Snowbound With Ghost

by Ani Gonzalez

  Sebastian was still pretty good, but his years in L.A. had dulled his snowball-fighting capabilities. Pretty soon, she had the upper hand. But that didn't last long. Her last volley missed its mark because Sebastian was no longer standing upright. He lunged forward and tackled her to the ground.

  The fight was over. His arms were wrapped around her body, and she lay flat on her back, breathless.

  And the impact was only partially to blame.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SEBASTIAN ROLLED over and found himself on his back, his arms wrapped around Lily. The sky was miraculously clear and he could see the stars. The twinkling spheroids seemed garishly alien and he frowned as he realized why. He was used to the starless L.A. sky.

  But tonight California seemed like a distant land. In L.A. he had production meetings, suit fittings and cocktail parties with strangely inedible canapés. In L.A. he was Sebastian Franco, antagonist extraordinaire, the premier choice of picky producers searching for a memorable villain. In L.A. he was half of Sebariel, the hottest pairing Hollywood had seen in a decade.

  But in Banshee Creek, he was plain Bastian, purchaser of jack o' lanterns, wielder of infrared flashlights, and now, invincible snowball warrior.

  How did he end up here, lying on the ground, holding Lily and admiring the stars?

  And why did it feel so good? But before he could answer that last question, Lily pushed him away.

  "You cheat," she said, laughing as she sat up. "I was winning."

  Her happy smile was brighter than the stars. It reminded him of drama club meetings, afternoon rehearsals, and evenings spent watching obscure French movies in the high school library.

  But those weren't the only things he remembered.

  "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "You never win."

  That was the simple truth. Lily had horrible aim. She lost at laser tag. She lost at paintball. Hell, she lost cafeteria food fights.

  "This time I did." Her eyes sparkled with triumph. "I totally did."

  "Did not." He couldn't help but smile as he pushed himself off the ground. The powdery snow had broken their fall, which meant he was buried in half a foot of white icing. A trickle of icy wetness dripped down his neck, but that didn't matter. He simply couldn't stop smiling.

  "Liar, liar, pants on fire," she sang, climbing to her feet unsteadily.

  "So gracious, Lil." He stood up quickly, reaching for her. "Careful, those boots don't have much traction."

  She frowned at him, her happy mood evaporating.

  "The boots are warm, Sebastian." She appeared equal parts angry, hurt and confused. "My Jeep still works. Well, it works most of the time. My life is fine. Why must you criticize it?"

  "What are you talking about?" He stared at her, confused. Her mood had changed in a split second.

  He wasn't criticizing. He was just trying to keep her in one piece. Those furry things on her feet weren't meant for walking on snow or ice. Well, unless they had hidden claws in the soles.

  But the question was painfully familiar. Ariel had often addressed him in the same plaintive tone. Why are you criticizing? Why don't you want to do it? Everyone's going to this party. Everyone's wearing tight pants. Everybody's doing it this way.

  He waited for the inevitable whining to begin.

  But Lily just glared at him through narrowed eyes.

  "Never mind," she said. "The shoes are fine. Now, stop being an idiot and let's get your stuff out of the car."

  He followed her, thoroughly confounded. But her practical approach shouldn't surprise him. With her snow-covered hair, puffy jacket, and furry boots, she was the antithesis to the hyper glamorous Ariel Henderson. Ariel wouldn't be caught dead throwing a snowball in furry boots. Hell, Ariel wouldn't be caught dead in furry boots.

  He watched as Lily, furry boots and all, walked to the SUV. She seemed confident and self-sufficient, and he started to feel like a bit of a heel. She was right. He should stop complaining about her car and her footwear and her devil monkey obsession. She had a good life with a career she enjoyed, friends who supported her, and family who loved her.

  He had a bunch of movie awards, a surrealist-inspired L.A. apartment he detested, and an ex-fiancée who'd betrayed him with his best friend.

  Stone, meet glass house.

  Lily was right. If she wanted to stay in Banshee Creek, that was her choice. If she wanted to wear desiccated mammals on her feet, that was also her choice. If she wanted to stalk back to the car in an offended huff wearing thin rubber soles, so be it.

  He should respect that.

  So he respectfully watched her walk to the SUV. His gaze remained courteous as her foot slipped on the icy tracks. He did not crack a smile as the step turned into a pretty impressive pirouette.

  She wouldn't win any Bolshoi Ballet auditions, but that move was, actually, rather graceful. Her arms gyrated wildly as she tried to steady herself, and white powder cascaded around her extremely attractive gluteus maximus as she crashed, butt-first, into the snow.

  Only the tiniest chuckle escaped his lips as he stepped forward to help her.

  She glared at him and waved off his proffered hand.

  "Don't. Say. Anything," she hissed.

  The warning was unnecessary. He couldn't say a word, he was too busy trying not to laugh.

  She was not amused.

  "I swear," she sputtered. "I'm going to brain you with your thousand-dollar flashlight and blame it on the devil monkey."

  He tried to stop laughing, but it was hopeless. He used the yoga breathing trick his first co-star had taught him. The one that involved quick, shallow breaths. That helped a bit.

  But she did not appreciate his struggles.

  "That's it," she grunted, lunging for the flashlight. "You're going to be the first episode of CSI: Banshee Creek."

  He caught her easily, spinning with her on the snow, his pent-up laughter bursting forth like water through a busted dam. She tried to glare at him, but her offended façade quickly crumbled and she joined in the laughter. He held her close for a long minute, drinking her in.

  When the last giggle died out, she licked her lips, the gesture so natural, so familiar, so right that there was only one thing he could do.

  He kissed her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHE STOOD inside Sebastian's embrace, frozen in shock. A small part of her brain resisted the seductive warmth of Sebastian's lips. The tiny portion of her cerebellum rang a steady alarm, warning her that something was wrong. But the rest of her traitorous body simply melted into the familiar embrace. It felt solid, it felt perfect, it felt right.

  But her subconscious rebelled. Something was very wrong.

  And that something had a name.

  Images popped in her head. Sebastian in a black tuxedo, a stunning blonde on his arm. Sebastian in exercise clothes, shielding the blonde from the lenses of the paparazzi. A tall, beautiful woman with long, golden hair under a baseball cap, running through the LAX terminal. A close-up of her left hand showing the humongous diamond on her finger. True, they were all tabloid pictures, but even the tabloids sometimes hit upon the truth.

  And the truth was Sebastian was very much engaged.

  She pulled away slowly, breathing heavily. As she tried to bring her senses under control, she felt Sebastian kiss her lightly on the head. The gestured awakened old wounds. He'd kissed in exactly this way when he'd said goodbye and boarded the plane for L.A.

  But she welcomed the pain. It gave her the strength to step out of his arms.

  He seemed disoriented and uncertain, and she could guess why. Not many girls in L.A. would refuse a kiss from Sebastian Franco. She concentrated and smiled brightly and, in a more-or-less steady voice, said.

  "I don't think Ms. Henderson would appreciate that."

  Sebastian frowned.

  "What does Ariel have to do with anything?"

  His puzzled look made Lily's stomach lurch. She couldn't picture high school Sebastian being disloyal, but maybe he'd cha
nged. Maybe he cheated on his girlfriend regularly. Maybe it was a Hollywood thing.

  "I guess it's not so much about her, but about me," Lily explained. "I'm not the kind of girl who steals guys."

  Sebastian still appeared confused. A horrible thought sneaked into her forebrain.

  "That sounds ridiculous, right? The stealing part, I mean. As if I could steal a guy away from the Goddess of Love." She laughed, a bit hysterically. "That's silly, right? I meant to say that I don't kiss guys that belong to other women. That's what I mean."

  Sebastian's gaze turned thoughtful and Lily's heart sank. Sebastian really had changed. The heartbreakingly sweet kiss they'd just shared had been completely meaningless to him. He was going to propose a cockamamie let's-share-body-heat-during-the-storm scheme, a little sex to pass the time until the roads cleared.

  He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, she turned her back to him and resumed the walk to the black SUV.

  "So no kissing, no snuggling, no nothing. Let's get your stuff out and get back to the cabin. It's freezing out here and I'm not interested in any alternative heat-retention methods."

  "Lily," he shouted after her.

  "I don't want to hear it," she shouted back.

  She stalked toward the Range Rover, carefully negotiating a couple of icy patches. The last thing she wanted was to end up sprawled upon the snow a second time. The stupid boots had gotten her into enough trouble already. She reached the car and almost jumped out of her skin when the lights turned on.

  "They're automatic," Sebastian said, walking up behind her. "Don't worry. The devil monkey isn't behind the wheel."

  Sebastian did dripping sarcasm very well, a handy skill for someone who specialized in villainous roles.

  "I didn't say anything," she said, stung.

  "Oh, I think you've said enough." He studiously ignored her and stepped forward to examine the parcels in his trunk.

  Lily glared at the back of his head. He sounded almost offended, as if she'd committed some hideous faux pas by bringing up his fiancée. Dude, you're engaged. To. Be. Married. You don't get to go around kissing other women. Okay, maybe in California you do, but not in Virginia. No way.

  But Sebastian didn't seem to agree. He pushed the bags around roughly, his shoulders tense, as if trying to keep his temper in check. He was angry at her? What the heck? He was the one tomcatting on his fiancée.

  He handed her a bag and she avoided his eyes by peeking inside.

  "Pasta?" she blurted out. "Isn't there enough pasta in the pantry?"

  "My mother doesn't believe in whole grain pasta. I brought this brand from L.A."

  Well, at least he was faithful to his penne rigate. That should count for something.

  He took out a monogrammed leather weekend bag, a couple of reusable grocery bags and...a jack o' lantern? Lily stared at the plastic orange fixture. Apparently, Sebastian hadn't completely outgrown his hometown.

  Too bad he'd outgrown the values of their hometown.

  He caught her staring at the jack o' lantern. "It was on sale," he said gruffly, closing the trunk. "I just bought it because of the storm."

  He turned around and walked briskly toward the cabin. Lily followed him at a more sedate pace, glancing at the lantern sympathetically.

  It was a fellow Banshee Creek relic that Sebastian meant to discard after the storm. She'd narrowly avoided the same fate. Avoided it by an inch, a whisker, a mere breath. Because that kiss had been temptation personified, a reckless unleashing of pent-up desire.

  Lily did some quick mental calculations. How many years since high school? A lot.

  A long time of not-having-slept-with Sebastian Franco.

  Because, even after three years of steady dating and countless hours of energetic teenage necking, she never actually got to do the deed with Sebastian.

  Oh, they'd gotten close. That night after the Romeo and Juliet (in Space!) opening night, for instance. Zach Franco had found a contraband gallon of vodka and he'd mixed up a particularly deadly variety of passionfruit screwdriver. Lily and Sebastian ended up drunk as skunks on top of a pile of metallic space suits. Oh, yeah, they'd gotten pretty close that night. But then a makeup bottle rolled off a shelf, covering them in sticky-sweet juice and Sebastian decided that he simply couldn't divest her of her V-card on a bed of severed limbs while covered in fake alien blood.

  Ah, the joys of high school romance. Not.

  They never got that close again. She was young and inexperienced. He was gentlemanly to a fault (although he seemed to have gotten over that). They'd both been idealistic. They'd assumed they would get married one day, and waiting for the wedding night had seemed like such a romantic proposition.

  But it didn't seem so romantic now. Not when her hormones were still racing from that kiss, her brain wondering what it would have been like with Sebastian in high school, not to mention what it would be like with Movie Star Sebastian.

  With Engaged Movie Star Sebastian, she reminded herself.

  So there would be no finding out what anything would be like with super-taken, super-off-limits, super-engaged-to-be-married-to-a-Hollywood-Goddess Sebastian Franco. Sex with Sebastian would remain an undocumented mystery.

  Just like the devil monkey.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SEBASTIAN OPENED the cabin door, and snow swirled into the living room.

  The storm had returned with a vengeance and gales of frigid powder lashed at the cabin. The sudden change in weather mirrored his mood. He didn't know what made him angrier. That he'd kissed Lily or that she'd accused him of cheating on Ariel.

  How ironic.

  Well, conspicuously virtuous, unbearably self-righteous Lily would find out how wrong she when the tabloids exposed Ariel's affair with the War of the Gods director. The disclosure was perfectly timed to boost the movie's Christmas box office revenues. The publicity campaign had, as an unforeseen bonus, ruled out any romantic reunion with Lily.

  But the latter side effect was acceptable to Sebastian. Lily used to be his best friend, his confidante, the one person he could count on to have his back. She'd even supported his acting dreams when his own parents were busy collecting law school applications. But now his old friend was all-too-willing to believe the worst about him.

  He held the door open for his Ex-Best Friend, who entered the room like an empress returning to the palace. Well, except for the part where she tripped on the new rug and almost fell. She recovered quickly and kept her balance, but the grocery bag ripped and the pasta boxes slid across the floor.

  Those boots were a menace to society.

  Sebastian considered helping her with the boxes, but the sight of her derriere bent over the rug was entirely too tempting. The thought made him frown. How could he still be attracted to Little Miss Judas? Maybe it was the eternal appeal of the "familiar unknown," as one of his screenwriting friends liked to say. He'd always thought that was the kind of pitching nonsense that resulted in crappy movies, but now he wasn't so sure. Lily was the epitome of the concept. They'd dated for years, spent countless evenings watching John Cassavetes films, and dreamed of making it big in Hollywood. But there was one thing they hadn't done, wasn't there?

  They hadn't actually had sex.

  He left her to clean up the mess and headed to the kitchen, dropping his bags on the new dining table. He found a pasta pot and filled it with water. The familiar sound of water splashing into the pot calmed him down somewhat, but his senses were still reeling from Lily's accusation.

  And from that kiss.

  That stupid, no-good, should-have-avoided-it-at-any-price kiss.

  Was it the snow? The last six months of self-enforced celibacy? The furry boots? Maybe he could blame the infamous magnetic fault. A lot of strange things happened in Banshee Creek.

  A loud buzzing sound made him jump, splashing water all over his shirt.

  He turned and saw Lily fiddling with the radio on the mantelpiece. Why did she bother? Only one radio station
signal reached this far out into the woods and it was crazier than a squirrel high on super-sized Slurpies. But WPRV's eccentric programming would fill the awkward silence that had descended upon the cabin.

  And there was something to be said about that.

  "Thizzzzz." Lily hit the radio and the buzzing sound stopped. "Iiiizzz..." The signal gained strength. "...a message to the people hunting Sasquatch along Dead Man's Creek."

  The metallic tang of the radio voice made a shiver run through his spine. WPRV could make toothpaste commercials sound creepy.

  "Yes, this means you, Caine," the deejayDJ continued. "Banshee Creek Fire & Rescue kindly requests that you return home. There are no Sasquatch near the creek. Repeat, there are no Sasquatch near the creek. It is, however, named Dead Man's Creek for a reason. The nice folks at Fire & Rescue have a lot of work today and they don't want to have to go down the ravine to rescue you again. Comprende?"

  "Do we have to listen to this?" he asked Lily.

  She shrugged. "We'll be stuck here for a couple of days and we have nothing to do. Might as well get used to WPRV."

  "And now for our culture segment," the deejay announced. "I know, I know, culture and WPRV seem like strange bedfellows. But, check this out, Banshee Creek is going upscale, folks. This is the famous cursed performance of Saint Saëns Danse Macabre. Picture the baroque splendor of the Bucharest National Theatre in 1918. Picture a full orchestra, an autocratic conductor, a brilliant but erratic violin soloist, and an antique Russian revolver. This particular combination resulted in two divorces, a broken engagement and a suicide attempt, and it is known as one of the most haunting performances of all time. Sit back and enjoy." The deejay paused. "And get the hell out of the creek, Caine. Now."

  The warning was followed by a piercing violin and Sebastian tried to relax. Saint Saëns was a big improvement upon Yeti hunters. He put the pasta pot on the stove and set it on the highest setting.

  It was also better than making conversation with Lily. After all, what would they talk about? They'd already talked about the weather. The kiss? His broken engagement? The fact that they dated for years and never went all the way? How much it hurt when she refused to go with him to L.A.? He couldn't find a safe topic for conversation. There were way too many things he didn't want to talk about.