Piper watched Kol unravel his scarf and shrug off his coat, utterly dumbfounded at what in Saint Nick’s nightmare had just transpired. He had really laid on the charm with her family, a much better effort than he’d put in with her, she noted, and as he shook hands, grinned sincerely, and injected “eh” into all the right places, the MacLeans immediately warmed. She didn’t even have to say much, and in the end, convincing them she’d been dating this stranger was just one less task she had to take on herself, so she accepted the ease with which it came.
He hung his things on a hook beside the kitchen slider, which was better than leaving them in a heap on the floor like so many of the others did, but the two were alone again, and all that charm melted away as he turned narrowed eyes on her. In his blue knit sweater and jeans, he looked almost normal, but he left his hat on, black hair tucked up under it with just a few wavy strands falling free, and then there was, well…the rest of him. And the rest of him was sort ofpretty.
Piper busied herself with gathering salad ingredients from the refrigerator, filling her arms and then dumping everything on the counter that separated the two. All right, he was pretty, but what did that matter? He’d also threatened to do god knows what to her with the back porch shrubbery.
She stood and listened for a moment, but there was no one else anywhere near the kitchen. “So, magic?”
His black brows raised, and he sauntered toward his side of the counter. “Yeah, magic.”
He made it sound utterly boring, but her brain was still reeling. She slid a chopping board in front of her, eyes darting between it and his face. “It’sreal?”
He spread open hands and then laid them flat on the counter, the best answer she was getting. Well, if he was going to stand there saying nothing, he could at least help. She stacked a few tomatoes on the board and pushed it toward him. “And elves…”
“Exist. Yes. Amongst lots of other kinds of peoples and creatures that I refuse to divulge since this is already probably the biggest mistake of my life and telling you people about us always leads to some kind of huge mess.”
Piper twisted up her lips. If it was such a mistake, he could just go, but instead, he sat on the stool across from her. She placed a knife beside the cutting board and gave him a pointed look.
He groaned and picked it up.
“I know you said you’re not one of Santa’s little helpers. You’re more like Legol—”
“Don’t.” He pointed the knife right at her, and regret strangled the rest of the name in her throat. He might not like it, but his high cheekbones and smooth jaw invited the Tolkien comparison all on its own, but then he put the weapon down and pushed up his sleeves, and Piper’s stomach knotted. Well, he did mention he washalf,didn’t he? Clearly there was a little Aragorn in him too…
“It’s just hard to believe.” He had a knot of black hair tied up at the back of his head, and she wanted to snatch his hat off and see those ears again, just to be sure.
Kol clicked his tongue and held out one of the tomatoes as if in offering. A ruddy light enveloped his palm, and the fruit’s skin split, tiny, green shoots erupting all over.
“Oh, mygod.” Piper grabbed the tomato and backed away. He just shrugged and set to slicing as she inspected the fruit, turning it over many times. It wasn’t some trick, it couldn’t be, the tomato warm in her hands and the little sprouts squishy to the touch.
Her heart thrashed to escape her chest, and her stomach twisted in the other direction. Despite the secret belief she’d been harboring, proof of the supernatural standing right in her kitchen was far too much. How in the world was she supposed to go on as if everything were normal and—
“Not like that,” she snapped when she saw he was cutting slices. “Do wedges.”
Kol halted. “Why?”
“Because.” She set up her own chopping station with two heads of romaine, ignoring the feel of his eyes boring into her until he cleared his throat and demanded an answer. “Because my boyfriend wants to keep me happy, and wedges make me happy, okay?”
“Give me strength, fae ancestors,” he groused and went back to work, but indeed changed up his technique, and soon he was filling a bowl with tomato wedges that would have made her mother very happy.
Piper watched him wield the knife, quick and skillful. Maybe he had experience in a kitchen or maybe he just had experience with sharp objects. More questions batted around up against the impossibility of it all in her brain:Where are you from? How have your people stayed hidden? Do you live up in the trees?
Oh, shit. She cringed at herself—had she chopped down the equivalent of his home? Clearly, he didn’t live inthatspruce specifically, but in another one where trees were big enough to hold taller-than-average men with pointy ears and shiny, black hair and surprisingly muscular forearms?
Piper bit her lip, wondering about the rest of him, still covered. She had a mental flash of him running through the forest, though the season was starkly different in her mind. His skin had been one of the things she found especially strange in the forest, with a smoothness to it like a stone she might find at the bottom of the Abenaki River or like the one she kept in her purse. Was he…was he like that all over?
She watched his long fingers make quick work of the tomatoes and then cucumbers, though no new sprouts emerged. The two worked in silence until her timer went off.
Turning her back on him made her spine prickle, but once she set herself to unloading the oven and collecting utensils, the checklist that ran through her mind superseded everything else. She scurried from drawer to cabinet, gathering serving spatulas, forks, napkins, and then plates, but there wasn’t enough for everyone. Extras were kept on the top shelf of the pantry cabinet, and Piper pushed up onto her toes, the full length of her reach not quite enough.
“Watch out, Pipsqueak.”
Piper pressed her stomach right to the counter at the sound of Kol’s voice just behind her, suddenly crowded by his body stretching up over her own and plucking the plates off the tallest shelf with hardly any effort. He reached around her and placed them on the counter, and she felt completely trapped.
“Hey, I brought back—uh, who’s this?”
Piper swung herself around, knocking Kol away and finding Presley standing in the doorway.
She stuttered, looking from one doubled-over elf to one rather confused brother, then blurted out, “That’s my Kol.”
