The Christmas Boyfriend: A Return to Snow Valley Romance

by Taylor Hart

  Both Justin and Ellie jumped. “Hey,” Justin said as he pulled away from her. “What …” He trailed off.

  Dom didn’t mess around. “I heard it all. I need the money. I’ll do it. When do we leave?”

  Justin let out an incredulous laugh. “You don’t need—”

  Dom gave him the death look. The one that told him to shut up. He wouldn’t get in the way of Justin’s happiness, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be a pity case. “I need the money. I’ll do it.”

  Chapter 3

  Lacey waited at the airport at eight a.m. sharp on Christmas Eve, holding two tickets, an envelope with half the cash, and a folder with five printed pages inside. The pages contained the lies she’d fed her family.

  Nervously, she bit the inside of her lip. Would he come? Ellie had told her he was an Air Force pilot, so he would be prompt, right? She concentrated on slowing her breathing and looking around at people, trying to pick him out. Finally, at five after eight, she leaned back against the wall and took herself through the routines she’d been doing for the Christmas performance. She was the lead choreographer for the Christmas production, and the one of the lead dancers. Though it was a lot of pressure, she loved it. Breaking down the first dance, she thought of the exact points one group of dancers would come on before another group would leap on stage. She saw it all, including her own part, in her mind. The perfection of it soothed her. It had been something Ms. Palomino had been touting as of late: “Mental practice can become perfect practice.”

  “Hmm.” A throat cleared, and she started as her eyes flashed open. “I assume you’re Lacey.”

  Okay, Ellie had shown her a picture of him. One on Facebook with him in his flight clothes and his arm around Justin, looking all Top Gun. Yeah, this was the guy. He wore a dress coat over a blue sweater that made his gorgeous eyes stand out even more. The bright color reminded her of scuba diving in the ocean in Jamaica on a family vacation a couple of years ago.

  Ellie had said he was handsome, but this was over-the-top handsome.

  He was probably six-two or -three, she figured. She was five-ten and sometimes felt like she dwarfed some guys. There was no danger of that with him. He looked like he’d just walked straight out of a Land’s End magazine ad. Perfect clothes. Dark jeans and dress shoes to match the coat and sweater. Okay, maybe not dress shoes, but they were kind of dressy hiking shoes. Was there even such a thing as dress hiking boots? Why was she thinking about that at all?

  “Uh, hi,” she said, sounding breathy and young. Not confident at all. How many times had her father made her practice shaking someone’s hand and saying hello in a confident manner? She forced herself to smile and stuck out her hand to shake his. “Hello, I’m Lacey Hamilton. Nice to meet you.”

  The side of his lip quirked, and Lacey noticed his facial hair was at that perfect length. Not too short, not too long, not bushy. Her stomach flip-flopped, and she felt like she was a freshman in high school drooling over her favorite movie star crush.

  His hand met hers, and a shock surged through her. Attraction? Chemistry? Her mouth went dry. She’d never, ever experienced this with a man before. This felt like one of those cheesy movies that comes out around the holidays. “Hallmark movie,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  Shaking her head, she pulled her hand back and let out a nervous laugh. “Lacey. Lacey Hamilton, nice to meet you.”

  His smile widened, just a hair. “You already said your name.” He cleared his throat again. “But I didn’t say mine. I’m Dominick Carter. Call me Dom. Everyone does.”

  Sucking in a breath as unnoticeably as possible, she put her polite smile back on. “Dom, nice to meet you.” She took the envelope and shoved it at him. “Um, here’s a thousand dollars. Is it okay if I give you the other half after the deal is done?” This was not how she’d imagined the conversation going. She’d imagined herself being much more certain, like her father would have been. She had imagined telling Dom, Here is the thousand. You’ll get the rest at the end. Let’s face it, though: she wasn’t her father.

  Looking down at the envelope, he seemed almost embarrassed, but he took it. “That works.”

  Nodding, she forced her mind to click into place and quit thinking about the amazing cologne he was wearing. What was that? CK? Polo? It was light, and she thought it might be the CK she’d been forced to smell at the mall last week when Ellie had dragged her in there to buy cologne for Justin. “Okay,” she said a bit too loudly.

  “Okay.” He gave her the kind of look usually reserved for handling a charged bomb.

  She shook her head. “Let’s get through security and down to our gate.” She was—what did Ellie always say?—a type A. She wanted things a certain way, and she liked to be on time. She liked to be in control.

  He quickly fell into step beside her, moving with her through the “seat belt security maze,” as she called it. She handed him his ticket and the small folder. “Ticket and binder. We’ll talk about the binder when we get to the gate.”

  “Sounds good.”

  With every turn around the security maze, she got another whiff of his delicious cologne. After getting through security, she found it very polite of him to help her with her belongings and wait close to her while she put on her shoes.

  As if reading her mind, he took a step back and gave a quick smile. “Just being the boyfriend. That’s what this mission’s about, right?”

  Nervous butterflies flitted through her. “Right.” They hurried to the gate, and she was glad she didn’t have to come up with anything else to say to him.

  When they arrived at their gate, they were half an hour early for boarding, and she felt herself calm down. “Okay, should we sit?”

  “Sure.” He led the way to an open section and gestured toward it. “This work?”

  She nodded stiffly. The more she was with him, the more nervous she felt. She sat, and he paused before sitting one seat over from her, leaving a space between them.

  When she caught his eye, he shrugged. “You seem like you’re not ready for the boyfriend act quite yet.”

  That quip did help her relax after she barked out a slightly embarrassing off-key laugh. She sat back in her chair, he opened the binder, and for a while, neither of them spoke.

  She had to deal with this, she reminded herself. “Okay. So in the binder are all the—” She caught herself before saying “lies.” “All of the details that I’ve told my family about you. If you would read them and commit them to memory, we can discuss more about our relationship after you’ve looked them over.” She stood. “Do you mind watching my bag while I go use the restroom?” It felt awkward, but practical to ask him.

  He held her eyes, and she was distracted by their deep blue depths. The more she looked at him, the more he seemed like a Calvin Klein model. Why hadn’t Ellie told her they were so arresting? Now that was a word Lacey had never before used to describe a man.

  “Sure.” He turned back to the binder.

  “Great.” She moved a little too quickly to leave and nearly tripped over her bag.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.” Not meeting his eyes, she gave a wave and walked quickly to the bathroom, whipping out her phone and pressing Ellie’s number. Lacey knew she would still be in bed. That was just her. Plus, she and Justin weren’t flying out until the afternoon.

  Her friend answered in a quiet voice after the eighth ring. “What?”

  “Seriously?”

  “What?” Ellie asked louder, and Lacey could imagine her friend sitting up in bed.

  “You didn’t tell me how good-looking he is,” she whispered into the clutched phone in her hand. With a glance back to see if Dom was watching her, she turned the corner into the restroom.

  After a pause, her friend laughed. “Why are you calling me about that? And I did too. I told you, and I quote, ‘He is smoking hot.’”

  “Yeah, but you always say stuff like that.” Her friend exaggerated constantly. That was Ellie
. “But you should have said seriously, like, super Air Force, more than Top Gun kind of hot.”

  This sent Ellie into a fit of giggles. “Maybe you won’t need to worry about Oliver and his fiancée at all because you’ll have steamy McFlight.”

  “Whatever. I just wish you would have told me so I would have been prepared.” Preparation was everything. Everything. Not just in her world of rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal, but all growing up, it had been drilled into her. “Lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on our part,” her parents would always say to her.

  Ellie giggled again. “I have to go. I’ll chat with you later.”

  After a couple of minutes to compose herself, Lacey exited the bathroom and returned to Dom. He looked up, his eyebrows raised, and snapped the binder shut.

  Not knowing what to do, she mimicked his expression. “Are you done?” she asked, hating to sound like a mother checking up on him.

  “Done.”

  There could be no way he was done, because she had spent roughly two hours writing the contents of the binder, and even she didn’t know if she was clear on all the lies she’d concocted. She just hoped she hadn’t told any others. There was one lie in particular they had to make sure they had handled.

  He held the binder out to her. “Do you want to burn it or make it self-destruct or something? I mean, you wouldn’t want someone to get a hold of the information in there. Right?”

  She couldn’t tell if he was teasing behind that deadpan expression. Gingerly, she plucked the binder out of his hand and sat. “You really have it all memorized?”

  “Yep.”

  With more than a little doubt, she started flipping through it. “Okay, you ready for a test?” There was no way he could have memorized it all.

  “Shoot.” He put one leg over his knee and relaxed back into the chair.

  “Name.”

  He didn’t respond.

  She looked up at him.

  Shaking his head, he rubbed his thumb and his forefinger together. “No. Not happening.”

  “What?” She blinked.

  “Rhett Banner? Gone with the Wind mixed with the Hulk? No, seriously, I’m not taking on that name.”

  Her cheeks burned, and she briefly squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to ward off an inevitable headache. “Why?”

  “Rhett.” He let out a sputtering laugh. “No. In my experience, if you’re trying to lie big about something, keep the big lie and get rid of the little lies. You don’t want to have that many things to keep straight.”

  Was he dictating to her? “Okay,” she said, trying to keep her cool. “I hired you, right?” She hated to pull rank, but seriously.

  He smirked. “Yep, you did.”

  “So you can handle it, right?”

  “Hey, I can handle it, but I’m telling you it’s too hard when it’s too complicated.”

  “Look, if you can’t do this, we should just cut our losses now, because I can’t show up at home and have this fall apart.” Her hand trembled as she thought about her whole family being there. To top it off, Oliver’s family would be there too. She leaned back. “If you can’t do this, it’s fine.”

  A hard look crossed his face. “You’re willing to give up on me that quick, huh?”

  She snorted. “Give up? We haven’t even started, and it’s already not working.”

  “Sweetheart, I’m in the Air Force. I can handle this. And I don’t give up. Give me the darn quiz, okay? Let’s get on with it.”

  Being patronized made her feel like a little girl again. Which was stupid. He wasn’t that much older than her, probably. “How old are you?” she asked. Before he could answer, she waved the question away. “Never mind. Let’s not get the real information mixed with the binder information. Let’s just focus on the binder. And sorry, you’re Rhett. I’ve told them you’re Rhett for over six months, so you’re Rhett.”

  He held her eyes.

  “If you can handle it.”

  His jaw tightened and those blue eyes turned a shade darker. “Like I said, I can handle whatever you throw at me.”

  “Fine. How old are you?”

  Cocking an eyebrow, he said, “Binder says twenty-eight. I graduated with my BA in business, took some time off, started a company, and then went back to get my MBA.”

  At least he was playing her game, she thought, and they continued through the background information. Finally, she got to the relationship. “When did we meet?”

  “Six months ago.”

  “Where?”

  He cleared his throat. “At one of your performances.”

  She heard the doubt in his voice, and looked up. “What?”

  “Why would I be at a dance performance unless I knew you? I’m thinking the guys that go there without knowing anyone are weirdos.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Weirdos,” he repeated, rolling his eyes. “Checking you out. Getting … I don’t know. I just don’t like it.”

  Fine, he had a point. “Okay, you were there watching a guy in it.”

  “No,” he sputtered.

  “Why? You were being supportive.”

  “Guys don’t support each other by watching them dance. Not happening.”

  At that moment, their flight was called to start boarding. Gathering her stuff, she tucked the binder underneath her arm and walked with him to the gate. They went through and boarded.

  As they got deeper into the aisle, he glanced at her. “Sorry, I’m claiming the window.”

  Her eyes narrowed at his rudeness. Couldn’t he ask if she wanted to sit there, if nothing else? At least he hoisted both of their bags into the overhead compartment before pushing through to the window seat. It didn’t matter that much, she supposed, hoping whoever sat on the other side of her was decent.

  The scent of Dom’s cologne filled her senses when he pulled off his coat, then pushed it beneath his seat. Her eyes were drawn to the way his sweater stretched over his broad shoulders and outlined his biceps. Dang, he was cut. Ellie hadn’t been kidding when she’d said he was hot.

  “Are you okay?” he said, noticing her watching him.

  “Oh.” She swallowed and settled down, but when he eyed her in amusement, she couldn’t help but notice how close he was. His lips felt only inches away from her.

  Panicking, she jerked back, hitting her head against the guy on her other side, who was just trying to sit down. “Ouch,” the guy said.

  A big guy. Of course. “Sorry,” she said, turning back to Dom, who had a ridiculous grin on his face. Was he laughing at her?

  He carefully schooled his expression. “Okay, fake information. Let’s go.”

  She quizzed him and was surprised when he got all of the information in the binder correct. Grew up in Denver. There were just the two kids in his family. Attended CSU for both his undergrad and his MBA. He would be graduating in May, and his thesis was on global politics. That had been the biggest part of the folder, the information on his thesis, which he recited back to her perfectly, even adding in a few things.

  Honestly, she was impressed. A bit ecstatic, even. Her parents might just buy it.

  “First date?” she asked, feeling a bit embarrassed.

  “Not the stalker dance peeping thing?”

  She glared at him.

  He sighed. “I took you to a basketball game with Ellie and Justin.” He put his head to the side. “Kinda lame, but not creepy.”

  She moved on. “What other events have I told my family you took me to?”

  “We love to go to art galas, and … baseball games.” His face soured. “Which I don’t like, by the way.”

  She gave him a “really?” look.

  He grinned, and she noticed he had a scar above the right side of his lip when he smiled, just above a small dimple. “Baseball is boring.” He winked at her. “I don’t watch many sports, but if I do … it’s football. Texas Titans are my favorite.”

  Another round of butterflies filled her l
ower gut. “You’re my fake boyfriend with a fake past and you like baseball.” He couldn’t just go changing all the binder information.

  “Fine.” He shook his head. “Let’s see, you said I was sad when you went to New York for the summer. Did you really do that?”

  “Yes,” she said curtly. “Why would I have put it in there if I hadn’t done it?”

  He sputtered out another laugh. “I don’t know, why would you be making me up? You’re the one lying about everything.”

  It did sound stupid when he put it like that. She pushed away that feeling and looked down at her hands, reminding herself this was about Oliver. She had to get him back. “I know I’m pathetic, okay? I know it.”

  For a few moments, they didn’t talk.

  Clearing his throat, he turned away from her. “Okay, explain what kind of boyfriend I am.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do I constantly kiss you? Am I all over you? Possessive?”

  “What?” She glanced up, meeting his eyes.

  “Is that my mission, possessive boyfriend?” he repeated, taking the matter seriously.

  Military. Right. That’s who he was. “No. Well, yes.”

  “Yes or no?” he asked with clipped words. “Give me a clear purpose.”

  Annoyance pulsed through her. “You’re a regular boyfriend. You stick to the story in the binder.”

  He flashed a grin. “I just need to know the boundaries.”

  “We don’t kiss,” she said quickly. She hadn’t really thought about that, but she guessed she should have thought about it, because what else did your boyfriend do? “Or only chaste kissing.”

  A small smile played at his lips. “Like Downton Abbey kissing.”

  “You watch Downton Abbey?”

  Cocking an eyebrow, he turned to the window. “It’s a good show. Though Mary does kiss quite a bit.”

  She laughed, thinking of this Air Force guy watching what was basically a British soap opera. Waving her hand in the air, she shook her head. “Don’t tell me anything else real about you. Just stick to—”

  “The binder.” He pointed to the binder on her lap and tapped his head. “It’s all locked down. You didn’t include what my favorite television shows are.”