Page 15 of Sugarplum

We carried our glasses and plates to the table and sat in chairs that overlooked the snow covered front lawn. Icy crystal prints bordered the leaded glass windowpane making it look like a picture off an old-fashioned postcard. The only thing not the least bit old-fashioned was my dinner date.

The lasagna tasted as delicious as I'd expected. "This is so good. Coco is magical. In every sense of the word."

"Yeah, I noticed that too. In fact, I sort of stopped questioning all the unexplained stuff. It's more fun just to accept it and move on." Holt buttered a piece of bread for each of us. "So, I know a few intimate details about you." He winked and grinned at the pink he'd produced in my cheeks. "But other than knowing that you have a job as a video game creator, you have two brothers, you have a nice array of tattoos and that you like lasagna and sugarplum cupcakes, I don't know much."

"Sadly, there isn't much more than that. I do have three goldfish named Larry, Moe and Harpo." I pointed at him. "You thought I was going to say Curly, didn't you?"

"Sort of goes with Larry and Moe."

"Yep, I know, but the third fish just reminded me more of Harpo. Anyhow, I've been working at Phantasm Game World since right out of college. They actually came looking for me after they saw my portfolio. So I got lucky."

"That's not luck. That's skill."

"Thanks. Sometimes I'm not great at giving myself credit. What about you? So far I know you also have two brothers and one is a giant, you race snowmobiles, you are a forest ranger who doesn't hang out with Yogi Bear and you are way better than a loofah sponge in a bath."

The last item on the list made him laugh. "I'm glad to know my skills top a loofah. Like you, not much more to tell. When the snow season is over, I'm still a ranger, but I switch to downhill mountain bike racing. I'm kind of a speed junkie. Plenty of scars and titanium plates in my body to prove it."

"Titanium?"

"Yes, that's the metal they use to bolt bones back together."

"I know. It's the metal in the armor my latest video game character wears." I stopped short of listing all the other similarities he had with my digital hero. I would have sounded like a lunatic. I decided to change topics but didn't really think about the switch until I asked it. "So, no girlfriend? Or fiancé?" I stopped short of wife, not wanting to know the answer to that one.

He leaned back against the chair with his wine glass in hand. "There are women. But there is no one woman. If that answers your question."

"Pretty much."

"What about you?" I could feel the heat of his gaze on me as he waited.

I thought briefly, almost with a laugh, about Stan and how lackluster he seemed now, after my short time with Holt. Of course, none of it mattered because both men were out of reach and not in the market for one woman. Holt had just admitted himself that he was a player. Typical.

I decided to throw his own cryptic answer back at him. I shrugged and picked up my wine. "There are men but no one man." Unless you count a certain video game character, I wanted to add, but once again, decided to keep it to myself at the risk of seeming crazy.

I drank some wine for fortification and set it down. I'd made my mind up to have a good time since nothing about this weekend would follow me back home, and I decided to move forward with my plan. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was sure there was only a billion to one chance of me ending up in a cozy, out of the way inn with a gorgeous man. Trillion to one if you added in the unlikelihood of me meeting a man who looks, sounds and even acts just like Ziggy Holt of Hell's Rangers. I didn't want to blow those odds.

I took another long sip and set down the glass. "Now that we've both established that we are players and not stayers, how should we occupy our time in this big empty house?" I glanced out into the hallway. "We are alone, right?"

"Unless there are some unhappy spirits lingering around the place, which I wouldn't doubt, knowing Coco, then we are completely alone." He turned his chair toward me. "What do you have in mind, snow angel? And please tell me it has something to do with that black dress."

"You approve of this dress?" I asked and turned my chair so that we were facing each other.

His legs were so long that our knees touched. I scooted the already short hem of the dress up higher on my thighs, stopping just before exposing my underwear. "Tell you what, if you can tell me what color my panties are, then I'll take them off before we do the dishes."

There was just the slightest nod of his head. "Well, I never shy away from a challenge. Especially if it involves panties, or the removal of said panties." He leaned an elbow on the table and rested his chin on his fingers in thought. "You don't seem like the lavender or yellow type. I'm going to go with green."

My eyes rounded. "You must share psychic abilities with Coco."

He grinned proudly as if he'd just solved a huge math problem in front of the class. "You mean I'm right?"

I inched my dress up to flash the green and then pushed the hem down.

"That was too fast. But I guess that doesn't matter." He held out his big palm. "Hand ‘em, over. I just won the game."

"Well, the first level anyhow." I turned my legs back to the table to shimmy off the panties, but his giant foot shot out. His boot curled around the leg of the chair to yank me back to face him. "I want a front row seat. I won, after all."

"You are one cocky winner. You just guessed the color of my panties. You didn't win the Boston Marathon."

"Actually—" he started.

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