by Lisa Plumley
Angela blanched. That was when Rachel knew it was true.
Chapter Thirty-Four
In that moment, Rachel remembered warning Reno—jokingly—not to bother trying to set her up with anyone, because dating was a lost cause for her since her breakup with Tyson-Like-The-Chicken. If only she’d known he hadn’t been joking. Not a bit.
“Well, maybe not so much fix us up together as babysit you for me, is how it turned out in the end,” Nate said. “That’s how Reno put it anyway. ‘Who do you think has been babysitting Rachel Porter for you?’ he asked me, and it was totally true.”
“Reno said that?” Rachel asked. “He said babysitting?”
Angela’s warning look was totally lost on Nate.
He nodded. “Because I was too afraid to meet you.”
“Afraid to meet me?” Rachel wanted to get this straight. Still stuck on the uncomfortable notion of Reno babysitting her for Nate, she reviewed her time so far in Kismet. “So that’s why you were never there!” she realized. “At the Christmas tree farm, the Glenrosen decorating party, the costume fitting—”
Nate nodded again. “Those were all the times Reno was supposed to make sure we got it on.” He said this last in an exaggeratedly sexy voice, then laughed. “But I couldn’t make it, and the whole time, I was afraid some assclown from The Big Foot would snatch you up first”—he smiled at a worried-looking Angela, seeming oblivious to the stop talking look she gave him—“so Reno offered to keep tabs on my dream girl for me.”
Meaningfully, Angela jabbed her elbow sideways.
“I mean my former dream girl. That’s you, Rachel, FYI.” Nate gave her an endearing, semiembarrassed look. “So I knew I didn’t have to worry, because Reno is my best friend. I don’t think he ever let you out of his sight, that’s for sure.”
Because he really was trying to fix me up with you, Rachel realized in a daze. Because he was busy babysitting me…for another man. Reno hadn’t been with her because he’d cared about her. Or because he’d liked spending time with her. He’d done it because he’d made a commitment to his dating-challenged friend.
And everyone in Kismet knew Reno kept his promises.
With no warning at all, Rachel recalled the first time she and Reno had slept together. This can only be sex between us, okay? she’d asked him, trying (misguidedly as it turned out) to protect him. Just sex, he’d agreed almost instantly. It’s probably better that way, given the circumstances.
At the time, Rachel had thought Reno had been referring to the fact that she’d be leaving Kismet soon. Not to the fact that he was only doing romantic research on her likes and dislikes, preparing to offer her up as a date for his happy-go-lucky friend like a trout on a lakeside B & B’s special of the day.
With a queasy feeling, Rachel imagined Reno kissing her—then reporting back to Nate. She likes soft, slow kisses. Reno touching her. She likes a firm, sensual grip. Reno laughing with her. She’s completely gullible, Nate. No worries.
Stricken, Rachel glanced at the one person who possessed no ability to lie whatsoever. “Angela, did you know about this?”
Her friend’s cheeks bloomed pink. “Well, yes. But I—”
“But you liked the idea!” All at once, everything became clear to Rachel. “You liked that Reno was keeping me busy, because that meant you could make your move on Nate!”
Looking at them together, it was as obvious as black pants, a white shirt, and a classic trench coat as wardrobe staples.
Guiltily, Angela hunched beside Nate. “Well…sort of.”
“Angela!” Nate appeared elated. “You schemed to get me?”
“Um—”
“I’ll never need one of Reno’s idiot-proof seduction plans again,” Nate crowed. “I have a woman who really wants me.”
Idiot-proof seduction plans. Rachel guessed that’s what Reno had been cooking up for Nate and her. A plan to get her away from Reno and into his best friend’s arms.
All the interest he’d shown, all the admiration he’d volunteered…They’d all been fake. As fake as his feelings.
And Rachel, too gullible (again) to tell the difference between someone who cared about her and someone who was just using her—just laughing at her, like Tyson and Alayna!—had bought the whole scheme—hook, line, and sinker. She’d never doubted Reno’s feelings for her for a second.
“I have to leave,” Rachel said.
“Really? Bummer. I thought it was fun talking to you.”
Helplessly, Rachel gazed at Nate, wounded by the merry tone of his words. Was she just a joke to everyone? The latest Kismet punch line? He and Angela turned unfocused, blurred by the tears swimming in her eyes. Rachel didn’t know where they’d come from. Surely she was inured to heartbreak by now.
“Tell Reno he’s off the hook.” She pulled her coat closer, suddenly chilled. “I’m not interested in being set up with anyone. Especially the way you people do it in Kismet.”
“Rachel, wait,” Angela said. “You don’t understand.”
“Yeah, wait, Rachel,” Nate insisted. “There’s more—”
But Rachel couldn’t wait. She couldn’t wait to leave, couldn’t wait to push through the crowd of curious, gawking onlookers…couldn’t wait to get herself back to L.A., where at least people were up-front about breaking your heart.
And nobody pretended you mattered to them when you didn’t.
Half-blinded by camera flashes, Reno emerged from his Santa-style photo session with spots dancing before his eyes. He moved across the decorated gym away from the parents and children who’d enlisted him to pose for their holiday pictures, feeling a few ho-ho-hos still left in his belly even as people began to drift toward the exits, headed into the snowy evening.
Tonight, all was right with the world. Kayla had been fantastic in her Christmas pageant, Angela and Nate were a couple (so Reno no longer had to worry about his sister dating dreamy-eyed lowlifes or about his best friend’s heartbreak at being deprived of Rachel), and Reno had almost caught up on his Glenrosen holiday lights competition groundwork, thanks to Rachel’s help. The only thing better than all that was knowing Rachel was here somewhere, waiting with that special smile on her lips just for him—and probably a saucy grope, too.
Dating the town rebel definitely had its advantages.
Looking for that rebel now, Reno grinned and edged his way through a clump of proud grandparents comparing snapshots on their digital cameras. All he wanted now—all he had wanted ever since an elf-costumed Nate had confided backstage about his “life-changing” trip to Grand Rapids with Angela—was to be with Rachel. To show her the kind of man Reno could be once he wasn’t skulking in the shadows trying to hide their relationship.
She’d caught him off guard with her confession about her life in L.A., but it had seemed important to her that she get it off her chest, so he’d listened. Now that that was over with—
There was no sign of Rachel anywhere.
Reno whipped off his Santa hat and hurried onward, moving past the hallway just in time to glimpse Rachel. She slipped through the big double doors leading outside, her dark glossy hair whipping over her shoulders as she moved quickly, headed for the school parking lot.
What the…?
He caught up with her just as she skirted a grungy snowbank, highlighted against the darkness by the school’s lighting, surrounded by first-graders and their parents but clearly apart from the trailing crowd. Rapidly, she strode forward in her sexy stiletto boots with her head down.
“Hey!” He grinned, touching her arm. “Wait up.”
She turned. He was shocked to see tears in her eyes.
Rachel swabbed those tears with an impatient gesture, then squared off against him. “Why? Do you have someone else in mind for your idiot-proof seduction plan now that Nate’s taken?”
Darkly, hands on her hips, Rachel waited for his reply.
But all Reno could manage was a trickle of dread, trailing up his spine like a backward icicle.
&
nbsp; He’d felt he was home-free, now that Nate knew the truth. Reno had confessed everything to his friend backstage tonight, from his feelings for Rachel to his hopes that he could make her see the magic in Kismet and want to stay longer than “a while.” But it hadn’t occurred to him that there was a lot Rachel didn’t know—and didn’t understand—about how they’d come together.
Maybe he’d misheard her. “What did you say?”
“I’m sure I’m not such a desirable conquest,” Rachel bit out, her gaze as intense as her sarcastic tone, “now that you know the truth about my ‘fabulous life’ in L.A., but—”
“I already knew about that.” Interrupting, Reno waved off what seemed to be inconsequential details. “All of it.”
Rachel looked as if he’d punched her. “You couldn’t have.”
“I knew before you told me tonight. Rachel, we get CNN here in the heartland,” Reno told her, confounded at her surprise. “We get the E! channel, too. Everybody knows what happened to you. Everybody knows why you left L.A. the way you did.”
Her tearful gaze widened. Shaking her head, she took a step backward. Reno had only meant to make her get to the point without leaving anything unspoken between them, but he could tell he’d hurt her. He came nearer, trying to hold her hand.
“We were being kind by not mentioning it! That’s why—”
“Save your ‘kindness’ for someone else.”
Defiantly, Rachel stuffed her hands in her pockets and swiveled. Her footsteps carried her ten feet down the icy sidewalk before Reno realized what was happening.
“Wait! Rachel.” Doggedly, he followed with his idiotic Santa boots flopping in the snow. Why was this happening here? Now? When he was the least prepared? “I can explain.”
“Explain how you never really cared about me, just like Tyson and Alayna and all my celebrity friends?” Rachel looked at him as if they’d never laughed together, never cut down a ferocious Christmas tree together, never scaled his eaves on his tallest ladder to hang holiday lights together. “No thanks.”
She turned again. Fiercely, Reno grabbed her arm. He made her face him straight on, exactly the way he’d faced her on the morning after they’d first slept together—the morning when he’d realized that she knew him, inside and out. And he knew her.
She blinked up at him, stone-faced, rebellious to the last.
“Don’t make this out to be more than it is,” he said, striving for patience. “Do you think this has been easy for me, lying to my best friend while I sneaked around with you? Pretending I planned to give you to Nate at all?”
“Give me to him?” Rachel issued a hoarse laugh. “Angela was right. You are full of yourself, football star. No wonder you can’t stop helping people. You need the applause.”
Stung, Reno stared at her. “And you don’t?”
For a long moment, tension stretched between them. A family wandered out of the Christmas pageant and headed toward the Kismet Elementary School parking lot, chattering animatedly.
Reno glanced at them, frowned, then released Rachel’s arm.
“What were you planning to do when you came home for the holidays?” he demanded with inexorable logic, determined to make Rachel see reason. “You said yourself that you’re jobless. I took your mind off things. The way I see it, I did you a favor.”
Her hands came free in a jerky motion. “A favor?”
“A favor with a bonus. Several…bonuses.”
Her scathing look could have melted an igloo.
Reno only raised his eyebrows. “You’d rather have spent the last few weeks holed up at your parents’ house, surrounded by Christmas tchotchkes and stuffing down cookies with ranch dip?”
“Don’t you dare make fun of our traditions!”
She was right. That was unfair of him.
But she was also frowning tearfully at him, making him realize how much his deception had hurt her, making him face the possibility that maybe Reno Wright couldn’t fix everything with a dose of machismo and a pair of pliers. He couldn’t stand it.
“Look, Nate and Angela are happy.” Reno fisted his hands, willing himself to keep talking. “It all worked out in the end.”
Rachel snorted. “I see where your dad gets it from.”
“Gets what from?”
“His complete wrongheaded stubbornness! That’s your excuse? Nate and Angela are happy? That’s it?”
“For now.” He gritted his teeth. The L.A. diva was back in full force, and she was a bitch to deal with. He wasn’t equipped for this. Not tonight. Not when he’d finally allowed himself to hope for more between them. “If you’d just be reasonable—”
Rachel shook her head. Her lips tightened.
Reno swore. “I’m trying to make you understand that—”
“I understand.” Again Rachel wiped a trailing tear from her cheek, but her stance was straight. Her gaze never wavered from his face. “I understand that I trusted you. Wholeheartedly. Stupidly, I’ll admit it. Only to have my heart broken again.”
Looking at her, Reno felt filled with contrition.
But he also felt wronged. Misunderstood. And angry.
“Rachel, I never meant to—” Break your heart. He couldn’t say that. He couldn’t begin to believe it was true. Not when he knew the whole story—and she still didn’t. “I risked everything to be with you! I put my friendship with Nate on the line, over and over again. Now you’re telling me—”
“I’m telling you good-bye.”
Before he could finish talking—before he could reason out what was happening and why—Reno felt Rachel’s gloved hand touch his. He felt the rush of warm air that came with her, displacing the bitter cold for one sweet instant. He felt her lips touch his and knew an amazement he’d never expected…not while dressed as Santa. Not while having a ridiculous battle just twenty yards from the snowed-over playground swings.
He closed his eyes to savor the moment—the moment he hoped would turn everything around. No angry woman would kiss him.
“Good-bye, Reno,” Rachel whispered.
By the time he opened his eyes, she was gone, treading down the sidewalk in the falling snow, moving farther into the dark, moving farther away from him with every second. An angry woman wouldn’t kiss him, Reno realized. But a heartbroken one might.
At least she might kiss him once. Once to say good-bye.
In the distant parking lot, someone started their car, sending the muffled sounds of Christmas music wafting through their rolled-up windows. The tunes were cheery and warmhearted—exactly the opposite of the way Reno felt right now.
He’d been wrong about what he’d told Rachel tonight, he knew as he looked up into the empty sky, alone with his hands propped absurdly against his black vinyl Santa Claus belt. There was one thing more disappointing than knowing the woman he loved had gone back to her asshole ex-boyfriend.
Watching her walk away from him.
But Reno would be damned if he’d chase her down again.
Why should he? Rachel hadn’t batted an eyelash when Reno had told her how he’d risked his friendship with Nate—the most enduring friendship of his life. She hadn’t let him explain. She hadn’t listened to anything he’d said. And if Rachel couldn’t see how much his friends meant to him, then she didn’t understand him at all—no matter how much Reno had fooled himself into believing she did. Rachel Porter didn’t know him.
Not really. Not the way he’d hoped. Deeply. Honestly. With no holds barred. It looked now as if no one ever would. Because Reno would be damned if he’d let himself be that vulnerable again.
He should have known better right from the start. Because the hard truth was, Reno had taken the pro-football spot Nate had wanted all those years ago. Then he’d taken Nate’s dream girl. Having that dream girl walk away from him—just as he’d realized how much he needed her—was the very least Reno deserved.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Rachel spent all the remaining days leading up to Christmas trying to deny
its existence altogether.
Just because she’d come home for the holidays didn’t mean she had to participate in the holidays, did it? No! That’s why she did her best to block out Christmas carols, turn a blind eye to decorations, and ignore the bell-ringing Santas on the Kismet street corners, all of whom reminded her (painfully) of Reno.
Instead Rachel spent her days watching Made reruns on TV, morosely munching through her depleted stock of protein bars, washing down their sawdusty nutrition with Diet Coke, and occasionally calling Mimi for support.
She kept the curtains closed—the better to block out the colorful sight of her parents’ and their neighbors’ holiday yard decorations. She wore her pilled, droopy, security-blanket cardigan almost exclusively and didn’t even bat an eyelash when the mail carrier saw her in all its saggy-butted glory one day.
Rachel knew things were truly dire when she received a phone call from Tiana Zane, former member of the pop group Goddess, with an offer to dress her for a charity gala, and she could barely muster the energy to discuss Tiana’s offer.
“It’s a tiny event, Rachel. So I can’t pay you much. In fact, I probably won’t be able to give you credit—my new manager advises against it. But there will be photographers there—”
“I’ll do it,” Rachel croaked. Why not? There was nothing left for her in Kismet. She had to rebuild her life somehow.
“You don’t sound well. Do you have another cold?”
“A cold?” That’s right. She’d been plagued with constant sniffles in L.A., Rachel recalled—as if her time there had been decades ago. It was sweet that someone still cared enough to ask about her health. Buoyed by a rush of fondness for Alayna’s onetime singing partner, Rachel summoned up an uneven smile. “Maybe a little one. I have been feeling sort of—”
“Just make sure you don’t sneeze on my gown. I have a part in the next Shyamalan film, and I don’t want to get sick.”
Oh. Dispiritedly, Rachel agreed to meet Tiana in L.A. in two weeks, then made a few more calls (because those weren’t Christmas-related either, she told herself in bald defiance). She managed to line up two postholiday stylist jobs—one for a One Life to Live guest star and one for a director’s nanny.