Page 20 of The Christmas Eve Delivery

Jackson shuddered. “Looks like a fire trap. Glad it was you and not me. How will you get back if I take the car?’

“There’s a shuttle to the airport. I think if I can work the tourist attraction angle, maybe that will let them hear what we’re saying. So I want to get a visitor’s perspective.”

“I thought you hated small towns,” Jackson said.

“I hate the one I came from. This one has potential. Maybe I can get a better feel for the local atmosphere. I’ll be able to devise a plan to get the mayor on our side. Or even win over the librarian without compromising my personal morals.”

“So you don’t want to seduce her like some kind of super spy?” Jackson chuckled.

“Not my type,” I admitted. She was cute enough, but I preferred more curves on my women. I preferred someone like Lydia, and it had been entirely too long since I had seen her.

“Seriously, you expect me to leave you here?”

I nodded. I didn’t want him around when I went back to the inn. “Let’s have lunch at the diner. How bad can it really be? Then you can take off. I’ll follow in a day or two. I packed extra clothes.”

“You’ve been planning this the whole time?” he asked.

“I don’t tell you everything, Jackson. Come on, lunch. I’m buying.”

“Of course, you are.”

There was something nostalgic about the diner. Every town must have a place like it. The food was greasy but good. They had a selection of pies for dessert, and the coffee was, well… it was bad. But the coffee in places like that was always bad. Part of the atmosphere.

I certainly wasn’t going to call it charm, because charming it was not. It was dirty, the waitress had an attitude, and the only reason no one got sick was the grill was run hot and overcooked any germs that might linger.

Jackson was rubbing his chest and complaining about heartburn when he got up to leave. “You aren’t going to fire me for abandoning you?”

“Go before I fire you for not leaving me alone!” I said. I might have been only half joking, but he took it as humor and left.

I asked for another refill on my coffee and ordered a slice of cherry pie. The crust tasted like it was made with real lard. I may have hated the town I was from, but damn, did I miss a good cherry pie.

My eyes were closed and I was enjoying my pie of dessert when I heard a tapping on the plate glass window next to me.

I opened my eyes to see Lydia staring at me. “What the hell, Miles?”

A grin took over my face and I waved her in.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

At the same time, I said, “I was going to head over to the inn as soon as I finished.”

We laughed and gave each other awkward hugs. I would have preferred a passionate welcoming kiss, but maybe that would have been too much in the middle of the diner.

“Sit. Can I buy you anything? The pie here is excellent. No one ever told me how good it was.”

She laughed more. The gentle sound wrapped around my gut and went straight to my cock.

“Damn, I’ve missed you,” I admitted.

11

LYDIA

“What are you doing here?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. It had been two very long months since the last time I had seen Miles, and that view of him walking away toward the shower was seared into my memory, his rock-hard backside, the way the muscles danced up his back as he moved. Sigh.

I slid into the booth opposite him as he motioned for the waitress to come over.

“I haven’t had pie this good since I was a kid,” he said. “Do you want a piece?”

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