by Lisa Plumley
“There must be something in the water around here.”
“It’s really nice! They provide an all-inclusive holiday experience and a wonderful Christmas ambiance for their guests, all for a reasonable price and with a personal touch. If I remember correctly, they have multiple Christmas trees, a holiday-shopping concierge, gift wrapping assistance, a cookie-baking-and-decorating party, sleigh rides with jingle bells—”
“I think I’m breaking out in a rash.”
“—Christmas-caroling outings, amazing gourmet meals three times a day, homemade eggnog, a special Fun Zone with activities for the kids, an evening happy hour with mulled cider—”
“I hope that’s happening early today. How much of a buzz do you think you can get from mulled cider?”
“—and a resident mascot, Digby the dachshund, who wears the most adorable holiday-themed sweaters. He is too cute.”
“Christmas sweaters? For a dog?” Casey gave her an appalled look. “You’re making that up.”
“I am not.” Playfully, Kristen hugged herself. “There’s nothing I love more than a dog in a sweater.”
“Ugh.”
“Unless it’s two dogs in two sweaters.”
“That’s it. We can’t be friends anymore.”
“Or a sleepy kitten in a teacup,” she mused with mock dreaminess. “There’s nothing cuter than that.”
“What? A kitten in a—” Casey stopped. “What? Why?”
“Haven’t you ever visited cuteoverload.com?”
He shuddered. “Not in this lifetime.”
Kristen stifled a smile. “You’ll see. Once you’ve spent a night at The Christmas House, you’ll be converted, just like me. As soon as the Sullivans get their hands on you, that’s it. You’re done. Betty and Robert own the place, but their niece, Vanessa, handles most of the day-to-day stuff. You know . . . transforming Grinchy types like you into candy-cane-loving, Santa-hat-sporting, ho-ho-ho-ing true believers.”
That did it. Inadvertently, she pushed things too far.
“You’re trying to make me panic.” Casey shook his head, still driving. “It won’t work. I’m immune to Christmas.”
“Nobody’s immune to Christmas.”
“I’m immune to all the bullshit that goes with it, too.”
“That’s not possible.”
Casey gave her a look that said it wasn’t only possible—it was inarguable. “Christmas might have meant something once. But these days, it’s just a bunch of greedy corporations playing on the sentiments of lonely, distracted people. They leverage our collective memories to make a buck, and we gleefully buy in.”
“Except you.”
A stony nod. “Except me.”
Stunned by his cynicism, Kristen touched his arm. “You get all that from a few lights and wreaths and bayberry candles?”
No wonder he’d been giving the stink-eye to the holiday decorations they’d passed on the way. He really disliked Christmas.
At least that meant she didn’t have to feel too sorry about Casey failing her official litmus test. It wasn’t as if she’d be missing out on sleeping with her soul mate or anything. She couldn’t possibly be destined to fall for Scrooge Redux.
Unaware of her musings, Casey pulled the car to a stop beside a long rolling yard filled with fresh snow and sparkly holiday decorations. At its far end, near its hilly crest, stood the B&B: a big white house, a bona fide barn, and several additional outbuildings. The house’s wide front porch was fully decked out in lights, ribbons, and the aforementioned wreaths. Next to the car was a hand-painted sign with a familiar holly-wreath logo and the words The Christmas House in fancy script.
“If you think you can change my mind,” Casey said as he turned off the car’s ignition, “you’re welcome to have at it.”
But Kristen was too wary—and maybe too cynical herself, by now—to fall for that. At least from him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she asked astutely. “If I’m busy trying to show you the wonders of Christmas, I won’t even notice what you’re doing to sabotage Heather’s holiday TV special.”
“I told you, I’m not going to sabotage—” In midsentence, Casey gave up. “Look, you’ll see. I have ways of handling problems like your sister’s TV special. It’s my specialty. And as for all the Christmas stuff, usually I’d be in Mexico by now, kicking back with some buddies. So if you can make missing out on my winter vacation more tolerable, I’m all for it.”
“Oh. Really? But what about—” Your family, she started to ask. Whoops. She’d already realized that was a sensitive subject with him. Awkwardly, Kristen regrouped. “Really?” she asked brightly. “You go on vacation this time of year?”
A nod. “Typically I go someplace sunny for the holidays—Cozumel, Anguilla, Kauai—and get as drunk as possible.”
Kristen gave him an empathetic look. “How’s the mulled cider in Anguilla? Pretty tasty?”
“I wouldn’t know. I drink beer.”
“Do the places you go to have Christmas trees and lights and holiday music? Do they have gifts and fudge and mistletoe?”
“You don’t get it. I’m trying to get away from that stuff.”
She really didn’t get it. The very idea was beyond comprehension. “How about stockings? Gingerbread? Sugar cookies? Yule logs? They must have Yule logs. Maybe on the beach? Like a beach bonfire? A Yule log beach bonfire?”
“I wouldn’t recognize a Yule log if you smacked me with one.”
“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You think you’re sad. I’m the one getting walloped.”
“No, I mean your understanding of Christmas is sad.”
“Not as sad as a kitten in a teacup. That’s messed up.”
“You seem,” Kristen said, realizing how right Heather had been about this, “completely deficient in Christmas cheer.”
She wished the realization didn’t make her feel so sorry for him. She didn’t want to feel sorry for her archrival.
It was going to make things pretty damn inconvenient.
Patiently, Casey pocketed his car keys. He gazed at her, seeming willing to stay in the car and discuss this with her all day, if necessary. It was a weirdly seductive quality of his.
“I never had any Christmas cheer,” he told her succinctly. “I never wanted it. That’s never going to change.”
The challenge inherent in that statement was almost enough to make Kristen offer a plan to the contrary, just because he thought she couldn’t. But at the last second, she quit admiring Casey’s big, talented-looking hands, stopped trying to decide if his shadowy beard stubble qualified as auburn or chestnut, and managed to rein in her intrinsic compassion.
She gave an offhanded wave. “Okay. Have it your way.”
After all, maybe Casey just had a bad attitude. Maybe he hadn’t had a disadvantaged youth; plenty of people wound up thriving in the foster-care system, Kristen knew, having been sheltered by loving and kindhearted foster parents. Casey’s upbringing didn’t have to equal fear and loathing of Christmas.
No matter how full of self-protective curmudgeonliness he seemed to be when it came to discussing the holidays.
Casey took her turndown in stride. “You’re probably the wrong person to ask for help anyway,” he said carelessly. “I mean, how much do you really know about enjoying Christmas, if yours can be thrown off so easily by Heather’s arrival in town?”
To Kristen, those were fighting words.
She intended to react appropriately, too. But first . . .
“Who said Heather’s homecoming wrecked my Christmas?”
Casey only looked at her. “That’s got to be especially tough for someone like you. Someone who loves the holidays.”
It had been tough. It still was, in fact. Just last week, her mom had canceled their annual mother-daughter pre-Christmas shopping trip so she could pick up her Heather Miller Live! from the Heartland souvenir T-shirt order and distribute the shirts to the members of her knitting club. But Kristen
hadn’t told Casey that. How had he gotten to be so freakishly perceptive?
Dumbfounded, Kristen couldn’t guess. All she knew was that Casey’s overt sympathy—served up with another helping of bedroom eyes for a starter and a hint of potential make-out session for dessert—made most of her remaining resistance to him crumple.
“Heather and her glam posse brought in animatronic reindeer,” Kristen told him. Surely, once Casey knew the facts, he would be on her side. “Multiple animatronic reindeer, to use around town while filming on location. Then, as a pièce de résistance, they dressed the reindeer in couture harnesses.”
“You must have loved that. Like dogs with sweaters!”
“Uh, no.” Kristen made a face. “The French designer who made the harnesses was feeling ‘inspired’ by vintage Parisian S&M gear. Those reindeer look like animatronic refugees from Disneyland’s ‘It’s a Small Sadomasochistic World’ ride.”
“Hmm. Bondage reindeer. Interesting choice.”
“Dasher, Prancer . . . and Vixen! They’re all over town now,” Kristen explained, “just like that ‘Cows on Parade’ exhibit in Chicago. It’s disturbing. And it’s not Christmassy.” She considered it. “Those harnesses don’t even have jingle bells!”
“. . . because that’s the biggest problem with whips-and-chains robo-reindeer.” Casey made a sardonic face. “You’re being circumspect, but I bet I can guess which designer it was. I’ve done some troubleshooting at Fashion Week, and I—”
“They blew in huge piles of fake snowdrifts outside, too, on top of the real snow,” Kristen rushed on, lest he get sidetracked before she made her point, “because the authentic stuff didn’t ‘read well’ on camera. They made all the local extras in the ‘audience’ get spray-on tans, because they looked too pale and ‘sickly’ to be Heather Miller fans. They said they didn’t look ‘aspirational’ enough for TV viewers.”
Casey nodded, unfazed. “That sounds about right.”
She couldn’t believe he couldn’t see how wrong all those things were. “They’re perverting the idea of Christmas, just for the sake of having a bigger, better, faker Christmas for TV. There’s more, too. Personal things. I can’t begin to tell you—”
“You know,” Casey mused with a shrewd expression, “if I can get them to move up the live-performance part of the show and wrap the rest of the production early, all that craziness will come to an end.” He gave Kristen a direct look. “If you help me get Heather on track, you can have your Christmas back.” A pause. “You can have your life back.”
Clearly, she’d given away too much already, if Casey had any inkling how much she wanted that. He definitely seemed to.
Kristen shook her head, wishing she’d never spoken up. This situation wasn’t as cut and dried as Casey wanted it to be. “My sister is more important to me than any Christmas tradition. I want her to be here, really at home for the holidays.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Heather doesn’t have to leave town when she’s done with her TV special. In fact, afterward she’ll be more free to spend time with you and your parents. There just won’t be any Robo-Rudolphs, SnoFoam, Snowcel, acrylic icicles, or Mystic-Tan-spackled Michiganders around.”
But Kristen knew different. This was the first holiday season in years that Heather had been home. That was partly why her parents had jumped so hard on the Heather Miller bandwagon.
“She’ll leave,” Kristen told him. “Without an excuse to stay in Kismet, Heather will borrow someone’s private Learjet and head back to her real life. My mom and dad will be devastated. I can’t let that happen.” Turning away from that sobering thought, Kristen mustered a grin. “But hey, maybe you’ll see Heather in Cozumel sometime!”
“So you’re sacrificing your Christmas happiness for the sake of ensuring a big, cozy, family holiday for your folks?”
She hadn’t thought about it that way, Kristen realized. But that was about the size of it. She just wanted a little harmony.
“You don’t have to sound so befuddled by that.”
“I’m not. I’m not befuddled by family loyalty.” Casey didn’t sound completely convinced. “So tell me: What makes a perfect Christmas for you?”
She snorted. “As if you want to know, Mr. Grinch.”
“I mean it. Just because I don’t want one for myself, that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate all the necessary elements. But it’s a personal thing, right? So when it comes to you . . .”
“All right,” Kristen said, deciding to play along. “I like having family and friends nearby, first of all. Which is at the crux of my problem with Heather’s Christmas invasion, actually, since she’s here, which is good, yet she’s ruining everything, which is bad. I like doing all the traditional things, too—decorating, baking cookies, exchanging gifts, going to parties.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Appearing deeply engrossed in what she was saying—while also deeply, irrevocably averse to everything she was talking about—Casey nodded. “That sounds nice for you.”
“I have to say, you seem as though you’d rather eat rocks than immerse yourself in Christmas.” Kristen angled her head toward the B&B outside. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Now Casey appeared grimly determined. “I can take it.”
“Right. So you can keep an eye on Shane Maresca.”
“What’s more,” he went on, ignoring her leading statement, “I can make sure you have the Christmas you want this year.”
“Are you trying to bribe me or something? Because if you are—” It might help me feel better about “distracting” you. She couldn’t say that, so she tried something else. “It won’t work.”
“Consider it a favor. Just because I like you.”
Suspiciously, Kristen regarded him. She couldn’t help wanting that to be true. Because, despite everything, she liked him, too. “Really?”
“Yes.” Casey glanced out the window next, as though girding himself against the B&B’s festive façade. “Now. Will you come inside and help me survive this Christmas gauntlet?”
“Around here, we like to call it ‘checking in.’ It’s easy.”
“It’s not going to be easy.” Casey shook his head. “It’s going to be a big slice of tinsel-covered disaster pie.”
“Whoa.” Kristen held up her hands. “First of all, don’t malign the world of pie. Second of all, I’m your conscripted Sherpa, not your therapist. I’m not here to hold your hand.”
Casey’s warmhearted gaze suggested he’d like that . . . and more.
Probably, so would she. Better not think about that.
Heather’s sex tape. Heather’s sex tape. He’d seen it!
Whatever else she did, Kristen remembered, she could not cave in and sleep with Casey. No matter how fun it sounded . . .
“I’m asking for your company,” he said, not seeming at all like a guy who watched grainy pornography. “For an afternoon.”
“I didn’t agree to that, either.”
“It was kind of implied when you rocketed into my car to escape your ‘paparazzo.’” He gave her a casual, all-too-knowing glance. “Or are you ready to tell me the truth about what that guy was really doing lurking outside your apartment?”
She’d been planning to tell Casey she intended to call a taxi from outside The Christmas House and then take her chances sneaking back into her aforementioned apartment. Or, failing that, retreating to Talia’s place for the night. But now...
Argh. “How did you know it was my apartment?”
Casey only observed her. Patiently. And confidently.
Damn it. She couldn’t lie outright. “They should call you the Ninja Stalker,” Kristen grumbled, “not The Terminator.”
His gaze intensified. “Who calls me The Terminator?”
“Um, everyone? In L.A., at least. That’s what I heard.”
He pursed his lips. Then he nodded. Was it only her imagination, or did Casey seem a little . . . hurt by that nickname?
Before she could start feeling too sor
ry for him, he gazed through the frosty windshield. He frowned at the B&B’s sign.
“That’s how Heather got you to agree to pump me for information,” he surmised in a rough voice. “By scaring you with stories of the big baddie who’d come to cause her trouble.”
He was too close for comfort. Kristen squirmed, unwilling to admit it. “Hey, I don’t scare easily, remember?”
“Maybe not,” Casey agreed, “but you do seem to have a mile-wide loyalty streak. Obviously, Heather . . . doesn’t. She was willing to do whatever she had to do—even exploit your sense of sisterly solidarity—to keep me away from the set today. The question is, why? What exactly is going on down there?”
“Technically, that’s two questions.”
Decisively, Casey glanced at the B&B. “I’m going inside for a supersize dose of Christmas cheer. It’ll probably be lethal.” With a beguiling grin, he beckoned her. “Are you coming?”
She boggled. “Aren’t you going to the set of Heather’s TV special instead? A second ago, you said you wanted to know what’s going on down there.”
He’d also said that Heather had exploited her. That didn’t sit well with Kristen. She crossed her arms and waited.
But Casey merely smiled at her. “I’m not going to go down there and start raising hell right this minute, no. If that’s what you’re expecting,” he said. “That’s not how I work.”
His cryptic tone only piqued her interest. “How do you work, then?”
But Casey only squinted more attentively at the B&B. “I think I see that sweater-wearing dachshund you were telling me about. That’s a nice Christmas tree in the window, too. See it?”
Pointedly, Kristen didn’t look. But she felt the tug of those seasonal accoutrements, all the same.
“Seriously,” she insisted. “How do you work?”
“Stick close to me. Maybe you’ll find out.”
Casey flashed her a tempting grin. Then, before she could reply, he got out of the car. The driver’s-side door slammed shut in his wake. He tromped toward The Christmas House’s homespun sign. He put his hands on his hips. Then he grinned at the sign—almost as if he truly, genuinely liked it.
She didn’t get him. That’s partly why he was so disarming.
