by Lizzie Shane
“It’s pretty much the prototype for small town America,” she said, fighting to keep the cynicism out of her voice. “So cute you can’t stand it. It’s probably not surprising that they really get into Christmas there. There will be a huge Christmas tree next to the gazebo in the town square—which is really shaped like a triangle, but we call it a square anyway. Every year there are carolers strolling through the square during the week leading up to Christmas and there’s a huge holiday bake sale with all the proceeds going to charity. Baking the most for a good cause is practically a competitive sport. I’m sure my mother will insist we participate, even in the midst of wedding prep.”
“It’s your brother who’s getting married?”
“Alex. The middle of my three younger brothers,” she clarified, something tightening in her chest as she realized exactly what she was getting herself into. Ty Walker was coming home with her. To meet her family.
That couldn’t be a good idea.
“Sounds like a full house growing up.”
“It was a zoo,” she agreed, talking past the wave of panic that tried to rise at the idea of Ty mingling with her family. Charming her grandmother. Bromancing her brothers. “I was enough older that I mostly found my brothers annoying. They’ve only really become tolerable adults in the last couple years.” But she loved the obnoxious morons. Even when they continued to pal around with her ex as if he hadn’t ripped out her heart.
“Will we be staying with your family?”
“I thought it would be too chaotic with all the wedding stuff.” And she’d desperately wanted her own haven to retreat to when she needed to hide. “I rented a cabin. I tried to get you a room at this gorgeous inn right in the town square, but they didn’t have any space left.”
Ty snorted like she’d made a joke.
“What?”
“No room at the inn?”
“Oh.” She gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Right.” Her smile felt wooden, but she kept it in place. “The town has a reputation as a Christmas destination so the inn always fills up. And they don’t even have a handy manger.”
Ty chuckled as if she was actually funny and thankfully she was saved from further conversation by the arrival of the jet.
She called Jade over and Ty backed away as if the girl was radioactive, sending a hot spike of irritation stabbing into Andi’s gut. Children were a gift. Ty needed to get his shit together and learn how to accept this blessing the universe had handed him without continuously checking for tags to see if he could exchange it. The spoiled ass had no idea how many people wanted to have children and couldn’t.
She could only hope that a few days in the bosom of her family would help him see what he could have with Jade. At least up there she wouldn’t have to worry about him trying to return Jade to her aunt while Andi was away. She could keep an eye on him. And maybe prod him toward adulthood. Though sometimes she doubted any force on earth could make Ty Walker grow up.
* * * * *
Andi was pissed at him.
Ty sat in the plush seat on the luxury jet with a script his agent wanted him to consider unread in his lap. Jade was curled up at the opposite end of the cabin watching a movie on his tablet with giant noise-canceling headphones cutting her off from the world.
He was a little ashamed of how relieved he’d been when the girl accepted Andi’s offer to pass the time on the flight by watching the latest Star Wars. That probably made him a bad parent—but had he ever had any hope of being anything else? He didn’t know what the hell he was doing. He didn’t even know how to talk to her. And she seemed completely uninterested in talking to him.
As soon as Andi had left the kitchen that morning to make their travel arrangements, Jade had gone mute, though she did watch him like a freaking hawk. He kept checking to make sure there was nothing on his face.
She had yet to speak to him directly when Andi wasn’t in the room and even then it seemed more like she was directing her questions and comments at his assistant. He probably should have wanted to spend the three and a half hour flight getting to know her, but all he’d been able to picture was three and a half hours of excruciating silence.
Though that might have been preferable to three and a half hours being glowered at by his assistant.
He wasn’t used to women being angry with him. Even Andi. She didn’t adore him the way most females did, but her expression was always vaguely indulgent and slightly put-upon with just a waft of stern disapproval around the edges for flavor. When he turned on the charm, he would get a disgusted eye-roll that always seemed somewhat affectionate to him. As if she liked him in spite of herself. He’d always enjoyed aggravating her to that point.
But today was different. Today she was mad.
It was an unfamiliar sensation, being the subject of feminine ire. He loved women, and they loved him. Growing up with a single mother, he’d learned respect and admiration for the female of the species early—and he’d generally found that if he was honest, respectful, and appreciative toward women, his life was much easier.
He was discovering he didn’t like being glared at.
“You wanna tell me why you’re trying to burn holes in me with your eyes?” he asked, pitching his voice so it carried only as far as Andi—though between the plane noise and the headphones Jade probably wouldn’t have heard him if he’d set off an air-raid siren. They were as private as they were likely to be for the next few days.
The eyes in question narrowed until they were brown slits. “You really have to ask?” She glanced over her shoulder, confirming that Jade was safely occupied with her movie. “Ever since Jade arrived, you’ve been trying to figure out how to get rid of her.”
“That isn’t fair.” Ever since Jade had arrived, he’d been panicking. He hadn’t been able to concentrate at the red carpet. Hadn’t slept at all last night. He hadn’t even had to fall asleep to be plagued by nightmare visions of all the things he could do to screw up as the insta-father of a preteen girl. “I’m trying to do what’s right here. We both know I’d be a terrible father. If money is the issue for her aunt, I can provide that, but the actual day-to-day parenting stuff?”
The anger left Andi’s eyes, chased out by something like pity. “You’re scared.”
He was terrified, but he shook his head, denying the fear. “I’m realistic. I know what I am. And what I’m not.”
“So be more.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Just like that.”
“You have to start somewhere. Maybe try talking to her.”
His gaze went to the girl. Curled up on the lounger at the far end of the cabin. Utterly absorbed in a galaxy far, far away. She looked like him. She liked his mother’s favorite pizza. Other than that she might have been an alien. “What would I say? She’s so quiet. She already despises me.”
“Ty.” Andi shook her head—but at least this time her signature indulgence was back. “Not everything is about you, hot shot. She just lost her mother. Her entire world is changing pretty much on a daily basis. She clapped eyes on you for the first time yesterday. We have no idea what she’s been told about you. Give her some time.”
Ty frowned. Was that what she needed? Time? Was it possible she didn’t see him as the evil absentee father figure he’d always had in the back of his own mind growing up?
“Don’t worry,” Andi continued, misinterpreting his frown. “I sincerely doubt the single dad thing is going to cramp your style. Women love a devoted father even more than they love the sexy, unrepentant man-child.”
He reverted back to his comfort zone with a mischievous grin. “You think I’m sexy?”
Andi rolled her eyes. “Everyone thinks you’re sexy.”
“Yeah, but I always figured you were immune to my charms.”
“I am,” she assured him, turning her attention to the tablet in her lap, flicking through whatever it was she flicked through as she ran the world—or at least his small slice of it.
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And Ty smiled, reassured that they were back to good again. He was scared shitless, completely unprepared to deal with being a father—hell, he’d only played one in a movie once—but if Andi was still on his side, maybe there was hope.
And maybe by the time they landed, Reg’s PI would have found out where Jade really belonged. Miracles could happen. It was Christmas, after all.
* * * * *
Her brother certainly hadn’t exaggerated about the snow.
As soon as they stepped off the plane in Bemidji, a blast of arctic cold hit Andi in the face and she shuddered with the realization that she was home. Or, more accurately, less than an hour’s drive from home.
Even northern Minnesota had the occasional year without snow on the ground at Christmastime, but this was evidently not one of those years. Snow was piled up in berms as high as her head to either side of the runway. Alex—an avid fan of winter sports—had declared it a good snow year, but even that seemed to be an understatement.
Ty—who to Andi’s knowledge had only experienced cold on rare occasions filming on location—shuddered and zipped his designer down parka. Jade, on the other hand, looked like she’d just arrived at Disneyland. Her face tipped up to the cold wind and she smiled, closing her eyes. For once, her giant jacket looked right in place.
Suddenly Andi felt much better about her decision to bring Ty and Jade along. Ty might be terrified of the girl, but Jade had obviously missed the winter as much as Andi had.
“Come on,” Andi called, marshaling her troops. “Grab your bags and we’ll head over to pick up the rental.”
Ty frowned, visibly puzzled by the suggestion that he use his perfectly sculpted muscles for anything as useful as carrying his own bags, but he didn’t complain. Which was lucky, because the Bemidji regional airport wasn’t exactly equipped with personal butlers.
They entered the building, approaching the rental counter. Thankfully, there weren’t many people lingering around as they were between flights for the day, but one TSA agent did give Ty a startled glance.
“Put up your hood.”
“But it’s actually warm in here.”
“Unless you want a cell phone picture of you and Jade ending up on TMZ, put up your hood and wait over there while I get the car.”
Ty flipped up his hood without further comment, hiding his famous face, and mumbled, “Come on, Jade,” leading the girl over to a bank of chairs.
Andi marched up to the rental counter, ringing the bell for service and waiting several minutes while Christmas carols piped through the terminal before a figure emerged from the back.
“Our last-minute renter!” the clerk in the Christmas sweater exclaimed cheerfully. “We were starting to wonder if you were a computer glitch.”
Andi smiled, putting on her Minnesota nice, and chit-chatted with the rental clerk for several excruciatingly long minutes until they’d both satisfied the necessary Midwestern courtesies and could get down to the business of renting the car. She carefully avoided mentioning Ty or Jade as she answered the clerk’s cheerfully invasive questions about what she was doing in the area—just home for Christmas and my brother’s wedding.
As the clerk waxed poetic on the joys of a Christmas wedding, Andi resisted the urge to tap her foot. She’d been in LA too long. All the social niceties she’d grown up with felt foreign and uncomfortable to her now.
She’d originally booked a flight into Minneapolis and rented a car from the airport there, but Bemidji was over three hours closer to Clement and since they were chartering a plane they hadn’t had to worry about dancing around the infrequent flight schedules. She’d thought it would be faster, but the charter hadn’t been available before noon and with a three and a half hour flight, a two hour time change, and a nasty headwind, it was already after six.
She was due at her parents’ house at seven for the “little family party”—which would consist of all her siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. There was no way they’d make it in time—especially not if they wanted to swing by the cabin and get settled first—and the clerk wasn’t helping matters by chewing the fat as she clicked away on her computer, renting the car to Andi as slowly as humanly possible.
When she finally relinquished the keys, Andi had to resist the urge to snatch them out of her hand and sprint to the parking lot. She smiled, thanked the clerk and wished her a merry Christmas in a way that would make her mother proud of her courtesy, and then turned and moved quickly across to where Ty and Jade waited.
“We have an SUV,” she announced, shaking the keys triumphantly.
“Excellent.” Ty reached for the keys and Andi closed her hand around them, tucking them behind her back.
“When was the last time you drove in snow?” she asked. “Or drove at all?”
Ty frowned, plumbing the depths of his memory banks.
“That’s what I thought,” Andi said. “Besides, my name is the one on the rental agreement, so I’m driving.”
“Fair enough.” Ty capitulated more easily than Andi would have expected from a big macho man—but then Ty had never had a jones for being in control. That was more her thing.
“We’re behind schedule, so when we get to Clement I’ll just make a quick appearance at my parents’ house and then we can head to the cabin and get settled.”
Not that she was looking for an excuse to leave the family party early, but if the universe handed her such a convenient one, she wasn’t going to complain.
“Sounds good,” Ty agreed and Jade stayed silent as they all picked up the bags and headed out into the chill blast of winter air.
The sun had long since set, but the parking lot was illuminated and the three of them crunched across the hard-packed snow as she checked license plates against the key fob in her hand.
The Chevy Tahoe was the last one in the row. Big and gleaming tan in the light of the parking lot. The last minute rental had cost an arm and three legs, but since her change of plans—and rentals—was due to her employer, she’d charged it to the multi-millionaire.
Andi hit the button on the fob and the lights blinked, the automatic rear lift gate opening so they could stow their bags.
Jade climbed into the backseat, popping the giant headphones back on and plugging them into her phone to listen to music. Ty hopped into the passenger seat and Andi slid behind the wheel—as if they were a perfectly normal family on a perfectly normal holiday. As if she weren’t about to take a spoiled celebrity and his unknown daughter to a family wedding at Christmastime.
What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter Six
Ty had expected his uptight assistant to relax as they got closer to her hometown—he’d even been looking forward to seeing her in her element—but if anything Andi grew more tense as they drove, a feat he hadn’t believed possible. She was silent all through their fast food dinner stop and though Christmas music filled the car as she drove, she didn’t seem to hear it. Her white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel and rigid, upright posture didn’t ease a millimeter when she passed the sign welcoming them to Clement, Minnesota, Population 5,602 and rolled slowly through the triangle-square bedecked with white lights and featuring a tree as tall as a house gleaming in the center of it all.
In the back seat, Jade had drifted off, her head lolling against the window. Ty reached back, tapping her on the knee, and she jerked awake, eyes wide and disoriented. “Sorry,” he said. “We’re here. Look.” He pointed out the window at the idyllic little town and was gratified to see a look of awe pass over her face.
Carolers strolled through the square, ringing jingle bells and waving to them as they passed. Jade drank in the spectacle.
Thank God she hadn’t already become a jaded teenager. She’d been so reserved around him for the twenty-four hours he’d known her that he’d started to wonder if her emotions were already locked up behind adolescent walls, but trust Christmas to bring out the childlike joy in everyone. Even Ty, w
ho hadn’t really celebrated the holidays since his mother died, started to feel a little twinge of the Christmas spirit at the look on Jade’s face.
“It looks like a Christmas card,” he commented, gazing out the window. “I’ve never had a white Christmas before—unless you count fake snow on movie sets.”
“You’re really a movie star?” Jade asked from the back seat and Ty tried to play it cool as everything inside him straightened and came to attention. He twisted to look at her.
“More of a television star who lands the occasional part in a cheesy romantic comedy.”
Her headphones sat lopsided on her head. “How come I’ve never heard of you?”
He grinned, unfazed by her skepticism. “You aren’t really the target demographic of Task Force One, but trust me, your teachers love me.”
Jade gave a little half smile and tugged her headphones back into place, returning her attention to the Christmas display put on by the town. Dismissed, but feeling strangely light, Ty turned back to face the front.
Creeping along at a pace that would have felt unnaturally slow in a city, but somehow felt appropriate for the small town, Andi navigated the SUV away from the square and through the nearby residential streets, passing houses decked out with every variety of Christmas light imaginable.
“Does the entire town celebrate Christmas?” Ty asked as they pulled onto another street with every house illuminated.
“Welcome to Clement,” Andi replied, her voice sounding strained. “Christmas is serious business when there’s a church on every block. They’re like Starbucks up here.”
Ty snorted as Andi pulled onto a smaller cul-de-sac, this one crowded with cars parked along the sides of the street, and her tension ratcheted up to a previously undiscovered level. Her eyes were locked on a brightly illuminated house at the far end of the cul-de-sac, where people could be seen moving around inside. The place was holiday central, so bright and festive it should have brought a smile to anyone’s face, but Andi’s face was increasingly grim.