But Ace must have thought the smile was for him. He snaked an arm around her back and leaned in to steal a kiss. Juliet panicked. No! Not in front of Tag. She popped her head to the left, dragging the sandpaper of Ace’s mouth across to her cheek.
The audience exploded in a volcano of cheers and catcalls.
“Sorry, doll. You were just too delicious not to try.” Ace half-shut his eyes and pushed out his lips in a second air-kiss.
Juliet sprang from his lap, waved a trepidatious hand at the crowd, and scuttled down the metal grid stairs and back to her seat beside Tag. His arms were folded over his chest.
“Tell me you didn’t plan that.” Juliet pressed her mouth toward his shoulder and shouted over the music and crowd shouts.
“Oh, believe me.” Tag’s arms were still folded. The spotlight flashed past, and she saw his temple bounce in and out from clenching his jaw.
Tag was jealous. Juliet blinked, letting that sink in. Or was he? Could he be? They’d only been together a few hours in the past decade. With a little trepidation, she reached over and rested her hand on top of where his sat on his folded arms. He glanced at her and then relaxed and took her hand back in his.
“You sounded amazing, though. I’d forgotten how your singing makes me feel.”
Wow. Juliet preferred that compliment to everything Ace ever said or sang. She nestled against Tag for the duration.
The concert went on for another half hour, and then Ace sang a tender version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and bid the fans good night.
Tag stood and helped Juliet to her feet. A press of the crowd pushed them against one another. He smelled like soap, and she lingered a second longer than the press dictated.
Just then, though, good old Rex the tech bustled up to them. “Mr. McClintock?”
Tag stopped. Juliet knew what this was about.
One hand rested on the round of his belly. “Backstage passes. You two are needed now.” He turned to Juliet. “Incredible performance, Miss Law. Best I’ve ever seen impromptu. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ace asks you to come record with him. He really liked you. I mean really.”
At this, Tag’s face darkened into a glower, and Juliet’s throat filled with sand.
“Maybe we should skip it. Give our passes to someone else.” Juliet had already been much more up close and personal with Ace Bandage than she’d intended to be, and Tag— well, he didn’t seem himself. More like a steroid-amped version.
“Oh, no. We are going back there to meet him.” ’Roid-raging Tag marched after Rex, almost tugging Juliet, who had to skiff along in her pumps to stay steady. This did not bode well.
Ace’s dressing room had a fully decorated Christmas tree. Apple juice mulled with oranges and cloves permeated the air. Wassail, Ace’s favorite Christmas drink, she remembered from her Tiger Beat reading days.
Did Tag smell it too? She glanced at him, but it looked like all he smelled was blood.
“Mr. Bandage, sir?” Rex cleared his throat to get Ace’s attention, for he had his back to them and was on the phone and leaning on one hand against the wall, talking loudly.
“I’m telling you, Sid. She had it all. The voice, the look. The legs. I could’ve dropped to the floor and sunk my teeth into her calf muscles. The audience loved her. I should’ve just sat down and let her finish the concert. Yeah. Juliet Law. Look her up. See if she has anything recorded already. If not, I’m hiring a P.I. and hunting her down. First I’ll take her to bed and not let her out for a month, and then with your help I’ll make her a star.”
The blood drained from Juliet’s face. White— that was a Christmas color too, wasn’t it? For the snow? She was a candy cane right now— red dress, white face.
Tag’s face, on the other hand, had turned toy-fire-engine-under-the-Christmas-tree red. His fists were pumping, making his biceps bounce beneath Juliet’s hand.
Rex volleyed again. “Mr. Bandage? Your backstage pass guests have arrived.” This received a pointer finger in the air until Rex said, “It’s Mr. Tag McClintock and Miss Juliet Law.”
Ace whirled around. “Juliet? She’s here? Now?” His eyes lit up, laser focused on her. He jumped forward. “Juliet! My gorgeous—”
But on the second syllable of gorgeous, Ace Bandage’s chicken pox scar got a violent, personal introduction to Tag McClintock’s closed fist. Juliet staggered backward into Rex, and Ace spun on the heel of his cowboy boot, which Juliet now saw was about four inches high.
“Never speak about a woman like that again. Particularly not about my woman.” Tag wiped his knuckles on his suit coat and stalked toward the door.
Juliet’s eyebrows scrunched together, and she winced a silent apology at the stricken superstar. Instinct told her to go toward the wounded man, who had crumpled onto the leather sofa and held his cheek. However, the grappling hook that had lodged in her heart from the first moment Taggart McClintock’s eyes met hers tonight cinched tight and yanked her after his departure.
Ace frowned and barked, “Tech guy! Call security.” And then to Juliet he muttered, “You and I could’ve been really good together.”
Juliet just shook her head and stumbled after Tag, grabbing his hand. Over her shoulder she heard Rex say something like, “He’s leaving. Forget it, boss. You deserved it.”
On the chance Ace couldn’t be convinced by Rex’s logic, Juliet said, “Let’s put on some speed.”
Chapter Four
“What— so you’re not going to spend the next month in his filthy bed?” He was still seething. “And then go off and leave Palm Desert, when I just moved back, and, as that jerk said, ‘become a star?’”
“That’s ridiculous.”
They were in the parking lot, and Tag handed a pile of money to the valet stand attendant. “Just give me my keys. I’ll get my own car.”
Juliet would have stopped to tell him off, but she realized that getting out of there fast wasn’t a bad idea. After all, they’d already been in a police station once tonight. The ticketing company had both their names because of the backstage passes. This could still end badly. With assault charges.
Within moments, Tag had shimmied the sports car out of the tight parking spot, and they went weaving through the Hollywood hills, past scores of obscenely expensive mansions with iron gates and So-Cal pink stucco façades. Soon, Tag’s breathing slowed, and the veins on his neck relaxed to their normal size.
However, Juliet had gone from simmer to boil. How could he? She tapped the toe of her pumps on the floor mat.
“That was totally not how I saw that concert going.” When Tag glanced over and their eyes met, he looked surprised. “Whoa. You’re mad?” He let his foot off the gas and reached over to her. His touch grounded her a smidge, but not enough to completely cut the anger. He went on, a little more apologetically. “Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have hit the guy. I know you always liked him. But somebody needed to. He’s a jackal.” He clenched his fists on the steering wheel.
“That’s not what’s bothering me.” Juliet took a turn folding her arms over her chest. They came to a stoplight on the corner of L.A.’s famous Wilshire Boulevard, and Tag looked over at her, dropping his snark and looking a little confused.
Juliet pushed her chin forward and huffed. “I can’t believe you’d assume I’d go to, as you put it, Ace’s filthy bed. Come on, Tag. I thought you’d know me better than that. Did you think I’d had an integrity transplant since last time you knew me?”
“No, no. It’s not what I meant. I mean, I know you.” He paused. “I guess it’s just been so long. Most of the girls I’ve met since I left home have been moral vacuums. They would have pressed the turbo button on their engines to get to a rock star’s bed.”
Disgust rose up in her like bile in the throat. “Please.”
Tag looked over at her. “But you. You’re a breath of fresh air.”
The tension diffused, and she forgave his jealousy-driven comment. It was kind of nice, she had to admit.
“Well, thanks for fighting for my honor, anyway.”
He smirked and gave her a wink that sent a sparkle back through her.
Juliet leaned her head against the window and watched the steel and glass buildings go by, interspersed with mom and pop stores and relics of old 1960s California. Every window had a Santa or a star or a tree or a menorah. Garlands of evergreen branches stretched between the streetlights. Like the song said, even stoplights blinked a bright red and green. But Juliet was fixated. Tag held her to a standard?
If she was honest, she held Taggart McClintock to a standard, too. She let her mind drift back through the years to a potent memory.
They were eleven.
Tag joined the Boy Scouts and needed help learning the creed, the one about loyal, clean, brave, reverent— all of those. He never was good at memorizing.
Juliet let him push her on the tire swing while she quizzed him. For the first time, she’d felt the pressure of his hands on her back. Then when he finally got it, he’d given her a high five. That high five— it was the first time she’d noticed the electric current between her and Tag McClintock. At least on her own part.
Was the current still live? Juliet reached toward where his hand rested on the shifter, and she touched it ever so lightly. Tag twitched at her sudden touch, but he didn’t pull away, just looked her direction, his eyes afire.
Wow. Definitely still live. Except now somebody had cranked the amps. And kissing him in traffic earlier? It was like being right at the substation.
Ooh. What would max voltage feel like? She’d better not try to find out tonight.
A text chimed from her phone inside her purse.
Polly: You are on a date with Tag McClintock? Girl!
A second one followed fast on its heels.
And you didn’t tell me?
How did Polly find out? Because Juliet didn’t tell. No way. Polly was notorious for broadcasting things like that through their whole social network of leftover Desert Valley High friends and not-so-friends.
Just didn’t want to get my hopes up, Juliet typed and then deleted, tilting her phone out of Tag’s sightline. A long moment’s thought netted, It was a last-minute thing.
Polly shot right back. Didn’t seem like last minute. He had to book early for those backstage passes.
What in the world? How did she know that?
Don’t think something like that wouldn’t hit the interwebs, darling. That and your duet with ACE BANDAGE! Girl, you still got the pipes. Over and out.
“Uh, Tag?” She wiped the fingerprints off her phone, and the humor of the night suddenly hit her. “I’m sorry to tell you, but you’ve already gone viral.” They were at a stoplight, so she showed him Polly’s texts, suppressing a laugh as another text popped in, this time with a picture.
“Polly.” He, and everyone else, knew Polly and her voracious appetite for news. “Were those pictures of Ace’s trip to the ER? Wow. I guess my right hook is officially famous.”
“Former teeny boppers everywhere will hold your name in derision. You’ll have to go into hiding. Like that dentist who shot the lion.”
“Oh, no. I’ll have it easier than that poor bloke. He’s ruined. But this guy already has the name Ace Bandage. He was asking for it.” Tag wheeled his car into a parking lot off Wilshire. “Here we are, Sunset and Camden.”
Singing in the Rain. Her heart skipped. Any guy who could quote Singing in the Rain was okay with Juliet— and even canceled out her annoyance at his suspicions about her virtue being up for grabs by rock stars.
He came around and opened her door. “We should get over to the museum fast, before they put out a BOLO on me.” BOLO. Be on the lookout. Right. “I swear, this is not how I saw this night going.”
Juliet shrugged a shoulder. “I’m having a great time.”
Tag cocked his head at her, but now they crossed the street into a familiar grassy park with buildings dotted around. She’d been here quite a few times as a kid.
“I love how the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is plopped right next to the La Brea Tar Pits.” The air smelled of petroleum and sulfur, like one of those oil refineries out on the coast.
“A bold move.” Tag took her arm, linking it around his. The suit jacket had great fabric. He was doing very well for himself.
“Is the museum open this late?” It had to be past eleven. They strolled past concrete sculptures of saber-toothed tigers and other creatures exhumed from the pits.
“Tonight only. There’s a special midnight appearance of Scrooge’s three ghosts. Patrons can speak to any one of them, Past, Present, or Yet to Come, and make a wish.”
The words “make a wish” sent a shiver through Juliet’s core.
“Kind of like a grown-up version of a kid sitting on Santa’s lap?” Magic sparkled in the night air. Juliet’s mind pinged from wish to possible wish.
“Let’s not mention sitting on anyone’s lap. Unless it’s mine.” Tag stopped and came around in front of her. He stood there, looking all James Bond confident. Desire for him surged in her, and she had to blink a lot to tamp it back down. After all, this could still just be a mercy date.
But he was walking toward her with intent in his eye.
Juliet looked around. Beside them, through the fence, was the biggest, bubbling tar pit, the one where the life-size mammoth family surrounded the pool and anguished over a sinking family member, a total melodrama of the ancient animal kingdom.
Tag steered her backward, until her back rested against the iron bars of the fence around the sticky black lake. She gazed up at him, everything else fading to black as he swooped in and caught her mouth in a kiss so incendiary it could ignite the tar fume filled air around them. Soon his hands were crawling up and down her sides, twining around the back of her neck, twisting in her hair, and his chest pressed against hers. And Juliet gave as good as she got for the half a minute it lasted.
Tag pushed himself back, leaving Juliet’s knees a pool of melted cartilage and her lips a little raw. “Whoa,” he said. “You’d better take it easy, Juliet. You’re playing with explosives.”
She gulped and reached up to rest her fingers on her collarbone and gauge her heart rate.
“Oh, no.” She patted at her neck in a panic. “No, no, no.” Where was it? It had to be there. She felt all over her dress, crouched down on the ground. “The necklace.” Frantic fingers flew over the dry, wintered-over Bermuda grass. Tag was on his knees beside her— soiling that perfect dark suit with mud. Oh, if ever there was evidence of devotion, that had to be. “It was on my neck when you accosted me here.”
“Accosted, huh?” He pulled out his phone and found the flashlight app. “First it’s assault, and now I’m accosting.”
“Dude. You’re the guy with all the passions.”
“Yes, I am.”
The necklace didn’t glint in the light of his phone— not right away, anyway. Not until he aimed it into the fenced-off area. There! But it lay a good two feet past any hope of reaching. And the holes in the fence were only about three inches square.
Juliet’s heart sank. “How did it get so far?”
Tag raised an eyebrow and looked her over, standing up. “Vigorous make-out.”
Then they saw it— a stray chipmunk.
The rodent inched toward where he’d clearly already been at work moving the necklace back to his winter lair.
“Shoo!” Juliet stomped her heel. “Shoo, you striped rat.” The chipmunk glanced at her in disdain. Her blood boiled. “Can we get some kind of stick?”
“And teach the chipmunk a lesson? Don’t forget, we’re in California. People don’t like that sort of thing.”
“I meant to snag the necklace and drag it to us, but still. That dirty rat!” Juliet’s insides alternately pinched and ached as she gauged the distance in despair. No way could they snag it. Seriously. It was beyond hope.
The chipmunk scooted toward the necklace again. He was clearly immune to their threat
s and useless hand-waving.
“It’s all right, Juliet. We should just let it go.” He rested a hand on her arm, and the warmth of it surged up her shoulder. “It will sink into the tar, become one again with the earth. There’s something kind of comforting and cyclical about that, don’t you think?”
But it was one of a kind. She couldn’t let it sink into tar. “It meant a lot to me.”
The words made Tag’s head snap upward, and his eyes met Juliet’s. “Really?” When she nodded, he began pacing back and forth. “I’ll look for a stick.” He headed across the sidewalk to the base of a tree and kicked at the grass.
Excitement and relief washed through her. They could do this together. “I’ll pelt the little guy with pebbles until you find something.”
Unless...
“I have an idea. Give me a boost.” She slipped off her pumps and hiked up her already short skirt. “I’m going over. If you can boost me, I can get it. I did gymnastics when I was a kid.” For six months, and stunk at it.
“But... how will you get back?” The voice of reason fell on deaf ears.
“I’ll climb.” Then she realized she wouldn’t. “No. I got it. You’re going to call park security and tell them there’s an unstable woman who’s made her way into the tar pits and is threatening self-destruction. They’ll come and open the gate.” Juliet made to climb the fence, looking around for security. There was none.
“No. I’ll go. I’m taller. I can swing my leg over easier. And there’s an outside chance I can get back on my own.”
The ground on the other side of the fence was lower by a couple of feet. Juliet rolled her eyes. “They aren’t going to be as sympathetic to a man in a $5,000 suit claiming to be wacked. But a crazed woman in a cocktail dress? I can totally make up a story for that. Now, quick. Up with the boosting.”
“You are one determined girl, Juliet Law.” Faster than she could say “bah, humbug,” Juliet tumbled, flailing over the fence, landing partially on her feet with a thud on the mud. The chipmunk chattered and dashed. But the mud was slippery, and before Juliet could get her footing, she lost the tiny remnant of balance she’d retained, double-stepped sideways, and careened toward the lake of bubbling black sludge just a few feet away. Time slowed down.
Under the Mistletoe Collection Page 26