Marry Me at Christmas (Fool's Gold)

by Susan Mallery

  He showed her the family room. The furniture there was mostly new, but well done with a beige upholstered sectional and a couple of leather chairs. A big Christmas tree stood in the corner. It was artificial and looked professionally done. Beautiful, she thought, but without the charm of one that had been decorated with ornaments that might be worn but were also filled with emotional significance.

  “The guest rooms are this way.”

  The house was kind of U-shaped, with the kitchen and family room at the base of the U. They went down the right hallway, past an office. Jonny pushed open a door that led into a comfortable room with a queen-size bed, a dresser and an attached bathroom.

  There were neatly folded towels on a bench and fluffy pillows on the bed.

  “I use a service,” he admitted. “They clean and keep things ready.”

  “It’s nice,” she said, wondering where the master was but not about to ask. The situation was a little awkward. Interesting, but strange. She was both nervous and excited, which left her feeling that she could easily do something foolish, like walk into a wall or say something ridiculous.

  She told herself to relax, that she and Jonny had spent plenty of time together. If they ran out of conversation, there was always the wedding. They could discuss linens and music selections.

  They went back into the kitchen. He showed her the pantry off the kitchen. In addition to shelves and prep sink, there was a large upright freezer. She opened it and started to laugh. He moved closer and looked over her shoulder.

  “People dropped off some casseroles,” he told her.

  “I recognize some of the serving dishes, which means I know what’s inside. We’re very big on casseroles here in town. There’s even a casserole cook-off.”

  “I’ll have to be in town that weekend,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “On purpose?”

  “Hey, I grew up with a single dad. Anything homemade is my favorite.”

  “A man with low culinary standards. Tell me again why women aren’t lining up to marry you?”

  He chuckled. “I leave socks on the floor.”

  “Oh, well, then. That explains it.” She studied the various selections. “How about lasagna?”

  “Sounds good.”

  She pulled out the dish, unwrapped it and set it on the counter to start defrosting. She would finish that process in the microwave later, but first went back into the pantry to check for other ingredients.

  Whoever did the shopping had made sure he had the basics. She found plenty of fresh vegetables, along with spices, flour and sugar.

  “Do you have a generator?” she asked.

  “Sure. Whole house. If we lose power, it kicks on in twenty seconds. Why?”

  “I think I’ll make cookies.” She found a couple of packages of yeast. “And maybe some garlic rolls. Oh, and salad dressing.” There weren’t any lemons, but he had fresh garlic and white vinegar. She could whip up a flavored ranch dressing easily. “If you have milk.”

  “I don’t have any recipes.”

  “You don’t need them. I can do this from memory.” She handed him vinegar, garlic and the flour. “You’ve met my mother. Cooking is a big deal to her, so she taught me. Stand back and be impressed.”

  “I already am.”

  Thirty minutes later peanut butter cookies were in the oven. She set Jonny to work, washing out the cute elephant-shaped cookie jar she’d spotted in the pantry.

  While he took care of that, she added flour to the mixture in the bowl. When all the flour was incorporated, she dropped it onto the counter and began kneading.

  “When that timer goes off, I’ll need you to take out the first batch of cookies and put in the second,” she told him.

  “Just say when.”

  “You’re very agreeable.”

  “I don’t have a problem being your sous chef. Home-cooked meals are a treat.”

  Based on the frozen dinners in his freezer and the take-out containers in his refrigerator, she knew he wasn’t lying.

  “You could have a chef or something,” she said.

  He put the cookie jar on the counter. “Not my style. I’m not the staff type.”

  That was true. She would guess most stars at his level had a personal assistant, but he didn’t. She knew his manager and her people took care of some things, but the rest he did himself.

  “In the summer I barbecue a lot,” he said as he sat in a stool at the island. “I grill a mean steak.”

  “You’re such a guy.”

  He winked. “I am.”

  “My dad and brother both love to barbecue, too. But put them in front of a stove and they’re lost. Which makes no sense to me. A gas stove still has fire.”

  “But it’s indoors. Not the same at all.”

  “Uh-huh. Why do I know that’s a trick to keep women cooking for you?”

  “Never.”

  “Right.”

  She put the kneaded dough into an oiled bowl, then covered it with a clean dishcloth. She set it near the upper oven vents where it would stay warm while it rose.

  “Your mom didn’t teach Robbie to cook?” he asked as she washed her hands.

  “Apparently not. Or if she did, it didn’t take.” Madeline looked at the timer, then picked up hot pads. The timer dinged. She took out the first pan of cookies and put in the second, then reset the timer.

  “I wasn’t around when Robbie was a kid. By the time I was aware of the world around me, he was off to college. So it was like being an only child. It would have been nice to have him closer to my age.”

  “I know what you mean. Ginger’s nearly eight years younger than me.”

  “You took care of her.”

  He shrugged. “I complained a lot, but I knew my dad was already scrambling to take care of everything.”

  “He never remarried?”

  “No. Some of it was he said he couldn’t find anyone as great as my mom and some was probably because he had two kids and no free time.”

  “Did that make you more responsible than you wanted to be?” she asked, thinking his fussing over his sister probably wasn’t new. She would bet he’d been there for Ginger since she was born.

  “Don’t make me into a saint,” he told her. “I got into plenty of trouble in school.”

  “Like?”

  “The usual stuff. Cutting class, being rowdy with my friends.” He smiled at the memories. “I got cut from the junior varsity football team for tardies. I’m sure the plan was that I would be devastated and change my ways. But I found I liked hanging with my friends more than I liked playing.”

  Madeline grinned at him. “You do know we have retired NFL players in town. Don’t let them hear you say that. They’ll never recover.”

  “Yeah, I have my doubts about how much they’d care.”

  “So you’d survive if they didn’t love your movies.”

  “I would.”

  She leaned against the counter. “How did you get started in movies?” she asked. “Did you audition a lot?”

  He looked at her quizzically for a second, then held up both hands. “You didn’t look? Online? You didn’t use Google to look me up?” He lowered his arms. “I want to ask why, which is ridiculous. You’re normal. I like that.”

  “Was I supposed to check you out online?” She’d thought about it, but somehow, after meeting him, it had felt as if doing that were an invasion of his privacy.

  “No. You were supposed to do exactly what you did.” He rested his elbows on the counter and leaned toward her. “After my dad died, money was tight. I left college to take care of Ginger. I worked a couple of jobs to pay the bills. One of them was cleaning pools. A guy I worked for was a producer. We talked a few times and he offered me a chance to be in one of his movies.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  “It was. The pay was better than I was making at my other job.” Jonny grinned. “He made me promise I would keep cleaning his pool, even after I was a movie star, whic
h was supposed to be a joke. Anyway, I showed up at the studio. I had one line, which I delivered. Trust me, acting isn’t rocket science. I had to stick around because they wanted to change the set or something. There was a call saying the guy who was supposed to be the sidekick broke his leg skiing.”

  Madeline winced. “That can’t be good for anyone.”

  “It wasn’t. Everyone was pissed. They wanted to keep doing the scene, so they asked me to stand in for him. Just read the lines so the star could have someone to talk to. I knew nothing about the business, but I figured it meant an extra couple of hours not cleaning pools, so I agreed. The next thing I knew, they were having me read more scenes. Two days later, I was hired as the replacement.”

  “And the rest is history?”

  Jonny grinned. “Pretty much.”

  “Did you keep cleaning your friend’s pool?”

  “For a year. Then he cut me loose.”

  Madeline liked that he’d kept his word. She wondered how many other people, in his position, would have blown off the promise.

  “Do you like acting?”

  “It beats a real job.” His humor faded. “I know what I do is about entertaining people. It’s not saving lives or changing the world, but that’s not an excuse to phone it in. I want to do my best. To be at work on time, knowing my lines. I want to be in shape and have whatever fighting skills I’m going to need for the current project.”

  “You take pride in your work.”

  “Yeah. Too hokey?”

  She shook her head because saying “Exactly right” could complicate things. The pretty face had been appealing enough, she thought wryly. The actual man was even more of a temptation. A problem she didn’t need and wasn’t sure how to handle.

  “Do you film all over the world?” she asked.

  “On some movies. It’s always strange to go into a foreign country and yet be a part of the movie. We bring in nearly everything. It’s like a strange movie-set community.”

  “Do you get a chance to see the sights?”

  “Sometimes. It depends on what we’re filming and how big my role is. There have been movies where there’s a subplot that doesn’t include me and others where I’m in every scene.”

  “Are you recognized everywhere?”

  He shrugged again. “Sometimes. It’s strange to have people speaking a language I’ve never heard come up to me and start talking.”

  She checked the timer, then used a spatula to take cookies off the sheet. “I have a friend—Felicia. She’s supersmart and knows everything. She talks about how despite how technology has changed us, we are, at heart, still primitive people. We react to fear the same way, only now the threats aren’t a big tiger that’s going to eat us. She says that it’s important to know the most important person in the village. That being connected to the power means getting shelter and having enough to eat.”

  She put down the spatula. “The need to be close to that powerful person hasn’t changed, but because we don’t have a village in the same way, we’ve transferred our allegiance to celebrities. We want to be close to them, to know them, to be a part of their lives.” She sighed. “I’m saying it all wrong.”

  “No, you’re not. I get what you’re saying. That happens to me a lot. People think they know me because they know my character. Or they tell me they know we could be good friends.”

  Or the women want to sleep with him, although she appreciated that he didn’t bring up that one.

  “But they don’t know anything about me,” he continued. “What they see on the screen isn’t real. I’m not a hero. I’m just a guy.”

  “A good guy,” she said before she could stop herself.

  He smiled at her. “I’m keeping my dark side hidden until after the wedding.”

  She laughed. “Does the dark side have a cape? Because that would be really cool.”

  * * *

  The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. Madeline checked in with Isabel, who teased her about being snowed in and promised to lock up Paper Moon. Madeline heated the lasagna for dinner and was pleased that her rolls turned out. Jonny opened a bottle of wine for them from his cellar. At about seven-thirty the power went out. They sat in the dark for twenty seconds, then the generator kicked in and the lights were restored.

  After cleaning the kitchen, they took a plate of her cookies and headed for the media room.

  “I’m very excited,” she admitted as they walked down the hallway. “Do you have your awards on display?”

  “No awards,” he told her, leading the way through a double door and flipping on lights.

  “I know you’ve won something,” she insisted. “I read about it somewhere.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever awards there are I keep in my manager’s office. Annelise is a much better steward of those kinds of things.”

  She took in the large room. There was a big black leather sectional facing a huge television. While she couldn’t see any speakers, she had a feeling Jonny owned a sound system that could make the house shake. Oddly enough, he also had a record player and a stack of old vinyl records on a small table in the corner.

  Instead of artwork, he had framed movie posters on the wall. Not his, but posters from old movies from the thirties and forties. On the back wall were built-in shelves filled with hundreds of DVDs.

  “Nice,” she said as she set down the cookies and crossed to the collection. “What don’t you have?”

  “Nothing I was in.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “I don’t need to see what I did. I’m not egotistical enough to have to watch myself. Besides, my movies are like cotton candy. They dissolve in water.”

  “You’re not giving yourself enough credit. Your movies are a great escape for people. They have fun. They remember them and quote the lines.”

  “It’s not Shakespeare.”

  “You do know that his work was considered trashy back in the day?”

  Jonny raised an eyebrow. “Look at you, all sassy with the literary references.”

  “I know things.”

  “Yes, you do.” He stepped closer. “It’s interesting how we both make memories with what we do. Mine are fleeting, but what you do lasts a lifetime. Every bride remembers her wedding gown.”

  Madeline thought about how Ted had always tried to make her feel bad for changing jobs so many times. How she’d always felt embarrassed for not being sure about what she wanted to do with her life. Even now she sometimes wondered if she’d been wrong not to finish her degree.

  Only she loved her job, loved being a part of Paper Moon. She loved that she was buying her way into the business. Although she didn’t need Jonny’s praise, it was kind of sweet to hear.

  “You’re really nice,” she said impulsively. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

  He laughed. “People describe me in a lot of ways, but nice isn’t one of them.”

  “Ginger thinks you’re nice.”

  “She’s my sister. She has to.”

  “She doesn’t and maybe it’s because she knows you best.”

  He started toward her, then stopped a foot away. For several heartbeats his dark green eyes gazed at her, then he turned and pointed at the shelves.

  “You get to pick tonight. Anything you want.”

  A movie they would be watching together? In the snowy quiet? She hoped for the six-hour A&E version of Pride and Prejudice, but settled on a movie from the 1950s called Summertime.

  “Excellent choice,” Jonny said, taking the DVD case from her. “Smart and sexy, with a strong female lead. Considering the time it was made, a single woman alone in Italy who goes on to have an affair with a married man was considered pretty dangerous stuff.”

  “How can you know the plot?”

  “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen every movie here.” He motioned to the hundreds of DVDs. “For me, it’s research. Why did one story line work and not another? What technique are the actors using? What can I learn from them?”

>   “Do you ever just relax and watch the show?”

  “Tonight I will.”

  She sat down while he loaded the DVD. When he joined her, she hoped he would settle close, but he kept a respectable distance between them. Darn and double darn.

  Soon she was caught up in the beauty of Venice and the growing flirtation between Jane and Renato, and although she really enjoyed the movie, she couldn’t seem to forget about the man sitting on the same couch. She was aware of his presence in the dim light, of how he sat so quietly. When they both laughed when Jane fell in the canal, she found herself wanting to shift a little closer. Just to be near him.

  “Jane should have stayed,” she said when the movie was finished. “They could have worked it out.”

  “He wasn’t going to leave his wife, and she had a life back in Ohio.”

  “A sad, lonely life.” They walked down the hall toward the kitchen. “You’re right, though. I would never tell a friend to give up everything for a guy. Certainly not one who was married. But they were so good together. Maybe he’ll go to Ohio and they’ll live happily ever after.”

  He leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. “It’s no surprise that you’re a romantic.”

  Was he dismissing her? Was that a dismissive comment? The kiss was sadly fraternal, she thought. Here she was, snowed in with a sexy guy she had a mad crush on, and he thought of her as his baby sister. Or worse. He should have been swept away, yet there he stood. Completely unswept. Life wasn’t the least bit fair.

  “Thanks for the movie,” she said as she put the leftover cookies into the elephant cookie jar. “Good night.”

  “Night.”

  She told herself not to hesitate. That if Jonny wanted to make his move, he was fit and agile and could certainly chase after her down the hall. Even though she walked as slowly as she could, nearly lingering at every step, he stayed in the kitchen. There was no plea for her to rip off her clothes, or let him rip off her clothes. In fact, there wasn’t any conversation at all. Just the quiet of her footsteps on the carpet and the sad, lonely beating of her silly, girlish heart.

  Madeline closed the guest room door behind her and crossed to the bed. She sat there for a second before drawing in a breath and vowing that when the wedding was over, she was going to have a long look at her romantic life—or lack thereof. She was going to figure out why she fell for guys who weren’t available and what she could do to change. Because she didn’t want to end up like Katherine Hepburn in Summertime—a middle-age spinster with no one to care about. She wanted what her parents had, what Robbie had had. She wanted love and marriage and kids. She wanted it all.