On His List (Entangled Flirts) (7 page)

Her eyes followed him as he wove his way out of the restaurant, and it seemed to her that time had slowed and maybe even stopped—that the crowded restaurant was silent and still. She blinked, and he disappeared.

She blinked again. Where had he gone? She looked around and tipped back in her chair to look for him. He’d been right next to the hostess’s podium then he’d just melted away. The noise. The crowd. It was all back to how it was before.

“Where’d he go?” she whispered, already knowing how he’d disappeared. Magic. He’d appeared by magic and disappeared just the same.

“Kate.” Rick reached across the table and grabbed her hand. The warmth of his skin on hers was jarring. It felt…wrong. She withdrew her hand from Rick’s and wrapped it around the mug. “Sorry.”

She was imagining things. She had to be. She hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t touched her. None of that made sense. It didn’t. There was no such thing as magic. The dreams were just dreams. Her memories were just hallucinations from the cold and its long-term effect on her body.

Even as her brain fought a good fight with logic, her heart knew. Her body recognized the man she’d been with thousands of times. Her heart had fluttered in her chest at the sight of him and he took her breath away, even after all this time. Jack had just reasserted his claim on her and she felt it to her very core.

“Kate?”

She glanced up, prepared to pay just the right amount of attention—enough to be friendly, but not enough to encourage Rick. The greater part of the population might dream of someone just like the man in front of her, but her dreams were icy and cold and full of a man who wanted her back in his frozen world.