A California Christmas

by Brenda Novak

  “I’ll grab you something from down the street,” he said. “What would you like?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll survive. I’m just beginning to worry that something might’ve happened to her. She gave me her cell phone in case I had a question or couldn’t figure something out. Maybe I should call her.”

  “I’ll have an ice cream sandwich with confetti ice cream and sugar cookies,” Liam piped up, so intent on the treats offered in the store he seemed oblivious to their conversation.

  Bentley chose Oreo cookie ice cream between white chocolate chunk macadamia nut cookies.

  “And what would you like?” she asked Dallas.

  He ordered a coffee, said he wasn’t much for sweets when she asked if he was sure he wouldn’t rather have ice cream, and paid for the three of them.

  “Thanks for coming in,” she said, and breathed a sigh of relief when he was gone. She’d promised him it wouldn’t be awkward between them, and she was trying to keep that promise by acting as though it wasn’t. But their night on the beach had definitely altered something.

  Fortunately, she had a break in the amount of traffic in the store after that, and she used the time to clean up. She still hadn’t decided whether to bother Susan. Maybe her new employer had been so exhausted she’d dropped into a deep sleep and Emery shouldn’t disturb her.

  She decided to give Susan one more hour before calling and went into the back, where no customers would be able to see her eat a cookie to stave off the hunger pangs. But before she could take her first bite, the bell sounded over the door.

  “Shit,” she muttered, and put the cookie down before walking back out front. She was expecting another customer or set of customers, but it was Dallas with a white bag in one hand. His brothers were probably waiting in the van or looking at something else because they hadn’t come back with him.

  “Turkey and Swiss,” he announced, handing the sack to her over the main ice cream freezer. “We can’t have you getting hangry on your first day of work.”

  His grin was the sexiest she’d ever seen. Or maybe she only thought it was sexy because she’d so recently been naked with him.

  She cleared her throat. “Thank you.” She was trying not to concentrate on how great that night had been, or how much more handsome he seemed to her—and she’d already found him handsome before. “I really appreciate this. Here, let me pay you for it.” She started to get her purse, but he spoke up to stop her.

  “No, don’t worry about it. It’s only a sandwich. Besides, you paid for the Mexican food we had in LA, remember?”

  How could she forget? Every detail of that night seemed to be indelibly imprinted on her brain. “Because you helped me with the Tommy situation. I owed you dinner.”

  “You didn’t owe me anything. What’s happening with Tommy, by the way?” he asked. “Have you heard from him?”

  “No. I called yesterday and left a message, but so far...no response.”

  “Hopefully he’ll get back to you soon.”

  “That would be nice. According to an email from my attorney, Ethan wasn’t served yesterday so he will likely be served on Monday. I hope to hear from Tommy before Ethan finds out I’m suing him and starts raising hell. But I’m afraid Tommy doesn’t want to get involved, or I would’ve heard from him by now. To be honest, I wouldn’t blame him. This isn’t his problem. He had nothing to do with it.”

  “If Ethan’s slinging lies about him, he might care enough to try to clear it up.”

  “We’ll see.”

  He started to leave but turned back at the last second. “I just want to make sure...” He gave her that sexy grin again while scratching his shoulder. “You’re okay with...you know, what happened Thursday night on the beach, aren’t you?”

  She was surprised he would bring it up. She’d been planning to pretend it never happened, thought that might be the easiest approach for both of them. “Of course.”

  “Good. I’m glad. I’d hate for that to turn out to be a problem.”

  “Thanks for caring,” she said, and meant it. She doubted many guys would bother to follow up. She and Dallas weren’t likely to have much contact once the month was over and they both went back to their regular lives. It wasn’t as if he had to worry about how she felt.

  He winked before walking out.

  She stared after him for several seconds once the door closed, but hunger eventually drove her to take the sandwich he’d bought her into the back. At last, she could eat.

  She’d just finished when someone else came in. Quickly wiping her mouth and throwing the napkin and the sandwich wrappings in the trash, she hurried out front. A tall man with bottle green eyes and tattoos covering both arms stood there.

  “Susan around?” he asked.

  “Not right now.”

  “I’m Tobias.” He held out his hand. “Susan’s daughter is married to my brother, Maddox.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said. “I recognize your name. When she hired me, Susan mentioned she wouldn’t have been able to get by without your help.”

  “You might have noticed her health isn’t the best, so I try to pitch in now and then—when I can.”

  “She appreciates it. She told me you’re a good man.”

  His eyes widened. “Are you sure she was talking about me?”

  “Is there another Tobias in this small town?”

  “Not that I know of,” he said, a slight smile curving his lips. “She told me she’d hired someone, but I wasn’t sure when you were starting, so I thought I’d stop by and make sure she was okay for today. Saturdays are usually busy, and what with the holidays...”

  “It was crazy in here earlier, even with the rain. But she went home to rest. As a matter of fact, since you know her so well, you might drive over and check on—” She fell silent when she heard the back door. “Never mind. That’s probably her now.”

  Sure enough, Susan rushed around the corner without even putting down her purse. “Emery, I’m so sorry! I meant to be back long before now. Normally, I struggle to sleep for any length of time, so I don’t know how I conked out for so long. I should’ve set an alarm.”

  “It’s fine,” Emery assured her. “You must’ve needed the sleep.”

  “But it’s your first day, and you’ve been on since ten without a break. You must be hungry. I brought you some leftover spaghetti you can heat up in the microwave in back.”

  “Actually, some of Aiyana’s sons stopped by not too long ago and brought me something to eat.” She was reluctant to mention that it was Dallas specifically who’d done this. She preferred to act as though she was a friend to the whole family.

  Because she was, she reminded herself.

  “Oh good.” When Susan looked at Tobias, her face brightened immediately. “Tobias!”

  “Hello,” he said. “I just swung by to see if you were doing okay today. Looks like Emery’s helping a great deal.”

  Susan glanced around the store and seemed satisfied with what she saw. “Yes, she is.” She turned to her. “Everything go okay while I was gone?”

  “It was busy, but when you own a store, busy is good.”

  “That’s true,” she agreed, seemingly relieved that the world hadn’t gone to hell simply because she’d overslept.

  “Is there anything you need me to do while I’m here?” Tobias asked. “Carry in supplies or change out ice cream tubs or whatever?”

  Susan took him in the back and had him refill the flour bins, since he was there, anyway, but he walked out fifteen minutes later. “It seems you two have a strong friendship,” Emery said, wondering why Tobias, who wasn’t related to Susan, was so diligent about seeing to her needs.

  Susan watched through the window as he climbed into his truck and drove away. “Life can be strange,” she said simply.

  Thinking about Thursday night and
how it had changed her the past two days—so much that she couldn’t seem to get back to the person she’d been before sleeping with Dallas—Emery absolutely understood.

  “Yes, it can be.”

  * * *

  “How was your first day?” Aiyana asked as soon as Emery walked through the front door.

  Emery stopped short when she saw Aiyana sitting in the living room with Cal, Liam, Bentley and Dallas, all of whom were spread out on the floor, making wedding favors. Emery bit back a smile at the sight of Cal’s big, calloused fingers struggling to tie a dainty red-striped ribbon with a thank you card attached to it around a clear glass mug filled with hot chocolate mix, crushed candy cane and mini marshmallows. Emery thought it was a particularly cute favor, given the season, but she had to laugh at Aiyana’s “work crew.”

  “Great. I earned some money, which was all I was hoping for.”

  Aiyana finished a bow and set the lidded mug aside. “How’s Susan? Dallas told me she stranded you at the store for hours, and I know she wouldn’t do that if she was well.”

  “She wasn’t feeling too great at first but seemed better after she had a chance to rest.”

  She pulled a new mug into her lap and wound the ribbon around the neck of it. “Good. Have you eaten dinner? I cooked a roast with some vegetables, if you’re hungry.”

  Emery stole a glance at Dallas, who was sitting with the mugs he’d completed lined up on one side of him and the sea of mugs he had yet to do on the other. “I ate a late lunch,” she told Aiyana. Unsure whether she should thank Dallas again for being considerate enough to grab her that sandwich, she decided not to draw attention to his kindness, in case Aiyana read too much into it. That was another consequence of Thursday night, she realized. Now they had something to hide. “I brought home cookies in case everyone would like dessert,” she announced.

  That was all it took to get Liam and Bentley to abandon their posts. They jumped up, probably as eager to get out of tying bows as they were to get hold of the sack she carried.

  “Do you need help with the favors?” Emery offered.

  “If you don’t have any other plans tonight,” Aiyana replied. “As you can see, I have a few recruits, but Liam and Bentley are dying to go AWOL, and we’ve invited a lot of people to the wedding, so it’s no small task.”

  Knowing how popular and well-known Aiyana was in this area—Cal, too—Emery had no doubt the entire town would turn out. Even more than the locals. A great number of her former students and teachers would come, too.

  “It’s Saturday night, Ma!” Liam complained. “And Jake is throwing a Christmas party. We don’t want to miss it.”

  “That’s important,” Cal said. “You should go. After all, this is only our wedding, something that will happen just once in a lifetime.”

  Emery smiled when he shot her a grin.

  “I’m excited about the wedding,” Liam said, taking his words at face value instead of the sarcastic way they were intended—probably to reassure Cal, just in case he was feeling a bit of disappointment. “But the people who come don’t need to take home mugs of hot chocolate mix. They probably have a big can of it from Costco in their pantry like we do.”

  “We still have to make them,” Aiyana insisted.

  “Why?” Bentley pressed.

  “To thank everyone for coming.” She rolled her eyes. “Guys don’t get it,” she said to Emery. “To them, this is wasted effort.”

  “Hey, hey,” Dallas complained. “Watch yourself. I’m cooperating. I’ve done more of these things than you have. I must be close to a hundred by now.”

  It was obvious he’d done far less than that, but Aiyana didn’t call him out.

  “And I’ve done at least—” Cal frowned at what he’d accomplished “—ten in the same amount of time.”

  They all laughed as Emery stepped over some discarded boxes to reach the stairs. “I can help. Just let me go put my purse away and change.”

  “Now that Emery’s available, can we can take off?” Liam asked his mother.

  “Why not?” Emery heard Aiyana reply in exasperation. “I’m going to have to retie all of yours, anyway.”

  “What’s wrong with mine?” Liam demanded, a scowl in his voice.

  “You can’t see how sad those bows are?”

  Emery chuckled as she scaled the stairs, closed her door and stripped off the sweater and pants she’d worn to work.

  Once she had on her sweats, she returned to the living room but only Aiyana, Cal and Dallas were there. “Liam and Bentley left already?”

  Aiyana rolled her eyes. “They had one foot out the door when we started.”

  “At least you still got us,” Cal said, trying to be helpful, but his response made Emery laugh again because she couldn’t tell whether he’d finished even three more while she was changing.

  “I’m picking up speed,” Dallas announced.

  Emery took Liam’s place instead of Bentley’s when she sat cross-legged on the floor simply because it was farther from Dallas. “Let me show you how it’s done,” she joked.

  For the next few hours, they tied and loaded mugs into boxes, then moved the boxes into Cal’s truck, Dallas’s van and Aiyana’s trunk.

  “Okay. That will have to be enough for one night,” Dallas said. “Eli just texted me. My sisters-in-law are making and freezing the potatoes for the wedding, so I promised Eli and Gavin I’d meet them at the Blue Suede Shoe once they got the kids to bed.”

  “We have almost three hundred,” Aiyana said, finishing up her count. “That should be enough.”

  “Good. I’ll see you in the morning.” Dallas bent to drop a kiss on his mother’s cheek before turning to Emery. “Would you like to come along?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ll probably just...go to bed.”

  “Why not get out for a while?” Aiyana asked. “Relax and have some fun with people your own age? It might be a nice break from spending every night in your bedroom.”

  She’d just been to LA with Dallas, and they’d made love on the beach, so she hadn’t been spending every night in her room. But she wasn’t about to point that out. Aiyana was mostly right—since she’d come to Silver Springs she’d scarcely left the house. “I’m still reluctant to be seen in public,” she admitted. She’d managed to get through the day at Sugar Mama without anyone drawing the connection between her and the sex video, but maybe that was because no one had looked at her too closely. They were too busy celebrating the holidays and being dazzled by the cute shop and delicious offerings.

  And no one would expect someone involved in such a big scandal to be working in a small-town cookie store.

  “Everything went smoothly when we went to Santa Barbara and LA,” Dallas pointed out. “And you were in town all day today. Did anyone say anything that upset you?”

  “No.”

  “Then come. You have to start living again at some point.”

  “You’ll be with your brothers,” she said. “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “You won’t be intruding. We could use another person for darts and pool. If you come, we won’t have to recruit anyone else.”

  She had to hand it to him. He wasn’t letting Thursday night stop him from remaining her friend. She wished it wasn’t such a big deal in her mind. “Okay,” she said. “Let me go change again.”

  13

  Dallas could tell Emery was self-conscious about being recognized. Although she was friendly to Gavin and Eli, she was quiet, and he caught her surreptitiously glancing around at the crowd every few minutes.

  “You okay?” he murmured to her as he relinquished his cue stick to someone in the party waiting to use the table after they were done.

  They’d just finished their third game of pool. Emery was terrible at darts and not much better at billiards. She admitted she hadn’t played either
game very often, so Dallas hadn’t been surprised. She was a career girl. He couldn’t see her spending much time hanging out in bars or billiard halls. But she was his partner, which meant Gavin and Eli slaughtered them the first two games. The third game, Dallas managed to play better than he’d ever played in his life—and his brothers probably weren’t competing very hard—so he managed to pull out a win. They were going to try beer pong next. But he could tell Emery was slightly reluctant to go over to that corner of the bar, where there were a lot more people.

  He was tempted to take her hand, to offer some support and reassurance. But after Thursday, things were different between them. He was careful not to touch her, and he could tell she was being careful not to touch him. They had to get back to where they’d been before they let their relationship turn physical. Otherwise, he was afraid it would destroy Emery’s recovery. He was beginning to understand that it could mess him up, too, although he wasn’t entirely sure how or why.

  “I’ll buy the drinks,” Eli announced, and Dallas didn’t argue. Eli and Gavin had lost; they were supposed to buy. Dallas had picked up the first round and Emery the second.

  “I’ll be right back,” he told Emery and Gavin and took a bathroom break while Eli went to the bar.

  He expected all three of them to be waiting when he returned, but only Eli and Gavin were there, lounging against the wall, talking and drinking a beer. “Where’s Emery?” he asked.

  Eli angled his head toward the dance floor, and Dallas followed his line of sight to find her in the arms of some big, bulky dude he’d never met before. “Who’s that?”

  “Beats me,” Eli replied. “Came up and asked her to dance.”

  Dallas told himself he didn’t mind seeing her with another guy. Why would he? He was glad she felt safe enough to get out there. They were only dancing, anyway. It wasn’t as though that would make him jealous even if they were a couple.