The Trouble with Christmas

by Amy Andrews

  Jesus. He must be getting soft in his old age. He was still pissed about the paintings but somehow, he’d agreed to a fake relationship. And it wasn’t because of the paintings—although seeing the cherub waiting for him in his room last night had been surprisingly gratifying—it’d been the way she’d said, They’re my parents, Joshua.

  That right there had stuck a claw in his gut and twisted. He’d give anything to still have his parents alive and, had they been, he’d have wanted them to still be together, too.

  Unwittingly, Suzanne St. Michelle had found his Achilles’ heel.

  Fuck. Why did it have to be Christmas? Any other time, he could have had some degree of separation from the emotion in her appeal, but this season always stirred up some pretty fucked-up memories. Which was why he hadn’t wanted her here in the first place and why he was certain it wasn’t going to end well.

  Ever since Suzanne had pulled up in her ridiculous Mystery Van—not even two weeks ago—he’d felt like a bomb had been thrown into his very neat and ordered existence, and it made his skin itch just thinking about it. Grady knew all about explosions—real and metaphorical. In one way or another, they’d defined his life. It’d just taken him to the grand old age of thirty-five to realize that explosions could be made from sugar and spice and all things nice.

  They could be made from green woolen hats and red coats. From ridiculously unsuitable Ugg boots and a smudge of blue paint on a forehead. From the soft press of breasts and the erotic push of fingers into the hair at his nape. From the trace of red wine on lips to the sound of breathy whimpers at the back of a throat.

  Christ. That kiss had been completely unexpected. He had no clue what had come over him, other than his dumb male ego being goaded by her lousy at faking it quip and rising to the challenge. Grady wasn’t lousy at anything he set his mind to, but a quick I hear faking things is more your wheelhouse would have been far preferable.

  She faked for a living, for fuck’s sake.

  But he hadn’t really engaged his brain at all—he’d just moved to a beat that had been several belt notches below higher thinking—and it hadn’t been until he was sliding his hands onto her that his brain had caught up with his body. And by then it had been way too late: Kissing her had become some primitive kind of imperative.

  Which made him feel like a knuckle-dragging caveman. Fuck. These two weeks could not go fast enough.

  Staring out the doorway and girding his loins to face the clusterfuck of his cabin and Suzanne, Grady’s gaze snagged on the god-awful sprig of fake mistletoe hanging from a hook in the mudroom doorway. When in the hell had she put that up? It hadn’t been there last night.

  No. Hell no. Over his dead body, no.

  Snatching it off the hook, he tossed it in the trash can near the sink, barely suppressing the urge to rip it into tiny little pieces. She might have hung the stuff from every beam in his ceiling, but she couldn’t have the mudroom. The mudroom was for manly shit. For filthy boots and machinery grease, for clothes streaked in sweat and all kinds of muck and crap—sometimes literally—from the ranch.

  She didn’t get the mudroom.

  The wreath on his back door stopped Grady in his tracks—it hadn’t been there last night, either. It was made of garishly gold tinsel with red pom-poms placed randomly amid the fuzz. Were they supposed to represent baubles or Rudolph’s nose? In the center of the wreath, where a person could reasonably expect to find nothing, Santa’s jolly, rosy-cheeked face stared back at him.

  Grady shuddered. Where in the hell had she found all this shit? www.tackyChristmascrapforblindpeople.com?

  Wishing he could unsee the wreath, he entered. Warmth enveloped him instantly, as did the aroma of something hot and garlicky. The cabin had smelled like this when he’d been seventeen and come in after a long day working the ranch with his uncle. But the woman in the kitchen wearing some kind of snug green V-necked sweater that looked as fluffy as a newborn chick was not his aunt.

  She was his fake girlfriend. As of tomorrow.

  “Hey.” She smiled at him.

  “We’re not officially on the clock yet,” he said, turning his back to her to hang his hat and coat on the hook and catch his goddamn breath.

  “And hello to you, too,” she said, ignoring his testy response, and even though his back was to her and there was twenty feet between them, fingers curled around his spine. “I cooked some chili. Also picked up some of Annie’s peach cobbler because…well…you live here, so I’m sure I don’t have to explain, right? That woman is a national freaking treasure.”

  Grady gathered himself and turned around. “Agreed.”

  “You want to shower?” she said, a bowl in each hand. “And I’ll serve up?”

  “Suzanne…” He frowned, trying to figure her the hell out. Why was she trying to play house like they were the real deal? “What are you doing? Why are you acting all Suzy Homemaker?”

  She put the bowls down with exaggerated patience. “My parents will be here tomorrow. We need to at least look like we’ve spent some time in each other’s company. Plus, the more I dig into this, the more I realize I don’t really know how to do Christmas. Not a full-on big fat Christmas Christmas, you know? The hokey kind that I implied to my mom you were into.”

  Yeah, he really wished she hadn’t done that. The only thing Grady really knew about Christmas was how to avoid it altogether. Sure, he’d had almost seventeen years of perfect family Christmases, but that was a long time ago.

  “Don’t look at me.” He shrugged. “I don’t know the first thing about it, either.”

  “Right. So I bought some Christmas movie DVDs at that place in Denver because, no offense, but you don’t strike me as the kind of guy with a Netflix account.”

  “I’m not.” Grady watched football on TV and that was it.

  She nodded, clearly unsurprised. “I was thinking we should watch them together to get an idea of some of the hokey stuff we should be doing, and I thought you might be hungry after a long day out in the cold and we both have to eat. So yeah, I thought it’d be right neighborly of me, even if that word’s not in your vocabulary, and I’m sorry if it’s too Suzy Homemaker for you.”

  She was pissed. Her eyes glowered at him; her chest rose and fell a little faster. He sighed. “No, I’m sorry…you’re right.” He held his hands up in a placatory manner. “Thank you, it smells very good, and I appreciate it. I’ll be ten minutes.”

  “Fine.” She nodded, barely mollified. “But I’m starting without you.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting on the two-seater couch in front of the television deciding on which movie to watch as they ate their chili. Unlike the fireplace area that had several different seating choices, the corner nook where the television resided only had the one couch option and not a very generous one at that. It was usually just him watching football, so it hadn’t ever mattered. But sitting this close to Suzanne had him reassessing his furniture.

  It didn’t help that she was slouched down against the back of the couch, her knees bent, her bare feet anchored on the edge of the couch cushion to stop her sliding off, the almost empty bowl of chili balanced on her stomach and supported by her thighs. It was distracting to see her so casual and at ease in his home, sitting next to him with barely a hand span between them like they did it every night.

  Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  The feeling was not reciprocated. Grady spent his entire life keeping a mental and physical distance from people. It was how he’d survived those weeks and months after his parents and Bethany had died without totally cracking up, and it had become a habit. Except everything was ass-up with Suzanne. His body was enjoying her nearness too much, noticing every squiggle and squirm, his senses on high alert.

  So conscious of her was he, everything else took a back seat, including his chili. It could have been a bowl of sawdust f
or all Grady knew.

  “So…which one?” she asked as she forked chili into her mouth and scooped up the two DVDs she’d purchased yesterday. Everything shifted beneath her shirt very nicely. She filled out that sweater far too well.

  She examined the covers. “The one with the couple in the sleigh? A Knight Before Christmas? Or the one with the couple in front of a tree covered in candy canes? The Candy Cane Christmas Wish?” She glanced from one to the other before thrusting the candy cane one at him. “I think the schmaltz is stronger with this one.”

  Grady shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. He’d rather watch paint dry than either of them, so… “Ladies’ choice.”

  She gave him a brief smile and said, “Okay, candy canes it is.”

  Unfolding herself from the couch, she walked around the coffee table to the television and inserted the disc. Her ass was right in front of him, and Grady couldn’t help but stare. Other parts of him were far less passive. It was the kind of ass a man could grab a hold of—not bony, not a thousand-squats-a-day firm, but round and soft, just like the peaches Annie used in her cobbler, and good Christ, he wanted to lean forward and bite it.

  Grady stood abruptly as she straightened, thankful he was in jeans tonight, not his sweats. Sweats were not great at camouflaging erections. “I’ll just grab some cobbler,” he said. “You want some for when you’ve finished your chili?”

  He ferried his half-full bowl to the kitchen, putting as much space between them as possible. Suzanne St. Michelle was a very bad idea. He’d loved and lost once a very long time ago, and he wasn’t interested in ever putting his heart on the line again. He didn’t get involved with women. Certainly not New York artists slumming it in Middle America, who thought lack of Netflix was some kind of mental deficiency.

  “It’s starting,” she called as Grady lingered over plating up the cobbler, trying to quell his erection through mind power alone and failing. Not even thinking about that ridiculous cherub painting was working. Adjusting himself, he prayed that ninety minutes of saccharine Christmas stuff would do the trick.

  It did. Within the first five minutes.

  Grady counted twenty jingling bells, a dozen Merry Christmas greetings, and three snowmen. By the end of the film, he doubted he’d ever be capable of an erection again. He’d lost count of the bells and snowmen and angelic little children with toothpaste smiles wishing everyone Happy Holidays. Hell, if there’d been a partridge in a pear tree in the main street of the small fictitious town where the movie was set, he’d have been unsurprised.

  There’d been five gold rings—yes, really—in one scene, so why not?

  Still, he heard a sniffle and glanced at Suzanne as she dashed at a tear. What the hell? “You’re crying?”

  She turned red-rimmed eyes on him. “What? It was sweet.”

  “Yeah. I know. I can already feel my teeth rotting.”

  “He was a doctor who didn’t believe in Christmas anymore,” she said, her gaze imploring. “But now he does because the heroine’s sick child helped him to see that every day you have is worth living and that special days should be celebrated. It was…” She scrubbed at her face. “Lovely.”

  Grady’s lungs felt too tight for his chest at that little wobble in her voice. She was lovely. All red-eyed and emotionally invested in the most ridiculously fluffy plot he’d ever seen. Maybe that was the artist in her? They were sensitive types, weren’t they?

  Unlike soldiers.

  The urge to put his arm around her crept up on him. What the fuck? He beat it back with words. “God. You’re a crier, aren’t you?”

  But a memory surfaced then—his father teasing his mother about being a crier. About her soppiness over movies and love songs and baby animals. His mother saying with a smile, “Scott Grady, you married a sentimental woman.”

  Grady blinked. Christ…when had that escaped the box?

  “Uh, yeah.” She blinked at him through a watery smile. “Emotional, touchy-feely artsy type here, remember?” Reaching for the second DVD, she said, “Ready for A Knight Before Christmas?”

  “God no.” Grady wasn’t sure he could put up with another ninety minutes of schmaltz. Or Suzanne being all soft and sentimental beside him, reminding him of his mom. “I think we’ve got enough to go on, don’t you? Awful his-and-her matching Christmas sweaters, snowmen, cookie baking, ice sculptures, snow angels.”

  “It’s always good to have comparison data, though. Hell—” She looked over her shoulder as she made her way to the television with the DVD. “It’s practically scientific.”

  Grady shot her a lukewarm smile, not feeling remotely scientific with her ass once again distracting him. Unless it’s anatomy. Part of him wanted to pull the plug here and now, but part of him was actually enjoying the company.

  No, he didn’t understand why.

  He was happy with his solitary life; he didn’t need company. But sitting next to Suzanne, sharing his evening with someone other than himself, had been…nice. The light lilt of her laugh had been easy on his ear, and she smelled like peach cobbler.

  Which was seriously fucking addictive. Who needed crystal meth when there was Annie’s peach cobbler?

  The movie opened with a note down at the bottom of the screen letting viewers know that the set designer had hand made all the wreaths in the movie. “Uh-oh.” Grady glanced sideways. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  A feeling that was absolutely spot-on. Within the first three scenes, there’d been enough wreaths to put one on every front door in America. He’d given up counting them.

  “Looks like we’re going to need more wreaths,” he said.

  She slid a side glance at him. “It is a little over the top, isn’t it?”

  The shot cut to another scene on the front porch of the heroine’s house, which had not one, not two, not three, not even four but five wreaths. Five. All arranged artfully together like Christmas and the Olympics had given birth.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Do you think the set designer was high?”

  “I don’t know. I bet she’s suffering from irreparable carpal tunnel, though.”

  When the shot pulled back to reveal the entire street had the same configuration of wreaths on their doors, Grady had taken all he could bear without some alcoholic fortification.

  “Okay…I’m going to need some hard liquor to get through the rest of this,” he announced. Making his way to the teak cabinet he’d found in a bazaar in Turkey, he opened the chest-height doors. “I’m a bourbon guy. What’s your poison?”

  For a moment, she looked hesitant, like she was going to decline, but then she said, “I like bourbon.”

  Grady did not let himself dwell on the idea of adding bourbon to peach cobbler; he just grabbed two shot glasses and the half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey and returned to the couch. Placing the bottle and glasses on the coffee table, he sat on the edge of his seat and poured two shots. Half turning, he handed one to Suzanne before grabbing his and settling back into the couch cushions. “How about we put some fun into the movie?”

  Feigning a shocked expression, she said, “You’re not having fun?”

  Grady chuckled, and she smiled back, and he realized he was having fun. “This is my fun face, can’t you tell?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer, though, before launching into his proposal. “I propose we take a shot of bourbon every time we see a wreath.”

  “I don’t think there’s enough bourbon in Colorado for that, is there?”

  He grinned. “You could be right.”

  She shook her head, wisps of her blond hair fluttering like fairy dust around her face. “Plus we could both be dead of alcoholic poisoning by the end of the movie.”

  “Okay, so let’s just see how long it takes us to finish this bottle?”

  He should at least have enough of a buzz on by then to cope with the seasonal schmaltz on th
e television, the curvy blonde beside him, and the uncomfortable feeling he was missing out on life sitting like a fucking great elephant on his chest.

  Suzanne didn’t look convinced as she returned her attention to the movie. He followed suit, and they watched as the heroine went into a shop with a wreath on the door.

  “Wreath,” she said and, not looking in his direction, threw back her shot.

  Grady grinned and threw back his own.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Twenty minutes later, Grady did have a nice buzz on. So did Suzanne, if he wasn’t very much mistaken. Her cheeks were flushed, and there was an interesting glitter in her eyes. They’d both had five shots, and the bottle was empty.

  Twenty minutes.

  “Well—” She upended her empty shot glass on the coffee table. “That’s that. And there’s still thirty minutes to go.”

  Grady upended his glass beside hers. “I predict more wreaths and that they’re going to live happily ever after.”

  She gave a half laugh, half snort, which made Grady laugh a little more as she said, “You don’t believe in happily ever afters?”

  Grady most definitely did not. But even five shots of bourbon down, he knew a woman who cried at schmaltzy movies probably did. Hell, she probably even believed in love at first sight. And it was definitely best to steer this conversation in another direction altogether.

  “I think somebody with that many wreaths is compensating for something not conducive to relationship longevity. Now, for the love of god, can we switch this off?”

  “Oh but…they haven’t made any snow angels yet.”

  “There were three dozen in the last movie.”

  “There weren’t that many. Stop being dramatic.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “Besides, I love snow angels. My mom doesn’t approve of them; she thinks they’re a delivery device for pneumonia.”