Mistletoe Cinderella

by Tanya Michaels

  He could close his eyes and listen to her talk like that for hours. “I’m here. Are you available tonight?”

  “Very. You could come over again and—”

  “Actually, why not come to my mother’s for dinner?” It was an impulsive invitation, thrown out in part because he didn’t trust himself with Chloe unchaperoned.

  “Y-your mother? That would be Barbara Echols?”

  “Yep. You know her?” That would certainly bring the situation to a head.

  “Just by name,” Chloe said. “Are you sure she won’t mind?”

  Barb would be thrilled, and Dylan discovered that he wanted the extra time with her before leaving tomorrow. “Tell you what, I’ll double-check with her. The tentative plan is that you’ll come over and I’ll cook—”

  “You cook? Your kitchen was spotless. It didn’t look as if anyone ever ate there, much less cooked there.”

  Spotless could have been a compliment, but her tone, not to mention her expression when she’d seen it, made him think that she really meant barren. Was his kitchen so devoid of personality? “Well, I don’t spend hours on end simmering sauces and whipping up new culinary creations, but yeah, I can cook. If that’s inconvenient for Mom, we’ll go to the Dixieland Diner.”

  His suggestion was met with a long silence.

  “Check with your mom,” she said finally, “and we’ll play it by ear. But one of our homes really would be convenient so we can take a look at a computer after we eat. There are some decorating sites I wanted to show you.”

  He agreed to call her back with the final verdict, then disconnected as he pulled into the driveway. His mother met him on the front porch.

  “Did you have a nice time at practice?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about.” The boys on the field had played with enthusiasm, but even watching them for a short time, he’d thought of several things he’d have them try differently. Still, he wasn’t sure he was the man for the job. Players needed someone wise and motivational, like Coach. “Not to change the subject, but how would you feel if I had a friend over to dinner?”

  “When you’re in town, this is your home! You can have people over whenever you like,” she assured him. “Is this one of the guys from the banquet? Nick or Shane?”

  “No, this is a female acquaintance who wasn’t there.”

  His mother pursed her lips thoughtfully. “The one who turned you down before you got stuck taking me?” Her green eyes were twinkling, making it clear she’d been teasing him.

  “I was honored to have your company, Mom, but yes, it is the same young lady.”

  “So are the two of you an item?”

  “No, she’s going to help me redecorate my condo.” It was a safe, convenient explanation that might stave off further questioning. “Until the reunion, we hadn’t spoken in ten years, and we didn’t run in the same circles in high school. To tell you the truth, I don’t know her that well. But maybe…”

  “Maybe?” His mother nodded sharply. “I’ll take maybe for now.”

  “Great. You let me know what time works for you, and I’ll call her back to hammer out the details. Then I might need to make a quick run to the store. Any special requests on what you’d like me to cook?”

  “You cook?”

  He didn’t know whether to be amused or affronted by getting the same incredulous response twice. “Is it really that hard to believe? I’ve been living on my own for some time now. Did you think I just ordered pizza and nuked frozen entrées?”

  She shrugged. “Other men have gotten by on less. I’m glad you have some domestic skills.”

  “Oh, I’m all over the domestic skills. Sometimes I get really wild and crazy and even do my laundry,” he deadpanned.

  Chuckling, she poked him in the ribs. “Don’t get smart with your mother, son.”

  He looped his arm around her diminutive shoulders. “I love you, Mom.”

  It was startling to realize that he’d misjudged a woman he’d known his entire life. For years, he’d pegged her as someone too soft-spoken to be capable of mischievous humor, too weak to acknowledge difficult truths. But he’d only viewed a single, simplistic side of her.

  If there was one thing Dylan had learned in the past two weeks, it was that people were always more complex than they appeared at first glance.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Whoa.” Dylan couldn’t help the long, lingering once-over of the beautiful woman on the other side of the doorway. “You look amazing.”

  He couldn’t put his finger on everything that was different. Her overall appearance wasn’t blatantly seductive as it had been for the reunion, but there was something more sensual about her than when she’d shown up at his apartment.

  “Thank you.” She held up a square cardboard box.

  “Pizza in case I burn the chicken?” he surmised.

  “No, I brought dessert. Key lime pie from the diner.”

  “My favorite.”

  “I know. I mean…I heard that once. And I have a pretty strong memory.” She sighed. “You’re going to get a restraining order now, aren’t you?”

  “No.” He brushed a piece of her hair behind her ear, just for an excuse to touch her. “It’s—Did you get a haircut?”

  She nodded, looking pleased. “I thought guys never noticed stuff like that.”

  “Is whoever told you that stereotype the same person spreading the story that guys can’t cook? People can be multifaceted, you know.” He was only just beginning to see how true that was…and beginning to wonder how it applied to him.

  For the majority of his life, he’d thought of himself as a ballplayer, but just because his career had ended didn’t mean his life had. His thoughts flickered back to the practice he’d witnessed today. Despite what Dylan had told his mother about feeling obligated to Channel Six and the people who’d helped him get the job, he couldn’t help entertaining possibilities. Did he possess enough of the qualities that made Coach Burton so special?

  He showed Chloe inside. After placing the pie on the kitchen counter, he led her to the living room, where he knew his mother sat in genteel impatience, not wanting to hover but dying to meet Chloe.

  “C.J., this is my mom, Barbara Echols.” His hand went to the small of Chloe’s back as he introduced the two women currently most important in his life, women with whom he was developing unexpected relationships.

  His mother rose to shake Chloe’s hand. “Oh, call me Barb.”

  “And, Mom, this is C.J.” He felt Chloe tense as she worried that he’d add Beemis. He couldn’t do it. He wanted Chloe and his mother to get along, which could be compromised if protective Barb learned later about Chloe’s lies. Dylan himself still experienced twinges of residual anger, but he knew that he could forgive her deception. If he simply called her by name, it would put an end to this entire fiction. But would it also end a relationship between them before it had even begun? Instead of finding the courage to tell him herself, Dylan would take the choice away from her. He needed to know that she trusted him enough—that she could be trusted—to tell him on her own.

  “You have a beautiful home,” Chloe said. She gravitated toward the fireplace. The mantel was graced by three framed pictures of Dylan. When he’d lived here, his parents’ wedding picture had dominated the ledge. Barb had removed it.

  She joined Chloe. “If you want to see pictures, I have entire scrapbooks!”

  “Mom, I’m sure—”

  His mother sent an impish look over her shoulder. “Don’t you have something you’re supposed to be cooking?”

  “Fine.” He returned her heckling tone. “But see if I ever bring a date home again.”

  Chloe’s body jerked at the word date. In profile, he could see a light blush staining her cheeks. Several comments came to mind, but his mom’s presence stopped him from saying anything that might make Chloe more self-conscious.

  After he’d retreated to the kitchen, he heard his mom poking around in
the hall closet, looking for albums, followed by the murmur of female voices and occasional laughter.

  It was ten minutes later that Chloe drifted into the kitchen. The change in her wasn’t just the hair. He could swear she carried herself differently, as if she was more comfortable in her own skin. She’d been at least a little skittish during all of their previous encounters; this was the first time he’d seen her at ease.

  “Anything I can do to help?” she asked.

  He had just topped the barbecue chicken breasts with slices of provolone cheese. The potatoes were done. “You can pull the salad out of the fridge, if you’d like. And the bottle of dressing. Mom makes it herself.”

  “She’s sweet,” Chloe said, sounding genuinely affectionate and not like someone sucking up to her date.

  “She likes you. She doesn’t open up so quickly to everyone.”

  “Neither do my parents.” Chloe carried the salad bowl to the table. “They can be very…insular. They have good hearts, they just aren’t effusive. Or welcoming in the traditional outgoing sense. Even Natalie, who’s known them forever, still calls them Mr. and Mrs.—Oh, shoot. I stubbed my toe.”

  He shot her a look of pure skepticism, but she wasn’t meeting his eyes at the moment. Chloe was not cut out for lying. She was too artless and straightforward. When was she going to realize that she couldn’t keep this up and just come clean?

  Put us both out of our misery, sweetheart.

  She took a shaky breath. “So…your mom tells me you might be interviewing for a coaching job at the school?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. But if I did get a job at Mistletoe High, we could finally have that dinner out I keep offering.” Seeing the anxiety creeping into her gaze, he pressed further. “Unless, of course, you wouldn’t be interested in seeing me socially? You’ve shot me down more than once. A man could get a complex.”

  “I’m interested,” she murmured.

  “Really? Sometimes it seems that you want to get away from me. Like in the grocery store parking lot, when I had to talk you into lunch. Or when you fled the reunion.”

  “That had nothing to do with you! There were extenuating circumstances.”

  “Such as?”

  Chloe bit her bottom lip—hard from the looks of it. He wanted to rub his finger over the spot, soothe away the tiny hurt. Talk to me, Chloe.

  “It’s a long story,” she finally said. “I’m not sure this is the time or the place.”

  “I see.”

  “Dinner’s about to be served, your mom’s just a few yards…I’m sorry.”

  So was he. It was crazy that she could make him feel in the wrong, but he hated that she’d lost that alluring, unconscious confidence. She was stiff now, uncomfortable, and probably regretting that she’d accepted the dinner invitation. He’d been pushing, but he didn’t want to alienate her.

  Luckily, between Barb’s presence and the natural mellowing properties of food, Chloe had relaxed again midway through dinner. She offered Dylan a slow, appreciative smile; there was a sleepy quality to her expression that made it all too easy to imagine waking up to that face, kissing her good-morning.

  “A man who can cook like this,” Chloe proclaimed, “definitely deserves a better kitchen than yours. Something warmer, more interesting, vibrant.”

  Warm, interesting and vibrant. Did she realize she was all three of those things?

  Barb set down her fork. “That’s right. Dylan mentioned you were going to help him redecorate.”

  Chloe nodded. “I went and saw the condo last week, made some notes after our meeting. There are some very cool virtual-designer sites where you can check out what different options would look like online.”

  “Your generation and those computers!” Barb shook her head ruefully. “I can barely check my e-mail. I must have done something wrong, because people say they’re sending me stuff I’m not getting.”

  “Do you want me to look at it for you?” Chloe volunteered. “It could be a simple fix, like your spam filter settings.”

  “Thank you, that’s very kind,” Barb said. “Your parents obviously raised you right. Are they still in Mistletoe?”

  Chloe started coughing so hard that Barb half rose. Dylan reached around to pat Chloe firmly on the back before his mother panicked and administered the Heimlich.

  “Th-thanks.” She reached for her drink, her voice scratchy. “Went down the wrong pipe.”

  I’ll bet.

  Barb resituated herself in her chair. “I remember once when Dylan was a kid, I thought he was going to choke to death. Some older boy in the neighborhood dared him to see how many marbles he could put in his mouth, and one accidentally lodged in his throat. Scared ten years off my life.”

  “Sorry,” he told his mother. He looked back to Chloe. “It was a stupid thing to do, but sometimes we just lose our common sense temporarily.”

  He’d meant it as a subliminal invitation, a way to let Chloe know that he understood making mistakes and could forgive. A key difference between him and Michael Echols. It wasn’t Chloe who felt motivated to share but Barb. She began expounding on some of his less proud moments, stories that were funny twenty years later for an outsider but served as a reminder to Dylan of the vicious cycle he’d created for himself.

  He’d been so angry with his impossible-to-please father that he’d acted out—accepting reckless dares, taking needless chances on the playgrounds, going for the laugh in class instead of focusing on difficult-to-process reading assignments. Naturally, all of these actions had led to his father labeling him an even bigger loser.

  Dylan’s appetite disappeared, but since he felt it would look bad for the chef not to eat his own cooking, he continued to pick at his food while the ladies finished their dinners. The three of them worked together to clear the table and agreed to wait a little while before dessert. As his mom fired up the coffeemaker, Dylan and Chloe loaded the dishwasher.

  “Were you serious about helping with the e-mail?” Barb asked hesitantly.

  Chloe smiled. “Lead the way.”

  The PC sat on a desk at the back of the living room. Dylan turned the television on low volume and checked scores while the two women behind him discussed different e-mail tools. He liked the way Chloe spoke to his mother. Barb was so far behind the Internet age, it would be easy for a person to sound condescending when answering her questions. It would be equally easy for someone who was an expert in computer technology to unintentionally give too much information, confusing his mother more than she had been in the first place.

  Chloe handled everything just right, encouraging the other woman with easy-to-understand, but not dumbed-down, explanations and liberal amounts of praise. Barb blossomed under the friendly tutelage, grasping terms quickly and asking even more questions as they went through drop-down menus and various settings.

  Barb laughed at the explanation of “signatures.” “Althea Webb ends each e-mail with the oh-so-smug reminder that she won the cake cook-off this year and the year before. Do you know I used to think she typed it every single time?”

  Chloe was in the middle of changing the display settings so that everything was larger and easier for Barb to read when his mom gasped. “Heavens, is that the time already? Oh, dear, I’ve monopolized your whole night! And poor Dylan has to get back to Atlanta in the morning.”

  His broadcasts weren’t until evening, but he did have a station meeting at noon.

  “Did you bring your notes and ideas with you?” he asked Chloe.

  “Of course.” She stood, and he couldn’t help watching the line of her body as she stretched. “Is it too late to get started on those?”

  “Why don’t you leave them with me. We can meet for breakfast on my way out of town to talk about what I might like.” This was becoming a habit of his, wanting to know exactly when he could see her again whenever they parted ways.

  Unlike other guys in college or even at the high school, he’d veered far away from alcohol, nicotine and any kind
of drugs. Not because of parental lectures, but because he wanted to protect himself physically, stay in top condition. Now the man college dorm mates had declared Mr. Squeaky Clean finally had a vice: Chloe Malcolm.

  After a brief hesitation, she flashed a genuine smile. “I’d like that.”

  They all adjourned to the kitchen for coffee and dessert, but his mom had barely filled three mugs before kicking them out of the house.

  “It’s such a pretty night, the two of you should take your pie out on the porch,” she suggested, being about as subtle as Natalie had been when she left him alone with Chloe in the lobby of the reunion hotel.

  He remembered the hint of desperation in Chloe’s eyes that night. If Natalie had stayed and the three of them had started chatting, would Chloe have relaxed? Would the situation have evolved differently? Or would she have faded into the background while he and Natalie conversed? Maybe her friend had done her a favor, throwing her in the proverbial water and challenging her to come up swimming. Looking at Chloe now, he couldn’t imagine this woman panicking over a brief drink with a guy. She was charming.

  As it turned out, his mother was right about it being a gorgeous night. He leaned against the porch railing while Chloe took the rocker.

  “Don’t get stars like this in downtown Atlanta,” he admitted.

  “Do you miss it?” she asked him. “Living here? I love Mistletoe. I truly do. But sometimes I wonder if I’m missing out, settling.”

  “For me, Mistletoe was a ‘best of times, worst of times’ situation. Which is the sum total of what I remember from Lit classes,” he joked. “Honestly, I was so focused on ball that I don’t remember details about much else. It’s only fair to tell you, when I walked into that reunion, Candy Beemis was just a name to me. I didn’t have any specific memories or preconceived notions attached to it when I asked you to dinner.”

  “Really?” She sounded elated. The actual Candy would be clawing his eyes out by now.

  For the first time it occurred to him how lucky he’d been to sit with the wrong girl. “Really. I asked you out because you were stunning and I wanted to spend more time with you.” He leaned in closer. “You still are, and I still do.”