Once parked in her driveway, he jumped out, ran around the car and opened the door before she could. She stood and stared up at him, the streetlights casting deep shadows over her face.
“Thank you. I did have a lovely time.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.
“Oh, no,” he said. “This was a real date, and I need a real kiss.”
Chapter 6
His arms slid around her and Merry stood still. He was the enemy, and he made her life difficult. Did he deserve a kiss? As much as she wanted to kiss him, she couldn’t. Tingling pleasure coursed through her. Her skin was on fire.
A second later, she pushed him away and held up her finger. “We are not going there,” she warned. She stepped back, opened the door and walked into her house, slamming the door behind her. She leaned against it and listened, questioning her sanity. She heard a step, then another and finally the car door slammed and he started the engine. A second later she heard his car back out of her driveway.
She let out a pent-up breath. “What the hell am I thinking?” She stormed down the hallway to her bedroom. Her cat, Caesar, lay curled up on her bed. She sat down, pulled him into her lap and buried her face against him. “I wanted to do a bad, bad thing,” she whispered. The cat yawned. “I can’t get involved with this man.” The cat struggled out of her arms and sat down, lifting one leg and started to clean himself. “Really? I’m having emotional issues and all you can think about is cleaning your business. Dude, you’re supposed to be here for my emotional needs. That’s what the lady at the shelter said. You’re not doing your job.”
The cat looked up at her, then jumped off the bed and walked out the door toward the kitchen.
“I took you out of that shelter, Caesar, I can take you back,” she yelled.
She covered her face with her hands, reliving the moment, the almost touch of his lips on hers, the intense look on his face, the naked desire in his eyes.
She fished her phone out of her purse and dialed her sister. When Noelle answered, Merry said, “You know that cat you made me get? He sucks as a companion.”
“What’s going on?” Noelle asked.
“I’m having a crisis and Caesar is emotionally unavailable to me.”
“You are not calling me about your cat, are you?”
“I wanted to kiss him.”
“I’ve seen you kiss your cat all the time,” Noelle said with an indulgent sigh.
Merry closed her eyes. “Not the cat. Jake Walters.”
Silence sounded on the other end of the phone.
“Noelle, are you still there?” Merry asked, alarmed at her sister’s silence.
Then Noelle giggled. The giggle burst into a laugh and the laugh rose in volume. When she had calmed down, Noelle said, “Wait a minute. You called me after you talked to your cat. You value your cat’s advice over mine. I think I’ll hang up.”
“No, no, no,” Merry moaned. “I’m having a crisis and you’re feeling competitive with my cat.”
“Just giving you a hard time, big sis,” Noelle said, before she started laughing again.
“Stop laughing at me,” Merry demanded.
Noelle finally managed to stop giggling. “You never let me have any fun.”
“When you were sixteen, I got you backstage passes to the Black Eyed Peas concert. I know you had fun there.”
“That was nine years ago,” Noelle protested.
“I’m still rollin’ on it. You should be, too.”
“So you kissed him. How did that happen?”
Merry closed her eyes. “We really didn’t kiss. I ducked, pushed him away and ran into the house. Then I cried on Caesar, and he just walked away.”
“I repeat, you called me after your cat turned you down. What does that say about our relationship?”
“That we’re sisters.” Merry fell back and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, phone pressed tight to her ear.
“In my opinion, you should have just kissed him.”
“I can’t kiss him. His father’s a nice man.”
“What does his father have to do with it?” Noelle said.
“I don’t know. Jake makes me insane. I have to justify every breath I take. I have to count pennies like they’re made of solid gold.” She hated the detail work he made her do. She understood it was necessary, but she felt she was doing more accounting than being creative.
“We’ve had this conversation before,” Noelle said.
“That was before I almost kissed him,” Merry replied.
“You’re attracted to him. I can tell,” Noelle said.
“I don’t want to be.” Merry closed her eyes. How was she going to get through the next months?
“Why were you two together on a Saturday?”
“I took him to Andy’s,” Merry admitted.
“You took Jake Walters to Andy’s? You never take dates to Andy’s unless you want Andy’s approval.”
Merry pinched the bridge of her nose. Taking Jake to meet Andy had been a big mistake. She wasn’t even certain why she’d done it. “With all his financial oversight, I wanted to show him I was fiscally responsible and still capable of having a good time.”
“Right,” Noelle said.
“You’re laughing at me again,” Merry complained. She didn’t understand why her sister was getting so much enjoyment out of her predicament.
“No, I’m not. But...if you want to get me backstage passes to the Pink concert, I could be persuaded to act a little more serious.”
Merry started to laugh. “Blackmail. Is that all I am to you? Free concert tickets?”
“And movie premieres,” Noelle said. “Sis, you have always been so focused on your career. I’ve never known you to be so distracted by a man before.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have never been particularly easy on the men you’ve dated.”
“I’m nice,” Merry said.
“You may be nice, but you don’t put up with their crap, which is why you’ve reached the age of twenty-nine without any husband prospects on the horizon.”
“You’re twenty-eight and unmarried.”
“I know I’m twenty-eight and unmarried, but I have three husband prospects on the horizon.”
“You do?” Merry asked in surprise. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“There’s the pool boy and the landscape man. And I recently met this killer plumber who unplugged my toilet. He even smelled good, like the commercials on the radio for the smell-good plumbers.”
Now Merry knew her sister was just teasing her. “You like your men like you like your dinners—takeout. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you get put back in the ocean.”
“At least I’m having fun,” Noelle said. “On Monday when you go to work, pretend like nothing happened.”
Merry didn’t think it would be that easy. Jake Walters was not the kind of man to pretend. She disconnected and sat in the window seat of her bedroom, staring out over the pool. Caesar was playing jungle kitty in the wisteria, blending into the foliage as he eyed the empty hummingbird nest. The mommy hummingbird had placed the nest carefully, and every spring Caesar was a very frustrated cat.
How was she going to pretend nothing had happened? She could ignore him. That probably wouldn’t work because he’d want her weekly expense report first thing Monday. She could call in sick and just stay home. No, that wouldn’t work, either. That was the wimp way out. Besides, she had too little time, and she’d just started the construction of Santa’s North Pole in the water-park area. She could distract him. She could pretend that she kissed her coworkers every day. That could work. Actors were very tactile and always hands-on. Or she could just slough it off as a mistake, but in the back of her mind she knew it wasn’t. She’d wanted to kiss him for a long time.
She covered her face with her hands. What had she done? Why had she even agreed to take him out to dinner on the cheap? She was an idiot. Jake Walters was gorgeous. He was
the hottest, most handsome man she’d met in years. And she wanted more than a kiss.
* * *
Jake stood at the window of his office, watching for Merry. He glanced at his watch again. She was running late and he felt a moment of anxiety. Was she okay? Had she been in an accident? Traffic had been horrendous this morning, with a number of accidents that had slowed the freeways to a crawl.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and clicked through to her phone number. His finger hovered over the call button, but then he shoved the phone back in his pocket.
What had he done? He’d almost kissed her. If she hadn’t pulled away, they would have engaged in a total lip-lock. Just the thought of the scent of her skin, the softness of her breath on his cheek, sent his pulse into overdrive.
He’d wanted to break his number-one rule: don’t get involved with people in the entertainment field. They were too high maintenance, too flighty, with egos that bordered on the divine. And here he was lusting after an actress. No, he couldn’t have that. Even though she wasn’t in front of the cameras anymore, she was still part of the business. And she was so tempting. The temptation to kiss her and keep kissing her wouldn’t go away.
He glanced at his watch again. Usually she was so punctual, so eager to be checking on her projects.
The sound of hammering reached him. The park had taken on a new look. Even he could see how festive it was becoming. He hadn’t realized how drab it was. Merry was breathing new life into the park. New life into him. And that confused him.
He didn’t like being confused. Usually he knew exactly what he wanted, where he was going, what he was doing. He’d set goals that he intended to accomplish by the time he was fifty. He wanted his house paid off, enough money in his savings and his IRA to keep himself comfortable. Then he was going to retire and travel the world. He would find himself a wife to share the adventures with and maybe have a kid or two. He would take on part-time work just to keep himself occupied, but nothing like the load he carried now. He had his whole life carefully planned out. Merry Alcott was not in his plan, and he refused to make adjustments.
His phone rang. For a second he hoped it was Merry, but it was Calvin Mayweather. “Hi, Calvin,” Jake said. Calvin had been his client for almost ten years and was one of the sane ones.
“I’m glad I caught you, Jake. I just wanted to let you know my daughter was accepted at the UC Davis veterinary school.” Calvin’s voice held an edge of panic. “What am I going to do?”
Jake wanted to laugh. “We talked about this. First off, you’re going to stop panicking and take a breath.” When Jake had taken Calvin as a client, he’d had a boatload of debt and not a lot of income. Jake had reorganized his finances and found a whole lot of money Calvin didn’t even know he had. And then he’d helped Calvin invest it, and suddenly Calvin was big again and selling his music rather than recording.
“I can’t tell my baby no,” Calvin said.
“Calvin, this is what we’re going to do. I’ve been planning for this for the past four years and I showed you how we were to accomplish this.”
“I know, but veterinary school is so expensive,” Calvin said, worry evident in his tone.
“I got it. You have enough money set aside. Stop worrying. She’s going to be an amazing vet.”
Calvin chuckled. “She wants to be the vet to the stars.”
“You’ve got the contacts. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
“When you first took me on as a client, I resented you every second telling me how to manage my money and treating me like I was five years old.”
“I never treated you like you were five years old,” Jake said.
“But I felt like it. And now I can’t thank you enough. Telling my baby girl she couldn’t have her dream was giving me nightmares.”
“We’ll get through this,” Jake said.
Merry’s Prius suddenly turned into the parking lot.
“Listen, Calvin, I’ve got to go, but let’s talk about this more later. In the meantime, try not to get stressed. I’ll help you work this out.” Jake disconnected as he walked to the door and stepped out into the hot September morning. It was going to be another scorcher.
Merry opened the trunk of the car as Jake approached.
“I was starting to worry,” Jake said.
Merry glanced up at him, startled. “I’m not wasting your money, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ll put in my full eight-hour day.”
“I didn’t...didn’t mean it that way.”
“What did you mean?” She hoisted several garment bags out of the trunk and over one arm.
“I meant that traffic was bad and there were a lot of accidents....”
“You were worried about me. The fact that we almost shared a kiss doesn’t mean anything. You don’t need to worry about me. And for your information, I just stopped to get some of the finished costumes for the Santa display.” She walked away, her head held high while Jake wondered what the heck had just happened.
“That was quite a scene,” Jake’s father said.
Jake whirled around. His father leaned against the bumper of his truck, feet crossed at the ankles, his arms crossed over his chest. “You saw that?”
“I see everything, especially when the whole thing goes down right in front of me.” He uncrossed his arms and stood up.
The wind had picked up, blowing sand across the parking lot. Jake fell into step next to his dad as they walked toward the park entrance.
“Having lady problems, are you?” John said with a low chuckle. “Somehow I thought when you got to this age with experience under your belt, this would be a thing of the past.”
Jake didn’t say anything. He felt as if he was back in high school again, drooling over Merry’s character Chloe and wanting to fix her problems. “Are you enjoying this?”
“Yes,” his father said.
“So you decided to give me some advice.”
“I think you need it, so I can enjoy it more.”
Jaw clenched, teeth grinding, Jake almost growled. “I don’t need your advice.”
“If you think so, but Merry isn’t one of your clients. You can’t treat her like one.”
“I wasn’t,” Jake objected.
“Sure you are,” John continued unperturbed. “She’s an intelligent, clever, fiscally responsible woman and you keep hoping she’ll screw up so you can rescue her like you rescue all your other clients. That isn’t going to work with her. Some women don’t need you to be their hero.”
By virtue of his job, he was the knight in shining armor who rode in to save the day, to save the damsel in distress. He didn’t think of himself as a knight, but he loved the feeling he had when everything went right for his clients. They needed him. He stopped walking as he rolled the thoughts over in his mind.
“Figured it out, did you?” John said. “Merry doesn’t need you to fix anything, and that’s what bothers you about her.”
What did that say about his relationship with women? He thought about the women he’d dated. They were all professional in some way, but there was always something about them that needed rescuing. Something that he could fix for them.
“So what do I do?”
“You like her, don’t you?”
Merry had come out of her office and was talking with the foreman of the construction crew. She held a drawing pad in her hand and pointed at it as she talked.
“What’s not to like?” Jake mused as the foreman nodded at Merry’s instructions. Then he turned and walked away, speaking into his walkie-talkie as he went.
John simply laughed and said, “You need to rethink how to work with Merry. Figure it out fast, son. She’s going to make this park a success in a way it’s never been before, and someone else is going to see what she’s done, make her an offer she can’t refuse and she’ll be gone because she’ll be comparing the way you’ve treated her with the future job. You may come up lacking. I need her to stay.”
>
“Are you asking me to seduce her so she’ll stay here?”
“I’m asking you to ease up on your suspicions. Give her some room and let her do her job. Amazingly enough, Jake, there are people in this world who know how to do that.” John tucked his hands in his pockets and walked away, leaving Jake standing in the middle of the path with the wind whipping the flags on their poles and snapping the cables against the steel.
Merry had disappeared, but he caught a glimpse of her as she headed toward the water park. He followed her, wondering what he was going to say when he caught up to her.
He found Merry standing in front of a display of large wood boxes. The boxes had been painted in Christmas green and red. Merry attached a large red plastic bow to one of the boxes and stood back to look at it.
He watched her for a moment as she worked. She shifted the boxes back and forth until she finally settled on an arrangement she liked. She reached out toward a canvas-covered statute on a dolly and wheeled it into position. As she wrestled the statue off the dolly, Jake stepped up to help her.
“Where do you want it?” he asked as she pushed the dolly away with her foot.
She tilted her head one way and then another. “Right there.”
After he’d positioned the statue, she pulled the canvas off to reveal a large nutcracker.
“We need to call a truce,” Jake said when the nutcracker was in the position she wanted. His father had been right.
Her eyebrows rose. “Are we going to bury the hatchet?”
“Yes. Listen, I want this park to be great for my dad. It’s what he wants. It’s important to him, so it has to be important to me. And he thinks you’re the one who’s going to save this.”
“How is that calling a truce?”
“My dad is sixty-seven years old and he has always had a blind spot where this park in concerned. His father was rabidly against building it, but my dad did it anyway. My grandparents thought the park was nothing but a black hole sucking money that they felt belonged to them, and not one person thought my father would succeed. My grandparents thought they would die destitute after the years they’d lavished on the orange groves. But they didn’t, and my dad did everything right. I don’t want to be like my grandfather and make the renovations into a war, but I have to watch the money. I have to protect my dad even though he doesn’t think he needs protecting.”
california christmas dreams Page 8
