I was watching Callan's face, but it gave nothing away except a hot anger bubbling beneath the surface. I wasn't sure what to do. "I can help if you want," I offered.
"You've done enough."
"Ah, okay, well …" I dug out my car keys and then knelt to say goodbye to the girls. "Good luck decorating," I said. "I can't wait to see it when it's done."
"Come back tomorrow," Maddie suggested.
I looked back at Callan, let my eyes climb back up to Callan's face, and he shook his head slightly, telling me that I wouldn't be welcome back tomorrow. Or next month. Or ever. I let a sigh escape me as I stood. "Okay, well, look. The contract is legally binding. You don't have to be here—it's only about the house. You don't even have to decorate—I can hire people to handle that."
"Clearly, I'm decorating," he said bitterly.
"So maybe think about just letting the guys film the house?"
He said nothing, just stood there with his eyes clouded and his perfect chiseled jaw set.
"I'll come by tomorrow?"
He shook his head. "Give me your phone."
I complied, though it seemed a strange request.
Callan took it, jabbing at the screen for a minute or two. "Now you don't need to keep showing up. You can call. Like a civilized person."
I would have laughed at that, but there was no humor in Callan's face, so I just tucked my phone back into my bag and tried for a smile. "Okay, I'll do that."
The big gates had swung shut again, and another car was coming up the narrow lane now, sending a small plume of dust up behind it.
"Daddy!" Maddie said, jumping up and down. "Daddy can help."
The car rolled to a halt and Cormac Whitewood stepped out of it. "Why are you all standing out here?" he asked, looking between us. "Hello again, Miss Hall."
"You two have met?" Callan asked, suspicion coloring his words.
"Only briefly," Cormac said, seeming to sense the tension in the air. "In town."
"Hello Cormac," I said, feeling very out of place.
"Would opening the gate help move this situation along at all?" Cormac asked, nodding toward the keypad.
"I was just going," I said. "Just need to get my car." I nodded toward where my little car sat in front of the plantation house.
"Get back in the car, girls," Callan said in a not-too-friendly voice.
"Frosty!" Taylor said, seeing that we were all getting back in, but the snowman remained on the driveway.
"I can handle Frosty," Cormac said, placing the snowman in the passenger side of his own car.
We drove past the gates and stopped again in front of the house. I got out of Callan's car, which had turned very silent and very cold.
"Goodbye," Callan said pointedly, angling his head at my car.
"Bye," I said, lifting a hand to Cormac and the girls. And then I was driving away, wondering if I’d made progress on getting Callan's house nailed down or on something else. Or if maybe I was right back where I started.
Nowhere.
8
Frosty is a Smug Bastard
Callan
It took five trips to carry all the assorted ornaments, decorations, and lights from my car into the house. And once it was all inside, deposited in a non-decorous heap in the center of the parlor beneath the enormous tree, I saw the mess for what it was—an effort to cover ugly and empty with glitter and gauche.
"Shit," I whispered, staring down at it all, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck where the hair was beginning to curl around my collar. I needed a haircut. Hell, I needed a lot more than that.
"I see my girls were very convincing," Cormac said, coming to stand at my side as the little girls began to paw through the bags, pulling out their favorite things. Frosty stood silent just inside the front door, watching the scene with expressionless coal eyes and a one-sided smile. I thought he looked awfully smug for a guy standing naked inside another man's house.
"They were," I agreed. "But they had help." I spit these last words out, earning me a squinty gaze from my brother.
"You didn't have to go along with it," Cormac said, kneeling to help Maddie extricate four stockings from a bag. He handed them to the little girl and turned back to me. "What's your real issue? Something to do with April," he guessed.
I felt tired suddenly, and the ache that shot up my leg with every movement had become a singing pain that wouldn't stop, a constant reminder of what I had once been, and who I would never be again. "She wheedled her way in here. She's got this television crew in town, and I'm supposed to just roll over and do what she wants, let them all in here to film."
I gritted my teeth against both the pain and the memory of the last time the media had dug into my life—a meaty photo-filled spread in one of the popular tabloids had done an exclusive interview with my ex soon after the breakup. She’d given them some of her own photos—photos that showed me angry and broken down, grieving for the loss of my career. The words had been no better, Becky calling me pathetic and sad, painting me as a has-been who couldn't see past my own former fame. That particular piece had resulted in the speedy conclusion of the last two endorsement deals I’d had—ones I’d thought I might hang on to despite the injury. They didn’t want to work with a guy teetering on the brink of depression and alcoholism, and their contract revisions had signaled the true and final end of the life I’d once lived. Becky had left just before the piece had published.
Cormac looked skeptical. "She's just doing her job, right?"
"Her job is to convince people who don't want anyone around to put themselves in a spotlight." I picked up a string of silver bells and stared at it like a slab of raw meat, with disgust. "Pretty shitty, if you ask me."
"Watch it," Cormac said, angling his head at the girls who were practically rolling around in all the shiny new decorations.
"Why are you defending her?" I asked, my voice rising as the fatigue and frustration inside me began to simmer and pop. "She's just one more person who's in it for herself, ready to use anyone she can to claw her way up."
"I don't think—"
But I wasn’t done. Not even close. "She manipulated me and I let her. And she used your daughters to do it!" I was shouting now, and both girls had stopped what they were doing to watch me rant. "I don't understand why people can't just leave me the fuck alone. All I want is to sit here in my new house and have some fucking peace."
"Girls," Cormac ordered, pointing to the door that would lead to the back of the house. "To the porch. Taylor, watch your sister."
The girls' eyes had rounded and their mouths had dropped slightly open. Taylor took Maddie's hand and led her from the room as the sound of Maddie's shock turning to upset tears floated back to remind me that cursing in front of little girls was unacceptable behavior. The hard ball of anger inside me loosened a bit, unrolling into a knot of shame. Those little girls were probably the only people in my life willing to take me exactly as I was now. They were the last people I wanted to hurt or scare.
"You need to watch yourself," Cormac said in a low steady voice, stepping closer to me. "If you're in the midst of some kind of nervous breakdown, I need to know it. I'm not going to have my girls—your nieces—around you if you're raging around, drinking and cursing in front of them. They've been through enough." He punctuated this last statement with a hard poke to my chest and then stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest and moving to the front window. His voice broke as he added, "We all have."
"Cormac," I said, as I realized the level of ugliness I’d just modeled for my little nieces. "Listen, I'm sorry, I just—" I took a step toward my brother, but stopped, my feet suddenly as leaden as my heart.
"You just can't seem to see that self-pity isn't a solid plan for the rest of your life," Cormac finished for me.
Anger pricked my neck and I lifted my head to respond, but I didn't have the energy to form the words. Besides, Cormac wasn't wrong.
"Look," Cormac came back to where he stood, his voice
softer. "I know you had to give up a lot. I know it was hard, heartbreaking, to end your career like that. But your life isn't over. And I can't have the girls around you if you're going to continue acting like it is. They love you, and they're excited to spend time with you. But I have to think about what's best for them. I want them to see understand that, yeah, horrible things happen. But then we take a step, and another, and we keep moving forward. There is no other choice."
Shame washed away the anger I had been feeling as I considered Cormac's words. Those girls had their mother ripped from their lives. And they were still able to smile and laugh and dance. If they could move forward like that, couldn't I? "You're right," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I won't blow up in front of them again."
"Good." Cormac let the argument fall away—he'd always been good at forgiveness. He bent down to pick up the enormous bag with exterior lights in it. "You planning to put these up yourself?"
I shook my head. "Definitely not. I was thinking of hiring someone."
"Oh yeah? What'll you pay me?"
"You don't need to do that," I said. "I'll find someone."
"I'm here. You got a ladder that'll reach that high?" He peered out the window again at the soaring eaves of the huge house in the fading light.
"There's another one out in the shed," I said, looking at the low ladder April had used earlier. “They came with the house."
A little later, as Cormac strung lights across the soaring front of the enormous house, which turned out to have convenient hooks all along the roofline from some other holiday-inspired owner, I stood below, holding the ladder and handing things up as needed. We’d turned on the bright garden lights that shone up at the front of the house and all the lights in the front rooms, and between the lingering daylight and the glow from the lights, Cormac had insisted it was light enough to see what he was doing. Taylor and Maddie circled beneath their father, watching the progress and commenting on it at intervals. They also gave me some advice.
"You should have let April help," Taylor said. "You didn't have to make her leave." Her lip poked out dramatically as she stared up at me.
"Ape-will," Maddie agreed, mimicking the pout.
"Plus," his older niece said, tilting her head and putting a finger to her lip in a thoughtful pose. "Maybe you should take her out on a date or something."
"What?" I said, not that I hadn't considered a few non-work related things I could do with April myself. I thought I had been pretty restrained when April had been with us, but clearly my nieces had picked up on something. Or maybe it was just that in their minds, any unmarried man and woman might be a good fit for one another.
"She's pretty and you don't have a girlfriend."
"Ape-will is pretty," Maddie agreed, taking my hand and melting my heart at the same time.
"She is," I said slowly, not wanting to promise anything to two little girls who seemed very invested in this stranger.
Cormac was climbing down the ladder to get the next box of lights. "They do have a point," he said. "You might get to know her a bit. She seems like a nice girl."
"Whatever she is, it's about the last thing I need," I said. "Besides, she's only here for a little while."
Cormac lifted a shoulder, but held my gaze. "What have you got to lose?"
"I'd have to agree to do that stupid show." I’d expected the words to be bitter coming out, but as I said them, I didn't find the vehement opposition I’d felt earlier. Maybe giving April what she wanted—helping her out—would be good for me too. And the girls weren't wrong. April was pretty.
Actually, April was more than pretty. She was smoking hot. I didn't want to admit, even to myself, how many fantasies I’d already had about wrapping that thick dark hair around my hand and pressing her against a wall so I could do dirty, dirty things to her.
"You have a weird look on your face," Taylor told me, bringing my mind away from April's body and back to the present. "Were you thinking about elves? Maddie gets a weird look when she thinks about elves. Or kangaroos."
Maddie nodded that this was true.
"I was thinking about kangaroos," I said. "You caught me."
"Me too," Maddie said, and let out a giggle. And she did have kind of a weird look on her face, I decided.
"When your dad is finished with my lights, I think I should make him finish decorating the tree while we have some hot chocolate. We can stir it with those candy canes we bought. You in?"
The girls clapped and hopped up and down while Cormac grunted from his perch atop the ladder.
"You're doing a good job up there, bro," I called up, winking back down at my grinning nieces.
"Shut it," Cormac called back.
I watched the girls dance and cheer excitedly, running back and forth in front of my big house while my brother finished stringing lights. Maybe life wasn't as empty as I’d imagined it to be, after all.
Maybe I could learn something from these little girls. Maybe I could be resilient too.
9
Tipsy in Santa’s Shack
April
I returned to the inn, shaking my head at the overabundance of red, green, glitter, and candy-cane striping that festooned every available surface. I wondered briefly if this was some version of that old show, Candid Camera, and if someone was giving me some kind of immersion therapy by subjecting me unrelentingly to the very thing I dreaded most in the world.
"Cup of cheer?" Annabelle asked, appearing in front of me with one of her elf ears askew and her rosy cheeks rounded in a welcoming smile.
"Sorry, what?"
"You look like you could use some peppermint tea." Annabelle's eyes scanned my face, and her smile dropped, turning into a pensive line. "Or maybe something stronger?"
I let out a bitter laugh. "Is there a bar in this place?" I looked around. I’d run through the lobby so quickly every time I’d been in here I hadn't noticed. Plus, it was hard to see around all the little houses of the Christmas village that had been erected around the space.
"Kind of," Annabelle said, winking at me. "I'm off in ten minutes. Meet me back there." She angled her head to the back of the lobby.
I looked around, but wasn't sure where exactly I was being told to go. "Where?"
"Santa's house. Far corner."
Aha. The huge gingerbread-style house in the far corner of the expansive lobby, which was fronted with drifts of snow and cording to keep the excited kids in an organized line once Santa showed up. "Santa won't mind?"
"Nah, you'll see."
I went up to my room to deposit my bag and my disappointment, trying hard not to think of the hard anger I’d seen in Callan Whitewood's eyes when he'd basically banished me from his property. Not only was I not going to finish the job I was sent to do, but I’d somehow alienated the one person I’d felt a connection with recently. I didn't have a ton of friends back home besides Lynn, and having someone to laugh with this afternoon had been surprisingly nice. It had awoken something inside me I hadn't realized was sleeping. And now that my desire for companionship had been roused, my loneliness was that much more tangible.
That was the only reason I headed back down to the lobby, picking my way between snowmen and elves to Santa's cottage. There was a Dutch door leading into the little house, and I opened it carefully and sat at the small round table inside. I didn't take the armchair, choosing instead to sit on a low stool. The chair was obviously intended for Santa. And while I’d never actually met the guy, and didn't really appreciate much about his holiday or traditions, I also didn't want to incur any bad holiday juju by sitting in his chair. I had enough bad holiday karma as it was.
"Hello," Annabelle called, tiptoeing into the little cottage holding two glasses and a bucket of ice. She put the ice bucket on the table and deposited a glass in front of me. Then she extracted a silver flask from somewhere inside her voluminous skirt, and set it on the table. Finally, she added two small bottles of tonic water, which had also been stored somewhere insi
de her elf costume.
"There's a lot of storage in your skirt," I commented.
"Elves are very resourceful," Annabelle said, sitting in Santa's chair without apparent remorse.
Annabelle was probably at least fifteen years older than me, and her clear enthusiasm for all things holiday-related didn't make her an obvious choice for a friend, but her open smile and willingness to spend her free time with a guest made me willing to get to know her a bit. Even if the pointy ears might make serious conversation a bit difficult.
"I brought the tonic because the HalfCat Moonshine is a bit stiff."
I cleared my throat in surprise. "Moonshine?"
"Center County's best. And still illegal if you stand in just the right spot inside the distillery."
"What are you talking about?" I felt my brow wrinkle in confusion as Annabelle poured moonshine and tonic water over ice in each glass. I had never had moonshine—or even really considered that people might still drink it. I swallowed hard, thinking it was pretty appropriate to be on the brink of getting tipsy in Santa’s house. It seemed just the right level of disrespectful to match my distaste for the holiday.
"The HalfCat Distillery straddles county lines. And Center County has some really outdated liquor laws, but I guess because it's such a tiny little county, nestled between St. Mary’s and Charles, they didn't ever get around to updating them. So while it's legal to make liquor in the part of the distillery that sits in Center County, you can't drink it there. Only on the Charles County side. You should go visit the Straddler Bar. It's a hoot."
I picked up my glass, dubiously eyeing the clear liquid inside. "Sounds like it. I've never had moonshine," I confessed.
"Goes down like butter." Annabelle touched her glass to mine and took a long swallow. "Perfect way to end the day." Annabelle smiled as she leaned back into Santa's chair, her elf hat pushing forward over the grey curls as she did so. Her cheeks flushed a bit and she looked utterly content.
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