by Lucy Score
“The network made me an offer,” Cat confessed. “A really good one.”
Angela lifted the green beans out of the water and drained the pot. “What kind of offer?”
“They’d invest in my school. Set it up in L.A. Base a show around it. I could still do my show, too. But I’d be based out of L.A. and traveling the rest of the time.”
“Los Angeles?” There was clearly an opinion behind the near shriek. Her mom wasn’t one to withhold her opinions. So Cat waited her out. “What would you be giving up by taking the deal?” Angela finally asked.
“The network would want to make certain calls on staffing. They want to pick the students, too because of the show, but Marta drew the line in the sand there. I hadn’t considered the west coast. It’s not ideal. But the money they’re willing to throw at this? It would mean better equipment, maybe more qualified staff. Both could impact the learning experience for students.”
“And Noah?” Her mother prodded.
“I’d be living in L.A. It wouldn’t be fair to ask him to come with me or wait for me.”
“So, either this opportunity or this relationship?” Angela sighed. “You think you can’t have both, but you’re wrong. You’re smarter than that Cat.”
“I don’t even know if things would work out between us. I mean, we’re so different. He’s got a kid, a great one. But he can’t just pick up and fly to Texas or Washington or Idaho with me.”
“Do you love him?” Angela asked again.
“Geez, Mom. Don’t you think that’s something I should talk to him about first?” Did she? Was that the feeling that kept fluttering through her chest? She wanted to protect him from his past, wanted to make him laugh every day, wanted to go to him for advice and to tell him good news. She wanted to lean on him when she was tired and wanted to cook more barefoot dinners with him and Sara. Was that love?
“Do you want to know what I think or not?”
“By all means. Tell me,” Cat said, frustrated.
“I think life just threw you a curve, and it’s up to you to decide whether or not to go for it. Figure out your top two priorities, and then figure out how to make at least one of them work. Go with your gut. No one’s going to be able to tell you what the right choice is.”
“It would be a hell of a lot easier if someone would,” Cat grumbled.
“You wouldn’t believe them anyway.”
“Yeah, well, I get that from you.”
“You’re only looking at the obstacles. You gotta start looking at solutions. If you want it to work. Though why you wouldn’t want to lock down that sexy hunk of man is beyond me.” She sighed. “You know, I’ve always had a thing for glasses. I was so excited when your father got his first pair of cheaters. You’re lucky you didn’t end up with a baby brother or sister that night.”
“Oh my God, Mother.”
Angela grinned and laid a hand on Cat’s arm. “Fine. One last thing, and then I’ll shut up. It drives me batty to hear your generation going on and on and on about balance. There’s no life-work balance. Okay? Get it? It’s all life. You get the same twenty-four hours as the next girl. Fill yours with what you love.”
Cat blinked, processing.
“There’s my girls,” Pete King boomed as he shuffled into the kitchen.
“Hi, Dad,” Cat said, offering him a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze around the middle.
“Your daughter’s considering a move to California,” Angela said with the accusing tone of an Italian mother.
“California, eh?” her father said, scratching his belly. “What’s for dinner tonight, my angel?”
Angela slapped at his hand. “Your daughter wants to move across the country, and you want to know what’s for dinner? This family!”
“Who’s moving across the country?” Gannon, Gabby bundled in his arms, marched into the already crowded kitchen with Paige on his heels.
“Your sister!”
Gannon leveled a look at Cat. “And you didn’t think we’d want to know?” he demanded.
Paige peered over his shoulder. “Why don’t we open some wine and get our daughter a snack before we jump all over your sister,” she suggested.
“How did it go with Santa Claus?” Pete asked, swooping in to steal Gabby from her father’s arms.
“Perfect,” Paige grinned. “She screamed like a banshee until Gannon jumped over the fence to save her.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
One day to Christmas Eve
The eve of Christmas Eve found Noah playing host to half of the men of Merry. Cat had arranged a spa afternoon for the women including Sara, Paige, Angela, Kathy, and April. She’d also thoughtfully included Mellody in the mix, and off they all went, chauffeured by Pete King to do God knew what with their hair and nails.
“We have to look good, Dad. The finale’s live,” Sara had explained the night before as she and Cat browsed nail art on Pinterest.
Noah was well aware of the finale and just exactly what it meant. The excitement of finally opening the Christmas Festival was dampened to ashes by the thought that his time with Cat was coming to an end. Sara seemed to have accepted it. Now if only he could force himself to do the same…
The idea of moping around alone was enough to have him throw out a half-assed invitation to the men who would be abandoned for spa day.
Gannon brought Gabby and cannoli. Drake and Henry brought beer, a lot of it. Jasper brought sausages. Ricky—because if Cat was kind enough to include his ex-wife, Noah didn’t have much of a choice in extending an invitation to his ex-wife’s fiancé—arrived with two-dozen deviled eggs, a bottle of vodka, and Mellody’s famous brownies.
Noah called in an obscenely large order of wings and cued up college football on the living room and kitchen TVs while everyone talked around him.
“Man, you look morose,” Henry observed, popping the top on a fancy pale ale. He propped a hip against the countertop and pointed at Noah with the bottle. “Bit of a let-down, isn’t it?”
“What is?” Drake asked, sidling into the conversation and shoving a deviled egg into his mouth.
“Noah here preparing to miss us.”
“And by us, you mean Cat,” Drake corrected his friend.
“Can we not revisit that train wreck of a conversation?” Gannon growled, pulling Gabby’s chubby little hands away from the vodka and lemonades he was mixing. Noah’s mixer supply was limited to whatever Sara brought home from the grocery store. So, it was either blue sports drink or lemonade… or straight vodka.
“I’m not talking about anything,” Noah said, holding up his hands.
“Here.” Gannon thrust a drink in it. “Drink this and keep not talking.”
He drank like a man walking through the Sahara.
“She’s something though,” Jasper said, blissfully unconcerned by Gannon’s discomfort. “I mean, it would be hard not to fall for Cat. Even my wife has a crush on her.”
“We’re not talking about my sister and anyone having any kind of feelings for her,” Gannon cut in.
“So, what are you going to do?” Henry asked Noah.
“Do?”
“You know, the grand gesture. How are you going to tell her how you feel and that you want her to stay or you want to go with her?”
“Guys, neither of those things are options. My life is here in Merry. Sara’s here. Mellody… and Ricky are here. My job. Everything.”
“We’d work something out with you, man,” Ricky promised amiably.
“Then ask her to stay,” Drake shrugged.
“Her entire life is… well, everywhere but here. She travels all the time. She works long hours when she’s filming. And she’s only going to get busier.”
“Yeah, even if she does make the move to L.A., I don’t see her slowing down any time soon,” Gannon said.
Noah blinked. “L.A.?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why can’t you two just get your heads out
of your asses and talk to each other?” Gannon groaned, exasperated.
“Ffff. Ffff.” Gabby was gleefully trying to eke out her first four-letter word.
“Nobody react,” Gannon ordered. “Just insert ‘funky’ into the conversation every other sentence, and we’ll be fine. Be cool about it.” He was sweating though.
“When in the funk did Cat decide she was moving to L.A.?” Noah demanded. Drake and Henry looked just as surprised. Ricky and Jasper were too busy in an apparent head-to-head egg eating contest to react.
“I don’t know man. I don’t think she’s decided yet. The offer’s on the table. The network wants her to build her school there and turn it into a show.” Gannon was backing toward the door to the living room.
“Well, now you have to make a grand gesture,” Drake insisted. “You can’t just let her jet off to the other side of the country when you’re in love with her.”
“I didn’t say I was—”
Gannon, Jasper, and Ricky burst out laughing. “Ah, funk. It’s so cute when they try to fight it,” Jasper said, slapping the countertop.
“It’s written all over my stupid funky face, isn’t it?” Noah sighed.
“Oh, totally.”
“Funk yeah.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Fffffff.”
Then why hadn’t Cat noticed? Or had she, and she was too busy crafting an exit strategy to react?
Noah took a gulp of his second drink. It wasn’t awful. Not like the clawing panic in the back of his throat. He was in love, and the woman who’d turned his life upside down was going to walk out of it tomorrow night and never come back. Unless…
He pulled a chair out from the breakfast table, sat. “She saved my life. Did she tell you?”
“Are we talking metaphorically here?” Ricky asked, pulling another beer out of the fridge.
Noah shook his head. “She was here in the flood. Pulled my ass out of the water when I went under.”
“She funking did what?” Gannon choked on a sausage.
Henry took Gabby from him, and Drake slapped him on the back until he stopped coughing. He washed down the rest of the sausage with an entire vodka lemonade.
“She came here to prove to the network that this would be a better holiday special than some decorating contest. And while she was here, climbed aboard some guy’s fishing boat and started pulling people out of their houses.”
Gannon shook his head. “She said she gave a ride to a few people, not saved actual lives. Between my wife, my sister, and my daughter, I’m going to die young.” He took a long pull of beer.
“One of a kind, man,” Henry said, jiggling Gabby on his hip.
“I hope you don’t mind if I weigh in here,” Ricky said, brushing brownie crumbs off the front of his sweater vest. “But if a woman waltzes into your life, saves it, and then changes it, you’re totally funked.”
“I am totally funked,” Noah nodded. “What the funk do I have to offer her that would be better than L.A.?”
“If any of you assholes say ‘cock’ I’m going to murder you all,” Gannon cut in. “I don’t want to hear it about my sister.”
“No one say ‘cock,’” Henry cautioned. “I don’t feel like getting murdered before Noah’s grand gesture.”
“Stop saying ‘grand gesture,’” Noah said, picking up another vodka lemonade. They were tasting better and better. And every one of them helped dull the panic and nausea just a little more.
The doorbell rang.
“Wings!”
They trooped to the door as a pack scaring the hell out of the delivery kid.
“Uh, here you go, Mr. Yates,” he said holding up two bags of to-go containers.
Noah’s guests pounced and stripped the guy of his food like a vulture with a roadkill.
“Thanks, Edmund.”
“You having a going away party?” he asked.
“Let me ask you something, Edmund. Can I call you Edmund?”
“That’s what my mom calls me.” The boy’s voice cracked. Puberty was never kind to teenage boys.
“Edmund, if you were in love with a beautiful woman who was leaving town in less than forty-eight hours, what would you do?”
“Uh, well. I guess write her a song?”
“A song?”
Edmund’s head bobbed. “I play a mean accordion. Do you need me to serenade anyone? My rates are reasonable.”
“Thanks, Edmund. I’ll, uh, let you know.”
Noah handed over the bills and closed the door. He pushed his glasses up his nose and listened to the wing unloading chaos coming from the kitchen.
He wasn’t a risk-taker, Noah thought. But he’d had plenty of missed opportunities in life that he’d lived to regret. Was he prepared to add Cat to that list?
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Cat relaxed as a woman with the shoulders of a linebacker and soothing magic fingers rubbed creamy crap over her face. She felt like she’d run a marathon. Between finalizing tomorrow’s filming locations with Paige, installing and covering her super cool present to Merry, and taking care of her secret project, she was beat.
A swarthy masseuse named Teddy had worked out the kinks in her back and shoulders. Her nails were a pretty, festive plum, and after the facial and blowout, she’d be camera ready for tomorrow.
“This. Is. The. Best.” Sara sighed across the room. She was sporting new caramel highlights that were probably going to make Noah lose his shit because of how grown up they made her look. She and April had gone for matching red glitter nail polish. Perfect for the Christmas reveal.
“Mmm,” Cat’s mother purred as Teddy worked on a delicate spot on the arch of her foot.
Paige, Kathy, and Mellody were animatedly discussing Mellody and Ricky’s upcoming wedding.
“You’re all set here,” Magic Fingers announced in a thick Austrian accent. “Don’t move.”
The woman shoved a warm towel around Cat’s neck and lumbered out the door. Cat could appreciate efficiency over friendliness. Especially when the results spoke for themselves. She’d been pampered to within an inch of her life and was content to just sit.
Her phone buzzed in her lap. Cracking one eye open she held the phone aloft.
Noah: We’ve had some drinks.
The attached picture made her grin wide enough to crack the facial and get antioxidants in her mouth. One of Gabby’s socked feet poked out from under the coffee table as did most of Drake’s lower body. Gannon was sound asleep, mouth open on the couch, while a grinning Henry carefully dotted his face with stickers. Ricky was either dancing in front of the TV or having some sort of seizure.
Cat quickly snapped a selfie and sent it back.
Cat: I’m busy getting beautiful.
Noah: Waste of time. You’re already beautiful. The most beautiful. Is that mayonnaise?
Cat: It’s not mayonnaise. It’s something very expensive and French sounding.
Noah: Have I mentioned I had some drinks?
Cat: You may have said something about that.
Noah: I’m probably going to ask you to stay tomorrow even though I know the answer’s no. But I hate surprises, so I thought I’d warn you anyway. Also, there were drinks.
Cat didn’t know how to respond. He’d gotten attached, just as she’d feared. And damn if he wasn’t the only one. She loved Noah’s grumpy predictability. His sexy nerd glasses. His unfaltering devotion to his daughter. His drive to do the best for everyone.
And just what the hell was she supposed to do about it?
--------
By the time the spa circus rolled up to Noah’s front door, they’d all been primped and polished to a new shine. They piled out of the SUV and trooped up the steps to the front door. A now mostly sober Noah opened the door with an enthusiastic flourish. “Ladies!”
Cat patted him on the cheek as she walked past him into the foyer. The living room was full of men. Sound asleep men. Gabby wa
s sitting on Gannon’s lap happily watching creepy puppets sing on TV while her dad snored.
“Oh, my,” Paige sighed. “Looks like you guys had a big day.” She picked Gabby up and pressed a kiss to Gannon’s forehead.
Gannon pulled her down to sprawl on top of him.
“Hey now, sister present,” Cat said, pretending to gag.
“This is nothing compared to what I had to listen to today,” Gannon yawned. “Come on wife. Let’s go home and do bad things to each other.”
“Fffffck.” Gabby chirped, clapping her hands together.
“What was that that just came out of my sweet child’s mouth?” Paige asked sharply.
“She said funk,” Drake said, his head popping up from the pillow.
“Clearly,” Henry agreed from his position on the floor.
“Definitely did not say ‘fuck.’” Ricky announced.
Jasper kicked Ricky in the shin.
“Ouch!”
Cat smothered a laugh and watched Noah try not to flip out over Sara’s hair.
The party over, they left in families and twosomes carting leftovers and kids until it was just the two of them.
Noah slipped his arm around Cat’s shoulder as they waved Sara, Mellody, and Ricky off. And by the time the headlights came on in Mellody’s car, Noah was dragging Cat back inside.
He kissed her, and she tasted sweetness.
“Don’t you think we should talk?” she asked.
“Talk later.” He bent low tossing her over his shoulder and headed for the stairs. Cat shrieked as he jogged up them, his shoulder shoving its way into her solar plexus with every bounce. He tossed her with less ceremony and more enthusiasm onto the mattress.
Laughing, she bounced once against the wall of pillows. “Just how many drinks have you had?”
“Why?” Noah asked, kicking off his slippers and yanking his t-shirt over his head.
“Because there are rules about taking advantage of partners when they’re inebriated,” Cat reminded him.
