Together for Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  “Sorry! Just practicing one of my Words of the Day!”

  “No problem.” Alex paused, looking charmingly concerned and polite and seductive. “Should we have our meeting later?”

  Okay. Maybe he didn’t realize what they were there for.

  But she knew he was brilliant enough to get it, if she made things clearer. So Heather rose from her seat. She sashayed her way toward him, using her best girl-on-the-prowl walk (the one she’d used in her last music video). Then she gave him a smile.

  “No, stay,” she purred. “Right now is perfect for me.”

  You’re perfect for me, she longed to say, but didn’t.

  Because she couldn’t afford to overplay her hand. Not now. Not when she was close. Not when she’d already—

  Rats! She’d already forgotten her prop: her book of poetry.

  Hastily, Heather grabbed it. She opened it at random, squinted at the pages, then nodded. “Yes, it’s a perfect time.” She peered at Alex. “I was just doing a little light reading.”

  “Are those new glasses you’re wearing?”

  “Hmm? These old things?” Special ordered. With rush delivery. A nonchalant shrug. “I wear them sometimes.”

  He looked at the spine of her book. “‘. . . and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart,’” Alex said in a dreamy-sounding voice. “‘i carry your heart (I carry it in my heart).’”

  Heather gawked. That was beautiful. But . . . “Huh?”

  “Your book.” Alex raised his brows. “E.E. Cummings?”

  She looked at the spine. She laughed. “Oh yeah. Right!”

  God. She really had to start actually reading this stuff.

  “I love his work.” Alex gestured. “Can I see it?”

  Heather shoved the book at him. “Keep it! It’s yours!”

  “I can afford books, princess. I just want to see if one of my favorite poems is in this volume, so I can show it to you. I think you’ll like it. ‘My father moved through dooms of love’?”

  “My father moved through the use of the air horn and the interstate highway system. He was a long-haul trucker.”

  “No, that’s the first line of the poem.” Alex shot her an inquisitive look. “You haven’t heard of it, I guess? It’s one of his best-known works. It was originally published in 50 Poems.”

  This was getting out of hand. Heather laughed. “Actually, I’ve had my nose stuck in the tabloids lately. I didn’t want to admit it, but . . .” She paused for dramatic effect, knowing her next revelation would definitely get Alex’s attention. “Now they think I’m pregnant!” she cried. “They think I’ve been running around all over town with some sexy bohemian boy toy!”

  At that, Alex’s frown deepened.

  Heather’s heart raced. It was working. It was really working. Alex’s reaction was worth all the aggravation and trauma she’d been through over those vicious rumors.

  For about two minutes, she’d seriously wondered if Kristen was pregnant, and the paps had somehow confused the two of them. Kristen insisted that sometimes happened to her, even though it never happened (in reverse) to Heather. But no. There was definitely something more nefarious going on. Because the tabloids actually had pictures of “Heather” making out with her “boy toy” all over town. They had snaps of her “baby bump,” too.

  Heather was starting to wonder if Kristen was purposely causing those rumors to spread somehow, out of petty envy or competitiveness or spite or . . . something else that was mean.

  Granted, that kind of behavior wouldn’t be typical of Kristen. At all. But those photos were pretty damning evidence. There weren’t that many people who resembled Heather—complete with leopard-print coat, blond hair, and huge sunglasses—and she couldn’t think of another explanation for it. Unless she’d been experiencing short-term amnesia. And then forgotten it.

  “You shouldn’t worry about it, though,” she assured Alex, gently stroking his muscular arm to reassure him. “It’s not me. I’m pretty sure there’s a crazy ‘Heather Miller’ impostor in town who’s pretending to be me. Probably someone I went to high school with, who’s envious of my success. That happens a lot.”

  Privately, Heather congratulated herself for not revealing her semi-suspicions that her own sister might be involved. Even for Alex’s sake, she refused to throw Kristen under the bus.

  However, those suspicions did make Heather feel a lot better about sending The Terminator to babysit her sister three days ago. If she’d known then that Kristen might be actively trying to sabotage her reputation (instead of vaguely suspecting it, based on that gross toilet-paper-shopping “story” that had also hit the tabloids), she could have spared herself a few days’ worth of a guilty conscience.

  Not that Kristen couldn’t handle herself, even in the face of Casey Jackson and his scary tactics. Kristen was, after all, famously poised. Their parents couldn’t quit raving (to Heather’s irritation) about Kristen’s composure, talent, work ethic, and dependability. In fact, their rampant parental pride—in Kristen!—went pretty far to explain why Heather didn’t return to Kismet very often. She couldn’t take knowing she would always come in second . . . to an ordinary, not-especially-charismatic, lovable girl-next-door type like Kristen. Forever.

  But that was enough sibling angst for right now, Heather decided. Because despite her herculean efforts (thank you, Word of the Day from yesterday!) to make Alex fall insanely in love with her, he was still frowning at her instead. Heather was starting to believe it wasn’t because he was jealous.

  Then Alex smiled. Handsomely. “I know it’s not you.”

  “Why not?” she asked perversely. “I could have a boy toy!”

  His chuckle did not help. At her quelling look, Alex sobered up enough to explain. “You don’t have attached earlobes. Your impostor does. So when I saw those pictures . . .” He shrugged. “All I needed was the necessary attention to detail.”

  Heather frowned. She touched her earlobes. “Huh?”

  “Your earlobes are detached, like mine.” Helpfully, Alex came closer. When he stood near enough to make her almost hyperventilate from his sex appeal, he gently grasped her earlobe. He waggled it. “Otherwise, I couldn’t do this.”

  Heather’s knees felt weak. She lifted her gaze to his. “You’ve never touched me like that before. I—” Love it.

  Alex winced. “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done it just then, either. Only you looked so worried, that I—” He broke off. Tragically, he released her tingly earlobe. “Sorry about that.”

  “No! I—” I want you to touch me. Wishing he’d do it again, Heather touched her ears. Marveling at him, she said, “You’ve really looked closely enough at me to notice my earlobes? ”

  Alex’s cheeks colored. He cleared his throat. “Uh. Yeah.”

  Thrilled, she hugged herself to keep from dancing.

  “Like I said,” Alex went on in a quashing tone, “I probably shouldn’t have touched you at all. Because the reason I was frowning at you before, the reason I was staring at you—”

  “Yes?” This was it. Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod. “Go on.”

  “—is because I’m pretty sure you have the chicken pox. You have a papular vesicular rash, right . . . there.” Alex pointed at her nose. “And there. And I think it’s spreading to . . . there.”

  Helpfully, he indicated her cheek. Her neck. Her arm.

  She scratched. “You’ve got to be joking. The chicken pox?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Sorrowfully, Alex nodded. “I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but looks as though my favorite star has been infected with the varicella zoster virus.”

  Wow, he was smart. He’d said she was his favorite star, too!

  “God, I love it when you talk like that,” she breathed.

  “I’m serious. You should go to the doctor—and probably be quarantined from the rest of the production crew, too.”

  “What?” Quarantined from him? That was unthinkable. “I refuse to accept that,�
�� Heather said. “Besides, kids get chicken pox. I’m an adult.”

  “Adults can get chicken pox, too. My girlfriend had it last year.” Alex’s expression took on a faraway look. “I nursed her through it. It’s a good thing you’re not pregnant, because—”

  But Heather couldn’t hear the rest of what he said. She was too busy hearing my girlfriend, my girlfriend gonging through her ears. Maybe chicken pox caused auditory hallucinations?

  “You have a girlfriend?” she asked, hoping for the best.

  “. . . so I’ll probably have to be quarantined with you,” Alex was saying, casting a speculative look around her dressing room.

  They stopped. They stared at each other.

  “That might not be so bad,” Heather said cheerfully.

  And that’s how, six hours and one doctor’s visit later, Heather wound up sequestered in blissful privacy with Alex, exactly the way she’d wanted . . . leaving, in their absences, her Live! from the Heartland holiday TV special to fend for itself.

  Chapter 11

  Kismet, Michigan

  T-minus 17 days until Christmas

  On the morning of his fourth day in Kismet, Casey dodged two bell-ringing sidewalk Santas. On purpose.

  He ignored one battalion of schoolchildren—adorably dressed up as green-suited elves—singing Christmas carols in the snowy town square. He declined the coffee shop’s sidewalk-sale offer of a sample-size “Christmassy” peppermint hot chocolate with a candy cane stirrer. He scarcely noticed the way the residents went overboard with decorations and yard ornaments or the way local businesses decked out their storefronts with lights and their windows with seasonal art. He even came face-to-face with the ultimate holiday cuteness test—a baby wearing a tiny, Santa Claus-inspired, red-and-white hooded onesie—and didn’t so much as coo at the kid. That meant it was official.

  He’d beaten Christmas at its own fakery-filled game.

  He didn’t even enjoy the persistent gingerbread smell that lingered all over town very much anymore, Casey noticed. He was going to be all right. This wasn’t going to get to him.

  Christmas wasn’t going to get to him. Not even here in Kismet, in the ho-ho-ho epicenter of the universe.

  Feeling positively bulletproof (at least as far as the holiday onslaught was concerned), Casey hefted his laptop case from his Subaru’s seat. He burrowed more warmly into his coat, then strode past the piled-up snowbanks into the Galaxy Diner.

  Inside, a whole new level of Christmas cheer assaulted him. One of Heather’s Christmas songs played on the sound system. Lights and garland abounded everywhere. Two charity Christmas trees overflowed with paper angel-shaped ornaments designating Kismet residents as “be an angel” gift givers, proving that the holiday spirit of generosity still thrived in town.

  Casey strode blithely past it all, able to acknowledge it and then immediately put it behind him. He wasn’t the sentimental type, prone to going all gooey at every little kindness or trapping of the season. He was, officially, over it.

  Then he reached his rented corner booth. He saw the hand-written RESERVED sign waiting on the tabletop in exactly the same place it had been every morning so far. And his inner stoicism crumpled like so much tossed-away wrapping paper on Boxing Day.

  Damn that sign. It still got to him.

  Hoping to downplay his reaction, Casey scowled at it.

  It didn’t help. That ordinary piece of paper—taped onto an injection-molded plastic table tent typically used to promote specials at the diner—warmed his heart. It made him feel a part of things at the Galaxy Diner. That was a sensation he didn’t experience very often. It made him feel . . . more guarded than usual.

  Not that his inherent wariness helped him much. Not when, an instant later, Talia wandered over with a jolly smile and a cup of coffee—black with one sugar, just the way he liked it—and set down a folded copy of the Kismet Comet newspaper for him.

  “We keep an employee copy on hand,” Talia said. “I thought I’d save you the trouble of getting a paper from the machine outside, the way you do every morning. It’s cold out there.”

  “Thanks,” Casey said in an easygoing tone. “That’s nice. I didn’t think anyone noticed my morning newspaper pilgrimage.”

  But what he really meant was, I didn’t think anyone cared. Realizing that painful truth, he couldn’t help frowning anew.

  Yes, he ponied up fifty cents for a Kismet Comet every day. Yes, he did so after setting up his rented booth with his laptop, coffee, notepad, pens, and cell phone at the ready for a day’s worth of troubleshooting. Yes, he was a guy who liked routine. So what?

  “Your fan club noticed.” Grinning, Talia nodded toward the cadre of regulars seated at the end of the counter.

  As one, the group of women and men waved to him. “’Morning, Casey!”

  “We don’t want you getting frostbitten just because you want to keep up with current affairs.” Talia set down a half-pint wide-mouth mason jar filled with homemade Concord grape jam. She’d noticed Casey’s preference for grape versus the usual strawberry, then. Argh. She looked straight at him. “You might as well face it, Mr. Big. You’re one of us now.”

  Double argh. That mishmash of teasing and kindheartedness—unique to Talia and to the diner—didn’t help either.

  Neither did the arrival of Walden, the wild-and-wooly-haired pastry chef, a moment later. He brandished a doily-covered plate, tossed Talia a peculiarly intimate look (at which she blushed feverishly), then set the plate in front of Casey.

  “Voilà! You’re the first taste tester of Kristen’s newest creation,” Walden told him. “It’s a cinnamon-bun crescent. See? It’s shaped like a croissant, but it’s made of brioche vendéenne instead of pâte feuilletée, then rolled up with cinnamon-sugar-and-brown-butter filling for an upscale meets down-home spin. Kristen said you mentioned liking cinnamon rolls as a kid—”

  Cagily, Casey nodded. Vaguely, he remembered having accidentally copped to a weakness for those refrigerated cinnamon rolls—the cheap kind that came in a pop-open cardboard container and were frosted after baking with a miserly amount of prefab frosting from a tiny plastic tub. As a kid, he’d loved those things.

  “. . . and you know Kristen,” Walden was saying. “She never misses a detail, and she can never leave well enough alone, either. She’s creative like that. She loves special projects, too. So she rolled up her sleeves and made these just for you.”

  Casey eyed the crescent roll. It smelled buttery and spicy. Its sugary crust sparkled. It made his nose practically twitch with nostalgia. It smelled . . . exactly like Christmassy goodness.

  Oh hell. Had he really just had that sappy thought?

  Gareth’s arrival saved him from considering it further—but not for long. Because somehow, Gareth managed to entrench him even more deeply in the damn sense of belonging Casey felt whenever he arrived at the Galaxy Diner and saw everyone there.

  “Oh no, you don’t, you pastry freak!” Aiming a warning glance at Walden, Gareth slid a plate full of the current breakfast special—a scrambled egg platter with chestnut-sage stuffing and cranberry compote on the side, served with black pepper brioche toast—in front of Casey, then stood back proudly. “Casey’s not having any goodies until he gets a proper meal. He needs vitamins and vegetables, not just butter and sugar.”

  “You sound like somebody’s mother, Gareth,” Talia quipped.

  But Casey could overlook that, just this once. Appreciatively, he inhaled. Everything smelled delicious . . . even if it was a little too holiday inspired. “Thanks, Gareth. This looks great,” he said. “I didn’t even order yet, though.”

  “I know.” Gareth nodded. “But this is what you’ve had the past three days, so we figured it was your favorite.”

  “We renamed it ‘the Casey Kick-Starter’ on the menu.” As proof, Talia brandished the latest edition of the handwritten menu. “It’s even more popular since the renaming.”

  Waiting for the punch line, Casey stared at th
em.

  Nada. What the hell? Were these people actually for real?

  In his world, at least, nobody was this kind, this genuine, or this welcoming. Not even a ragtag bunch of foodie misfits with purple hair, nose rings, piercings, dreadlocks, hipster clothes, an uncanny ability to overlook blizzards, and an excess of Christmas spirit.

  “I’ve never been an eponymous breakfast eater,” Casey joked. He almost nailed it. “But I’ll try anything once.”

  “We’ve never named a menu item for anyone before.” Walden shrugged, stepping nearer to Talia. He gazed with perfect forthrightness at Casey. “We made an exception for you.”

  Casey shook his head. That kind of special treatment didn’t help either. At this rate, he wouldn’t survive the morning. He would take up permanent residence at the Galaxy Diner and never, ever leave. He would . . . wonder what the hell was wrong with him.

  He’d befriended a lot of people over the course of a lot of troubleshooting assignments. He liked people. They liked him. So what made the Galaxy Diner, its crew, and its owner so special?

  Well, Casey knew what made Kristen so special to him. It was her ability to help with Heather’s TV special, he reminded himself ruthlessly. She could give him inside access to Heather—access no one else could. He had to remember that. All the same . . .

  All the same, he was behaving like an idiot. He was tougher than this. He was smarter and sharper and more hard-nosed than this. He was (according to some) The Terminator! Casey Jackson couldn’t be undone with a few small-town Christmas kindnesses.

  “You know, you might as well just come in an hour earlier, before we open,” Gareth said, “and join us for the family meal.”

  Casey sharpened his gaze. “I’m not family.”

  “Well, you’re practically family,” Gareth hedged. “I mean, you’re here every single day. You’re always one of the first ones in the door. You’re paying for the privilege with that booth rental, and we all know you now. So you’re actually—”

  “I’m. Not. Family,” Casey bit out.

  “Oh! No! You thought—” Gareth broke off with a sense of enlightenment brightening his face. He looked anxious—probably because Casey undoubtedly appeared ready to clobber him with a coatrack. “Sorry. I meant the ‘family meal’ in the restaurant sense,” Gareth explained belatedly. “It’s the meal we all share before service starts. In this case, predawn and precoffee, which leads to some pretty hairy moments. Kinda . . . like this one.”