Mistletoe and Margaritas Read Free Page A

opportunity to adjust the crotch of his jeans.
    Time to have another talk with himself about cutting back on the time he spent with Claire. Tomorrow.

Chapter Two
    It was still dark when Claire woke feeling flushed, a little breathless and a lot confused.
    She dreamed about sex a lot, which was probably normal considering she was a twenty-eight-year-old woman who hadn’t had the real thing in two years. But this was the first time the dream had been so deliciously potent and the imaginary sex so mind-blowingly good she’d awakened with her body aching for more.
    Which wasn’t good because it also happened to be the first time she’d dreamed about having sex with Justin. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
    Moxie, sensing she was awake, strolled up the bed to bump heads with her, but Claire rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. She’d just had the best sex of her life. Too bad it wasn’t real. And it was with the one person she shouldn’t be thinking about having sex with.
    Everybody knew the quickest way for a man and a woman to ruin a friendship was to have sex.
    Moxie mewed plaintively, kneading Claire’s shoulder, and she sighed. Five-thirty or not, it was time to get up. If she went back to sleep she might have imaginary sex with her best friend again and her nerves said once was enough.
    “It’s Penny’s fault,” she muttered to the cat as she sat up. “She planted these thoughts in my head.”
    She started the coffeepot brewing and hit the bathroom, but the shaky, off-kilter feeling didn’t fade. The first cup and the early morning news didn’t help, nor did Moxie nudging her, wanting to know what was wrong. She wasn’t so far gone she was going to try to explain being blindsided by an erotic dream about her best friend to her cat.
    Maybe she didn’t want to have sex with Justin. Maybe it was her body’s less-than-subtle way of telling her it was time to wade back into the dating pool. Actually, her body wanted her to cannonball off the diving board, but her heart wasn’t up to more than dipping her toes into the shallow end.
    She realized she was twisting her wedding band around on her finger and forced herself to stop. Nobody wanted to explore even the shallow end of the dating pool with a woman wearing a wedding ring. Well, not any guy worth dating, anyway.
    Maybe it was time to take it off and put it away. Quick and painless.
    Or it would have been if the band didn’t hang up on her knuckle. Dish soap didn’t do it. Butter didn’t help. When even a liberal application of olive oil didn’t budge the ring, she leaned against the counter, tears running down her cheeks unchecked because her hand were so gunked up she couldn’t wipe her eyes.
    Maybe it was a sign. If she couldn’t get the wedding band off, she didn’t have to think about dating again. She laughed through the tears and Moxie, who’d been watching her with disdainful interest, retreated to the back of the couch.
    “It’s not a sign,” she said out loud. “It’s all those potato chips I ate watching The Biggest Loser. ”
    After ten minutes with her hand stuck between two baggies of crushed ice and another dousing with olive oil, she was able to work the ring over her knuckle.
    Claire set it, slimy and glistening, on the counter while she washed her hands. Even though winter was setting in, she’d spent a lot of autumn outside and the white circle of flesh was stark against the tan that had yet to fade. When her hands were clean, she washed the ring and then rubbed it dry.
    Brendan’s wedding ring was on her dresser, in a small wooden box covered in tiny shells—a Cape Cod honeymoon souvenir so tacky they’d had to have it. She opened the lid and took out the gold band that was identical to hers, except larger. It had gotten hung up on his knuckle during the ceremony, though potato chips probably weren’t to blame. They hadn’t had to resort to begging hand lotion from a guest, though Justin had told