Mistletoe Cinderella

by Tanya Michaels

  “I did, thanks.” Natalie sighed. “I’m just sorry you didn’t get more out of it.”

  The memory of Dylan’s kiss tingled through her, and she pressed a hand to her lips. “It was…I have a lot of work to do. Call you later?”

  “You busy tonight? I can bring over comfort food and a couple of chick flicks and get my shoes back.”

  Chloe knew “comfort food” meant chicken-fried steak and made-from-scratch mashed potatoes from the Dixieland Diner, both topped with white pepper gravy. She was powerless to resist. Good thing I own that treadmill. “Sounds like just what the doctor ordered, thanks.”

  After they disconnected, Chloe once again looked at her computer monitor, but lacked the mental energy to pretend she was getting anything done. Instead, she did seven and a half miles on the treadmill, then jumped in the shower. By the time she got out, she’d worked up an actual appetite. She padded to the fridge in a pair of denim shorts and a purple shirt printed with flowers that spelled out GET LEI’D IN MAUI. A gift from Aunt Jane, naturally. It was the least risqué of the bawdy T-shirts, acceptable Saturday wear for bumming around the house.

  A quick scan of the shelves reminded her that, with everything else that had happened this week, she’d neglected grocery shopping. Maybe getting out of the house would help her get out of her head, too, putting last night’s absurdities behind her. She would certainly be more productive at the market than she had been at her computer.

  She grabbed her car keys and was parking near Mistletoe’s only big grocery store fifteen minutes later. Making a mental list of items she needed, she headed up the sidewalk into the shop. Since Nat was coming over tonight, ice cream was a must-have, but she’d save that for the end of her trip, so it didn’t all melt in the cart. Instead, she rounded the corner toward the produce section and stopped cold at the sight of Dylan Echols examining fresh oranges.

  Eek.

  Well, who needed fruits and vegetables, anyway? She could live without them for another few days. Executing a stealthy about-face, she retreated to the soft-drink aisle, grabbing several things at random before continuing to speed away, wanting to put as much floor space as possible between her and Dylan. With little more in her cart than lunch for today and ice cream for tonight, she checked out, breathing a sigh of relief as she swiped her debit card. As soon as the kid at the register handed her the receipt, she’d be home fr—

  “C.J.?”

  Oh God. This was karmic punishment for her dishonesty last night.

  Did she dare ignore him? If so, he might call out louder and create a scene. It was in her best interest to get their encounter over quietly—and quickly. Trapped, she turned with a weak wave as Dylan closed the distance between them. A smiling middle-aged woman stepped aside so that he could get in line behind Chloe.

  If anything, he looked even better this morning, in a close-fitting T-shirt that did amazing things for his biceps. And he was making the most of the unshaven look that worked so well on some guys, lending a rugged touch.

  Chloe was at a loss for what to say. “Hey.” Even that monosyllable strained her current capabilities.

  For an instant, Dylan’s expression was inscrutable. Then he gave her a grin so wolfish she almost felt the top of her head to check for a red hood. “It is you. Must be my lucky day.”

  Chapter Six

  Dylan wanted to pump his fist in the air and let out a whoop of victory. He couldn’t have asked for a better moment than this, his beautiful liar of last night caught off guard, her eyes wide and stricken. When he’d read her bio at the reunion, he’d been furious and imagined a straightforward confrontation, asking her point-blank about her identity and watching her squirm over the inevitable truth. But some imp took hold of him as he studied her. With all her hair skimmed back in a high ponytail and wearing practically no makeup, she looked as fresh faced and innocent as she probably had in her teens.

  It incensed him anew that a woman who would knowingly make a fool out of him looked so damn much like a schoolgirl. Only her colorful shirt—get lei’d?—and shiny full lips hinted at possible naughtiness. He was annoyed to find himself wondering if she once again tasted like chocolate.

  “I was sorry you had to leave in such a rush last night,” he said, trying to forget how hopeful he’d been about seeing her in the ballroom. And how terrible he’d felt for possibly scaring her off with overzealous ardor. Idiot. He managed not to grit his teeth. “I hope it wasn’t anything I did?”

  “N-no. Nothing like that. I had somewhere I needed to be.”

  “The reunion?” he pressed. “I looked for you downstairs.”

  She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “When I was fixing my makeup, I noticed…that I had a text message. From a friend. Needing help.”

  “I see. Is everything okay?”

  “Mmm-hmm. It was just a, um, girl thing. All taken care of now.”

  The fact that she was a lousy liar made him feel like an even bigger chump for not seeing through her last night. How could he have fallen for anything that came out of her mouth? Maybe because you were too busy fantasizing about the mouth in question.

  He handed over a twenty that covered the few basics he’d picked up for his mother, then followed Chloe out the door without bothering to wait for his change. No way was he letting her escape before she confessed her perfidy.

  “I was sorry we didn’t get to talk longer about your job,” he said.

  “My job?”

  He nodded, grinning as a spontaneous plan took shape. “The interior decorating. What’s your specialty?” He had no idea whether decorators even had specialties.

  “Feng sway?” It came out as a tentative squeak. “Shui. Feng shui.”

  “Because I was thinking of having my condo redecorated.” He wondered how much rope he needed to hand her before she hanged herself.

  “B-but you live in Atlanta!”

  “Hardly the far corners of the earth.” He shrugged. “It’s not too bad a drive. Surely not all your clients are in Mistletoe? If I hired you, I’d know I wasn’t getting ripped off by some stranger in the city. And as an extra bonus, I’d get to see you again.”

  “No, I—” She broke off, looking even more alarmed than before, if such a thing were possible.

  He followed her gaze to a pregnant woman farther down the sidewalk. The spring breeze plastered her blue maternity dress to the small baby bulge, and a headband was keeping the raven-black hair out of her eyes while she took pictures with a digital camera. She seemed to be photographing storefronts.

  Turning back to Chloe, he asked, “Someone you know?”

  After a brief hesitation, Chloe admitted, “Rachel Waide. But she’s working right now. For the chamber of commerce. Very artistic. She hates to be bothered while she’s trying to get the perfect shot,” she added, already striding in the opposite direction.

  Dylan amiably tagged along. “I don’t know if you realize this about me, but I’m very stubborn. Coach taught me to hang in there all nine innings and go for the win. I really would like to talk to you more about decorating my place. Or at least coming to look at it before you turn me down completely.”

  They were passing a woman with what appeared to be her teenage son, and Chloe ducked her head, clearly hoping not to be recognized by any of her fellow citizens.

  “How about I buy you lunch and we can chat?” He aimed his most charming smile directly at her. “Come on, you owe me for running off last night, C.J. Is the Dixieland Diner still in business?”

  “I can’t go out to lunch. My ice cream would melt.”

  “Dinner, then?” he persisted. “Or why don’t you just give me your business card. I’ll come by your office later and—”

  “I work from home.”

  “Even better. We can go there and have lunch together. To protect your ice cream,” he added with a smile.

  She stared back with a deer-in-the-headlights look, finally sighing in resignation. For a moment, he thought she was about t
o cop to not being an interior decorator. “Fine. Follow me.”

  Game on, then?

  He nodded. “Lead the way.” This should be interesting.

  CHLOE BRIEFLY entertained the fantasy of mashing down the accelerator and not stopping. She’d recently decided she wanted to see more of the world—here was her chance! Yet she was slowly realizing that Dylan Echols wouldn’t be that easy to shake. Besides, she only had about a quarter of a tank of gas. As great escapes went, that wouldn’t get her far.

  Cursing her luck, she stayed right at the legal speed limit, neither too slow nor too fast, and dutifully signaled with her blinker well before each turn. Story of my life. Until this weekend, anyway. Dylan stayed close, impossible to miss in her rearview mirror. Even his car was sexy—a recent-model dark metallic-blue Mustang convertible.

  Driving around with the top down, he looked like a man without cares. If she hadn’t known about his shoulder injury and subsequent career disappointment, she would have bought into the illusion. He seemed to have bounced back well, though. She wondered if he enjoyed his sports reporting job. Addressing a faceless audience with a camera trained on her sounded like purgatory to her. Chloe did better in front of a computer than she did in front of people.

  Which made it thoroughly ironic that she was having two meals with Dylan in as many days. Why in heaven’s name had she capitulated to his suggestion that he come over for lunch? Well, there had been the fear of being recognized, of course, and her escalating need to end their conversation in front of the store, but that was the logical, intellectual reason. On a purely instinctual level, when a man like Dylan Echols said, “Take me home,” a woman’s automatic response was yes!

  When Chloe parked under the carport, he was quick to hop out of his own vehicle and offer a hand with the groceries. She thanked him as she gave him the bag of ice cream.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Do you have anything you need to put in the refrigerator?”

  He shook his head. “I just grabbed a few things to take over to my mom’s this afternoon. Nothing that won’t keep for a little while.”

  That was nice of him; she could identify with taking care of your parents. Not only did Chloe miss Aunt Jane horribly, her passing made Chloe even more conscious of her parents’ age.

  She swallowed. “How’s your mother doing? I mean, I heard that your dad had passed away. That must be hard on her, living alone after so many years of marriage.”

  He was silent, remote behind the sunglasses he wore. Then he said, “I suppose it is,” and strode past her on the sidewalk even though he’d have to wait for her to unlock the front door.

  Lesson learned. Apparently, even with the months that had passed, he wasn’t ready to talk about his late father.

  She climbed the steps to the front porch, thinking back to earlier in the week. It had been such a surprise to find that package from Aunt Jane. How could Chloe have known she was in for a bigger shock—Dylan Echols right here at her door? She ushered him inside, grateful for the tiny bit of redecorating she’d managed since moving into the house. Undecorating, rather.

  Chloe was the only child of adoring parents, and the place had looked like a shrine to her. Framed pictures of her entire childhood had filled the wall space in the hallway and trophies from the Academic Decathlon and sophomore science fair had perched on the mantel. Her parents had taken their favorite portraits with them to their smaller apartment, but had left so much of it here that she’d felt a little embarrassed living among the memorabilia her first week back at home.

  Was the Echols house a similar museum to Dylan’s achievements? Like her, Dylan was an only child, and she imagined his parents must have been bursting with pride for him. There were probably team pictures, from kindergarten community league to the major leagues, and sports trophies in every room.

  “So this is your place, huh?” Sliding off his glasses, Dylan glanced around at the serviceable but worn furniture, her mother’s faded floral curtains and the rug Chloe planned to replace with faux hardwood. Eventually.

  Dylan raised an eyebrow. “I have to admit, it’s not what I expected from a decorator. But then, you’re just full of surprises.”

  Her heart hammered. Surprises as in her kissing him last night, or her fleeing immediately afterward? “Well, you know what they say about the cobbler’s children having no shoes? It’s like that with decorators, too.”

  The sensible thing to do would be trying to convince him that she was a lousy decorator so that he’d abandon any half-baked notion of hiring her. But she was already humiliated enough over last night and hated for him to think she was completely incompetent.

  She found herself adding, “Besides, I haven’t been here long enough to renovate much. It was my parents’ place, and they recently gave it to me. Moved into their own apartment at the seniors’ center. They’re older than a lot of my friends’ parents,” she explained. Nat’s mom had recently hit fifty, but could pass for a woman in her late thirties—good genes in that family.

  “These your folks?” Dylan gestured toward a magnetic frame on the refrigerator. In the picture, her mother was wearing a bright green sweater and her dad a suit with a Christmas-tree tie.

  Chloe nodded. “Yeah. That was taken at the Winter Wonderland Dance.”

  “I remember that dance.” His smile was nostalgic. “For this town it was like homecoming and prom all rolled into one.”

  He was right. Even though it seemed more heavily chaperoned than a high school event because of all the adults, the annual charity formal had always been a big deal among her classmates, wondering who would invite whom. Even the strictest of parents normally allowed their children to attend since it was a community fund-raiser, benefiting the seniors’ center and adjacent medical complex. No guy had ever asked Chloe, though. Her junior year, Natalie had tried to force a double date with her own date’s cousin who was visiting for the holidays, but it had turned out to be such an awkward fiasco that Chloe had skipped the whole thing her senior year, telling her parents she’d rather use the time to study for winter finals.

  She didn’t realize she was scowling until Dylan asked, “Did I say something wrong?”

  “Not at all. Just trying to decide on a plan for lunch. Pizza okay with you?”

  “Sure.” He stayed out of her way while she bustled around the small kitchen, stowing her newly purchased groceries. “But I still can’t believe you opted for manual labor over my buying you lunch at the diner.”

  “Well, there was the ice cream to consider,” she reminded him lamely.

  The bigger consideration was the half-dozen people who would have greeted her at the diner, where she was a regular. Just the thought of being exposed as a fraud left her wanting her inhaler. Dylan would be gone again soon. Couldn’t she have this small, stolen period of time with him and retain her dignity?

  Then say something, she scolded herself, and stop just standing here with a guilty expression. She cleared her throat. “Besides, my dinner plans are for the diner.”

  “Ah. Hot date?”

  If it weren’t for the faint brackets of tension around his mouth, she would have assumed he was poking fun at her, but she reconsidered from his perspective. If Dylan Echols had deemed her attractive and interesting enough to have dinner with last night, why wouldn’t she be good enough for some other guy to take to dinner? It was an unfamiliar yet pleasant way to think of herself.

  “Just dinner with a friend. Nothing romantic.”

  His shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly. “As embarrassing as this is to admit, I think I would have been jealous.”

  It ranked among the most flattering things a man had ever said to her—right up there with technophobe Zachariah Waide telling her that the Web site she’d created for his supply store was a user-friendly work of art. “Th-thank you.”

  Dylan’s eyes held hers. “You’re welcome.”

  The moment took on an intimacy that heightened both her attraction to him and her
discomfort. She turned away to preheat the ancient oven, then got out a baking sheet. When the metal hit the counter, she realized for the first time how quiet her house was. It never bothered her when she was alone, but somehow it seemed even more quiet with him here.

  As she threw away the cardboard box and plastic wrapping, he asked, “How’d you get into feng shui?”

  “You could say I followed an impulse.”

  “I’ve heard of it in passing, but never met anyone who uses it. I’d love to hear some specifics.”

  Gulp. She’d only mentioned feng shui because, at the time, it had been the single decorating term she could even think of. In retrospect, she should have told him her specialty was commercial interiors. Since there was no way he had the authority to hire her to redecorate a television station, that would have been a tidy way to end the discussion. I have to get better at thinking on my feet.

  Except what she really meant was that she should get better at lying, a thought that made her queasy. Her parents would be horribly disappointed in her.

  “Well, as you probably know, feng shui is an ancient Asian art. Or maybe more like a tradition. A philosophy. Having to do with the placement of items in the home and the different ways said placement can affect the home owner.”

  “Such as?” He took a seat, watching her with fascination.

  Chloe wanted to groan. After hearing Nat and other girlfriends complain about dating guys who talked only about themselves, why did she have to find such a good listener? Stalling, she opened the refrigerator with vague intentions of pulling together a salad to accompany the pizza. Until she remembered that she’d not bought any produce because she’d been dodging Dylan. And here he sits in your kitchen. Excellent job with the avoidance, girl genius.

  She straightened. “Are you sure you’re really interested in hearing this? It’s pretty metaphysical. Probably not your cup of tea.”