Hometown Holiday

by Caro Carson

  “Belle, switch places with Young Ebenezer. I want Old Scrooge to be looking over his shoulder at you. He’ll be seeing your face while you break his heart all over again.”

  Obediently, Kristen switched places with the actor who was playing Ebenezer in the prime of his life. The assistant director had one key point wrong, however. “I’m not breaking Ebenezer’s heart. He’s already decided he loves money more than me. I’m the one who is brokenhearted.”

  She cut herself short. I’m the one who is brokenhearted. Saying those words out loud felt like a personal confession, although no one could know they were true for Kristen as well as Belle, the unwanted fiancée.

  The assistant director flipped through the script in his hand, but he didn’t stop on any page long enough to read a full line of dialogue. “We’re not talking about motivation today. We’re talking about lighting.”

  “Yes, but you want the audience to see Old Scrooge’s face,” Kristen persisted. “If his shoulder is to that half of the audience, they’ll miss his expression. This is the moment where he realizes that letting Belle go was a mistake that ruined the rest of his life.”

  Again, she fell silent. She knew she was a fool for worrying about Ryan, but she wondered if he was happy now, after choosing a path that didn’t include her. Last Friday, she’d said as much during movie night, but it had only earned her those terrible looks of pity from Natalie, Kayla and her uncle’s partner, Maggie Crawford.

  The actor playing Old Scrooge backed her up. “She’s right. I’m the one who has to be devastated, not the younger me. Maybe if we stood this way—” he put his hand on Young Ebenezer’s shoulders and the two of them shuffled clockwise for a few steps “—more of the house would be able to see both of our faces. There’s a big contrast between what he felt then and how he feels now.”

  After more discussion, the assistant director left the stage to stand in the audience. He flipped through his script once more. “Okay, let’s take it from, uh, Young Ebenezer’s line. ‘Have I asked to be released from this promise?’”

  Kristen took both of the actor’s hands in hers, breathed in deeply to focus herself and then looked up at him with all the sadness of a woman who realizes her love is not returned. To become Belle, Kristen only had to admit to herself that she was unwanted. Ryan was never coming back.

  Ebenezer looked at her coldly. “Have I asked to be released from this promise?”

  “Not in words, no.”

  “How, then?”

  “In the way you spend all hours in your counting house. In the way your smiles are only bestowed on the scales, when the balance of gold tilts them in your favor. Tell me truly, if you saw me today for the first time, would you make the effort to dance with me at Fezziwig’s party? Would you ask your friends for an introduction to a girl who has no dowry?”

  He lifted his chin sharply, his nostrils flaring in distaste at her question.

  “You see?” She let the tears that welled in her eyes spill down her cheeks. “The man who loved me is only a memory. For his sake, I pray you will be happy upon your chosen path. You no longer want me to walk with you, no matter how much I wish it otherwise. Ebenezer Scrooge, I release you.”

  She bowed her head, and let go of Ebenezer’s stiff hands.

  “Okay, that’s plenty.” The assistant director made his way back to the stage. “That was great, by the way. Just do it twice every weekend from opening night through Christmas, okay?”

  Kristen smiled obligingly, back in her role as Patient Actress, and used the cuff of her sweater to dry her cheeks.

  “You make my job hard,” Ebenezer said. “I’m supposed to look at you like you’re as appealing as an empty wallet, but man, I just wanted to go down on my knees and beg you to stay.”

  “You made my job easy.” Old Scrooge patted her on the shoulder with one hand and gave Ebenezer a good-natured shove with the other. “It’ll be easy to call this guy out for being a fool. He really is a cold-hearted bastard if he can look in those teary blue eyes and not feel a thing. I was ready to deliver my line with gusto, if that pompous kid hadn’t cut us off. When’s the real director back again? Tuesday?”

  “Thank you, Act Two,” the assistant director called out in dismissal. “Act Three beginners, please. Act Three beginners, take your places.”

  Kristen made her escape into the wing. She couldn’t decide if this was the worst role or best role she’d ever taken. The similarity of her situation to Belle’s made for difficult rehearsals. The lines she had to speak came too close to her real feelings. She had to relive her dashed hopes over and over.

  On the other hand, this role was a piece of cake for her as an actress. She had only to think of Ryan, and very little acting skill was required to give an authentic performance.

  The bad news is, I got jilted. The good news is, I got great reviews.

  She tried to laugh at her own joke, but the hitch in her breath was more like a sob. She felt a big, ugly cry coming on, nothing like Belle’s gentle tears.

  “I’m going out for some fresh air,” she said to the stage manager. She threw her polka-dotted scarf around her neck and grabbed her red jacket from the folding chair where she’d thrown it three hours ago.

  The stage manager checked the large clock over her station in the wings. “You might as well leave for the day. I can tell you right now we’ll never make it to the final scene.”

  Kristen swallowed hard and faked a smile. “Thanks, Sue. See you Tuesday.”

  She all but ran for the stage door, barely making it outside before Patient Actress and Belle the Fiancée and every other role she’d been playing for the past four months gave way under the crushing weight of being Kristen Dalton, the girl who still wanted Ryan Michaels to come back for her.

  * * *

  The stores and shops of Kalispell were decked out for Christmas. Not one window or door seemed to have escaped the bonds of garland and ribbon. Despite this, Ryan could admire the brick buildings, sturdy brick squares that had withstood a century of Christmas seasons and could probably withstand a century more. He’d survive this Christmas, too. He always did, no matter what bad memories were associated with the holiday.

  Ryan tucked his hands deeply in the pockets of his wool overcoat. It was double-breasted and sharply tailored, because he was not a cowboy and not pretending to be one. It was full-length, because he was from Los Angeles and the weather here was flirting with freezing, but it was also open in front because he’d been walking for block after block, building up heat. If the coat flared behind him like a cowboy’s duster, he couldn’t help it. Let people think what they wanted.

  Except Kristen. What she wanted to think about him mattered. She wanted a cowboy. He kept running the scenarios in his mind, but no matter how he presented the basic facts, he couldn’t imagine her face lighting up in one of her dazzling smiles. Oh, you’re actually living in a megalopolis over one thousand miles away? Fantastic!

  The cold November wind had cleared his mind and cooled his expectations. The truth was, she’d fallen in love with a rodeo rider because that was who she’d wanted to fall in love with. That was not him. He thought she was perfect as she was, a simple ranch girl, born and bred in a small town, but nothing good lasted for long. There was no real chance that he and Kristen could still be a couple after he told her the truth. Her feelings for him would be crushed in an instant, and all the glitter and magic would drain away.

  Like a damned shattered snow globe.

  He stopped walking, and stood on the cold sidewalk, letting the north wind blow away the childish vision—all gone, bye-bye. He turned on his heel to head back to his SUV. It was time to go face Kristen.

  Kristen.

  She stood on the sidewalk before him, perhaps twenty yards away, staring into a store window, a beautiful mirage for a man who hadn’t realized just how
much of a desert his life had become. He drank up the sight of her. How had he survived the deprivation?

  She seemed tired, her shoulders low and her expression downcast. When the brisk wind pulled more tendrils loose from her pinned-up hair, she didn’t seem to have the energy to turn her collar up.

  He knew, somehow, he’d looked just as tired moments ago, before seeing her. He’d denied them both the chance to be happy. She had the right to be furious with him for causing her pain.

  “Kristen.” Her name was little more than a whisper, the apology he owed her too big for words.

  She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear and turned away, light and graceful in all her moves despite the sadness in her expression. When she turned her back on him and he lost sight of her face, something in him snapped. She had to go; he understood that. Nothing good lasted forever. But he couldn’t let her walk away without telling her how grateful he was for the most perfect summer day of his life.

  “Kristen!”

  She looked over her shoulder. Their gazes met, and her blue eyes opened wide the moment she recognized him.

  He took one step toward her, another, and then he realized she was smiling—smiling at him—and he was running. She came flying toward him, and he opened his arms wide and swooped her off her feet. Momentum carried them around and around as she laughed.

  “You came back, you came back,” she said, her arms tight around his neck.

  He had her lifted high, so his face was buried in her playful scarf and loose hair for a long, blinding moment of reunion that needed no words. Then she slid down his body, until her cowboy boots touched the ground.

  She kept his face in both her hands, smoothing her thumbs across his cheekbones. She was beaming at him, every bit as stunning as he’d remembered, yet ten times more vivid in person than a memory could ever be.

  “You look amazing. Even more beautiful than I remembered, and I think of you every day as the most beautiful woman I know.” He was babbling. He didn’t care.

  “I can’t believe you’re real,” she said, exactly what he was feeling. “We never took a photo that day. Neither one of us brought a phone. You can’t imagine how much I’ve wished I just had a picture of you—”

  The catch in her voice made him catch her close again, holding her against his chest within the open folds of his coat. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed away so long.”

  She nuzzled into the side of his throat. “You must have had a good reason.”

  Her faith in him was humbling. And misplaced.

  You have to tell her the truth.

  “I’ve been working.” He rested his cheek on top of her head, regret in every syllable. “In California.”

  “California?” She picked her head up. Stepped back.

  Ryan braced himself. The bandage ripping had begun. He’d known since Maggie’s bombshell that it would come down to this. He’d never hated having to do something more.

  “No wonder I couldn’t find you.” She bit her lip and looked up at him apologetically. “I kept checking the Montana papers for event results. Then it occurred to me to look at Wyoming. I might have gotten desperate enough to check out Idaho’s results on the web a few times. Pretty bad, huh? But it never occurred to me to look at California.”

  He had to look away from those trusting blue eyes. “I didn’t deserve to have you looking so hard for me.”

  “Did you come from California all the way back to Montana just to see me?”

  “Yes, I did.” She deserved to know the truth in this, as well. He wanted her to know he’d suffered, too, although it had been his own fault. “I was going crazy, wondering how you were. I missed you.”

  Kristen made a quick movement of her hands toward his face, and for a split second, he thought a slap was coming. He deserved a slap. Instead, with two hands in his hair, she pulled him to her, and kissed him. Hard. Hungry.

  No memory could wake every cell in his body like this. He was alive, all sensation. The feel of Kristen in his arms, the smell of her skin, the very taste of her, each were their own small miracle. It didn’t matter if he deserved her kiss; he was greedy for it and took what she gave him, savoring the connection that made him want to be closer still.

  A passing truck honked a horn, whether in criticism or approval didn’t matter. It was enough to bring Ryan back to the real world. He lifted his head to study Kristen’s face and felt utterly satisfied with how thoroughly kissed her mouth looked and how perfectly pink her cheeks were. She rocked back on her heels—she’d been standing on tiptoe during the entire kiss—and gripped his arms for a moment as she regained her equilibrium.

  She looked so feminine, so delicate, but then she smiled like a woman who knew a secret. “Someday, we are going to kiss when we are alone and indoors, somewhere very private, and things are going to burn so far out of control you won’t be safe from me any longer.”

  He could’ve dropped to his knees on the sidewalk. She was so Kristen, so boldly herself. He wanted her.

  Hell, he had her. She wasn’t playing coy or shy or mysterious. She was thrilled to see him, as eager to pick up where they’d left off as he was.

  But the hell of it was, he couldn’t keep her. He wasn’t the man she thought he was.

  Rip off the bandage.

  Not here. Not on a sidewalk in the center of town.

  He tried to use humor to ease the sexual tension she’d just ratcheted into high gear. “There’s a traditional order to these things. I think you’re supposed to buy me a drink first. I passed a bakery not too far back. Maybe they sell coffee.”

  Her smile only deepened. “They do, but if you’re daring enough to cut through the alley with me, there’s a diner that serves amazing pie one street over. You’d be indoors with me for the first time, but I think you’ll be safe if I have a nice slice of homemade pie competing for my attention.”

  She led the way through the alley. From behind, she made a colorful picture. Her caramel-colored hair was mostly twisted up. The hem of her red coat cut precisely across her jean-clad rear, and one end of her polka-dotted scarf fluttered among the loose tendrils of escaped hair as she took quick, decisive steps.

  Another version of Woman Walking Away.

  This was what he would see after he told her the truth, then.

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t say the words that would shatter her feelings for him all at once. Those feelings were pure and sincere—yes, they were naive, but they were real, and their destruction could leave a permanent scar. For her own sake, he couldn’t sit her down in front of a piece of pie and tell her everything she’d loved about him was a lie. It would break her heart.

  It would shatter his.

  They emerged from the alley onto a street nearly identical to Main, and then into a mom-and-pop restaurant that smelled of wholesome holiday baking. While gingerbread and pumpkin pie were topped with whipped cream for them, Ryan rapidly formed a new plan.

  He didn’t want to rip off any damned bandage, so he wouldn’t. What if he could reveal pieces of the truth bit by bit, and slowly replace the image of Ryan Michaels with the reality of Ryan Roarke? He’d already told her he worked in California when she’d assumed Montana or Wyoming, and she’d accepted that piece of the truth easily enough. What if he could continue to do that this week? If she loved Ryan Michaels this Sunday, might she love Ryan Roarke by next Sunday?

  Could she love him so strongly that she’d still want to be part of his life, even if that life had nothing to do with Montana and her cowgirl dreams?

  He had one week to find out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The last thing Kristen needed was more sugar. She was already bouncing off the diner’s walls with excitement, because Ryan was here.

  He’s really here.

  Ju
st when she’d given up hope, he’d arrived, and gosh, what a reunion. He’d said everything she could have wanted to hear. He’d missed her. He’d come specifically to see her.

  Then there was that kiss on the sidewalk. The memory of kissing Ryan and the reality of kissing Ryan were two entirely different things. Every second had been worth a month of missing him. Everything was okay now. Absolutely everything.

  She took her gaze off Ryan just long enough to scoop the whipped cream off the top of her pie and eat it all in one bite, sugar be damned, and then she went back to devouring Ryan with her eyes.

  Dear God, he looked good. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, just like she remembered, and his tan hadn’t faded despite the November weather. He still had that air about him that set him apart from the other cowboys in town. Something more sophisticated, maybe. A great haircut, a killer overcoat that even looked good hanging on the wall hook next to hers. The sweater he wore with his jeans almost looked like cashmere. If they ever put a rodeo man on the cover of GQ, her Ryan would be the perfect model. He had the strong jaw and an expression that didn’t look like he laughed easily—but, oh, when he did, the camera must love him.

  A camera. She jumped up to retrieve her phone from her coat’s pocket and plopped back into the booth across from Ryan.

  “I’m not making the same mistakes this time. Say cheese.”

  He didn’t. Or rather, she didn’t give him a chance to say cheese, but she got a wonderful shot of that one raised eyebrow and the quirk of his lips when he was going to smile, but hadn’t started actually smiling yet.

  She hit the symbols on her phone to make Ryan’s image her wallpaper, setting it as her lock screen and home screen, both. “Much better. Sometimes, I was afraid I’d imagined you. Fortunately, the whole town seemed to have seen us sitting on that stage, eating barbecue, so I knew I wasn’t crazy.” Laughing, she looked up to find him watching her with a too-serious expression.