The First Love Cookie Club (11 page)

This wasn’t good. Jazzy liked Sarah way too much. The last thing he wanted was for his daughter to get hurt. He put his hand to Jazzy’s shoulder. “We gotta get going, kid.”

“Okay.” Jazzy hopped up.

Travis drew back the curtain, looked out to see a mob of people rummaging through the store.

“Oh look,” a woman shouted. “There’s Sadie Cool.”

“Now I know what a deer feels like in hunting season,” Sarah muttered.

The next thing Travis knew, a herd of photoseeking treasure hunters were muscling him and Jazzy out of the room.

“Wow,” Jazzy said. “I guess we were just standing in her way.”

Out of the mouths of babes, Travis thought, and guided his daughter from the bookstore.

Thankfully, Sarah’s duties as honorary mayor ended on Sunday evening along with Dickens on the Square. But even as she was happy to be off the hot seat, she had to admit she felt wistful watching workers tear down the little kiosks and sweep up the scattered debris. The fantasy of Victorian-era England was gone with the whisk of a few brooms, the knocking down of a few boards. How easy it was to dismantle a fantasy.

From the window of her room at the Merry Cherub Sarah could see the east side of the square. She sat at in the window seat with her notebook computer in her lap, watching Twilight transform itself as she wrote. The town was a chameleon, she had to give it that. Changing with the seasons and the holidays, donning whatever persona helped reel in tourists.

From Monday until the First Love Cookie Club cookie swap on Friday, her schedule was finally her own again. She could relax and stay holed up in her room and drink the delicious raspberry greentea Jenny brewed, and write. Solitude. It was Sarah’s idea of paradise.

To her delight, the book continued to flow like water, ideas pouring from her. She still didn’t have an ending, but she was confident it would come.

Besides the writing, there was another project that required her attention. The wish list on the back of Jazzy’s angel ornament that she plucked from the Cherub Tree. She went shopping and got everything Jazzy had wished for, except, of course, the part about a mommy for her daddy. Only Travis could supply his daughter with a new mother. Because she wouldn’t be there for Christmas, Sarah planned to wrap the packages and leave them with one of the First Love Cookie Club members to distribute with the other cherub gifts.

Sarah had to admit that Jazzy had burrowed under her skin and made a home there in the way no one else ever had. She didn’t make friends easy and she normally wasn’t comfortable around kids, but there was something about this little girl. It was in Jazzy’s sweet smile. As if she perpetually expected sunshine and rainbows and spring flowers.

On Wednesday evening, after spending the entire day writing, Sarah had planned on grabbing takeout from the Funny Farm restaurant on the square and bringing it back to her room as she’d done the previous two nights. She’d finally gotten out of her pajamas—which she’d been in all day, a luxury afforded to writers—braided up her hair, and then pulled on a pair of jeans, a red sweater, and her black high-heeled boots. In Manhattan she wouldn’t have bothered with makeup just to go pick up takeout, but in Twilight she was bound torun into someone she knew and she had her Sadie Cool image to uphold. In concession, she put on lipstick and mascara, and then shrugged into a jacket.

She went downstairs and just as she entered the lobby, Travis and Jazzy walked in, the jingle bells attached to the front door jangling merrily. Jazzy’s hand clung to her dad’s.

“Hello,” Travis greeted her. “Just the woman we came to see. Jazzy has something to ask you.”

Jazzy stepped forward, looking like a pint-sized seraphim in a green and white velvet dress, and black patent leather Mary Janes, her hair falling in perfect ringlets to her shoulder. Her skin was alabaster, her lips and cheeks strawberry red. All she needed to complete the angelic image were wings and a halo. “Can you come to the Christmas pageant with us at our church tonight?”

“If you don’t have other plans that is,” Travis amended. “It’s only an hour long and we can grab a bite afterward at Pasta Pappa’s.”

“They got really good pepperoni pizza,” Jazzy added.

Sarah hadn’t been to a church Christmas pageant since … well, since Gramma Mia had taken her all those years ago.

“We understand if you’re too busy.” Travis put his palm to Jazzy’s back. “I know we sprung this on you at the last minute—“

“Please come,” Jazzy pleaded.

How could anyone say no to a face like that? Sarah said, “I’d love to.”

“Thank you.” Travis met her gaze.

“Well, c’mon then.” Jazzy reached up and took Sarah’s hand and started trolling her toward the door.

Sarah threw Travis a helpless look.

“She’s a force of nature.” Travis laughed and scooted around to open the door for them. “My daughter.”

Sarah’s shoulder brushed softly against his as she went past. Instant warmth seeped through her body and she quickly turned away before he could see the attraction she still felt for him etched on her face.

Still felt?

Who was she kidding? This surge of desire was ten times stronger than what she’d felt for him as a teenager. Back then, all that had been involved was her silly, infatuated heart. But now, all grown up, the sexual chemistry blew her away.

So what? She was going back to Manhattan on Sunday and he had a life here with his daughter. It wasn’t as if anything could happen between them.

Unless…

No. She was
not
going to have a one-night stand with him. That was totally out of the question. Because she feared one night with Travis would never ever be enough and she didn’t have the mental energy to deal with having her heart broken again.

They walked the short distance to the First Presbyterian Church of Twilight. The evening air was crisp, but not cold. Christmas lights twinkled from almost every storefront and house they passed. As a tourist town, Twilight had a warm image to uphold. All visitors welcome. In spite of her natural cynicism, she succumbed to the whimsy of it, breathing in the scents wafting from the businesseson the square—fresh-baked bread, simmering cinnamon potpourri, pumpkin pie. If Twilight was a taste, it’d be a richly layered strudel, as sinful and sweet as gossiping at an old-fashioned coffee klatch.

People were piling into the church. Most smiled and waved. Several said hello.

When Sarah looked up at the regal one-hundred-year-old building, she hesitated. Nine years ago she’d rushed up these same steps, hell-bent on stopping a wedding by declaring her love to Travis Walker. She felt the old flush of embarrassment well up inside her and she balled her hands into fists at her sides.

Travis’s hand went to her upper back, the heat from his fingers leeching through her light jacket. He bent his head to her ear, and she could smell the intoxicating scent of him, all masculinity and zesty soap. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

She resisted his comfort, stiffened her back. It was like he was tromping around inside her brain and knew exactly what she was thinking. She didn’t like that. It felt too personal. Too intimate.

He got the hint, moved his hand, and then she wished it was back. Oh, what the hell was wrong with her?

“C’mon.” Jazzy, completely unaware of her past trauma with this particular building, reached down to grasp one of Sarah’s clenched fists. “Don’t be a slowpoke.”

Sarah glanced at Travis.

He shrugged.

“Force of nature,” they said in unison, and laughed.

It felt good to laugh with him. Good and strange. Very strange. It seemed as if she’d stepped into one of the fantasies of her fifteen-year-old self. She and Travis going to the church pageant with their adorable little daughter.

You’re not a couple and Jazzy isn’t your daughter and hell… you don’t even want to go there, so why are you?

The blond force of nature didn’t give her much time to dither. Jazzy hauled Sarah up the steps and through the front door. “Hurry, hurry, we want to make sure we get good seats up front. If you don’t hurry you have to sit in the back and then you can’t see the costumes very well. I like seeing the costumes up close. The costumes are the best part.”

“What can I say? My daughter loves dress-up.”

With Jazzy in the lead, they almost raced to the front of the church and managed to snag the three remaining seats in the front row. “Was this perfect or what?” Jazzy asked. “Three of us, three seats left.”

“Pretty perfect,” Travis said.

“It’s like they knew we were coming.” Jazzy smiled, clearly satisfied, and leaned against the back of the pew.

Sarah saw the expression that crossed Travis’s face whenever he looked at his daughter. It was pure, unadulterated love.

“You don’t know how amazing this is,” he said. “A few months ago she couldn’t walk across the room without wheezing and that’s the way it’s been for four years. Until this new miracle drug.” He shook his head. “I’m still stunned at her transformation. She’s making up for lost time.”

“I’m so happy for her,” Sarah said. “She deserves the very best the world has to offer. And for you. There’s no way I can begin to imagine what you’ve gone through.”

Travis rested his arm on the back of the seat in a casual gesture. He was so easy with his own body, so comfortable around other people. Did it mean anything special? Or was he simply stretching out? Why did she have to analyze everything to death and drive herself crazy?

After a moment, he leaned in closer and whispered, “Don’t look now, but we’re being watched.”

“Don’t tell me not to look now. Now I have to look precisely because you told me not to. Don’t you know how this works?”

“Apparently not.” He grinned.

“You roused my curiosity. I have to satisfy it or go mad.”

“Okay then, go ahead and look now.”

“What a minute.” She canted her head. “Is this a trick to get me not to look now? You know, reverse psychology?”

“What do you think?”

“I think so.” Sarah turned to glance over her shoulder. Practically the entire congregation was staring at them. Bug-under-a-microscope staring. Ulp. They should have sat in the back.

“Yipes.” She turned back around. “I see why you said not to look.”

“Told ya.”

“This is a lot of pressure. I can feel them all breathing. Staring and breathing.”

“The play will be starting soon, don’t think about it.”

“There you go again, telling me what not to do. Now I’ll have to—“

“Think about it,” he finished for her. “Right.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. They’re staring and drawing conclusions and judging,” she whispered.

“It’s the downside of small-town living. Everything you do is gossip fodder.”

“They’re going to read more into this than there is.”

“Granted.”

“They’re probably already starting to write the legend of Travis and Sarah as we speak.”

“We’ll be right up there with Jon Grant and Rebekka Nash.”

“You think?”

“Famous author rekindles spark with devastatingly handsome single dad?” he teased. “Oh yeah, this is the stuff of serious legends.”

“Rekindles? There’s no rekindling going on. Something has to be kindled in the first place before there can be rekindling.”

“You’re nervous.”

“Hell—” Sarah shot a glance at Jazzy. “Heck yes,” she amended.

“You talk a lot when you’re nervous. Mostly, you’re pretty quiet, but when you’re nervous—“

“I babble. Got it. Nervous babbler. That’s me.” If she kept babbling maybe he’d stop talking about their gossip-worthiness as a couple. Because they weren’t a couple. They were just sitting next to each other at a church pageant. That was it. Nothing else involved.

“I’ll remember to make you nervous the next time you clam up.” He said it like there were going to be lots of next times. Like she wasn’t leaving for home in four short days.

“Shhh.” Jazzy placed an index finger over her lips. “They’re getting ready to start.”

The crowd was still sifting in, but everyone grew quiet as the curtains parted and the play began. Sarah tried to concentrate on the Christmas story, but she was distracted by the pressure of Travis’s forearm against her shoulders and his crisp clean fragrance. The guy smelled entirely too good. An intriguing combination of outdoorsy pine and the fresh-laundered aroma of fabric softener. Not to mention there was the not so small fact that his muscular thigh was pressed right up against hers.

She darted a glance over at him. Both his hands were on his knees, his fingers splayed loosely. Everything about him was loose. His ubiquitous smile (at some time she was going to have to ask him how a guy with as many troubles as he had could smile so much), his hair that was just a tad past the point of needing a trim and draped casually over his forehead, his slow, natural breathing. He was a walking antidote to her own tense, rigid way of being in the world. How did a person get so relaxed without pharmaceuticals? She supposed you had to be born that way. Able to see the moon and stars and rainbows and sunshine while ignoring the potholes and litter and brambles and sharp poky pebbles underfoot. Or maybe he was on pharmaceuticals. Maybe SAM-e was the key to his effervescence.

“You still up for pizza?” Travis asked when the play was finished and the crowd filtered out.

“Um, maybe we shouldn’t add fuel to the gossip mill.”

“Ah, who cares? It’s only gossip. We’ve come this far. What’s a meal and another hour? The only question is, are you hungry?”

Sarah was about to say no, to beg off, but then her stomach growled loud enough to wake the dead six counties over.

Jazzy burst out laughing. “She’s starving, Daddy.”

And that settled that.

One minute she was at the church planning her escape back to her room, and the next minute she was sitting at a booth at Pasta Pappa’s, the table clad with the traditional red and white checkered tablecloth.

The place was a total cliché in Italian decor, right down to Dean Martin on the jukebox singing “That’s Amore” and the candle in the Chianti bottle in the middle of the table. But the air smelled deliciously of garlic and onions and basil. And the pizza, when it appeared, was warm and gooey with generous portions of mozzarella cheese. They drank Coca-Cola from red and white glasses with red and white straws and noshed on pepperoni pizza while Dino sang about love, and damn if it didn’t feel like a
Lady and the Tramp
moment.

“What’s your favorite candy?” Jazzy asked around a mouthful of pizza.

Travis tapped his mouth with three fingers. “What’s good manners?”

Jazzy swallowed. “Not talkin’ with your mouth full. Sorry.”

“Hmm, what’s my favorite candy?” Sarah mused. “Let me think on that. There’s so many good ones.”