CJ noticed. “Are you sure?”
Of course she wasn’t sure. They had been having a wonderful Christmas and she didn’t want something like reality barging in on it. Who knew how much more time they had in this protective little bubble?
“No,” she admitted, shooting him a weak smile. “But I don’t want to give up on him. He’s all I’ve got.” She leaned over to get her phone, which had spent most of the day on the middle of the coffee table, silent and black.
CJ pulled her back. “That’s not true,” he told her, cupping her cheek and looking her in the eye. “You have me.”
God, how she wanted that to be true. “CJ...” she whispered, brushing her lips over his.
“Go,” he told her. “Call your dad.” Then he got up and headed toward the kitchen to give her some privacy.
She didn’t call, not right away. She opened up the camera app and cropped the photo she’d taken of CJ in his Santa suit. She saved it as her home screen with a smile.
But then she couldn’t put it off any longer. She’d said she’d call and so she would.
The phone rang. And rang. Just as she was moving the phone away from her ear to end the call, her dad’s scratchy voice crackled over the line. “What do you want?”
“Daddy?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me,” she said, dread rising up in her stomach. “Natalie.” Silence. “Your daughter?”
“Yeah, so?”
She swallowed down against the rising tide of panic. Why did she do this? Why did she try, year after year?
But then she stared at the Christmas tree with the bright lights, at her golden star glowing right in the middle. This wasn’t the normal way she spent Christmas, alone in her sterile condo. She wasn’t her normal self, either. She was better now.
“I wanted to call and wish you a merry Christmas, Daddy.”
There was a painful silence. “You just gotta rub it in my face, don’t you? Every year, you gotta call and remind me that this is the day she left. And you know why?”
“Why?” she asked in a shaking voice, unable to blink fast enough. She tried to put his words into context. He was slurring. He’d probably been drinking. He was upset. He was...
He wasn’t done yet.
“Because you ruined Christmas, girl. And every year, you gotta call me up and remind me that I wasn’t enough for her because she couldn’t deal with a spoiled brat like you.”
And with that, he hung up.
Natalie sat there, pain blossoming in her chest until she was nothing but regret.
Of course she ruined everything. Always had, always would. See? She’d even ruined her own Christmas because she thought she was doing a nice thing by reaching out to her father.
She’d thought...
What a fool she’d been, she suddenly realized. She’d thought she could be someone else and why? Because CJ treated her like a decent human? Ha. She’d never change. Even her father said so.
She was a former runner-up beauty queen with fake boobs and more wrinkles than she could keep at bay. She had nothing but her show. No family. No friends.
She had CJ...
But did she, really? This had been a great week. A nice vacation. But when she went back to her soulless condo and her fake morning smiles and her battles with Kevin and Steve over ratings, would she really have CJ?
No. Their lives were too far apart. If she gave up everything for him, she’d be left with nothing.
She needed her show. It was all she had.
She opened the photo app and looked at CJ in his Santa suit. Insecurity clobbered her on the back of the head and almost knocked her flat. She couldn’t breathe.
Everything was wrong.
But she knew one thing she could do to make things right.
Even as it occurred to her, her stomach turned, but she didn’t stop to think about how he was different, how he cared for her, how he trusted her...
He was the one thing that would keep her show going. The only thing.
She cropped the photo and uploaded it to Instagram. Guess who’s behind the beard? she typed, then tagged her producer and hit Share.
But instead of the normal pop of excitement that normally went with posting, she felt sick to her stomach. So she turned off her phone. She didn’t want to see the notifications.
Besides, it was Christmas. A Santa teaser was the perfect thing to post. It wasn’t a big deal. No one would know it was him, anyway.
And she had to keep her show. It was all she had.
* * *
Natalie had been quiet ever since she’d called her dad. CJ had asked if everything was all right, but she’d just curled into his side and asked him to start another movie. So he’d loaded up The Santa Clause and they watched it in near silence.
It hurt him that her father had obviously wished Natalie anything but a merry Christmas. But she didn’t want to talk about it, so he didn’t push.
The movie was nearing the end when his phone buzzed. “It’s probably my folks,” he said, kissing her as he climbed off the couch.
“You want to pause the movie?” She gave him a smile that was almost convincing.
“No, you keep watching, babe. I’ll be right back.”
Except it wasn’t his parents on the phone. “CJ?” It was his half brother, Zeb Richards.
“Is everything all right?” CJ asked automatically, trying to figure out why Zeb was calling him. Maybe he wanted to wish him a merry Christmas?
But even as he thought it, CJ knew that wasn’t it. They did not have what a reasonable person might consider a “close brotherly relationship.” In fact, the only time they had communicated outside of the meeting Zeb had called months ago about his proposed takeover of the Beaumont Brewery had been the message CJ had sent a few days ago.
“Depends on your definition of ‘all right,’” Zeb said. “It appears Natalie Baker has decided you are a story after all.”
She had? This was news to him. “Are you sure? She’s been with me for the last week. She got snowed in and I haven’t been able to get her out.”
True, he had stopped trying to get her out several days ago. But still—she’d been here.
“I’m sending you a link,” Zeb said, tactfully ignoring the implications of CJ and Natalie being snowed in together. “Daniel is already writing a press release acknowledging that you are one of our brothers, but you value your privacy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. He didn’t want to release it without your approval. I’ve also spoken with Chadwick. He told me that whatever you’d like to happen, you’ll have his help. So if you want to be publicly announced as a Beaumont, we can make that happen. And if not, we’ll do our best to bury the lede.”
A link? And Zeb had been talking with Chadwick? Daniel had already worked up a press release? “You know it’s Christmas, right?”
“Trust me, I know. I’m hiding in my study from my wife. She informed me that I was not allowed to work today—but,” he continued, sighing heavily, “this is important. You’re family.” Before CJ could even process that, Zeb said, “I’m also supposed to tell you that next year, you’re invited to Christmas dinner. Casey’s a little miffed that we didn’t have the entire family over, although I told her I wanted our first Christmas to be just us.”
CJ couldn’t think a year ahead. Right now, he couldn’t even think a minute ahead. “Are you sure?”
About any of it? How would Natalie have even gotten the story out? He’d been sitting on her phone for days and they hadn’t been apart since he’d given it back to her. The whole day, it’d been on the coffee table.
And it wasn’t easy for him to think of the Beaumonts—even ones who didn’t have the same last name—as family. He understood that they were blood relatives, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to give up being a Wesley.
“You can let me know,” Zeb said in the silence. “But we’re going to have to have an official response in a day or so. Sooner would be better. Daniel believes we nee
d to get out in front of this before it gets out of hand.”
“Yeah,” CJ said, feeling numb as he ended the call. It wasn’t just that he didn’t know how Natalie might’ve gotten the word out to anyone about him. It was that...
Well, he thought he’d changed her mind. It hadn’t been an explicit goal, certainly not during the first few days they’d been stuck in the living room together. But she hadn’t pried. She hadn’t asked questions. She hadn’t demanded answers. Instead, she’d been vulnerable and fragile but also tough and unflappable. She’d rolled with the changes and embraced his chores and his town’s party. She’d embraced him.
Hadn’t she?
Or had it all been an act?
Seconds later, his phone pinged with a link. Dread churning his stomach, he clicked on it.
“Who’s behind the beard?” It was a talking head that CJ vaguely recognized as Kevin Durante, another morning regular on Natalie’s station. “Next on a special edition of A Good Morning with Natalie Baker.” The show’s theme music played as the graphics flashed across the screen. CJ felt sicker with each passing second.
Then the camera focused on the handsome man. “Good morning, Denver. I’m Kevin Durante, in for Natalie Baker, who is on assignment. Our top story—has the missing Beaumont bastard been found?”
CJ’s stomach clenched at that—on assignment. He was her assignment. And there it was—a picture of CJ sitting on Santa’s throne. He recognized himself instantly.
CJ just stared at his phone. When had she taken the photo? He tried to run through the evening. It’d been such a flood of kids and parents and people spiking their eggnog... Wait. There’d been a break. He’d given her the phone and then she’d gone to get something to drink. And he’d talked with Dale and Larry for a little bit. That had to have been it.
She’d taken that photo and uploaded it. Kevin showed the original Instagram post. Because he didn’t have anything else to say, he also read through some of the comments. There were the same sort of comments CJ had seen the one time he’d looked at the notifications on her phone. The whole thing disgusted him.
Kevin kept talking. There were “reports” that the man behind the beard was CJ Wesley of Firestone, Colorado. But no one could confirm or deny that fact. Due to the weather, he explained, no one had been able to get to Firestone and none of the Beaumonts were talking.
“We’ll have more on this developing story soon,” Kevin announced cheerfully.
It was all CJ could do to watch the clip again. This was it. The moment his world changed forever.
That feeling only got stronger when Natalie walked into the kitchen. She still looked upset. Well, she could just be upset. He didn’t even know if she had actually called her dad or if she had just checked in with the station.
“Well?” He was real proud of the way he managed to say that without his voice shaking with anger.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she came straight to his arms and buried her face against his chest. “The movie was fine,” she said, her voice muffled. “But I wish I hadn’t called my dad. I...I’m letting him ruin my day and I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.”
It galled him how upset she sounded. Worse, it galled him when his arms came around her without his permission and held her tight.
Had any of it been real? He had only asked her for two things. He had asked her not to pry into his life and he had asked her for the truth. And she hadn’t been able to give him either.
Still, he clung to this moment because he knew that as soon as he pushed her away, it was all over. The bubble around them had burst and Christmas would be over in a few short hours and everything would go back to the way it had been before she’d arrived.
He would go back to being alone. To hiding himself so that no one would know his secret. Well, it was all over. The horse was out of that barn and there was no shutting the door behind it.
She leaned back and looked up at him, her eyes watery. “How about you? How are your parents?”
For a little while, his fantasy girl had fit into his fantasy world. And now that while was over. “I wouldn’t know.”
She looked at him in confusion. “Then who called?”
“My brother.” The word still felt awkward in his mouth, but he was going to have to get used to it now.
“Did he call to wish you a happy Christmas?”
CJ shook his head. Then he held up his phone and hit the play button.
It took all of three seconds for her to realize what she was watching—three of the longest seconds of his life. Then her gaze met his, her eyes so wide—and filled with something that looked a lot like fear.
“Turn it off.”
“Why? This is why you came, isn’t it?”
All the blood drained out of her face and she began to tremble. “No,” she said. It came out as a plaintive wail. “It’s not what I wanted.”
He just shook his head. “You’re on assignment. Your boy Kevin said so himself.”
“No,” she said with more force. “I didn’t think... I assumed—They weren’t supposed to do anything with the photo until I got back. It was just a teaser. And I was trying to figure out how I could... I don’t know.” She seemed at a loss. “How I could redirect the attention.”
“Redirect it? Come on, Natalie,” he scoffed. “You’re all about the attention, aren’t you? You actually like it when people say those horrible things to you, don’t you?” He saw her throat work as she swallowed, but she didn’t say anything. “Well,” he said decisively, “you got what you came for. I’ll see about getting you back to Denver tomorrow.”
Tears leaked out the corners of her eyes, but he wasn’t going to be moved by them. For all he knew, she could cry on demand.
He should walk away. He was done with her and he wasn’t about to give her a single thing more that she or anyone else could use.
But, dammit, it hurt to stand there and watch her try to put on a brave face. She swallowed again. “That would be for the best. I’m sorry that I’ve intruded on your holiday.”
Liar, he wanted to say. Because he knew her tell. He’d thought—for a little while—that he’d known her. “All I asked of you was to be honest.”
“I was,” she said with more force. “I was—except that I made a mistake. I called my dad and he was terrible and I—I panicked. I don’t have anything but my show. Without it, I’m nothing.”
CJ let out a bark of laughter. “A mistake is an accident, Natalie. You can’t convince me that you accidentally took a photo and then accidentally uploaded it across social media and that your coworkers accidentally did a four-minute segment on me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “It was a mistake,” she whispered. “Finding you, coming here—I warned you. I’m nothing but a selfish, spoiled brat and I ruin everything.”
The last time she’d said that, he’d disagreed with her. This time, though, he didn’t. She hadn’t swallowed. She wasn’t lying.
She dropped her head into her hands and dug the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I wish you’d taken a hatchet to my phone. God, I wish you had destroyed the thing.”
“So do I,” he said bitterly. “So do I.”
Twelve
The next twenty-four hours were some of the most miserable of Natalie’s life. She slept in the guest room—alone, of course. CJ stopped talking to her completely. Not that she could blame him—she couldn’t. But it was unnerving, the way he watched her. His eyes were cold and his expression was one step removed from a full-scale scowl—and it was directed at her at all times. She felt like a mouse with a hawk watching her.
She knew she had done this to herself. But she was also pissed off at her producer and at Kevin. They had taken her photo and made it his story. She had thought that Steve would have the decency to at least wait until she could make it back to the studio—but he hadn’t. He hadn’t even checked in with her before he had taken her story and run with it. She had been cut out almost completely.
The w
riting was on the wall. She was going to lose her show.
The whole reason she’d gone looking for CJ in the first place had been to save her show. She’d found him and yet she was going to lose her show anyway.
She had nothing.
One of the few things CJ said to her was that she had to dig out her car while he used his backhoe to plow the remaining snow off the drive. She didn’t want to be in the house alone and obviously, CJ didn’t want her in there, either. She had dressed in her own clothes that morning for the first time in days, but she put on the snowsuit and headed out. It was another warm day and everything was wet and slushy—which meant the snow was back-breakingly heavy. But she didn’t mind. It took all of her concentration to excavate her tires and, when she’d done that, she started trying to dig tracks to a plowed section.
She had to leave. She knew that. But even as she hefted shovel after shovel of snow, she wished she didn’t have to go. If only she’d held on to sanity through that moment of panic and insecurity. If only she’d had faith in CJ. If only...
If only she’d been someone else. Someone good enough for him.
But she wasn’t, so she kept digging. Once she had unearthed her car and CJ had unearthed the road, he hitched her car to his tractor and pulled it out. It was the last time she was alone with him, riding in the cab of his backhoe as he towed her car to the county road. The tension was a living thing because she had to sit on his knee, basically, but he didn’t want to touch her.
Once they were at the road, she stripped out of the snowsuit and handed it back to him. Then she held out the star he’d made her. “Here—you keep this.”
He looked offended. “I’m not taking it back. I gave it to you in good faith.” Every word he said was another splinter in her skin because her faith had not been good. Not even close. “It’s yours. Just don’t put it on TV.” He turned to go.
She couldn’t let it end. Not like this. “CJ?”
He didn’t look back. But he did stop. “What?”
She took a deep breath. “This was the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”
“Sure it was.” He started to walk.
Rich Rancher for Christmas Page 13
