by Lisa Plumley
Walden still wasn’t sure if the popcorn-and-cranberry thing was a date or a ruse to force him into indentured Christmas-decorating servitude. He wasn’t sure if Talia saw him or a piece of biscuit-baking beefcake when she eyeballed him. And he wasn’t sure if Talia was ultra-determined to help Kristen because of their longtime friendship or if she just wanted an excuse to wear a leopard-print coat and make out with someone in public.
Just then, he didn’t care. He was willing to risk it.
“You don’t know me that well yet, or you’d already know that I never miss a chance to feel potent,” Walden told Talia with a grin. He rubbed his hands together. “That means you’re about to get all the hot and heavy action you can handle.”
Talia looked intrigued. “That sounds like a promise.”
“That’s because it is. Bring on the baby-making!”
At that, Talia balked. “Wait. You know I’m not interested in making this a real thing between us, right?” She touched her grape-Pixy-Stix-colored hair. “I mean, I’m not exactly prime motherhood material. I think that’s obvious to everyone.”
Walden didn’t think anything about Talia was obvious. Except that he really, really liked her. “It’s Christmas,” he said coolly. “Let’s just take things as they come.”
“Booya! That’s good enough for me!” Gareth crowed. He put on his army jacket and knit trapper cap, then brandished the pregnancy-test kit. “I’m off to plant this in the most devious, incriminating, tabloid-baiting way possible.” At the door, he paused. “Then I’m going to take my nieces to see Santa Claus at the mall. Later, all!”
Left alone with Talia, Walden smiled. He’d just struck holiday gold, and he hadn’t even been trying. How much more amazing could things get if he put in a little effort?
The only way to find out was to do it. He gave Talia a cocky look, held out his hand, then nodded. “Ready?”
Talia inhaled. She looked at his hand. She took it.
“Before we do this public Heather make-out thing,” she astonished Walden by saying, “we’d better practice.”
He blinked. “Practice making out?”
She gave a demure nod. “We want to be believable, right?”
“Absolutely,” he agreed. “Let’s do this. For Kristen.”
They were actually going to do this. For Kristen.
And him.
It was possible, Walden thought dazedly, that he should have wished for even bigger things for Christmas this year. Because as long as a few of his dreams were coming true . . .
But then Talia tugged him closer and got straight down to business by kissing him, hard and fast and then sweet and slow and then everything in between, and Walden realized the truth.
Nothing was bigger than this. Nothing was better than being with Talia. For however long it lasted . . .
Chapter 9
The Christmas House B&B, Kismet, Michigan
T-minus 20.25 days until Christmas
Casey didn’t plan to spend his first full afternoon in Kismet making gingerbread houses at The Christmas House B&B. But, since that’s what he spied Shane Maresca doing as he came in from the indoor-outdoor tour of the property that Vanessa Sullivan had given him and Kristen after he’d checked in . . .
Well, that was it. Gingerbread houses crowded their way onto his schedule and didn’t let go. End of story.
Standing in the B&B’s cozy, wood-smoke-and-pine-scented common room, surrounded by two Christmas trees piled high with wrapped gifts and an array of garland, wreaths, and candles, Casey turned to Kristen. He’d been planning to share the property tour with her, feed her dinner, and then drive her back to downtown Kismet so she could get on with her day. After all, she didn’t owe him an afternoon’s entertainment. And he usually worked best on his own, when he could be quick on his feet.
But something about Kristen’s expression, as she gazed in wonderment at the B&B’s holiday decorations, made Casey reconsider. She looked so . . . enthralled. So hopeful. And since her reaction was obviously a response to the Christmas overkill surrounding them, he couldn’t quite bring himself to end it.
“Hey.” Casey nudged her. He nodded through the entryway to the B&B’s adjoining room, where tables had been arranged with slabs of prebaked gingerbread “walls” and “roofs” in a sort of gingerbread-village assembly line. Bowls of various toppings and icings and decorations were arrayed along the centers of the tables, along with individual foil-lined trays designed to hold the guests’ unique creations. “I’m game if you are.”
Kristen looked surprised. “To make a gingerbread house?”
“Why not?” He couldn’t see Shane Maresca inside that room—not at that precise moment—but he’d been there a second ago. He couldn’t have gotten away already. “Maybe it’ll be fun.”
Now she looked skeptical. “And you’re all about the fun.”
“Hey.” Casey pulled a chastising face. “Even we ‘Terminators’ like a few red and green sprinkles sometimes.”
Even if they didn’t necessary like being called “Terminators.” That was one he’d never heard applied to himself before. Probably, Heather had made it up on the spot. But that didn’t mean the nickname didn’t pack a sting. A tiny sting.
Casey knew he was much too invulnerable to be truly hurt.
All the same, Kristen’s gaze softened. “Come on. I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t know you were sensitive about it.”
Casey forced a chuckle. “Sensitive? Me? People can call me whatever they want—as long as they also say I get the job done.”
“Right.” She didn’t appear persuaded—but she did appear interested in that impromptu gingerbread-house construction project. She bit her lip. “There are little kids in there too, you know. And Christmas carols. And probably Digby the dachshund. You really want to make a gingerbread house?”
“It’s a construction project.” The idea appealed to him on a macho level. “It’s architecture. Besides, I figure there’s probably some kind of B&B record to be broken here.”
“A gingerbread-house-building record?”
Casey nodded. With relish, he rubbed his hands together.
Kristen laughed. “Okay, hotshot. Let’s do it. But I’ve worked with icing and cookie dough before. You haven’t. So don’t come crying to me when your Casey Jackson Mega Tower crumples.”
He widened his eyes. “Who said I was making a mega tower?”
She only gave him a knowing look. “Aren’t you?”
Actually, Casey had been wondering exactly how high he could stack the layers of gingerbread to make something really impressive. But just at that moment, he spotted Shane Maresca mingling with the guests and children in the next room, and there wasn’t time to strategize anymore. He just had to do.
“Look, you’re making it really hard to do something nice and Christmassy for you, you know that?” he asked Kristen.
“Is that what this is? Nice Christmassyness?”
“I told you I could do it. This is how it starts.”
With an impish grin, she put her hands on her hips. “If you have to tell me the fun’s already started,” Kristen said, “then I’ve got news for you: It hasn’t actually started.”
Her dancing eyes and audacious expression drew him in in a way that cookie dough never could have. Transfixed by her knack for making him feel . . . energized, Casey arched his eyebrow.
“Why don’t you come over here and say that?” he asked.
She accepted his challenge by taking one step closer. Her upturned face swam in his vision, pert and daring. “Say what?”
“Say you’re not having fun yet.”
“I’m not having fun yet.”
“Closer,” Casey urged. “You’re still too far away.”
Kristen obliged. Now her toes almost touched his. Her cheeks turned pink and her smile broadened and her plaid flannel shirt, so prosaic and lumberjack-like, chose exactly that moment to gape in the front, revealing another glimpse of her red lacy bra. Krist
en really ought to work on that, he thought. Her clothes seemed to want her to be undressed; they were staging a mutiny to accomplish it. Her red lacy bra was the ringleader.
Shifting his gaze away from that alluring sight, Casey felt his heartbeat kick up a notch. Incongruously, given that there were hordes of children and B&B guests and his arch nemesis just a few feet away, he had the sense that he and Kristen were the only two people in the world. The Christmas music fell away. So did the multicolored lights, the smell of cinnamon potpourri, and the lingering knowledge that he really ought to be working.
Just then, Casey didn’t care about working.
If that made him a bad Terminator . . . so be it.
Kristen tilted her face toward his. “How’s this? Close enough for you yet?” Her voice hitched. “I told you, I’m not scared of you. And I’m pretty sure I’m not having fun yet.”
“You,” Casey replied assuredly, “are a terrible liar.”
She swallowed tellingly. “Who says I’m lying?”
“Me.” Suddenly, it seemed crucial that he breathe in the sweet, vaguely pumpkin-pie-spiced scent of her hair. It seemed critical that he examine the creamy pale skin at the vee of her shirt . . . that he lower his hand to touch her hand. When he did, Kristen jumped. He smiled. “If you weren’t having fun yet, you wouldn’t be all sparkly-eyed and breathless. You wouldn’t be leaning toward me. You wouldn’t be here at all.”
He expected her—in order—to close her eyes, hold her breath, lever herself backward, and leave, just to be contrary. Instead, to Casey’s indescribable relief (which he refused to contemplate any further), Kristen only smiled at him.
“Takes one to know one. You’re doing the same thing.”
He was? Taken aback, Casey glanced down at himself. He’d thought he was the one controlling this encounter. It wasn’t like him to lose the upper hand in a situation like this one and not even grasp it. The realization was startling.
More startling still, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Not when Kristen stood only inches away from him, giving him that Christmas-crazed come-hither look of hers. Not when she stroked her fingers over his hand, making all his nerve endings go on red alert. Not when she puckered up, leaned in closer . . .
. . . then gave him a big, fat, jokingly passionate “Mmmmwhaa!” of a kiss. A parody kiss. To him! No woman had ever—
“Quit stalling.” Kristen gestured toward the other room. “I’m ready to kick your ass in gingerbread-house building.”
Still gob-smacked, Casey stared at her. “Oh yeah?”
“Before I’m done, you’re going to beg for mercy.”
Casey sort of already wanted to. Please just give me a real kiss, he wanted to plead. You know we’ll both enjoy it.
He still couldn’t believe she’d been so close, had appeared so captivated, so into him . . . and then she’d broken the spell.
Effortlessly. Hell. Why didn’t Kristen Miller want him?
Stymied by the question, Casey looked at her. She seemed like a regular woman—a woman without a genius intellect, a world-famous derrière, or a golden singing voice. She seemed ordinary. Average. Yet he felt endlessly intrigued by her.
“I’m never going to beg for mercy,” he told Kristen, mustering as much bravado as he could. Most likely, Casey knew, he wasn’t performing at his peak after a cross-country plane ride, a blizzard, a potential babysitting quest, and a Christmas-themed B&B tour, all back to back. “You might have forgotten who you’re dealing with here,” he boasted, “but I’m—”
Too late, Casey realized she wasn’t even listening. Instead, she was gazing raptly at the gingerbread and goodies.
What the hell was the appeal of Christmas? He didn’t get it. He never had. Decorations and baked goods shouldn’t have mesmerized a woman more than he could mesmerize a woman. So why—
Suddenly, Casey spied Shane Maresca in the crowd. He followed the path of Kristen’s gaze straight toward that bastard and realized the truth: Kristen was interested in Maresca!
That’s why she’d tuned out his “no mercy” blustering.
That’s why she’d ended their toe-to-toe almost-kiss, too.
Casey couldn’t let this happen. It was an affront to his manhood—to his very essence. He was the man who made things happen, who fixed the unfixable, who left everyone satisfied.
Shane Maresca wasn’t. But at that moment, he was the man who raised his big, stupid, conventionally “handsome” head, spotted Kristen gawking at him, and broke out in a daffy grin.
“Hey, Kristen!” Maresca waved. “How are you, beautiful?”
Ugh. Casey rolled his eyes. There was no way a smart and independent and interesting woman like Kristen was falling for Maresca’s smarmy “hey, beautiful!” shtick. She was too good for the likes of him. She was too kind. Too assertive. Too clever.
Casey turned to Kristen to congratulate her on that.
Unfortunately, she was already almost pushing him out of the way to get to Shane Maresca. “Hey, handsome!” she called.
Amid the gingerbread and giggling children and upbeat Christmas music, the two of them met. They embraced. While Casey watched in disbelief, Kristen laughed at something Shane said. He couldn’t fathom how they’d developed such instant rapport. That was Casey’s specialty. Kristen was Casey’s guest here.
On the verge of charging over there to remind them both of that irrefutable fact, Casey realized he was clenching his fists. Ouch. He raised his hands. He gawked at them. He forced them open, wondered why he’d gotten so worked up about a woman—especially a woman he’d only met because it was part of his job.
He inhaled. He had to lighten up. He had to screw his head on straight before he endangered this damn Heather Miller job. It was important. It was high profile. If he screwed up—
Well, he couldn’t screw up. That was that.
When Casey looked toward Shane and Kristen again, he saw that Maresca was pointing at something dangling over his head. In response, Kristen sent her gaze upward. So did Casey.
He spotted the freaking bunch of mistletoe hung from the freaking doorjamb a millisecond before Kristen did.
Oh no. Not this. Not this obvious, insulting, dumbass maneuver. Kristen wouldn’t fall for it. But she did. To Casey’s disbelief, she smiled cheerfully at Shane. She put her hands on his big, stupid, conventionally “broad” shoulders. Saying something intimate and hilarious (by the looks of it, at least), she raised herself on tiptoe. Not even noticing that Shane had brought his arms to her waist to steady her, she got ready to plant a big, stupid, Christmas mistletoe kiss on him.
This was wrong. It was all wrong. It was so, so wrong.
Noooo, Casey wanted to scream. Stooop! he wanted to yell while running in agonized slo-mo toward them both.
Instead, in the instant before their lips met, Casey found himself frozen in place. At the same time, Shane turned his gaze toward Casey. He saw him looking. He gave him a galling wink.
He knew exactly what he was doing, Casey realized. He was doing it to annoy Casey. And it was damn well working.
Kristen’s lips met Maresca’s cheek. Shane closed his eyes in apparent ecstasy. Casey could have sworn he heard moaning.
That was it. Somehow, he had to put a stop to this.
Hurtling himself purposefully into the next room, Casey wrenched off his suit coat. He yanked loose his tie. He rolled up his shirtsleeves. He eyeballed the most promising pile of cookie slabs he could find, then beelined straight for it.
He was going to create the biggest, best, most badass gingerbread skyscraper anyone had ever seen, Casey vowed. He was going to beat Shane Maresca at everything they did—including the Heather Miller job—or he was going to die trying. Kristen would be there to see it, thanks to his diner-booth-rental deal, and she had to see him at his best. Because all at once, Casey felt unreasonably certain that if Kristen didn’t kiss him sometime soon . . . he wasn’t going to survive Christmas at all this year.
Two hours later, Kristen completed construction on her foot-high gingerbread bungalow. It sported Craftsman-style front porch beams made of stacked cookies, a pitched peppermint-patty roof accented with buttercream “snow,” melted hard-candy “glass” windows . . . and a next-door neighbor who excelled at glowering.
Right now, the target of Casey’s disdain was sloping dangerously to the right, threatening to crumple under the weight of too much royal icing and too many gingerbread stories.
“I warned you that was too much icing,” she said, putting aside her piping bag to examine his gingerbread high-rise. “All that excess icing is making your structure lose its integrity. More isn’t always better, you know. Sometimes, less is more.”
“‘Less is more’?” Casey scoffed, looking endearingly determined. He seemed ready to go for the Olympic gold at gingerbread-house building. Or maybe die trying. “Have you been sniffing glue? That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Yes, it does,” Kristen insisted. “Your building proves it. Less would definitely have been more with that . . . thing you made.”
In the midst of prayerfully holding up an interior load-bearing wall, Casey stilled. He transferred his gaze from his gingerbread creation—if it had been on fire, towering inferno would have been the most apt term for it—to her face.
“I can make it work,” he said. “I always do.”
“But you don’t have to ‘make it work’!” Surprised at his unyielding demeanor, Kristen softened her tone. She nudged his shoulder. “Hey. It’s supposed to be fun, remember? It’s Christmas! It’s jolly! The fate of the world isn’t riding on the success or failure of your gingerbread house.”
His renewed glower told her Casey wasn’t convinced. She wondered if every aspect of Christmas made him feel this way—as though, if it didn’t succeed, he was somehow to blame for it.
If it did, no wonder he didn’t like Christmas.
“It won’t be a failure.” He tightened his jaw as though hoping to strengthen his tottering gingerbread house through force of will alone. “I refuse to let it be a failure.”
