First Impressions

turn. “Do you know where you’re going?”
    “Certainly. There’s a place a few miles down where you can dig your own tree.”
    “Dig?” Vance repeated, shooting her a look. Shane met it placidly.
    “Dig,” she repeated. “According to the latest conservation poll—”
    “Dig,” he agreed, cutting her off.
    Laughing, Shane leaned over to kiss his shoulder. “I love you, Vance.”
    By the time they arrived at the tree farm, the snow had slowed to a gentle mist. Shane dragged him from tree to tree, examining each one minutely before rejecting it. Though he knew the color in her face was a result of the cold, the spark was back. Even if he sensed some of the energy was a product of nerves, he was satisfied that she was bouncing back. The simple pleasure of choosing a Christmas tree was enough to put the laughter back in her eyes.
    “This one!” Shane exclaimed, stopping in front of a short-needle pine. “It’s exactly right.”
    “It doesn’t look much different from the other five hundred trees we’ve looked at,” Vance grumbled, slicing the point of his shovel into the snow.
    “That’s because you don’t have a connoisseur’s eye,” she said condescendingly. He scooped up a handful of snow and rubbed it into her face. “Be that as it may,” Shane continued with remarkable aplomb, “this is the one. Dig,” she instructed, and stepping back, folded her arms.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly, bending to the task. “You know,” he said a few moments later, “it suddenly occurs to me that you’re going to expect me to dig a hole to put this thing in after Christmas.”
    Shane sent him a guileless smile. “What a good idea. I know just the place too. You’ll probably need a pick though. There are an awful lot of rocks.” Ignoring Vance’s rude rejoinder, she waved over an attendant. With the roots carefully wrapped in burlap and the tree itself paid for—by Shane over Vance’s objection—they headed home.
    “Damn it, Shane,” he said in exasperation. “I wanted to buy the tree for you.” The truck rumbled over the narrow wooden bridge.
    “The tree’s for the shop,” she pointed out logically as they pulled in front of the house. “So the shop bought the tree. Just as it buys the stock and pays the electric bill.” Noting that he was annoyed, Shane walked around the truck to kiss him. “You’re sweet, Vance, and I do appreciate it. Buy me something else.”
    He gave her a long, considering look. “What?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always had a fancy for something frivolous and extravagant . . . like chinchilla earmuffs.”
    With difficulty, he maintained his gravity. “It would serve you right if I did buy you some. Then you’d have to wear them.”
    She rose on her toes, inviting another kiss. As he bent down, Shane slipped the handful of snow she’d been holding down his back. When he swore pungently, she made a dash for safety. Shane fully expected the snowball that bashed into the back of her head, but she didn’t expect to be agilely tackled so that she landed facedown in the snow.
    “Oh! You really aren’t a gentleman,” she muttered, hampered by a mouthful of snow. Vance sat back, roaring with laughter while she struggled to sit up, wiping at her face.
    “Snow looks even better on you than mud,” he told her.
    Shane lunged at him, catching him off-balance so that he toppled onto his back. She landed with a soft thud on his chest. Before she could deposit the snow she held in his face, he rolled her over and pinned her. Resigned, she closed her eyes and waited. Instead of the cold shock of snow, she felt his lips crush down on hers. In immediate response, she pulled him closer, answering hungrily.
    “Give?” he demanded.
    “No,” she said firmly, and dragged him back again.
    The urgency of her response made him forget they were lying in the snow in the middle of the afternoon. He no longer felt the wet flakes that drifted down the back of his neck, though he could taste others on her skin. He fretted against the bulky clothes that kept the shape of her from him, against the gloves that prevented him from feeling the softness of her skin. But he could taste, and he did so greedily.
    “God, I want you,” he murmured, savaging her small, avid mouth again and again. “Right here, right now.” Lifting his head, he looked down on her, but whatever he would have said was cut off by the sound of an approaching car. “If I’d had any sense