clare’s coat, and the toes inside her boots had turned numb about an hour ago. She could no longer feel her cheeks, but her fingers still worked inside her fur-lined gloves. She leaned into the shrub to wrap the lights around the back and felt her cell phone slip from her coat pocket. She reached for it a second too late, and the thin phone disappeared into the shrub.

“Dang it.” Her hands dove into the greenery and pushed it apart. She caught a glimpse of the silver and black flip phone as it slid deeper into the middle of the shrub. She leaned forward, bending over the top of the ladder and reaching as far as she could into the middle. The tips of her gloves brushed the phone, and it disappeared into denser foliage. As she pulled her head out of the shrub, a vehicle turned into the driveway and continued to the back of the house. By the time she looked around, the car was out of view. She assumed the florist delivering her mother’s poinsettias, crocuses, and amaryllis for the party was a little early.

She moved to the back of the shrub closest to the house and pushed the branches apart. The frozen stems brushed her face, and her thoughts turned to spiders. For the first time since she’d stepped outside, she was glad it was below freezing. If it had been summer, she would have bought a new phone rather than risk spiders in her hair.

“Hey there, frosty.”

Clare straightened and turned so fast she almost tripped herself. Sebastian Vaughan walked toward her, the sunlight catching his hair, lighting him up like an archangel come down from heaven. He wore jeans, a black down parka, and a smile that hinted at less than heavenly thought. “When did you get here?” she asked, and came out from behind the heavy greenery.

“Just now. I recognized your butt when I pulled in the driveway.”

She frowned. “Leo didn’t mention you were coming.” The last time she’d seen him, he’d kissed her, and the memory brought a flush to her frozen face.

“He didn’t know until I landed about an hour ago.” His breath left his lungs in white wisps, and he took one bare hand from the pocket of his coat and reached toward her.

She pulled back and wrapped her gloved hand around his wrist. “What are you doing?”

His smile creased the corners of his green eyes. “What do you think I was going to do?”

Her chest got tight when she recalled with startling clarity what he’d done to her at his father’s birthday party. More than what he’d done, she remembered her response. And the disturbing thing was, she wanted to feel that way again. She wanted what every woman wanted, to feel desire and be desired. “With you, I never know.”

He picked a twig from her hair and showed it to her. “Your cheeks are red.”

“That’s because it’s below freezing out here,” she said, and blamed it on the weather. She removed her hand from his wrist and took a step back. Needing a man to make her feel good about herself was the old Clare, she told herself. The newer and wiser Clare had learned that she didn’t need a man to feel okay. “Why don’t you do something useful and call my cell number.”

“Why?”

She pointed behind her. “Because I dropped it in there.”

He chuckled and reached for the BlackBerry hooked to his belt. “What’s the number?”

She gave it to him, and within a few moments “Don’t Phunk With My Heart” played from within the tall shrub.

“Your ring is the Black Eyed Peas?”

Clare shrugged and dove into the shrub once more. “It’s my new motto.” She pushed several branches apart and caught a glimpse of the phone.

“Does that mean you’re over the gay boyfriend?”

“Yes.” She didn’t love Lonny anymore. She stretched her arm as far as possible and grabbed the phone. “Got it,” she whispered, and backed out of the shrub. She turned and the front of her coat brushed Sebastian’s. He grabbed the tops of her arms to keep her from falling. Her gaze moved up the zipper of his coat to his throat and chin, past his lips to his eyes, staring down into hers.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. Instead of letting go, his grasp tightened and he pulled her onto the balls of her feet, bringing her face closer to his. “Besides losing your phone.”

“Christmas lights.” She could have stepped back, pulled away.

His gaze moved to her mouth. “It’s colder than a well digger’s ass out here.”

Yeah, she could have stepped back, but she didn’t. “Have you ever felt a well digger’s ass?”

He shook his head.

“Then how do you know how cold it is? And why his ass as opposed to his elbow?”

“It’s just an expression. It isn’t…” His voice trailed off with the white puffs of his breath. He looked up into her eyes and drew his brows together. “You always did take everything too literally.” He let go of her arms and pointed to the string of lights. “Need help?”

“From you?”

“Is there anyone else around?”

Her toes were frozen and her thumbs were turning numb. With help, she wouldn’t have to waste time climbing up and down the ladder and moving it around. She could be in the house warming up in about ten minutes instead of half an hour. “What’s the ulterior motive?”

He chuckled and climbed up the ladder. “I hadn’t thought of one.” He grabbed the string of lights and wrapped it around the top of the shrub. His reach was so long, he didn’t have to climb down and move the ladder. “But I will.”

And fifteen minutes later he did.

“This is my favorite,” Sebastian said as he handed Clare a cup of cocoa. He’d had to sweet-talk her into coming with him into the carriage house, and he wondered why he’d bothered. It wasn’t like he was hard up for female company. “I like the crunchy little marshmallows.” She took a drink of the cocoa and looked up at him through her light blue eyes, and he knew why he’d bothered talking her out of her coat and wrestling it from her grasp. He didn’t necessarily like it, but there was no denying that he’d thought a lot about her in the past few months. He took a drink from his cup. For reasons he could not even begin to explain to himself, he could not get Clare Wingate out of his head.

“This is pretty good,” she said as she lowered her cup. He watched her as she licked chocolate from her top lip, and he felt it in his groin. “Are you here for Christmas?”

He wanted Clare, and not as a friend. Sure, he liked her well enough, but standing so close to her, he wanted to lick chocolate off her mouth. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was in Denver this morning and I called Dad. He started hacking and wheezing and I switched my flight from Seattle to Boise.”

“He has a cold.”

His attraction to her was purely physical. That was all. He wanted her body. Too bad she wasn’t the sort of woman who might be up for some mutual using. “He sounded like he couldn’t catch his breath,” he said, and didn’t even want to think about how much that had scared the shit out of him. He’d immediately called the airline and changed destinations. During the nearly two hours it took him to get to Boise, he’d imagined different scenarios. Each one worse than the last. By the time he landed, he had a lump in his stomach and several coffins picked out in his head. That just wasn’t like him. “But I guess I overreacted, because when I called him from the Boise airport, he was polishing silver in your mother’s kitchen and bitching about being cooped up in the house like a baby. He sounded irritated that I was checking up on him.”

The corners of her full lips tilted up and she leaned one hip into the counter. “I think it’s nice that you’re concerned. Does he know you’re here?”

“I haven’t gone to the big house yet. I got distracted by the sight of your butt sticking out of the shrub,” he said, rather than admit he felt foolish. Like a paranoid old woman. “I’m sure he’s seen the rental car and will be here when he’s through.”

“What were you doing in Denver?”

“I spoke last night in Boulder, at the University of Colorado.”

One brow moved up her smooth forehead as she blew a breath into her cup. “About?”

“The role of journalism in wartime.”

One side of her hair fell across her cheek. “Sounds interesting,” she said, and took a drink.

“Riveting.” He pushed her hair behind her ear, and she didn’t jump out of her skin nor grab his wrist this time. “I’ve decided on my ulterior motive.” He dropped his hand.

She tilted her head to the side and set her cup on the counter next to his. A frown pulled at the corners of her porn-star mouth.

“Don’t worry. All you have to do is come with me to find a Christmas gift for my father.”

“You forget what happened when you wanted a birthday gift for Leo.”

“I didn’t forget. It took me a good fifteen minutes to cut all that pink crap off the fishing pole.”

Her scowl turned into a pleased smile. “I guess you learned your lesson.”

“What lesson is that?”

“Not to mess with me.”

Now it was his turn to smile. “Clare, you like it when I mess with you.”

“What have you been smoking?”

Instead of answering, he took a step forward and closed the distance between them. “The last time I messed with you, you kissed me like you didn’t want me to stop.”

She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “You kissed me. I didn’t kiss you.”

“You practically sucked the air out of my lungs.”

“That isn’t how I remember it.”

He slid his palms up the arms of her thick, bumpy sweater. “Liar.”

A furrow appeared between her brows, and she leaned back a little. “I was raised not to lie.”

“Honey, I’m sure you do a lot of things your mama raised you not to do.” His hands slid to the middle of her back and he brought her closer. “Everyone thinks you’re nice. Sweet. Such a good girl.”

She put her hands on his chest and swallowed. Through the blue wool of his shirt, the soft pressure of her touch heated his skin and warmed the pit of his stomach. “I try to be a nice person.”

Sebastian chuckled and plowed his finger through her soft hair. He held the back of her head in one of his hands. “I like it when you don’t try so hard.” He looked into her eyes and saw the desire she tried so hard to hide from him. “When you let the real Clare out to play.”

“I don’t think…” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Sebastian, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Open up,” he said as he brushed his lips across hers. “And I’ll change your mind.” Just once. Just for a minute or two. Just to make sure he wasn’t mistaken about the last time he’d kissed her. Just to make sure he hadn’t exaggerated that kiss in his own mind to fulfill his X-rated fantasies.

He started slow. Teasing and coaxing. The tip of his tongue touched the seam of her full lips, and he placed soft kisses at the corners. She stood perfectly still. Stiff, except for her fingers curling into the front of his shirt. “Come on, Clare. You know you want to,” he whispered just above her mouth.

Her lips parted and she sucked in a breath, his breath, deep into her lungs. He took full advantage and his tongue touched the inside of her hot, moist mouth. She tasted like chocolate and like the desire she was trying to deny herself. Then she turned her head to one side and melted into his chest. Her hands slid up to his shoulders and the sides of his neck. Sebastian turned the heat up a bit and applied a little more pressure. She responded with a sweet moan that spread heat across his flesh and gripped his lower belly in a white hot fist. But just as the kiss was starting to get real good, the front door of the house opened and closed and Clare practically jumped out of her skin. She took a few steps back and Sebastian’s hands fell to his sides. Her eyes were wide and her breathing uneven.

Sebastian heard his father’s footsteps a moment before Leo walked into the kitchen. “Oh,” the old man said, and came to a stop on the other side of the table. “Hello, son.”

Sebastian had never been more relieved to be wearing an untucked Pendleton wool shirt in his life. “How are you feeling?” Sebastian asked, and reached for his mug.

“Better.” Leo looked over at Clare. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Clare, being Clare, smiled and wiped her face free of expression. “Sebastian helped me with the lights.”

“Good. I see he gave you something nice and hot to warm up your insides.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

Sebastian tried not to laugh—for about half a second. Then his amused chuckle filled the kitchen.

“He always did like the cocoa with crunchy marshmallows,” Leo added, then turned his attention to his son. “What are you laughing about?”

“Oh,” Clare said through a huge sigh of relief, and saved Sebastian an explanation. “Cocoa. Yes, Sebastian was kind enough to make cocoa.” She took a few steps and reached for her coat. “I need to get the linens out of my trunk and then I think I’m done for the day,” she said as she shoved her arms into her coat. “Unless Mother has more for me to do.” She wrapped her scarf around her neck. “What am I saying? Of course she’ll have more for me to do. She always does.” She looked across the kitchen. “Leo, take care of yourself so that your cold doesn’t get worse, and I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow at Mother’s party.” She turned her gaze to Sebastian. “Thank you for your help.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

She held up one hand and her blue eyes got wide. “No!” Her smile wavered but remained in place. “Stay and visit with your father.” She picked up her gloves and walked out of the kitchen. A few moments later the door closed behind her.

Leo glanced across at Sebastian. “That was odd. Did something happen that I should know about?”

“No. Nothing happened.” Nothing that he was going to talk to his father about. Leo definitely shouldn’t know about the kiss. “I think she’s stressed about the party.”

“You’re probably right,” Leo said, but he didn’t sound convinced.