Chapter 19
[Lumi]
As I’m locking up the post office that evening, I find Saint leaning against a lamp post behind me.
“Hey,” I respond, startled by his sudden appearance.
“You must have been deep in thought not to see me standing here for the past ten minutes.”
I chuckle when I realize from where he stood, I could have easily seen him out the post office windows, but I didn’t. I had been deep in thought, puzzled by our morning, recalling the details of last night.
The way he worked my body. The way we moved together.
I’ve been a walking time bomb of sexual urgency all day. As in, I’m desperate to repeat the experience again and again.
For a week.
I hate how that little clause creeps into my thoughts every time I think about Saint over me, behind me, filling me.
“Yeah, something like that,” I mutter to cover the awkward seconds before answering him.
He steps closer to me and tugs at my jacket until I collapse against his chest, eager for his arms to wrap around me, which they quickly do. I snuggle into him despite the layers of outerwear. Today is surprisingly mild for a mid-winter day in Maine. A brisk, perfect thirty-two degrees.
“Smells like snow,” I state, when I pull back, realizing I would curl up with him right here on the sidewalk if it wasn’t something the local gossip, Lady Lovewatch, would write about in her column.
“What?” Saint chuckles, wrapping his arm around me and reaching for the large tote I carry to work. He easily slings it over his shoulder.
“Snow. I can smell it in the air. Like Bodhi Wilde, Wren’s dad, says it’s going to rain when his elbow hurts. I smell snow.”
Saint smiles, wide and bright, before tugging me closer beneath his arm. “Lumi Snowe, you are a wonder.”
“Is that some kind of compliment? Like calling me snowheart?” My voice sours on the endearment.
“You don’t like snowheart?” Saint turns his head to look at me as he leads us up Main Street.
“It makes me sound like an ice queen.”
Saint chuffs. “It’s because your last name is Snowe and you own my heart.”
My feet falter, causing both Saint and me to halt on the sidewalk.
“What?” I glance up at him, holding my gaze on his eyes.
“It’s better than sugar mama,” he jokes, trying to dispel the moment or backpedal from a slip up.
I own his heart. Impossible.
Trying desperately to let the comment go, I shift, as if I’m leading us up Main Street when I have no idea where Saint intended us to go until we come to the corner of Main and Lobstah Lane.
The Winter Market fills the street from Main Street to Hideaway Avenue, in front of the town hall and library.
The street is blocked off and packed with tourists and locals alike.
Wooden huts house merchants and their wares, from holiday specialty items to foodstuffs.
The nutty, subtly sweet aroma of roasted chestnuts fills the air and my mouth waters for a mug of Glühwein, a German tradition of mulled wine made from red wine and mulled spices.
“The Winter Market?” I question as Saint takes the lead once more, directing us into the fray of people.
“I haven’t been yet,” he explains as we slow due to the number of locals and visitors, but also as Saint begins to admire the different businesses represented, including one that has wooden carvings of Santas, snowmen, and toys.
He picks up a biplane. A propeller plane with a double set of wings stacked on top of each other and seats for two.
“My great-grandfather was still alive when I was a child.” Saint’s voice drifts, like he’s slipped into a memory. “He was a wood carver. A toy maker back when toys were made of wood.”
He smiles softly, fond of the memory. “He made me something like this when I was a child.” He’s silent for a second. “I wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid.”
Quiet heartbreak fills his voice, and I can relate, having not accomplished all the things I thought I’d do.
“A little smaller than a Barbie plane,” he says, lightening his tone before admiring the plane one final time and setting it down.
“This looks more your speed,” I tease, picking up a replica racecar. “It only needs a post attached to the side of it.”
“Ha-ha,” he scoffs, tugging me back underneath his arm and moving us on.
“I’m sorry you never got to be a pilot,” I say as we walk, wanting him to know I sympathize in every way with lost dreams.
“Oh, I’m a pilot.”
I stop short, causing his arm to slip from my shoulder.
“I have a private plane in Nova Scotia.”
A private plane. An Aston Martin. Just who the hell is this guy? “Is that where you were headed when you crashed here?”
Saint looks away and I realize we’ve crossed into a topic he doesn’t want to discuss. Slipping my arm around his waist, I let the subject go.
We pass sweater makers and knitwear, ornaments and bells, more toys and wooden trinkets before pausing in front of another booth.
“Danny had one of these as a kid,” I say, tugging at a string hanging between the wooden legs of a Santa. Pulling the string makes the legs jump to the side and the arms flap. “He’d pull this string for hours.”
Jump, Santa, jump. The thought of making Santa dance in such a manner has me instantly dropping my hand. I glance at Saint, who has been watching me.
“Your face glows when you mention your son, but your eyes . . .” He swipes his thumb over my eyebrow like he’s erasing the sadness.
I hadn’t been thinking so much about my son as the strange interaction between Saint and me this morning. Could he be a descendant of Santa Claus? The idea seems preposterous. Santa doesn’t exist, right? Not really.
Still, I take in the hair and beard and pleasing smile. The solidness of his shoulders and flatness of his abs certainly dispel the thought. And then there are the naughty ways his body worked with mine. Santa be damned. This man is not the son of some legendary being.
He’s a man. He owns a toy company. He owns a fucking plane. He’s under pressure. Christmas is their biggest season. It makes sense. It’s logical.
So what if he lives in the ambiguous town of North? Who cares if red is a very complimentary color on him? Santa can be sexy. Look at the modern memes and viral images of him.
Then I shake the thought. Santa is not sexy; Saint is sexy.
Saint. Saint. Saint.
“Lumi?” His voice pulls me from the rambling thoughts that had collided throughout the day, questioning him and his background when it shouldn’t matter. Santa is make-believe, and we are playing a game of pretend anyway.
For another week.
“Yeah?” I respond, confirming that I hadn’t heard him.
“How about some Glühwein?”
Slowly, I smile, dismissing my questions. “Toss in a bratwurst and you have yourself an easy date.”
His brows instantly arch, dark eyes sparkling beneath the string of lights illuminating the street fair.
“Too bad. I was hoping for things to get a little hard.” He leans closer to me and rubs that bristly jaw against my cheek, making me shiver at the nearness and the contrast between rough hair and sensitive skin.
I’d strip him right here on Lobstah Lane, if I thought I could get away with it. Instead, he leads me to the hut selling mulled wine and then a spot selling authentic German brats, and our easy date is filled with heated mugs of red wine and mustard on a sausage.