Merry Christmas, Baby Maverick!

“Maybe it does,” he said. “Because I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I left Rust Creek Falls in the summer.”

She blinked. “You haven’t?”

“I haven’t,” he confirmed, holding her gaze.

“Oh.”

He waited a beat, but she didn’t say anything more. “It would be nice to hear that you’ve thought about me, too...if you have.”

She glanced away, color filling her cheeks. “I have.”

“And the night of the wedding?” he prompted.

He watched, intrigued, as the pink in her cheeks deepened.

“You mean the night we were both drinking the spiked punch?” she asked.

“Is that the only reason you started talking to me that night?”

“Probably,” she admitted. “I mean—I would have wanted to talk to you, but I wouldn’t have had the nerve to start a conversation.”

“And the kiss? Was that because of the punch, too?”

“You kissed me,” she said indignantly.

“You kissed back pretty good,” he told her.

She remained silent, probably because she couldn’t deny it.

“And then you went back to my room with me,” he prompted further.

She nodded slowly, almost reluctantly.

“Are you sorry that you did?”

She kept her gaze averted from his, but she shook her head.

“I’m not sorry, either,” he told her. “The only thing I regret is that it took me so long to remember what happened.”

“Lots of people had memory lapses after that night—because of the punch,” she said.

“Do you really think that what happened between us only happened because of the punch?”

“Don’t you?”

He frowned at her question. “I don’t know how drunk you