Outside, the snow still fell. I wondered if it would do that all night.
“Want to make a wish?” he asked as he retrieved the champagne and began working the cork free with his thumbs.
“Is that what you’re supposed to do? Make a wish? The only times I’ve had champagne were at weddings and things like that.”
“You’ve never had anyone open a bottle of champagne, just for you?”
I shook my head.
“Well, I’m glad I’m the one to correct that oversight.” For a second his gaze met mine, and I shivered, remembering what it had felt like to have that beautifully sculpted mouth kissing my lips, making love to every inch of my body. “You don’t have to make a wish…it just feels like something we should do now.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking it over. I’d already had such an amazing wish granted, just being here with him like this, I wasn’t sure what else I could possibly ask for.
“Almost there,” he muttered, still working the cork with his thumbs. He angled the bottle slightly so the cork would shoot off toward the high ceiling, and not at a window or something else breakable.
Better think of something fast. Just as the cork popped out of the bottle with a sharp crack!, I said, “I hope that you and I can always be as happy as we are right now.”
“That’s a good one. Now give me your glass fast, because this thing is about to spill over.”
Hurriedly I reached for one of the champagne flutes and handed it to him, and watched as he poured it about halfway full, pausing so the bubbles could flutter almost up to the rim of the glass before they subsided. He did the same with the second flute, then held it out toward me. We clinked them together, and he added, “May your wish come true.”
“It already has.”
He leaned down and pressed his lips against mine. Oh, how I wanted to sink down to the rug with him right then and there. But we’d have time for that soon enough. Besides, from what I recalled, that Navajo rug was fairly scratchy.
So I kissed him back, tasting him once again, and then we pulled apart and each took a sip of champagne. It was good, light and fizzy, practically dancing off my tongue.
“So do you have a habit of keeping champagne in your fridge, just in case?”
A quick, flashing grin. “No. I bought it because a friend of mine — a civilian friend — had just gotten engaged, and I was going to give it to him and his fiancée. But then they had a blow-out fight over something and called the whole thing off. I didn’t think a bottle of champagne was particularly appropriate, given the situation, so it’s just been sitting in there for the last six months.”
“Ouch,” I said, and hoped that didn’t mean the champagne was cursed or something.
“I thought that, too, but then it turned out she was cheating on him with one of her exes, so I supposed he dodged a bullet.” He waved a hand. “But enough of their drama. I don’t keep champagne around just so I can seduce women when I bring them up here to show them my etchings.”
“Oh, is that what you call it?”
“Very funny.” He swallowed some more champagne and then put down his glass, reaching for one of the plates with a tart on it. “Dessert?”
“Thank you.” I took the plate from him and settled myself down on the couch.
A second or two later, he sat next to me with his own helping of tart. He picked up his fork and took a bite, and his eyes shut, heavy black lashes startling against his cheeks. “Wow…that does taste like Christmas.”
“Since when are warlocks experts on Christmas?”
“When they grow up with it, I suppose.” His eyes opened, and his expression sobered. “It’s probably different for you there in Jerome. You McAllisters have your own little enclave — ”
“It’s not only witches in Jerome,” I pointed out.
“No, but about half the town is, and that makes a big difference. There are a lot of us Wilcoxes here in Flagstaff and all the way out to Winslow and so on, but you mix five hundred people into a pot with more than sixty thousand in it, and you get kind of lost. We do what we have to in order to blend in. Yes, we’re clannish, but so are a lot of tight-knit families. Most people don’t look all that closely.”
I took a bite of tart. It was good, the tartness of the cranberry topping contrasting and then mixing with the creamy sweetness of the cheesecake underneath. “I never would have thought of Wilcoxes blending in. I mean, you guys were always the boogeyman to me.”
He cracked a smile at that. “Do I look like the boogeyman?”
No, but your brother sometimes does. Of course I didn’t voice that thought, instead remarking, “Connor, if I’d thought the boogeyman looked like you, I wouldn’t have done such a good job of making sure he was locked up tight in my closet when I went to bed.”