by Lucy Score
Figure be damned. There was no way Cat could say no to her mother’s cooking. It had been a blessing to her waistline when her parents had made the part-time move to Florida a few years back. Then she only had to contend with Nonni’s bi-monthly carb-filled dinners. A few truly torturous personal training sessions took care of that. Though she still fantasized about the day when her time in front of the camera was over and an extra five pounds wouldn’t spark pregnancy rumors on Twitter.
Cat placed a smacking kiss on Gabby’s round cheek and patted her father on the thigh. They were crowded around the miniscule dining table in her trailer. Their empty plates had made it as far as a stack at the center of the table, but no one was in any hurry to start the cleanup or the inevitable good-byes.
“I don’t know how you juggle all these projects on your plate,” Angela sighed to her daughter. “Pop’s business, your show, the clothing line, and now a Christmas special. You’re gonna get wrinkles and gray hair and be unemployable,” she teased.
Cat laughed. “I like being busy. And I have a very good dermatologist and colorist. So, unemployment is a few years away.”
“When does your very handsome co-star get here?” her mother asked, wriggling her dark eyebrows. Angela King had a soft spot for the elegantly attractive Drake Mackenrowe.
“Drake gets in tomorrow,” Cat said, mentally calling up the information. Drake would arrive with Henry by noon. Following a briefing, she’d give Drake the afternoon to get comfortable in his new digs before dragging him around town so he could get the lay of the land.
“Speaking of handsome men, Noah Yates isn’t hard on the eyes,” Paige commented.
Gannon shot his wife a feigned glare of jealousy and nudged her with his beefy elbow. Much to her brother’s embarrassment, he’d been named Sexiest Reality TV Star by a well-known magazine. Gannon favored his mother in traditional Italian looks. Cat took after her blond, mostly German father.
Paige snickered. “Not for me. For a certain single TV star we both know and love.”
Cat scoffed. “The man is a monster, and he’s made it very clear that he hates me.”
“No one can hate you, pumpkin,” Pete King chimed in with oblivious fatherly confidence.
“I don’t know. I think it’s more sparks than abject hatred,” Paige cut in.
Cat rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Please. You’re going to make me throw up the six pounds of fettuccini I just ate.” Her dad patted her absently on the back.
“Tell me more about this handsome man who hates our Cat,” Angela demanded, plucking Gabby up and settling her granddaughter on her lap.
“I happened to walk in on a verbal sparring match, and you could have started a forest fire from the smolder that was in that room,” Paige continued as if Cat weren’t sitting two feet away from her.
“You’re blinded by love for this big lug,” Cat countered, poking her brother in the shoulder. “You don’t know what it looks like when two people hate each other.”
Gannon and Paige shared a smug look.
“Noah Yates hates my guts and is watching my every move to see if I’m going to destroy his town.”
“He has very strong feelings about you,” Paige conceded. “And he has no idea who you really are. Did you even tell him you donated your salary back to the show budget?”
Cat gave a shrug. “Why would I want to disprove his theory of me being a money-hungry hellbitch?”
“Does he know you were here dragging people out of the flood the day after the storm passed?” Gannon asked.
“You were what?” Angela screeched.
Cat threw a chunk of bread at her brother. “Thanks a lot, Gann.”
She winced as her mother launched into her version of an Italian opera, loudly asking the heavens why she was cursed with such pigheaded children.
Gabby covered her ears with her little hands.
“You pull anyone out?” Pete asked quietly. Where Angela was loud and vibrant and likely to drown you in love and carbs, Pete was the silent supportive type.
Cat nodded. “Got a few people out. I borrowed your waders.”
“Seams hold up okay?”
“Worked great.”
He nodded his approval. “Good.”
Angela was winding down her tirade, bouncing Gabby on her hip now.
“I don’t mind allowing Noah to keep his wrong impression of me.”
“We all know how you love it when people underestimate you,” Gannon chimed in with a swift grin.
Cat smiled deviously. “Believe me. The only thing that is going to give me greater pleasure than returning the Hais to their house will be rubbing Noah’s nose in transforming his town. I’m going to show that weasel-faced asshole just what a reality TV star can accomplish.”
“Handsome weasel face,” Paige corrected.
Cat groaned. “Fine. He’s good-looking. Too bad he’s a candy-coated jackass.”
“Your auntie needs to mind her language, doesn’t she Gabby girl?” Angela cooed at the little girl in her arms.
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Cat sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Reggie the diner owner as she went over some very preliminary designs for the diner renovation. They were crowded around a folding table that had been liberated from one of the school’s unlocked supply closets.
“We’ve got room to squeeze in an extra booth here in the back corner, or I can give you a second station for your waitstaff,” Cat said, pointing at the floorplan on the screen. “That way they won’t have to pile up behind the counter to ring up orders.
“They’d love you forever for that,” Reggie grinned his blindingly white smile. His voice carried the singsong accent of his Jamaican home.
“Okay, we’ll go with the server station, and I’ll add some shelves so they can stock supplies, and maybe we can even squeeze in a second drink fountain for refills.”
Reggie nodded his head as if to a beat only he could hear. “This is good, Cat. Really good.”
Cat rolled her shoulders. She’d been going strong since six that morning and was hoping caffeine and a salad could carry her through the afternoon. “I want you to be happy with this. So if there’s something you don’t like about the design, or later on when we get to the colors and finishes, you speak up. This is your business, your livelihood. You make the calls.”
“You do this for me, and you’ll get free breakfast for the rest of your life in Merry,” Reggie promised.
“Can you add something to the menu that won’t balloon me up to four-hundred pounds but still tastes good?” Cat teased thinking of her beloved banana fritter pancakes.
“I’ll make a special dish just for you,” Reggie promised, leaning back and crossing his arms over his striped rugby shirt.
“Then you’ve got yourself a deal,” Cat laughed. “So, you get back to work, and I’ll spend some time with the crew finalizing the construction plans. I’ll get them to you, and if your city manager signs off on the outside changes, we should be good to go. In the meantime, I’ll have a crew over there to help with the initial cleanup.”
She thought she’d done an excellent job of covering up the bitterness in the words “city manager.” For the most part, Cat prided herself on being a consummate professional.
“You’re an angel, Catalina,” Reggie sang.
“Says the man who makes pancakes from heaven,” Cat quipped.
Her gaze slid to the doorway at the sound of the knock. The smile vanished from her face when she spotted Noah leaning against the door frame. “I’m early,” he said. He was wearing jeans, an Oxford, and a soft gray pullover sweater. He held two coffees in one hand.
She glanced at the time on the laptop in front of her. “Not by much. Reggie and I were just finishing up here.”
“Thank you again, Cat,” Reggie said, ignoring her proffered hand and pulling her in for a hug. They rocked side to side for a moment, and Cat forgot about the cloud of doom lurking in the doorway.
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She pulled back from Reggie’s embrace and looked him square in the eye. “We’re going to make this better than okay,” she promised him.
“You already have. Be seein’ you.”
“Bye, Reg.”
He paused in the door to offer Noah a slap on the shoulder. “Be good to my friend Cat,” he told Noah. “She’s gonna fix us all up.”
Cat watched Reggie leave, taking all the good vibes out of the room with him.
“You’re making some big promises to these people,” Noah ventured.
Cat stared at him coolly. “I never promise more than I can deliver.”
He grunted. “The meeting yesterday,” he began. “You running this project isn’t what I expected.”
She fluttered her lashes at him. “Because I’m just a pretty face?”
“Yeah,” he said without a hint of embarrassment. “A pretty face who makes a living in front of the camera.”
“I’m more than just my face, Noah. And the more is what gets shit done.”
Noah eyed her warily. “I guess we’ll see. I brought you a coffee. Not to be nice but because it’s polite.”
She made a grab for the cup he offered. “I’m accepting your thoughtless gift not because I think you’re generous but because I need caffeine to survive.”
“Coffee truce,” Noah nodded.
“For the next fifteen minutes.”
“I can be polite for fifteen minutes.”
“I guess we’ll see,” she said, turning his own words against him. “So, you had questions about the Christmas Festival itself.”
“Yes. Namely how you expect to make up an entire month of tourism revenue in just a day. You’re not exactly Santa Claus.”
“No, but I am a very organized, very dedicated miracle worker. No one says no to me.” She shifted into business mode. She’d spent her entire career dealing with men who underestimated her. She’d always proven them wrong before, and she’d pull out all the stops here in Merry just to wipe that doubting smirk off Noah’s face.
Cat called up a document on the laptop and sent it to the dinosaur of a printer she’d found in the school’s abandoned office and lugged back into the classroom she considered her temporary office. The show’s budget was so strained that the addition of a new printer could implode the whole damn thing.
“This is a draft of the plan,” she said, handing him the sixteen pages. “I’ll refine it more this week before finalizing. So, if there’s something in there that’s an issue, I need to know ASAP.”
“And if I have a problem with something, you’ll do what?”
“Listen politely to your concerns and take great pleasure in explaining to you why everything will work in terms a three-year-old could grasp.”
“Are you trying to make me take my coffee back?”
“Mine,” she said, her fingers tightening on the cup. “Here are the highlights. Thanks to the attention from the show as well as a series of Facebook ads and geographically targeted social media posts, we’ll remind everyone in the tri-state area about the festival. We’ll be shooting, a lot of it B-roll—in layman’s terms, supplemental footage like crowd shots, downtown video that gets cut into the main interviews and filming.”
“You think people will want to come to the festival just to be on TV?” he asked.
Cat grinned. “Uh. Yeah. Supporting a great cause that we’ve spent four weeks selling them on and the chance to be in the finale? You’re going to have thousands of people show up here on Christmas Eve.”
Noah harrumphed and continued skimming the pages.
“Marketing is going to design posts for all of your vendors and retail shops who utilize social media so Merry can help us spread the word. I’ve already spoken to several store and restaurant owners who say they’ve been bombarded with messages and emails from past visitors. We can leverage that interest by guiding those visitors to the show and reminding them that this is going to be one hell of a holiday party that no one wants to miss.”
“That actually isn’t a horrible idea,” Noah admitted.
“Of course, it isn’t.”
“What about Christmas Eve?”
“Christmas Eve is going to be business as usual for Merry and a clusterfuck of epic proportions for the crew. We’re going to be shooting the tree lighting in the park, one-on-ones with both Merry citizens and outsiders, the band and dancing, Santa Claus,” she rattled off the scenes they’d already decided to focus on.
Noah raised a finger. “About the tree lighting.”
She interrupted. “I know. The tree that’s been decorated for fifty years went to tree heaven in the storm. I’m working on it. We’re hoping to make Christmas Eve a mega event that will attract people from all over. It’s a feel-good story and they’re going to know that every dollar they spend on hot chocolate and presents and cookies is going right back into Merry’s economy.”
“It’s still not going to be close to what we’d bring in during a normal year.”
“Which is why the week after Christmas is going to be huge. The lights in the park will be accompanied by fireworks every night, and we’ve got confirmations from three musical artists, that I’m not allowed to name yet due to current negotiations, who will be performing concerts in your park that week. We’re going to fill the heart of every Grinch viewer with so much Christmas spirit, Merry will be synonymous with Christmas for the next five years.”
Noah paged through the report, frowning.
“I hate to admit it, but—”
“Yeah, I am that awesome,” Cat said, cutting him off. She checked her watch and downed the rest of her coffee. “I’ve got somewhere to be. You hang on to that, and if you have any notes or ideas that won’t piss me off, email me.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Because it’ll be harder for us to fight over email?”
“Hopefully,” she said, with a wry smile of her own.
“I think we did okay today.”
“Fair warning, Yates. The further we get into this process, the more sleep deprived I become. And when that happens, I’m going to be a lot more likely to dump hot coffee on your crotch.”
“I’ll make sure to only supply you with iced coffee.”
Cat shook her head. “I’m sorry. Did Noah ‘Let Me Piss on Your Parade’ Yates just make a joke?”
He leveled his gaze at her. “Maybe you’re not as vapid and self-obsessed as I assumed you were. And if you’re not, then maybe I don’t have to be quite as hard on you.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
He stacked the papers together and slid them into his messenger bag. “I’ll let you get back to it then.”
She nodded, already reaching for her phone. “Thanks for the coffee,” Cat said.
“Thanks for the time.”
He paused just inside the door and glanced back at her. “You know I don’t really want you to fail, right?”
She did know and that was the only reason why she hadn’t kicked his ass yet. “I know. You’re just trying to protect your town from the boogeyman.”
Noah nodded. “I am. And I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Cat met his gaze. “So will I.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Noah crossed the parking lot heading in the direction of his SUV. He thought the meeting had gone well and experienced a sliver of relief at the fact that Cat actually had a plan in place for drawing the much-needed crowds to Merry. Whether or not it would work remained to be seen.
One thing that was uncomfortably clear was that the more competent and efficient Cat appeared to be, the more attractive he found her. Which was inconvenient at best and downright stupid at worst.
While Noah was willing to be just slightly more open-minded when it came to the woman, he wanted to make sure he kept his guard up. He needed to be ready to handle things when this whole TV show thing imploded.
“Dad!”
He whirled around ju
st as Sara ran full force into him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, simultaneously thrilled at the spontaneous hug and annoyed that his darling daughter wasn’t in school.
“It’s lunchtime. They let us leave school grounds, remember?”
Right. The school district’s population was made up mostly of students that lived within town limits. Starting with junior high, students were allowed to leave for their lunch.
He didn’t like it.
“Did you want to have lunch with me?” he asked, thrilled at the glimpse of his little girl.
“Uh. Well sure. But I saw in your calendar you had a meeting with…” Sara trailed off and took a deep breath. “Cat King,” she said reverently.
His ego took the shot dead center. Of course, Sara wanted to meet Cat. The woman stood for everything Sara worshipped: glitz, glamor, and fame.
“So, can I meet her? I mean, will you introduce me?”
Noah’s mind launched into overdrive. Was Cat the kind of celebrity who would be nice to kids? Did he really want Sara meeting a reality TV idol? And on the other hand, he’d be his kid’s biggest hero for probably the entire holiday season if he could provide an introduction.
“Ohmygod! There she is,” Sara hissed, half hiding behind him as Cat strode out of the building, staring at her phone in one hand and unlocking a vehicle with the other.
Shit.
He had to decide and fast.
“Uh, Cat? Do you have a second?” Noah called out.
She stopped and looked up with a frown. But when she spotted Sara literally clinging to Noah’s arm, she broke into a smile. A genuine one from the looks of it. Or she was a brilliant actress and wasting her time in reality television, Noah thought with sharp realization. He put stock in judging people by the way they interacted with kids, his in particular.
“Sure,” she said, crossing to them, her stride as impressive as if she was strutting down the catwalk instead of clomping across a parking lot in work boots.
“This is my daughter, Sara,” Noah said, putting his hands on her shoulders and giving his daughter a little shove toward the star. “She appears to be a fan of yours.”