Mistletoe Cinderella

by Tanya Michaels

  She wasn’t this upset about his dyslexia, and they both knew it. It wasn’t just school that had been an ordeal. The fact of the matter was, sometimes being there had been a nice respite from being home.

  He shoved a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “I don’t blame you. Looking at the man you’ve become, I wonder if I did the right thing staying here all these years or if I should have…I don’t know what I would have done without your father, but maybe it was only cowardice that kept me from finding out, not love.” Her eyes filled again. “Is it wrong to look at this as a fresh start? There was a time I loved him, there must have been.”

  She looked unconvinced, but Dylan was the wrong man to plead his father’s case.

  Dashing away a few tears, she added in a stronger tone, “I do want you to know he loved you. In his own way, he loved you very much. I don’t know if he ever told you this, but his mother had a learning disability. Not that it was diagnosed well or that school curricula back then were developed to handle that. I think your father had a misplaced sense of anger, that maybe you’d inherited something through him.”

  “Mom, I know you have the best of intentions, but I do not want to talk about it.” To lessen the sting of his vehement words, he knelt by her chair. “We should look at this as a fresh start, with each other. Please don’t beat yourself up over what-ifs. You can second-guess your plays all you want, but it still won’t change the score after the game’s finished. The truth is, I wasn’t an ideal son, either. But we can work on that, right?”

  “Right.” She gave him a watery smile, emboldened. “And we could work on it even more if you took a coaching job in Mistletoe.”

  AFTER LUNCH, Dylan attempted to distract himself from everything his mom had said by calling Chloe to let her know he’d reached town, but her cell phone rolled immediately to voice mail. You’ve reached C. W. Designs, she chirped. Leave a message, and I’ll call you back as soon as I can! The cynical part of him wondered if that had always been her outgoing recording, or if she’d altered it and removed her name since giving him her number. Having struck out getting in touch with her, he tried Nick Zeth instead.

  Nick laughed as soon as Dylan identified himself. “Dude, when I offered to buy you dinner next time you were in town, it’s because I figured you wouldn’t be back for at least a decade. What happened, you get back to Atlanta and decide you missed us?”

  The picture of Chloe’s smile swam in his memory. “Something like that. But don’t worry, I’m not looking for a free meal. Maybe just some company at batting practice?” He had sworn to his mentor to at least consider the idea of coaching. Now, with Barb adding her own pressure, Dylan felt that, at a minimum, he should swing by the high school to watch the team for a few minutes this afternoon.

  Showing up might make him look more interested in the job than he really was, though. He planned to use Nick as a human shield, just two former players motivated by recent nostalgia to check out the old stomping grounds and see the new team in action.

  “I can get away for a little while,” Nick agreed. “I’m not active today, just on call. I’ll bring the pager with me.”

  Once they were off the phone, Dylan called the school to verify that practice time hadn’t changed and to make sure Coach Asbury didn’t mind the audience.

  “Hell, no. You boys feel free to come down on the field and give pointers. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to autograph baseballs for the kids?”

  Dylan winced. “Maybe next time. I think we’ll keep it low-key and incognito today.”

  He arrived in the bleachers wearing shades and a scruffy cap pulled down over his forehead.

  Nick smirked at him. “No one told me we were wearing spy gear. I would have brought my trench coat and fake mustache.”

  “I wanted to observe without being blatant about it,” Dylan admitted. The boys down on the field had just begun their warm-up exercises.

  “Does this have anything to do with Coach B. informing anyone who will listen that you’re his natural successor?”

  “Tell me he’s not,” Dylan implored.

  “Only if you don’t mind me lying to your face.”

  “No thanks, I’ve had quite enough of that lately,” he grumbled. Witnessing Nick’s transparent curiosity, Dylan engaged in a brief mental debate and decided he might as well get someone else’s take on the situation. After all, Chloe had a confidant. Turnabout is fair play. “You remember my asking about Chloe Malcolm?”

  “Yeah, she caught your eye at the reunion.”

  “More than caught my eye. We talked for a while. I may have even kissed her.”

  “You’re not sure?” Nick drawled.

  “I was trying to give you the pertinent information but still be a gentleman about it.”

  “Sorry, just having fun. Continue.”

  “During the course of our conversation, she lied to me about who she was. I had to resort to skimming through reunion literature just to figure out who the hell I’d had up in my hotel room!”

  “Hotel room?” Nick gave a fierce shake of his head. “You can’t be talking about Chloe Malcolm. None of this sounds like her.”

  “She called herself C.J. and told me she was an interior decorator. Unless she has an identical twin you forgot to mention?”

  “No, she’s an only child.”

  “Yeah, that’s what her friend Natalie said, too.” Dylan glared out at the baseball diamond, but barely processed what he was watching. “They’re both in on it.”

  “‘In on it’?” Nick echoed. “Chloe and Natalie Young? You make it sound like they deliberately set you up.”

  No. In retrospect Dylan caught the small hesitations that he’d overlooked the night of the reunion. “I don’t think it was premeditated. I’m the one who mistook Chloe for Candy Beemis. She went along with it and then some, embellishing along the way.” When he thought of her standing in the kitchen listing the five elements of feng shui as if she were the expert she claimed to be, he wanted to shake her.

  Or at least kiss her senseless.

  “You thought she was Candy Beemis?” Nick’s jaw dropped. “How the hell could you confuse a sweet kid—Chloe—for that she-wolf?”

  Sweet kid? “She’s the same age we are,” Dylan pointed out. “And not to disillusion you, but—”

  “Did you actually call her Candy?” Nick clarified. “That had to sting. I know I temporarily lost my wits and dated Candy—I mean, come on, have you seen her? I was young and at the mercy of my hormones—but the girl has a vicious streak. Chloe always brought out the worst in her. It’s not the reason she gave publicly, but I think Candy dumped me because I had the gall to suggest she lay off the jokes at Chloe’s expense.”

  So Dylan had come along at the high school reunion, where Chloe might have been feeling vulnerable over the way people had treated her in the past, and immediately mistaken her for someone who’d made her teen years a living hell? Awkward. But she should have just corrected me like a normal person! His blunder didn’t excuse her inventing a persona and perpetrating an elaborate hoax.

  “What on earth did Chloe say when you asked her about all this?” Nick demanded.

  Dylan’s mouth twisted. “It’s more complicated than that. When I asked if she went by Candy or Candace, she told me it was C.J. now and she led me to believe she was an interior decorator. So…I hired her.”

  “I’ve never heard that she does any decorating on the side,” Nick argued, looking confused. “She works with computers.”

  “I know! But she doesn’t know that I know.”

  “Dude, you’re making my head hurt.”

  Welcome to my world. “Maybe she’s bipolar. Maybe she’s using me to live out some kind of fantasy.” Although it wasn’t the kind of fantasy he would have hoped. “All I can tell you is that she’s gone to great lengths to pull one over on me. I don’t want to just tell her the jig is up. I want her to admit what she’s done and apologize.�
� Soon, he fervently hoped.

  Because he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She had to be the one to set things right, but once she did, maybe they could see each other for real. Have that dinner they’d missed the night of the reunion, exchange more of those kisses that might lead—

  “Wouldn’t it just be easier to confront her? Or to walk away entirely? You can’t actually let her decorate your place.”

  Then this probably wasn’t the time to mention that Dylan was supposed to see her later to discuss swatches and furniture. “She took the check of her own free will,” he defended himself, “passing herself off as a licensed decorator.”

  Despite Nick’s logical suggestion, Dylan didn’t think he could simply walk away. Though she had only reentered his life a week and a half ago, Chloe had made quite an impact. The lust he’d felt when he first saw her, the anger when he’d learned who she really was—or wasn’t—the compassion he’d felt when she talked about her aunt and the admiration when she mentioned her asthma, trying to pretend casually that didn’t bother her anymore. He knew how tough it was to be a kid when you felt different from everyone else around you. Just about everyone Dylan knew had expressed some sort of condolence that he’d lost his ball career, but Chloe was different, the way she’d reached out to him at his condo. She’d made comforting him seem hot rather than pitying. The former was extremely preferable.

  “I just can’t wrap my mind around this,” Nick said. “Chloe and Natalie lying and scheming? It’s like finding out Bambi and Thumper are beating up the other forest animals for their lunch money.”

  “Life’s not an animated fairy tale.” Dylan’s storybook ending would have involved a long career and a Cy Young Award. And what about his mother, married to an emotional bully and struggling with the regret thirty years later? Dylan was smart enough to accept reality rather than butt his head against it.

  So why, whenever he thought of Chloe and the sweetness of her kiss, did he allow himself to imagine a happily-ever-after?

  Chapter Ten

  “I tumbled into the photography thing,” Rachel bubbled, looking adorably round and almost too big for the precarious folding chair in the back room of the print shop. “I can’t remember—pregnant-woman brain—what do you call happy accidents?”

  “Serendipity?” Chloe offered.

  Rachel snapped her fingers. “That’s it! Pictures were a hobby, but then when the chamber of commerce approached me about doing a series for them, other opportunities presented themselves. It’s been a slow trickle. Nothing close to what you’d call a full-time job, but that’s not what I want after the baby comes, anyway. Just a supplemental income with flexible hours after I abandon poor May. But even for that, I think a Web site is a must.”

  Ever since Rachel got married and moved to Mistletoe, she’d worked for May Gideon, who was helping customers out front while Rachel used a late lunch hour to meet with Chloe. May had expressed regret that her friend was quitting in her final trimester, but couldn’t be happier that it was to become a full-time mom.

  “I can definitely help build you a site tailored to your needs,” Chloe promised. “We just need to talk ab—Are you okay?”

  “Fine. Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” Rachel’s hands had jerked to her stomach so quickly Chloe had feared something might be wrong. “We’d been expecting to feel the baby move—‘flutters,’ all the books say—but nothing happened for the longest time. Dr. McDermott did an extra sonogram just to check on everything. Then this week, he—or she—started kicking up a storm. It’s amazing.”

  “He or she? It’s still too soon to determine the sex?” With the baby due this summer, Chloe would have thought they knew whether they were having a boy or girl by now.

  “David and I decided to wait and find out.” The woman’s face lit up when she mentioned her husband. “We asked Dr. McDermott not to tell us, even though she knows. Maybe it’s a little impractical, since it limits what we can buy ahead of time and I have to keep addressing it as The Baby, but—”

  “I think it’s cool that you’d rather not know,” Chloe told her. “After all, when you stop and think about it, how many surprises are there really in life? This is a way to enjoy a huge one. Like throwing yourself a fantastic surprise party.”

  Rachel nodded happily, but with a faraway look on her face, her focus was clearly on her baby.

  Chloe had never had a surprise party, but she would have hated it. In her life experience, “surprises” usually consisted of a sudden inability to breathe or a moment of social ineptness she immediately wanted to take back or the rare computer crash.

  She preferred structure, logic, predictability.

  Was that why she’d resisted the idea of the reunion so strongly—because she couldn’t calculate what would happen, whether she’d be the newly created femme fatale Natalie hoped for or just Klutzy Chloe version 2.0? Unlike the aunt who’d lived each day as an unexpected adventure, on the eager brink of new discoveries and adventures, Chloe would probably spend the rest of her life here in Mistletoe. She’d gone into exactly the kind of field her instructors would have forecast for an introverted student good with computers. Her life didn’t lend itself to surprise.

  Until Dylan. The night of the reunion, Chloe had thought of herself rather sardonically as Cinderella. Now, however, she felt more like Sleeping Beauty. Had she been sleepwalking through her carefully ordered existence all these years? Suddenly the idea of waking up each day and wondering what could happen didn’t seem like a terrible fate. It seemed…exciting.

  “I can’t believe how different you look,” Rachel said, diverting her attention from the neonatal gymnastics back to Chloe.

  “You mean my hair?” Chloe smiled shyly. Kim had layered it that morning, not taking off so much that it was tons shorter, but styling it so that the overall effect was quite different.

  “Not just the hair. Everything! Your makeup, your clothes.”

  Was the change really so noticeable? Chloe was wearing light powder, as usual, with mascara and gloss. It must be her blackberry gloss, which was darker and more dramatic than what she normally wore to a casual day meeting. The blue dress she’d chosen had been one of Aunt Jane’s more conservative gifts, which still made it more daring than anything Chloe had bought for herself. She’d looked in the mirror that morning and grinned, pleased by what she saw. Pleased by the possibilities.

  Leaning closer, Rachel added in a confidential tone, “And then there’s the glow. Looking at you, I see what people must mean when they tell me I’m glowing.”

  Chloe blinked. “Well, I’m not pregnant. I can guarantee you that.”

  “No, that’s not what I was implying.” Rachel laughed. “You look like a woman in love.”

  “What?”

  “So who is he? If it’s anyone in town, I know him, right?”

  “He’s not in town exactly. And it isn’t love. Maybe a crush.” What was she, thirteen? Dear Diary… Chloe groaned, then murmured, “This is why I need C.J.”

  “His name’s C.J.?”

  “No. C.J. is a long story. Kind of a role model.” Or, more accurately, alter ego. “She wouldn’t fall apart at the mere mention of a man.”

  “If you makes you feel any better, I’ve fallen apart over David plenty of times,” Rachel commiserated.

  “I find that hard to believe.” Chloe had seen the couple together often over the past few months. They looked like a perfect fit. Not in the sickeningly Stepford kind of way, just that they seemed so natural, as if it were a universally accepted equation. Like the fundamental theorem of calculus.

  And completely unlike me and Dylan Echols.

  “Rachel, did you ever worry that maybe you and David didn’t belong together?”

  Chloe was shocked when the other woman burst into nearly hysterical laughter.

  “Oh, honey. You have no idea.” Rachel wiped an eye. “Trust me, there were days that we both questioned it. There was even a time when I almost walked away. But we ult
imately realized our relationship was worth working on.”

  “I don’t think what I have qualifies as a relationship,” Chloe admitted.

  “I am dying to hear more,” Rachel said, her tone apologetic, “but I have a tiny person doing chorus-line kicks over top my bladder. Give me a sec?”

  “Sure.” Alone in the room, Chloe pulled out her cell phone, unable to resist checking messages. Had Dylan called? The suspense was killing her.

  As soon as she saw his name and number appear on the tiny digital readout, she could feel her blood racing faster in her veins. She hesitated before listening, drawing out the moment, the way she sometimes paused before eating the last bite of a really exquisite dessert, savoring it. Then she gave in to curiosity and punched the button.

  “Hi, it’s Dylan. I’m here in Mistletoe…and I hope I can see you tonight. Call me?” Beneath his crisp, confident tone, there was a single boyish note that made her grin. She reached for a pen and paper, then replayed the message to catch his number at the end.

  She’d just finished writing the digits when Rachel returned. The other woman stopped in the doorway, doing a double take of Chloe’s broad smile and flushed cheeks. “I have no idea if you have a relationship or not,” the other woman said, “but you definitely have something going on!”

  The question was, what?

  DYLAN WAS DRIVING home after leaving the high school when the cell phone played his John Fogerty “Centerfield” ring tone. “’Lo?”

  “Hi.” Hearing Chloe’s voice created the strangest sensation throughout his body, as if it subtly relieved certain tension he was carrying with him but created tight bands of something different altogether. “It’s me.”

  “C.J.?” he pressed.

  “Yeah. I got your message. So you’re in town?” It was the same husky tone he’d first heard the night of the reunion.