‘That’s too bad. I thought we could go see Santa.’
‘Santa?’ He couldn’t be serious.
‘Yeah,’ he said with a laugh. ‘He’s set up over there. I thought you could talk to him about spending some time at the farm.’
‘You’re just trying to get out of doing the job.’ Damn it, she was smiling again. And this was actually another good idea.
Bennett stepped closer, a little smirk on his face. ‘Hey, if you have a Santa kink, I’d be happy to…’
‘A Santa kink!’ She put her hand on his chest to push him away, but her hand forgot to push and instead just stayed there, flat against him, soaking in his heat. ‘Is that even a thing?’
He chuckled and it rumbled through her fingertips. ‘You’d be surprised. I’ve been doing some interesting reading lately.’
‘I don’t even want to know what that means.’
‘There’s this local book club…’
‘Nope, no need to explain your strange habits and sexual perversions.’ She grinned and that damn hand was still there, pressed into him and he was so solid and warm in his cream-colored sweater. And now she’d said, ‘sexual perversions’ out loud and her mind was happily galloping down all sorts of perverse paths. She definitely didn’t have a Santa kink but she wouldn’t mind if Bennett put her over his knee and…
‘So … do you want to go talk to him?’
Kira’s face flushed hot. Right. Santa. Regular, not kinky, Santa.
She pulled her hand off the nice man’s chest.
‘Yeah, uh … yes. That’s a good idea, actually.’ She started to stride away toward the little gingerbread house on the other side of the square and Bennett fell into step beside her. ‘You don’t have to come with me.’
‘Oh, I have a few things to ask for anyway,’ he said, flashing her that smile. Despite her best efforts, she was starting to hate it less.
‘And what are you asking for?’
Bennett glanced toward the sky as they walked. ‘Snow.’
‘Snow?! More cold! Veto.’
He huffed. ‘It’s Christmas! Don’t you want a white Christmas?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve never had one before. I don’t know why I would start now.’ Her family was never the sort to head to Aspen for Christmas. Her mother hated the cold as much as she did.
‘Well, I’ve missed snow out on the West Coast. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas without it.’
‘Australians have Christmas without snow every year.’
‘Okay, fine, but it doesn’t feel like Christmas for me. I’m not Australian, you might have noticed.’
‘So you’re asking Santa for snow?’
‘Among other things.’
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. ‘Like?’
‘Can’t tell you or it won’t come true.’
‘I don’t think that’s how that works. That’s only for birthday wishes.’
‘Really? I don’t know. Might be different down South.’
She laughed. ‘You just don’t want to tell me.’ They’d reached Santa’s house and the line was long and filled with crying children. Two elves were handing out candy canes and trying in vain to keep the line somewhat orderly. The little girl in front of them had laid down in the cold dirt wearing her full Christmas outfit, frilly skirt and all, in some sort of peaceful protest. Her mother just gave them an exhausted smile when they got in line.
‘Correct, I don’t want to tell you,’ Bennett said, picking up their conversation.
‘Is it more weird books?’
He shook his head, his smile growing.
‘Some kind of Boy Scout badge?’
‘Okay, first of all, I told you I was never a Boy Scout. And secondly, you have to earn those. You can’t just ask for them.’
‘For someone who was never a Boy Scout, you sure know a lot about them,’ she muttered and Bennett chuckled. ‘Hmm … new tools?’
‘I have plenty of tools and why wouldn’t I want to tell you that?’
‘Because then I would live in fear that you would come back and try to fix more things.’
‘I forgot how traumatic that was for you.’
‘Truly.’ She pushed away the memory of Bennett crouched next to her radiator, sleeves rolled up, forearms flexing. She would not find this man attractive. She could not. ‘A new puppy?’
