Sugar Pine Trail. RaeAnne Thayne

took a long, fortifying drink of sangria and wrote quickly, forcing herself not to self-edit.

      Try escargot.

      Kiss someone special under the mistletoe.

      Get a puppy.

      That one made her stop. Why didn’t she get a puppy? Her parents had never wanted one when they were alive, but they were gone now. There was nothing really stopping her, was there?

      “Okay, one more minute. You’ve got time to add one, maybe two more things to your list.”

      All the possibilities crowded through her mind, and she quickly wrote one that seemed bigger than the rest.

      Make a difference in someone’s life.

      “I know I said we were done, but now I want you to add one more.”

      Everyone groaned, but Roxy just gave an evil grin.

      “I want you to write the very next thing that comes into your mind. Don’t edit it or run it through any internal filters. Just write it.”

      Julia stared at the page, her mind a jumbled mix of the book they had read—of the author’s heated relationship with a hot-blooded Spaniard she met on her journey of self-discovery—all tangled up with memories of Maksym and her own brief time with him, when she had been too young and naive to know herself and what she needed.

      She swallowed the last of her sangria and wrote quickly, before she could change her mind.

      Have an orgasm, with someone else.

      The moment she wrote the words, she wanted to cross them out, but it was too late. Besides, they were written in purple Sharpie. She folded her paper, hoping like hell nobody else saw it.

      “Now, wasn’t that fun?” Roxy beamed at them all.

      “Sure,” Megan muttered. “Next time, let’s all go get colonoscopies together.”

      “Anybody want to share something off her list? Remember, this is a no-judgment zone.”

      Barbara Serrano was the first to break the silence. “I want to stay home this Christmas Eve and not have to cook a single thing for anyone.”

      “Hear, hear,” Charlene Bailey said enthusiastically. “And I’d like to go on another cruise, one to Alaska this time.”

      Everyone seemed inclined to share something on her list. Julia was going to remain quiet and let them have all the fun, but on impulse, when the conversation began to wane, she blurted out the least embarrassing thing on her list.

      “I’d like to get a puppy. I’ve always loved dogs, but my parents never wanted one. My mom always had cats and my dad thought dogs were too big of a mess and bother.”

      “Oh, you should!” Andie Bailey exclaimed. “We adore our dog.”

      “What’s stopping you?” Katrina asked.

      Julia shrugged and poured another drink. She wasn’t driving home, so why not?

      “I live alone and I work long hours. I don’t have time to give a puppy the attention it deserves—to train it and walk it and play with it. It wouldn’t be fair.”

      “Get two puppies,” Eppie Brewer suggested. “That way they can entertain each other.”

      And chew up every antique in the house, too.

      “I think I’ll stick with one of the other items on my list.”

      She would stick to driving her car on the freeway or trying escargot.

      Right now, anything more seemed wholly out of reach.

      * * *

      THE REST OF the book club meeting was much more enjoyable. Roxy—clever girl—brought out more sangria to go with the potluck meal. By the time everyone decided to pick up their lists and go home, Julia realized that for the first time since McKenzie Kilpatrick’s bachelorette party a few years before, she was more than a little tipsy.

      The best kind of guests always cleaned up after themselves. And her friends were the absolute best. Julia looked around her gleaming kitchen, touched that she didn’t have hours of dishes ahead of her. The only thing left was to take out the last bag of trash.

      She opened the door to her guest bedrooms, where she had contained the cats for the evening so they didn’t bother her company, then picked up the garbage bag and headed out, propping her door behind her.

      Outside, a cold November wind blew through her sweater, making her shiver. They were supposed to have a few inches of snow that night, and the air had that funny, expectant, heavy feeling to it.

      A black SUV was in her driveway, and she gazed at it for about five seconds, wondering if one of the book club guests might be in the bathroom, before she remembered it belonged to Jamie Caine.

      Her tenant was home. Somehow in all the commotion of the party, she had missed his return.

      Not that she had been watching for him or anything.

      She shivered again, more from the lie she was telling herself this time than from the cold. Of course she had been watching for him. She had a man living in her house, and this was the first night he had spent under the same roof.

      How would she possibly make it through the next six weeks?

       CHAPTER THREE

      HE HAD A VISITOR.

      At the third plaintive yowl in as many minutes from the landing outside his new apartment, Jamie set down his book and headed to the door. When he opened it, he found one of Julia Winston’s cats, the same lithe black beauty he had held earlier. She bounded inside to rub against his leg and instantly began to purr.

      He chuckled and picked her up, holding her out so he could gaze into her green eyes.

      “Hi there. I don’t think you’re supposed to be up here, but maybe you didn’t get the memo.”

      She meowed in answer, giving him an unblinking stare.

      “Are you looking for something? Did you leave your favorite toy up here?” he asked, stroking her silky fur.

      She purred and rubbed her head against his hand, making him smile.

      It had been a long time since he’d had much to do with cats. His mother had always loved them, but the succession of big, boisterous dogs he and his brothers and Charlotte were constantly taking home to Winterberry Lane in Hope’s Crossing didn’t always make for the most comfortable environment for its feline occupants.

      His poor mother had put up with so much from her brood. As always, he felt a pang when he remembered Margaret Caine, gone too young from cancer.

      He petted the cat a few more moments, finding an odd sort of peace in it. He would like to have taken her in, charmed more than he might have expected by the idea of sitting by the gas fireplace in his apartment on a cold night, with a good book and a cat on his lap. He couldn’t just commandeer a cat. His landlady would probably be looking for her.

      “You’d better go home,” he said, trying to set the cat down. She yowled in protest and wriggled to stay in his arms.

      “Fine. I’ll take you down myself,” he said.

      Jamie didn’t bother with shoes as he headed down the steps to the entryway. He was about five or six steps from the bottom when the doorknob to the outside door turned and a moment later, Julia walked inside.

      Her hair looked a bit messy, as if tangled by a stiff wind, and she wobbled a little as she pushed the door open. She was humming a song, and it took him a few bars before he recognized the tune. “Blue Christmas.”

      She didn’t appear to notice him as she came inside, still humming and looking a little unsteady.

      Jamie