by Caro Carson
“Who are you?” she whispered, the plea in her voice sounding so real his heart squeezed hard in his chest.
“Did you really think I was a cowboy? The rodeo star of your dreams? Please.”
Finally, she dropped the innocent shock and moved on to something else, something angry. The stomp of her booted foot and the clenching of her fists were perfect touches. “Stop this. Stop. You’re being hurtful, and I don’t know why. You’re from Los Angeles and you were never in the rodeo? What on earth do you do?”
“I’m an attorney.” He crossed his arms over his chest, closing his jacket against the cold. “An attorney in the entertainment industry, and a damned successful one, as you well know.”
“An attorney.”
“A simple thing to search for on the internet. I honor my confidentiality agreements, but Hollywood studios do not, when they want to stir up publicity. My role in the Century Films controversy became common knowledge. How convenient for actresses who are ready to take their careers to the next level.”
“I searched Ryan Michaels, the rodeo rider. You lied to me.”
“I never claimed to be in the rodeo.”
“But you knew I thought so. All week, you’ve been lying to me. You let me spill my heart out—oh! When I told you about that lying, cheating pilot, you should have told me you were just like him. Just toying with me while you were in town. Just playing a game until it was time to fly off to some other life.”
And she hated him for it, judging by the look on her face. He steeled himself against the pain. Maggie had predicted it, but Maggie hadn’t known that Kristen had been playing him for a fool all along. This was just an act.
Kristen took in a shuddering breath. “Were you lying from the beginning, even in the summer? Were you really considering moving to Rust Creek Falls? Did you care for me even a little?”
He’d be damned before he told Kristen any more about his feelings. She didn’t need to know that his parents’ need for him to take over the firm had ended his dream to move here, either. But as he looked into her blue eyes, wide with hurt and bright with tears, some piece of Ryan wanted to hold her and soothe her and reassure her.
He squelched the impulse. “I’m not the actor here, Kristen. You are.”
Let her make of that what she wanted.
The cold air had dried the tears on her cheeks. “You shouldn’t play with people’s lives. You shouldn’t have hurt mine. I only loved you.”
Ryan hated himself for how badly he wished that were true.
“I think we’ve covered everything sufficiently,” he said. “There’s no need for a dramatic ending. You’ll forgive me if I don’t wish you luck in your acting career. Goodbye, Kristen.”
She closed her eyes, a moment of misery, and started to turn away. But she only began the motion with her shoulders before she stopped herself and leveled her gaze on him once more. She said nothing, did nothing.
He raised one brow. “Go on. Your theater awaits. I’ve got nothing left to say.”
“You’re waiting for me to walk away. I made you a promise before I handed you that ticket. I told you I would never walk away from you. I’m standing right here, Ryan. If you want to leave me, if you want this to end, then you are going to have to be the one who walks. I won’t do that to you. Not even now.”
Now that you’ve broken everything.
Nothing good lasted forever. Finding out that Kristen’s love had been a lie was really nothing more than he’d expected. Actresses were always ambitious, after all.
Ryan turned on his heel and began walking away. He shoved his hands in his coat pockets and felt the ticket. Without missing a step, he pulled the crumpled ticket from his pocket and dropped it onto the sidewalk.
* * *
I’m not this good of an actress.
Kristen could hardly hold herself together. Her hands were shaking as she tried to button the tight cuffs of her Victorian costume.
“Do you need help?” Kayla stopped to put down the bowl and spoon Scrooge would be using to eat his gruel. In her shapeless black clothes, with her headset on her head, Kayla looked ready to make sure all the props made it onstage throughout the performance.
“Oh, Kayla. I’m so glad to see you. I had the most awful day with Ryan.”
“Hold that thought. One second.”
Kayla dashed off to one of the toilet stalls in the women’s dressing area, cutting Kristen short just when she’d been about to spill all her misery.
She shouldn’t give in to the misery, anyway. She should get through the show before she let her feelings out, because once she started crying, she was afraid she’d never stop.
She managed the buttons on her cuff, then the other cuff. Still, her sister stayed in the bathroom. Kayla hadn’t been herself for weeks now, and Kristen was worried sick about her. She couldn’t handle any more bad news, not on top of Ryan’s betrayal.
Ryan. She couldn’t stop thinking about him for a second. How could she have been so deceived? A Hollywood attorney, playing at being a cowboy. They’d never actually done any riding or training of the horses this week, she realized suddenly. That had been by design. His design.
But, dear God, the horses had loved him, and so had she.
He’d lied to her.
He’d left her.
She pressed her hand to her mouth, physically trying to hold her sobs in. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t go out on that stage and say her heartbreaking lines while her heart was truly breaking.
“We’ve got a full house.” The stage manager’s voice came over the little speaker that was kept backstage. “Two minutes to curtain.”
She was about to find out whether or not she could.
The show must go on.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kristen’s tears didn’t wait for their cue.
From the wings, where she hovered anxiously near Kayla’s prop station, she watched the first scenes of the play. The little boy playing the youngest version of Ebenezer was doing a good job. Too good for Kristen’s state of mind.
The little boy had no one to love him, no place to spend the Christmas holiday. His classroom was barren. One by one, every other student left with a mother or father. The teacher gave him a book to read and threw one measly piece of coal into the stove, then walked out. Alone, rejected, unwanted, the boy huddled at his wood desk.
In the dark cocoon of the wings, Kristen’s tears fell. If young Ebenezer had just dropped a snow globe on the floor…
Poor Ryan. He’d been even younger than this boy when he’d been left alone in the world. Thank goodness he’d been adopted, but despite thirty years of being a Roarke, Ryan was still the little boy who’d learned to be so careful with his heart. Kristen had thought she could prove to him that her love was unbreakable, as solid and real as the love his adoptive parents had given him, but he wouldn’t give her the chance.
Maybe a man who’d spent thirty years avoiding pain, a man who’d only very carefully chosen to return the love of those immediate family members who’d spent years loving him first, maybe that man would never change.
She would never know.
The tears started anew, and Kristen knew she would have to repair her stage makeup. Quickly. The Christmas party scene at the jovial Fezziwig home was about to begin.
While the stage was blacked out, the stagehands rushed antique toys onto the set, setting them under the tree. Kayla rolled a rocking horse onto the stage, then she zipped back to the wings with her arms full of schoolbooks from the classroom scene. She placed them in their assigned spot at her station, then she put her hand on her stomach and gave herself a pat.
Kristen’s sobs hiccupped to an abrupt stop. That pat was the kind of thing a pregnant woman did to her growing belly.
Kayla was preg
nant.
No. They were sisters. Twins. Kayla would never keep such a secret from her. She wasn’t even dating anyone. But the months of fatigue, the nausea, even the decision to give up caffeine…
The lights onstage came up, bright white to make the colorful party set pop. The audience applauded the set design before the first line of dialogue could be spoken, and Kristen watched her sister smile and take her hand away from her stomach to applaud, too. The white lights bounced off her black clothes, and Kristen wanted to cry all over again. Her sister had a definite baby bump. The first secret Kayla had ever kept from her was one of the most important ones of all.
It didn’t seem possible that two people Kristen loved had so completely hidden their real selves from her. From Ryan’s livelihood to Kayla’s new life, Kristen had been oblivious to it all, a trusting, blind fool. Like the character of Belle, she only wanted to go back to the way things had been.
Belle was brave, though. When the man she loved changed, Belle faced the truth. In the face of Ryan’s betrayal, Kristen had no choice but to do the same.
With a swirl of blue velvet, she hurried back to the makeup station, suddenly thankful for the chance to play Belle tonight. For the length of a few pages of script, Kristen would get to be brave.
And then, when the lights went out and the audience left, she would fall apart.
* * *
The Ghost of Christmas Past showed no mercy.
Old Scrooge wanted to enjoy the happiest memory of his life, but the figure in white and flame dragged him away as the curtain came down, obliterating the sight of Fezziwig’s party and the lively dancing.
Ryan shifted his weight as he leaned against the very back wall of the theater. The happiest memory of his life was a dance, too. A waltz in the middle of an empty road. A sky lit by fireworks, a woman’s voice humming the melody that guided them. Destiny.
The bitterness threatened to choke him. Her perfection had been an act, just as her performance tonight would be. Ryan had decided to buy a ticket at the last minute. He didn’t bother taking his seat, because he’d be leaving soon. He only wanted to see Kristen onstage before he caught the last flight out. He needed to witness all her fake glory as an actress. When the happier memories swamped him, as they already had while he’d gone back to his hotel and packed, he wanted to be able to recall her on the stage, pursuing the career that she’d hoped he would boost.
The Ghost of Christmas Past pointed to the center of the dark stage. Scrooge begged her not to show him the inevitable, but of course he had to turn toward center stage, as well.
In contrast to the full set of the Christmas party, this scene opened on a simple park bench lit by a single spotlight. Standing in the center of the circle of light was Kristen, absolutely breathtaking in her winter velvet gown. Snow gently fell all around her.
Ryan heard a hiss of breath and realized it was his own. Kristen looked like a figurine in a snow globe. He’d come for a memory. He didn’t want this one.
A young man in top hat and tails entered the circle of light. Kristen looked at Ebenezer with such longing, such regret, that Ryan was taken aback. With talent to match her looks, the sky would have been the limit if he’d wanted to launch her career.
Eventually the words of the play penetrated his thoughts. “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?”
Yes. A waltz or a two-step, a wooden floor or asphalt, anything at all to feel her in his arms one more time.
“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.”
For God’s sake, he couldn’t stand here and listen to this. Either she was a world-class actress stuck in an obscure regional theater in a tiny town, or her heart was truly breaking as she spoke her lines. Either way, it was her misfortune. She was the one who’d been planning on using him. She’d said everything he wanted to hear in exchange for her shot at Hollywood.
Impatiently, Ryan picked up his coat and gloves and headed for the exit. The usher stopped him at the door. Ryan would have to wait until the end of the scene to open the door into the bright lobby. From the corner of his eye, he saw the hem of Kristen’s long skirt as she walked out of the spotlight and was swallowed by the darkness.
“Go after her, you fool,” Old Scrooge cried.
The usher held up his finger. One minute more.
Old Scrooge implored his younger self with an urgency born of grief. “Do you not see her caring heart? Lift your eyes from that cursed gold ring. Go after her! It’s not too late for you.”
But it was too late. The Ghost’s flame was extinguished, the scene went dark, the audience erupted into applause and Ryan got the hell out of there.
An hour later, as he settled into his seat on the evening’s only flight out of Kalispell, the voice of the pilot came over the speakers. “Ladies and gentleman, this is Captain Toomer speaking. Along with the rest of your Denver-based crew, we’d like to welcome you aboard Flight 89.”
Ryan dropped his head back against the seat. A crew out of Denver. What were the odds? He could be leaving the woman who’d lied to him by taking a flight piloted by the man who’d cheated on her. Given destiny’s warped timing, the odds were good.
The pilot who had allegedly cheated on her. Kristen could have invented the entire story to manipulate Ryan’s emotions. That story had made her look good, really. She was the one who knew how to be faithful. She’d implied that the experience had negatively colored her opinion of men from big cities. Men like him.
Ryan lifted his head, a sudden jolt of adrenaline making him alert. She’d said she didn’t like men from big cities. If her goal had been to attract Ryan, why would she say she avoided men like him? If her goal was to move to Los Angeles, why would she insist she didn’t want to leave her hometown?
You fool…do you not see her caring heart?
It had been a trick. She’d used reverse psychology, saying she wanted the opposite of her goal to make herself seem all the more innocent. That had to have been it. She’d hidden her ambition, so he’d let down his guard. Ryan rested his head back once more, settling in for the first leg of his journey home.
You fool…
That had to be the explanation, because if it wasn’t, then he’d just shattered something priceless.
* * *
“Another scotch, son?”
“Sure.” Ryan turned with the decanter in his hand, ready to fill his father’s glass.
His father had no glass. He merely stood on his own patio, his swimming pool sparkling in the sun beyond him, and slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
“Ah. You meant, am I having another scotch?” Ryan tried not to sound too bitter as he laughed. Leave it to Dad to make his point so subtly. “Last I checked, I was over twenty-one, and I’m not driving anywhere.”
Thanksgiving dinner was over at the Roarke home, but no one was leaving. Shane and a noticeably pregnant Gianna had flown in from Thunder Canyon, so they were spending the holiday weekend in one of the guest suites of their parents’ home. Maggie and Jesse and baby Madeline had flown in from Rust Creek Falls and were staying for the weekend, too. Ryan was staying, as well, although he lived in the city. He wasn’t going to leave this mini family reunion to spend the night alone in his exclusive, sterile penthouse. He didn’t need more of his own company.
The sliding glass doors were open, and the sounds of football on TV spilled onto the patio. Sometime in the third quarter, the kitchen would be raided for a second piece of pumpkin pie or the first cold turkey sandwich of the weekend. Every year, he looked forward to that as much as he looked forward to the formal, hot dinner earlier in the day. This year, he’d also looked forward to finding
relief from the loneliness that had been crippling him in the week since he’d left Kristen. Surely, surrounded by the family he trusted, Ryan’s heart would be eased.
Instead, he was the seventh wheel. His parents, Christa and Gavin, were one couple. Shane and Gianna, another. Maggie and Jessie. That left Ryan feeling the absence of Kristen Dalton more acutely than ever. Thankfully, his father kept excellent scotch.
Shane joined them, carrying baby Madeline, practicing for his own impending fatherhood. “I can’t get over the weather here. You forget how warm winter can be. It’s already snowed at the resort. The ski bunnies are thrilled, but it means the main color we’re going to see from now until Easter is white, white and more white.”
“Go to one of the local high school’s basketball games. There’ll be lots of color.”
Shane and his father both looked at him in surprise. Ryan shrugged, unwilling to explain where he’d gotten that advice.
Kristen’s solution for a winter white-out had been so enthusiastic. Practical, too. Despite her secret agenda, he had to acknowledge that she really knew Rust Creek Falls inside and out. There’d been nothing fake about that tour. She’d had him seriously imagining himself trading in his penthouse for a luxury log home somewhere on the outskirts of town.
Which wouldn’t have helped her get noticed in Hollywood.
Ryan stared into his scotch. Kristen must have known who he was that first day, of course. He’d been sitting with Maggie in the church during the wedding. Surely people knew Maggie was related to Shane Roarke, celebrity chef. It would have been a simple thing for Kristen to connect Roarkes with LA and show business.
Of course, she’d pretended not to know Maggie’s maiden name later, but Kristen was a very good actress. She must have seen them together and realized that Ryan could be her chance to get out.
Then why had she invited him to come in? Had he moved to Rust Creek Falls, her plans would have been thwarted, yet that’s exactly what she’d tried to get him to do.
The attorney side of him, which he’d once thought was his only side, picked another hole in his story. When, on that first day, could Kristen have seen him with Maggie? Kristen hadn’t been at the church. Maggie hadn’t been at the park.
