The Mistletoe Motive(2)
“So she’s not only eyeing up my muscles but my private bookstore purchases.”
“I—” An infuriated growl rolls out of me. But as I spin away from him and freeze, my fury melts when I notice a plate of delicate sugar cookies perched on the counter. Cut into shapes that are an homage to every wintertime holiday, they sparkle with diamond-bright sugar crystals. Bending for a closer look, I breathe them in. Rich, buttery, sweet. I can already taste them melting on my tongue. “Where did these come from?”
“One guess.” Jonathan hoists both boxes up on his shoulders, making more distracting muscly things happen under his shirt.
I turn back to face the mystery cookies, lest I get accused of ogling his ass while he walks to the shelves dedicated to new releases. Wracking my brain, I set down my hot cocoa, then shuck off my mittens, scarf, and coat, and hang them on their usual hook. I pluck one of the cookies from the plate, inspecting it. “The Baileys?”
Jonathan sighs wearily.
“What? That’s a perfectly reasonable guess!”
The bookshop’s owners, Mr. and Mrs. Bailey, don’t come in often, but they’re thoughtful and like grandparents to me. I’ve worked for them for six years, first part-time while in college, then the past two years, since graduating, as manager. They know how much I love December, all things holiday, and of course, sweets. I could see them having cookies delivered to the store for us (they’re fond of Jonathan, too, for some baffling reason).
So, if they didn’t send the cookies, then who? There’s no one else anymore, thanks to an extra-tight budget this year and the fact that our only help, a part-time college student, quit last week. Apparently, Clark found Jonathan’s and my dynamic “toxically hostile.”
Kids these days. No stomach for conflict.
“Well, then, Mr. Frost.” I examine the cookie. “If not from the Baileys, where did they come from?”
Jonathan tsks, lining up a perfectly even row of books. “‘One guess,’ Gabriella, means ‘one guess.’”
Perplexed but enticed by the heavenly sugar-cookie aroma, I almost take a bite. Then I pause. A lightbulb pings over my head. Pointing the cookie his way, I level Jonathan with a suspicious glare. “You.”
He pauses, the book he’s holding frozen in midair. Slowly, he glances over his shoulder, and our gazes snag. His face is…unreadable.
While people’s expressions aren’t easy for me to interpret, the longer I know them, the better I’m able to observe patterns and memorize their meaning. After twelve miserable months observing the many subtle shifts in his chiseled-from-ice features, I know more Jonathan Frost expressions than I care to admit. This one is new.
Unsettled, I bite my bottom lip, a lick of pain to ground myself. I watch his gaze lower to my mouth, his eyes darken.
All of a sudden, I’m roasting in my emerald-green sweater dress. Is the heat cranked up?
“If you did bring these cookies…” I’m trying to regain the upper hand, but my voice is oddly hoarse. “The question is…why?”
Jonathan’s gaze flicks up and meets mine. Another expression I don’t recognize. It makes my belly tumble.
He opens his mouth, like he’s about to answer me, when a fist bangs on the shop’s front door. Jonathan scowls in its direction and barks, “Closed till ten!”
The room’s cooler now, and the clutch of whatever mind tricks Jonathan was playing with his eyes has vanished. Sensible and back in my skin, I drop the cookie like a hot potato, brush crumbs from my hands, and stride toward the front door.
“Too scared to try one?” he drawls.
He has to have brought them. He probably baked them from scratch just so he could stick a laxative in the batter.
“The day I eat something you made will be a cold day in hell, Mr. Frost. And just so you know, poisoning someone is a criminal offense.”
He’s back at the shelves, lining up books with tidy precision. “If it’s nonfatal, you only serve a few years.”
I trip into the door, yelling, “I knew it!”
“Honestly, Gabriella.” He rolls his eyes. “I read thrillers. Doesn’t mean I want to be in one.”
“I’m still hiding the box cutters.”
As I’m about to unlock the door, I catch my reflection in its pane of frosted glass. Between this morning’s windswept walk to work and Jonathan’s mind games, I look like I walked through a tornado: cheeks flushed as rosy as my lips; hazel eyes saucer-wide, blinking frantically; my hair’s honey-brown, loose curls, which usually sit at my shoulders, look electrified.
“Yeesh.” As I fuss with my hair and command my eyes to look less deranged, a prickle of awareness dances up my neck. Jonathan’s eyes lock with mine in the glass reflection. He throws me another chilly arched eyebrow. I stick out my tongue.
“Real mature,” he says.
“Coming from the guy leaving some poor delivery person to freeze on the sidewalk.”
Jonathan—shocker—is a hard-ass who won’t answer the door until opening, but sometimes delivery people get turned around and can’t find the alley entrance. I’m the sympathetic one who helps them out.
With a wrench of the bolt, I open the door to the sight of a delivery person—their legs at least—staggering under the weight of a bouquet that dwarfs their upper body.