Emily nodded. “I told my father it was a senior prank.” She shot a quick glance over at Colin, her blue eyes meeting his green ones. “I said it was a tradition. He’s still sort of steamed, but he’s calming down.”
“So…no police?” Ruthie said.
“No police,” Emily assured her, and Colin felt his muscles unknot with relief. Then she shot him another glance, only this time the smallest ghost of a smile haunted her lips.
He found himself smiling back with approval. She was awfully cute for a sophomore. Not to mention cute for a Tall Pines poster child.
“Colin Reese, are you insane?”
He blinked, wondering the same thing himself, although he was still staring at Emily as he thought it. He turned his attention to the woman yelling at him. “Mom?”
His mother stormed into the lobby, looking like the Angel of Vengeance in a lavender-blue pantsuit. “I have had it with you, mister,” she said sharply. “I swear, if you weren’t so close to graduation, I’d send you off to…to military school!”
He sighed. This was going to be a bad one, he could tell.
“You’re coming with me.” She held the door open. “And you wait till your father gets home!”
Colin sighed, rolling his eyes. Ruthie sent him a look of sympathy. Emily, he noticed, had a mischievous smile. Then, to his shock, she winked at him.
Which was why he was smiling as his mother yanked on his arm and dragged him out the door. He barely heard her as she launched into yet another tirade on the problems with his behavior and why couldn’t he be more like his sister and brother and why in the world he had a problem with the small town.
“For God’s sake, Colin,” she said, exasperated, “can’t you think of one thing, just one thing, that represents Tall Pines that you don’t feel like mocking and making fun of?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking hard.
Emily Stanfield, his mind supplied. Given the chance, he got the feeling he’d take her very, very seriously. But he couldn’t admit that, so he stayed silent and let his mother continue her litany. He’d be out of here by June, anyway, and then all of this, including Emily Stanfield, would be a thing of the past.
EMILY WATCHED AS Colin Reese stalked off, his mother lecturing him in a growing crescendo of chastisement.
“That kid.” Ruthie let out a long breath. “It’s hard to believe he’s Ava Reese’s son, you know?”
Emily didn’t say anything, although she knew what Ruthie meant.
“So have you decided who you’re going to the Spring Fling with, Emily?” Ruthie asked.
Emily cleared her throat. “Not yet,” she said. “Too busy, and it’s not for months yet.”
“Still dating that Rothchild boy?”
It was funny, Emily thought. Ruthie knew about everybody in the school. Granted, it wasn’t that big a school, but Emily wondered halfheartedly if the kind woman didn’t have better things to do with her time than track the little social dramas of teenagers.
“I wasn’t really dating him,” Emily demurred, her voice almost prim. “Anyway, I’d better get going. Don’t want to be late for Biology.”
She fled the office, heading up the hallway. She couldn’t stop thinking about Colin.
She’d had a crush on him for years, since she’d been in elementary school. It wasn’t just that he was good-looking, although he was—devastatingly so. It was that he was so…reckless. Daring. He’d been voted Most Likely to Do Anything two years in a row by the yearbook committee. He was in trouble a lot, but she also knew that he was very sweet—she’d seen a bunch of bullies picking on a younger girl because of her thick glasses and braces, and Colin had sent the bullies away with the mere threat of physical violence. He’d then made sure the girl was all right, saying a few quick words and sending her a lightning-fast smile. The girl had stared dreamily at Colin, and so had Emily, touched by his thoughtfulness.
It was silly. Everyone knew that Colin was practically building a tunnel to get out of Tall Pines, and Emily doubted she’d ever leave. But it didn’t stop her from dreaming.
1
“SO IS HE HERE YET?”
Emily Stanfield smiled coyly at her best friend, Sue. “You’re the desk manager. You tell me.”
Sue made a face. “I knew I should’ve stayed at the inn. That way I could’ve called you when he checked in.”
Emily shook her head. “Impossible. First of all, this is Ava Reese’s annual Secret Santa party we’re at. It’s more than a tradition, it’s an institution. We couldn’t miss it.” Much as she’d wanted to this year.
Sue sighed. “True, true.”
“And secondly—” and Emily let her voice drop to a whisper “—there’s no guarantee I’m going to sleep with this guy…this J.P. Webster.”
Sue made a sound of protest. “But you said…”
Emily put a hand up, stopping Sue, then glanced around. No one was listening, thankfully—folks were too intent on their gift swapping and drinking from Ava’s generous open bar.
“I said I was finally going to do something about my two-year celibacy. And I meant it,” Emily declared, her body sending a pleasant zing dancing over her nerve endings at the thought. “But I’ve never even seen J.P. before. We’ve only exchanged emails.”
“My sister got married to a guy she met on the Internet,” Sue countered.
Emily rolled her eyes. “The last thing I need is to get married. I’m just…I just want…” She searched for a noncrude way to put it.
“You’re just looking for someone to stuff your stocking.” Sue winked.
So much for noncrude. Emily felt her cheeks redden. “Well, that’s not how I would’ve put it. But…well, yes.”
“So why shouldn’t it be this J.P.?” Sue pressed. “You guys have been e-mailing for almost two years now.”
“About business stuff only.” J.P. Webster worked for a big hotel chain and taught a class on hotel management online. Emily had taken the class, then asked some questions after it was done. J.P. had been tremendously kind and helpful. They were exchanging e-mails once a month lately, and the correspondence had turned more friendly than academic. “Maybe he’s ugly. Maybe he’s old. Maybe he’s gay, for all I know. We’ve never flirted or anything.” Emily frowned, thinking about it. “We get along really well. Like we’re old friends.”
“Well, maybe he’s young, cute and ready to be really, really friendly.”
Emily smirked. Privately, that’s exactly what she was hoping.
For the past few years Emily had lived for one thing and one thing only: the Stanfield Arms, the hotel she’d created from her family’s mansion, one of the oldest buildings in Tall Pines, Connecticut. She’d buried herself in work and she hadn’t even bothered with a relationship. Part of that was because she’d been far too busy, but part of it was also because of Tall Pines itself. A definite problem with living in such a small town was that with everyone weighing in on your dating decisions, if things didn’t work out, not only would you face a postmortem from everyone on why the relationship ended, you were face-to-face with your ex almost every day. She’d experienced it in action. It was nightmarish.
So the hotel filled her days, but lately her nights were leaving her more and more restless. After Thanksgiving, she’d made the decision: she was going to have a physical relationship, something brief and discreet, preferably