One minute, Kris was standing at the foot of his father’s bed, trying to explain why he hadn’t listened to the Christmas wishes of the children at the hospital party - because how could he describe the incident without talking about his embarrassing hard-on? The next minute, he found himself inexplicably scrunched inside a chimney, sucking in soot and splaying like a Slinky.

Worse, he was bare-assed naked, except for his hat. And his boots.

"What the fu ..." He managed to cough before slipping down the sides of the chimney wall, and landed with a clang and a crash on the floor of the thankfully fire-and-wood-free grate. He leapt to his feet, swiping his hat from his head to brush at his be-ashed behind.

He was in someone’s living room.

He was in Brenna’s living room. She lay on the couch, her fingers grasping one pink-tipped tit while her other hand hid under the waistband of her pajama bottoms; he could see the outline of her knuckles at the juncture of her legs.

She stared at him with round eyes, her mouth rounded in a perfect "o," as if she were just about to slide her lips over the tip of his dick. Quickly, he put his hat over his naked cock. But that only made things worse, since the bells sewn to the brim rang with silvery peals with each pulse, bob and wiggle of his swelling erection.

Brenna’s gaze slid slowly from his face, down his chest and stomach, the intensity of her scrutiny as tangible as her fingers would be. When she dropped her attention to his chapeau-clad stiffy, it leapt in the hat as if seeking her out. She smiled, stood and moved to him. "I wished you were here," she murmured, dropping to her knees, "and here you are. Merry Christmas to me." She pulled his hand and the red-velvet-and-ermined hat away.

Alex’s breath caught in her throat. She didn’t know what to say. Maybe she was imagining the whole thing. Maybe she’d fallen and hit her head and the whole thing was a hallucination. She’d wake up and be lying on a gurney in a hospital. The room began to fade. See? Proof that she was hallucinating.

But then, through the fog, Zach appeared, looming large. She felt his hands grasp her shoulders, felt him shake her. "Alex! Breathe!"

Oh. Breathing. Yeah, that would help. She gulped in a huge gasp of air, and her vision cleared. She really was in a hotel suite with Zach. He stood in front of her with his hands on her shoulders and a huge hard-on straining the front of his jeans.

At least…she thought it was. Unless she was hallucinating that, too? She took another gulp of air and looked, just to be sure.

Nope. Not imagining it. Her lifelong friend, Zach O’Connor, wanted her, short, fat, boring her. She pulled her gaze from the bulging ridge in the front of his jeans to look at his face.

He was like an angel, damn him, with a long, dark halo of hat-crushed curls and eyes the color of the summer sky after an afternoon storm. She read concern in them, as well as lust, and that was encouraging. "Are you okay?" His voice was husky soft, tickling her ears and making her blood race.

"I think…I think I am." She licked her lips and realized he’d just tightened his grip on her shoulders. Amazing. She, too, had some sort of power of attraction. "I just—well. I never expected that you would want to do . . .you know, that . . .with me. "

"I do." He let her go and turned to the box. The Box. Her pulse quickened. "So…what do you want to do? We could just…read the cards and do what they say. Or we could role-play. Or both." He bent and lifted his hat from his bed. "I’m the cowboy, you’re the…"

"Don’t you dare say ’whore.’"

"I wasn’t going to. Unless you wanted me to." Zach slid his hat onto his head, tilting it just so for maximum effect. "What would you call a...prostitute . . .in a historotica?"

"A soiled dove. A sister of sin. A painted lady, a woman of the night, a prairie nymph, a fille de joie… I’ll have to do more research to find out more names." Alex was glad to be back on solid footing, historically speaking. She wasn’t going to worry about Tim and their broken relationship. She was going to think about her book and her house.

She was going to have kinky sex with Zach.

Holy crap. She reached behind herself to make sure the bed was within collapsing distance. Just in case she fainted or something.

"Right." Zach lifted an eyebrow at her. "You might need more than ten slang words for hooker to choose from."

"You never know." Alex nodded. "Research is very important, Zach."

He grinned. "I couldn’t agree more. Let’s get to it, my prairie nymph. I’m pulling a card." He lifted the deck from the box and began shuffling, his fingers riffling along the card’s edges.

Alex shifted from foot to foot. Research. It’s just research. It’s going to be okay, like a game. A research game. About sex.

Oh my God. I’m going to have sex with Zach.

"License and registration," Jack said through clenched teeth. He didn’t need the documents, but asking for them gave him an excuse to go back to his car and catch his breath.

And still his pounding heart. The dog had surprised him, but seeing Carrie…that had made his pulse pound.

He’d never forgotten her, or the passion they’d shared that one night. He’d never forgotten the way the moonlight sparkled in her eyes, or the way she’d smiled up at him. He could still remember the feel of her young, strong body beneath his, her small, firm breasts, the way his name had sounded on her lips.

He could still remember her expression of love and wonder when he’d entered her body, the way they’d soared together, come together, their bodies and their hearts beating the same rhythm. He’d never felt that way again.

Not even with his wife.

He stared down at his ticket book. Carrie didn’t want anything to do with him; she’d made that clear eighteen years ago. He knew he should just write her up—for what, he wasn’t sure—and send her on her way. But he couldn’t. He had to try. Just one more time. Maybe now she’d talk to him, let him explain what had happened.

You wouldn’t take my calls. Or Becky’s. We couldn’t explain, not even by going over and knocking on your door…Your bulldog of a grandmother wouldn’t let us in to see you. And then you left for college.

He’d never seen her again, though he had asked her grandmother about her whenever he ran into the elderly woman. There wasn’t much use in trying to get in touch, though. Not after he and Becky got married. Or even after Becky had died.

He dropped the book onto the passenger seat and reached for his hat. Not much point to that, he realized, lifting the soggy, battered and crunched thing that he’d once worn on his head. Shit. He put it down again, then tugged one of his business cards out of the holder on the console. It gave his number at the animal shelter, and listed his web address for the training academy. At the very least, she might ask him to help her tame the beast.

Or maybe, just maybe, Carrie had matured as much as he had, and would call him so he could finally explain what had happened.

He got out of the car and walked to the driver’s side window. She didn’t look at him. He wished she would; he wanted to see if her smile made him as randy as it had when he was eighteen, and if her silvery eyes gave him that same electrifying thrill. But she didn’t even turn her head.

"Carrie…"

She held out her hand without looking at him. Without much hope, he put his card onto her palm.

"Don’t let the dog eat it," he said.

"Go to hell," she said, and drove away.

Or maybe, he thought, she hadn’t changed at all.