Once Upon a Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

Dylan leaned closer to listen. He heard only the Muzak “Jingle Bell Rock” chorus and the din of the casino surrounding them. She wasn’t even whispering, just moving her lips as though carrying on a conversation with the gold ball at the top of the slot machine handle.

  He peered curiously at her face. “What are you—”

  She yanked the handle down and the whir of the machine cut off his question. They both stepped backward, watching the mechanism spin. Two cherries snapped in place on the winning line. Two more cherries. He heard Stacey suck in her breath.

  A lemon.

  “Maybe next time you ought to kiss it first, instead of chanting at it,” Dylan said. “Or else talk loud enough for the machine to hear.”

  She looked sideways at him. “I was wishing for good luck.”

  “Then next time it’s bound to work.”

  Grinning with enthusiasm, she grabbed the handle again. She raised on tiptoes, closed her eyes…then cracked one open to look at him. “Do you want to do it this time?”

  “Nah.” It was too much fun watching her, anyway. “Go ahead. We’ve still got fifteen dollars left.”

  “Okay.”

  She closed her eyes, got herself settled, and started moving her lips. Dylan leaned closer, wishing he’d learned to read lips.

  She pulled the lever. It spun madly. Three utterly mismatched fruits clicked in place along the line.

  “Rats.” Stacey flopped flat-footed again and looked up at him. “I thought we had it that time. Why don’t you try?”

  Dylan stepped forward. He positioned himself like one of those guys with a mallet at the test-your-strength machine at the county fair and yanked the handle.

  “Yup, that ought to do it.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, then stepped back so there’d be plenty of room for their winnings to spill out.

  This time, the items that came up weren’t fruit. They weren’t even all on the fruit level of the food pyramid. He and Stacey frowned at the display, then at the five dollar credit remaining.

  “Let’s do it together,” they said in unison.

  She grinned at him as they reached for the handle, and Dylan felt a great surge of solidarity. So what if they were a couple of gambling fiends who couldn’t make it to dinner on time? At least they were together.

  They pulled. Stepped back. The slot machine spun.

  A silver dollar plunked in the coin tray.

  “Whoopee!” Stacey threw herself against his chest, jumping up and down with glee. “We won, we won, we won!”

  Dylan held her about as well as he could while dancing a jig. This winning was heady stuff. So was the feel of Stacey tight against him, trembling with excitement. He wanted more.

  The purple jogging suit lady leaned over to congratulate them. “You kids won because you worked together.” She winked. “That’s the secret.”

  “Do you think so?” Stacey asked her.

  Grinning, she clutched Dylan’s arm with both hands and leaned into it, apparently unaware of her position. One flex of his biceps, and he’d know if her silky dress fabric was really as thin as it looked. He’d also know whether or not she had anything on underneath it—not to mention what temperature the room was.

  Grow up, he told himself. Enough with regressing back to ninth grade. Tamping down the urge to flex, Dylan nodded in what he hoped was a thoughtful and mature manner and tried to get in on the conversation again.

  “Everybody says there aren’t any real tricks to winning at gambling,” Stacey was saying.

  “Not just gambling, honey,” the purple jogging suit lady said. “Life, too.” She propped her plastic casino cup of coins against her ample hip and looked them up and down. “But you two look like a good pair.”

  Great opening. “We’re newlyweds,” Dylan volunteered. “Just got married this morning, in fact.”

  “Oh! Congratulations!” Mrs. Purple Suit’s expression turned dreamy, like women’s always did when confronted with babies or puppies or anything else that was really, really tiny.

  If women liked small things so much, then why were guys so worried about the size of their—

  “That’s wonderful!” she gushed. “Just wonderful!”

  “Thanks.” He tried to ignore the dagger-laced look Stacey threw him. What was the matter with her, anyway? This was the perfect opportunity to cement their honeymoon façade. “We’re on our honeymoon, in fact,” he went on, hugging Stacey tighter.

  Her elbow jabbed his rib.

  “Huh—” came his breath. “Huh, huh, huh,” Dylan said, trying to turn it into a laugh. “Yep, just me and the missus, on our honeymoon over at the Atmosphere.”

  Me and the missus? He’d morphed into Ward Cleaver all of a sudden.

  Mrs. Purple Suit didn’t appear to notice. Her gaze turned to Stacey, and her smile broadened. “Don’t you want to show me your ring, honey? I couldn’t wait to show off mine.”

  Stacey stiffened beside him. A ring! What ring? They hadn’t thought of that. As unobtrusively as he could, Dylan tucked her left hand in his rear jeans pocket.

  “Awww, we don’t want to brag, do we honey?” he said through another Cleaver-bright grin. He felt like the bumbling husband character in a TV sitcom.

  “I don’t know if I’d call it bragging.”

  Stacey tried to wriggle her hand out of his pocket. Keeping his smile intact, Dylan clamped his hand on her wrist.

  She leaned toward the purple jogging suit lady and whispered, “He’s a little self-conscious about…its size.”

  “I am not!”

  They both smiled sympathetically at him.

  “Really!”

  Mrs. Purple Jogging Suit patted him on the shoulder. “It’s all right. Everybody’s got to start somewhere.”

  “That’s what I told him.” Stacey smiled serenely as she wormed her fingers around in his back pocket. “It’s not the size that counts, I said, it’s—”

  It’s ticklish. “It’s really not that big a deal,” Dylan interrupted.

  “Oh, I understand,” the woman said. “Lots of men are that way. You know, some women think the small ones are endearing.”

  “Do you really think so?” Stacey asked innocently.

  Her fingers wriggled amongst the stuff in his pocket. Another second, and she’d get her hand loose enough to flash her nonexistent wedding ring. Dylan tried to hold her wrist tighter.

  She goosed him.

  “Yeow!” Both women looked at him, eyebrows raised. Stacey had the gall to smirk, too. “Oww, oww, oww,” he went on, letting go of her wrist to glare at his watch as though that had somehow caused all the ruckus.

  “Look at the time.” He shook his head with what he hoped looked less like an overwhelming urge to pinch his “wife” and more like husbandly concern. “We’ll be late if we don’t get going, Snookums.”

  Stacey batted her eyelashes at him. He hadn’t even known women could actually do that outside of cartoons.

  “In a minute, Pudding,” she cooed. Regally, she extended her hand, knuckles facing. Dylan closed his eyes.

  Inconspicuous, she’d said. Let’s keep a low profile, she’d said. And here she was, flashing her embarrassingly bare knuckles at a total stranger.

  “Awww,” the purple jogging suit lady said. “That is sweet. Congratulations again.”

  Dylan opened his eyes.

  The purple jogging suit lady turned to leave, shaking her cup of quarters. “Good luck, you two. I’d better get back to it before my luck turns cold.”

  “Nice meeting you,” Stacey called, waving.

  Dylan only stared at the diamond and gold wedding band flashing on her finger beneath the casino’s brilliant lights.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked, glancing up to make sure Mrs. Jogging Suit had reached her slot machines again. She had. He grabbed Stacey’s hand to make her quit waving, then scowled down at the ring on her finger. “Well?”

  “You didn’t think I’d try to pull off this honeymoon ruse totally unprepare
d, did you?” she asked, batting her eyelashes some more.

  He squinted at the ring, then at her. “You didn’t even think to bring along a pretend husband for this honeymoon ruse,” he pointed out. “How well-prepared could you have been?”

  Stacey puckered her lips, appeared to think about it, then pulled her hand out of reach.

  “It was from Charlie,” she admitted. “I used to be married, remember?” Turning, she scooped up their silver dollar winnings. “Come on. We’re already late for dinner.” She tossed the coin to him.

  Dylan caught it and followed her toward the dinner theater entrance. “Why do you still wear your wedding ring? You’ve been divorced for months.”

  Did she still care about her ex-husband? Was that why she didn’t want to get involved with him again? Hell. Why couldn’t anything be easy with her?

  Stacey stopped at the edge of the stairway leading to the theater just as he caught up with her. She gazed thoughtfully at him, and a strange expression crossed her face. Then she shrugged.

  “Why shouldn’t I wear it? I like it.”

  “It’s puny.”

  She smiled at him—one of those irritating, superior smiles only a beautiful woman wearing heels and a skimpy cocktail dress could give. Mister, you’re putty in my hands, it seemed to say.

  “Does it bother you? Because I could take it off if you’re…jealous, or anything.”

  Was that hopefulness in her expression?

  Nah. Just pleasure at teasing him, Dylan figured. He wrapped his arm around her waist and gave her an enigmatic smile of his own.

  “No more than pretending to be my wife bothers you.” He guided her downstairs to the dinner theater. “And you seem to be handling that pretty well. So, are you hungry? Let’s eat.”

  Dylan’s hand slid onto her knee for the fourth time just as the Renaissance’s special medieval dinner was served.

  Stacey held her breath and looked down. His tanned, muscular arm stretched right across her lap with two hundred proof masculine assurance, and his hand cupped her knee as though it belonged there. Slowly, his fingers spread wider, then started inching up the inside of her thigh.

  She waited for him to goose her the way he had the first two times. He didn’t. Instead, his palm skimmed higher on her leg, then stopped just below the hem of her dress. Beneath it her skin prickled—not because the huge, arena-style theater was cold, or because the rustic wooden benches they sat on were too rough, or because of any other harmless thing she could name. Just because it was Dylan touching her. Dammit.

  Their waiter approached, dressed in a laced-front medieval tunic, some sort of buccaneer sash, and brown leggings. Apparently somebody had decided a true “Middle Ages” look required lots of spandex. Stopping in front of the long wooden table she and Dylan sat at side by side with the rest of the show-goers, the waiter brandished a pitcher of something.

  He smiled. “Shickenzoop?”

  They both stared up at him. “Pardon me?” Stacey asked.

  He twitched the pitcher. “Shickenzoop.”

  As though that explained anything, he mimicked pouring it into the teacup-sized pewter bowls in front of them.

  She looked into her empty bowl. It, along with a matching pewter plate, a mug of water, and a heavy cloth napkin, had been at their table when they arrived. Dylan looked into his bowl, then at her.

  “Shi—cken—zoop,” repeated the waiter, scanning the long row of pewter bowls lining the rest of their table. He sighed, looking as though he might pour the contents of his pitcher on their heads if they didn’t catch on pretty soon.

  “Shi—cken—zoop,” Stacey repeated, speaking slowly enough that he’d be sure to hear her plainly.

  Dylan’s lips nuzzled her ear. “Gib—ber—rish?” he whispered. His tentative tone matched hers perfectly.

  “Cut it out,” she whispered back, but she couldn’t help smiling.

  The waiter looked into his pitcher and nodded. “Shickenzoop.” That’s what I said.

  “Sure. Why not?” Dylan pushed his bowl forward with his free hand. She felt his shrug all along her thigh as his arm moved with his shoulder. “We’d love some.”

  The waiter poured milky broth into their bowls, then moved on down the row. “Shickenzoop,” he said loudly, like a peanut vendor at a ballgame. He stopped in front of the next couple at their table. “Schickenzoop?”

  Interrupted in the middle of the tankard of ale they were sharing, they both looked at him with puzzled frowns. “What?”

  “Just take it,” Dylan said. “It’s easier that way.”

  He turned his smile on Stacey and caught her in the middle of trying to twist her wedding ring from her finger. She started scratching furiously in the hope of faking a massive itch beneath the gold band.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Allergic to rings? Or allergic to marriage? Or is it just that ring in particular that’s giving you trouble?”

  Actually, it was the fact that she couldn’t wrest the darn thing from her finger that was giving her trouble. She’d gained a few pounds since her wedding to Charlie four years ago, but Stacey would rather die than admit her ring was too tight to take off.

  She plunked her hands in her lap. “Acupressure,” she mumbled, staring into her bowl of Shickenzoop. “Massaging your ring finger relieves stress.”

  “I know a lot of single guys who’d agree with you. They like to keep that area nice and limber. And unencumbered.”

  “You among them?” She picked up her bowl and sniffed, trying to seem as though his answer didn’t matter one way or the other. It didn’t, Stacey told herself. It was simply idle curiosity among friends that made her ask. Nothing more. What did it matter to her if he wanted to remain a bachelor the rest of his life?

  “Are you kidding?” Dylan stroked his thumb over her bare thigh and gave her an exaggeratedly goofy grin. It was, she was beginning to realize, his “newlywed husband in love” look. “They could slap a pair of handcuffs on us and I wouldn’t mind.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “There’s nobody I’d rather be hog-tied to than you, babe.”

  “Hog-tied, huh? I’m flattered.” She sipped from her cup, and Dylan did the same. The broth inside tasted salty, slightly meaty…she thought she even detected a noodle. Lowering her cup again, Stacey peered inside. So did Dylan.

  “Shickenzoop,” he said, “is….”

  “…chicken soup!” she finished, laughing. “No wonder the waiter looked at us so strangely.”

  The rest of the meal arrived in less cryptic form—savory roasted game hens, chunks of potatoes, broccoli spears, and individual loaves of crusty bread. The waiter served everything with an elegant dip of his medieval spandex-clad knee, then retreated as the lights lowered, signaling the beginning of the Renaissance’s featured show.

  “Excuse me!” Stacey called after him.

  He turned. The linen cloth he carried over his bent arm whipped along with him, passing mere inches from another diner’s eyebrows. She ducked, then glared toward the source of the trouble.

  “Sorry!” Stacey called with a wave.

  The waiter stopped in front of their table. Assuming his presence meant he was listening, she asked, “May I have some silverware, please? There doesn’t seem to be any at my—”

  “We don’t use utensils in the Middle Ages.” He glanced meaningfully at the other diners’ place settings. They were all, Stacey saw, devoid of utensils. “Perhaps your…” His gaze shifted to Dylan, and he arched his eyebrows.

  “Husband,” Dylan supplied helpfully, wrapping his arm around Stacey’s shoulders. “We’re newlyweds.”

  “Husband can help you.” With that suggestion, the waiter glided away from them—to retrieve his Shickenzoop pitcher, no doubt.

  Biting her lip, Stacey examined her plate. Around her, the other diners had begun biting into tiny roast drumsticks and breaking off chunks of bread. Spotlights played over the arena and the packed-earth floor in its center. The show was about to begin.

&nb
sp; “I guess we’d better make like newlyweds.” Dylan scooted closer. He raised his hand, and something warm and spicy-smelling nudged her lips. A piece of roast chicken, she guessed.

  “I—” As soon as her mouth opened he slipped the first bite between her lips, leaving her no choice but to chew. She did, and was surprised to find it tasted delicious. “Mmmm. It’s good, but I—”

  But I can’t get a word in edgewise, between bites. Next came a piece of warm bread with butter. It melted in her mouth, rich and yeasty and exactly as chewy as good bread should be.

  “Mmmm.”

  Dylan watched with a smile as she chewed and swallowed, then he used his thumb to brush away a crumb from the corner of her lips.

  “Really, I can do it my—” she started to say, but he only shook his head and fed her a bite of herb-scented roast potato.

  “We’re newlyweds, remember?” he said. “We’ve got to make this look good. Besides, don’t you find this romantic?”

  Actually, considering the way he did it…she did. His attention was all for her, his actions focused on selecting just the right morsel to satisfy her, his gaze centered on her lips as he gave her one taste, then another. To be the focus of so much attention was more than Stacey had expected—more than she’d experienced in a long time, too. Maybe ever. At the end, she and Charlie had rarely shared meals together at all, much less tried anything like this. With a sexy half smile, Dylan broke off a thin spear of broccoli and brought it to her lips.

  Yuck. Broccoli was way too ordinary for a setting like this. Raising her head, Stacey made a face and pressed her lips together.

  “What, you don’t like anything that’s good for you?” Dylan followed her movements with the broccoli. Slowly, he drew it across her lower lip.

  The sensuous glide of it nearly made her open her mouth without thinking. Good grief! Leave it to a guy like Dylan to figure out how to make vegetables sexy.

  “And I had you pegged as a good-girl type,” he teased, tracing the edge of her mouth again. “Still no? Then maybe you’re in the mood for something a little more dangerous.”

  His gaze met hers. It felt as though he was seeing her, really seeing her, for the first time. The sense of discovery she saw in his eyes made her mouth go dry and her pulse beat faster. Around them, the lights dimmed all the way and festive Christmas-style show music began playing, but those things might have been a hundred miles away for all the notice Dylan paid them. He must have dropped the broccoli on her plate because she didn’t feel it against her lips anymore, but Stacey didn’t want to look away to find out.