Cat held her breath, waiting for him to finish. She wondered if he could feel her pulse fluttering at hummingbird speeds beneath his fingertips.

“Were you going to tell me?” he asked.

“I was saving it,” she admitted.

“Like the reindeer?”

“I was saving it to rub in your face in the right moment. Something along the lines of ‘Yeah, you know what I regret? Dragging your bedraggled ass out of the flood waters on Mistletoe Avenue.’ Boom. Mic drop. Then I’d get in a limo—because that’s cooler than a production van—and drive away, and you’d spend the rest of your life regretting being such a dick.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“That fantasy kept me warm during several cold nights.”

“Any other fantasies keep you warm at night? No. Wait. You’re pushing me off balance as usual. There’s something I need to say to you.”

“You don’t have to be dramatic about it.” Cat was suddenly antsy. She didn’t want to know what Noah wanted to say. She wanted to go back to the flirting, the lightness.

“You saved my life, Cat.”

She started to argue, but Noah clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shut up, Cat. You saved my life, and then you let me act like an ass.”

She grinned against his hand.

“You never once educated me on the fact that you showed up here and dragged my friends and neighbors—and me—out of raging floodwaters.”

Cat pried his hand off of his mouth. “I wasn’t the only one out there on a boat. So, don’t make me doing it some kind of heroic feat. I was a regular person doing what regular people—including yourself—do.”

“I kissed you when I thought I didn’t like you.” Noah said.

“Yeah? So?”

“So, what am I going to do now that I know I owe my life to you?”

“Noah, I’m the TV star here. I’m the one who’s supposed to be melodramatic. You would have popped up ten feet away from the boat, and we still would have hauled you aboard.”

He shook his head. “Let me thank you, Cat.”

Cat stepped up onto the first step leading up to her trailer so they were eye to eye. She gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him in a half step closer.

“No. I’m not going to let you thank me. But I am going to let you kiss me. And then I’m going to send you home because my sadistic trainer is calling me in three hours for a workout to ensure I don’t start busting out the seams of my jeans.”

“You’re one hell of a woman, Catalina King.”

“Don’t I know it,” she quipped.