by Lori Wilde
“Oh, Paige, I’m so sorry you’re going through this, especially after . . . well, you know. Is there anything I can do?”
“Actually, there is. Could you drop by the theater and pick up Fritzi and keep him until I get off work?”
“Sure. No prob. The kids will love having him. I’ll send Jesse over to pick him up.”
“Thank you.”
“If you need anything else, you let me know. Love you, cuz.”
“Love you too.”
“This will blow over.”
“I know,” Paige said. “But we’ve lived through enough West Texas tornadoes to know that even though they eventually blow over, they can leave a big mess behind.”
Jesse, whose motorcycle shop was on the other side of the square, arrived not long after she hung up with Flynn. He took Fritzi, and jokingly offered to beat up Cash for her.
“Thanks,” she told him. “But I need to fight my own battles.”
Jesse gave her a pat on the back and told her to hang in there.
After he left, she changed into her Santa Baby costume. Remembered her first day on the job. The first day she’d met Cash. It seemed like a decade ago instead of a few weeks.
She’d just gotten dressed when there was a knock on the dressing room door.
“Paige?” Emma called. “You in there?”
Paige opened the door. “Hey.”
Glee lit up Emma’s face. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Huh?” Paige wrinkled her nose.
“You and Cash. An item!”
Before Paige could explain that she and Cash were not an item, Emma kept chattering.
“I credit the matchmaker cookies for this auspicious turn of events.” Emma clasped her hands together and nestled them under the left side of her jaw and her face turned sappy and sentimental.
“Matchmaker cookies?”
Emma ducked her head, and sent Paige a coy glance that was an embodiment of the character Jovie she was playing in Elf. “The caramel apple cookies Flynn and I baked for the cookie swap. The same cookies I baked for Cash when he made dinner for you. They were meant to make you guys fall in love.”
“Excuse me?” Had Emma gone off the deep end? “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Come with me.” Emma took Paige by the hand, dragged her down the stairs, through the auditorium to her office.
From the bookcase, Emma pulled down a copy of The First Love Cookie Club Cookbook. It was the baking guide bible for the local cookie club. Emma flipped the cookbook open to a dog-eared page, and passed it to Paige.
MATCHMAKER COOKIES: Warning! Matchmaker Cookies are serious business. Baking them is not to be undertaken lightly. They can have a powerful impact on the lives of those who consume them. Matchmaker Cookies may cause people to fall hopelessly in love with the object of their deepest desires.
Paige was not superstitious, but the hairs on her forearm lifted, and her stomach flipped over. Twice. An icy coldness pushed up from her feet. She didn’t believe pastries could make two people fall in love, but the fact that Emma and Flynn had baked cookies for her and Cash with that intention in mind rattled her.
Good grief. Did they think she was that desperate? “You and Flynn baked cookies hoping they would help me fall in love with Cash?”
“Well, not per se.” Emma giggled as if it were a fun lark. “You were lonely and we thought you could use a little holiday magic. Our aim was to fix you up with any appropriate male. And then Sam thought of asking Sig to rent the houseboat to Cash . . .”
“So you thought, why not me and Cash?”
“Exactly. You get it,” Emma said, clueless to Paige’s upset. “Cash needs someone solid and grounded like you. And let’s face it, you could use more fun in your life. So we baked the cookies, and look!”
Feeling violated and betrayed for the second time that day, Paige snapped the cookbook closed. She sank her hands on her hips. “Surely you don’t believe cookies can cause people to fall in love.”
“Well, no. Not really, truly. They are just baked goods.” Emma’s laugh jiggled like Jell-O, unsettled and wiggly. “But it’s fun to pretend, and hey, you guys did get together.”
“We’re not together,” Paige said, keeping her voice tightly controlled to keep from reading Emma the riot act for meddling in her life.
“What?” Emma’s eyes sprung wide, and her mouth dropped round as a full moon. “But . . . but . . . he kissed you. In public. Cash wouldn’t do something like that unless he was invested.”
“Look,” Paige said. “We had fun together, but that’s all it was.”
“Was?” Emma blinked. “It’s over?”
“He’s a great guy, but how could it be anything more? He’s filet mignon and I’m applesauce.” Plus, he’d kissed Simone Bishop last night too. Not so invested in me after all.
“You can’t lie to me,” Emma countered. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. What you’ve got going on is more than just fun and games.”
“No.” Paige hardened her chin, wondered if she was going to have to quit her job. She didn’t want to, but she resented being manipulated. “We like each other, but it can’t ever be anything more than that.”
“Why not?” Emma settled her hands on her hips.
“For one thing, I can’t be deal with this.” Paige waved a hand.
“With what?”
“The phone ringing constantly. Paparazzi camped on my houseboat. It might seem normal to you and Cash, but to me it’s an invasion of privacy. I don’t like everyone knowing my business. It’s one of the reasons I’m not on Facebook.”
“It’s a novelty. It’ll die down as soon as someone else does something interesting.” Emma dismissed the celebrity madhouse with a wave of her hand.
“For another thing,” Paige went on. “Cash is not a long-term kind of man and you know that.”
“Maybe he hasn’t been in the past, but he’s never been in love before. Love changes a man.”
Paige’s heart bumped hard against her chest. Hope, that damnable emotion, knocking. What if? “He’s not in love with me.”
Emma pressed her lips together in a firm line as if to keep from saying something she’d regret later. Paige wished she’d exercised that same decorum before the conversation ever began.
“He’s not,” Paige assured her.
“How do you know?” Emma challenged.
“Because,” Paige said. “Last night, thirty minutes after leaving our bed, he was kissing Simone Bishop.”
Somehow, Paige managed to make it through the matinee.
Dozens of people came up to her, offering their comments and advice on her love life. Paige forced a smile and tried not to lose it. If this was what it would be like to be Cash’s girlfriend, no thank you. She didn’t have the stamina for it.
After the performance, the other Santa’s helpers asked if she’d like to go to Fruit of the Vine with them to hang out and sing karaoke until the next show, but she declined. She wouldn’t be good company. She offered to lock up and waved to them as they bundled into their coats and headed out in their costumes.
She locked the doors and turned her phone back on. If something happened to Grammie, the nursing home needed to be able to get hold of her. She leafed through numerous texts, and saw at least a dozen of them were from Cash.
Where RU?
Call me.
Freaking paparazzi.
Don’t jump to conclusions.
It’s not what it seems.
How is Fritzi?
How RU?
Please call.
I hate this.
We need to talk. It’s important.
Text me.
Let me know U got this.
Paige? Sweetheart?
There were voice mails from him too. Four of them. She did not listen. Heart beating crazy fast, she stuffed her phone back into her purse.
She wasn’t ready to talk to him. Not yet. Her feelings were still too raw and she didn’t k
now if she could hide them from him. She wanted to go home and lie down until it was time to come back for the second performance, but she couldn’t bear the thought of wading through those ghouls on her doorstep again.
But where could she go? The square was packed with people and no matter where she went she was bound to run into someone she knew. It was too cold to sneak off to Sweetheart Park.
The actors were hanging out in the loft dressing rooms and she didn’t want to run into Emma again. Grammie.
She’d go see her grandmother. She could use the alleys and go in through the back door of the nursing home. She’d only have to deal with the nursing home staff, and for the most part, she trusted they would leave her in peace.
Paige slipped into her coat and out the rear entrance. She wished she could change out of her stiletto boots, but she’d left her Skechers upstairs in the dressing room and she wasn’t going after them.
The alley was empty save for an orange tabby sitting on a Dumpster flicking his tail. Her breath puffed frosty in the cold, and she rubbed her palms together, wishing she’d remembered to bring gloves, but she’d been so discombobulated by the paparazzi at her houseboat she’d left them lying on the kitchen table.
Carefully picking her way down the uneven pavers of the alleyway, she startled the tabby. He dove into the bushes. “Sorry, cat.”
The air smelled joyful—pine and cinnamon, coffee from Perks, roasted meats, and popcorn. Paige’s mouth watered and she realized she hadn’t eaten a thing all day.
Maybe she’d slip into the back door of Perks and get a pastry.
But did she really want to risk running into people who’d ask questions she didn’t want to answer?
No, no, she did not. Maybe a hot dog at a kiosk on the square?
She was debating whether going for food was worth the hassle when a man appeared in the alley in front of her, blocking her way.
Cash.
Her pulse thumped, bumped, and if she hadn’t been wearing those damn stilettoes, she would have turned and run.
He looked haggard, jaw thick with beard stubble, eyes bleary, hair mussed, clothing rumpled.
But when he spotted her his face brightened like a light coming on, and every ounce of resentment she’d felt toward him melted. It didn’t matter if she was angry with him. She loved him and nothing on earth could change that.
And when he smiled, oh when he smiled, the gray clouds parted and the sun came out and it was full-blown summer, hot and sweet and beautiful.
“My Euterpe.” He breathed like she was oxygen. “Here you are.”
It hit her then, with the stunning shock of bolt lightning, breaking up with this man was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.
Chapter 21
Grave: Indication that a movement or entire composition is to be played very slowly and seriously.
“I was worried about you,” Cash told her as they stood staring each other down in the alleyway. Not the most romantic place in the world, but this is where he’d found her. “Why didn’t you call me back?”
“Are you kidding me right now?” Her tone was prickly barbed wire.
An invisible lasso landed around his gut, dallied up. “Is this about Simone, because I can explain—”
“It’s not about Simone. I can tell from the photograph that she kissed you.”
“Even so, we still need to talk.”
“I don’t have much time.” She glanced at her wrist as if she were wearing a watch. “I have to be back at the theater at six-fifteen.”
“It’s four-thirty, plenty of time to figure things out. Land Rover is parked on the street.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Let’s take a drive.”
She nodded curtly.
He moved to take her arm, but she shook him off. She was mad. He respected that. But it killed him that he was the one responsible for upsetting her.
Cash jammed his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and led the way to his SUV. He opened the passenger’s side door for her. Paige did not meet his gaze as she climbed inside.
Okay, he was going to have to work hard to earn her forgiveness. He was prepared. He got behind the wheel, started the Land Rover, navigated through the crowded square, and drove aimlessly around the lake. Not sure where to go. The paparazzi were still hanging around the marina. He’d gone to check earlier, looking for Paige, after he didn’t find her at the theater. How long would it take the vultures to get bored and go away?
Finally, he spotted an empty boat ramp on the far side of the lake where the Brazos River fed into it. He pulled up to the edge of the water and put on the parking brake. He switched off the engine, but kept the vehicle in accessory mode so he could run the heater. That duster she wore was too damn thin.
They sat in silence for a moment, staring out at the lake, listening to their breathing fogging up the windows. He rested his fists on his thighs, and peered over at her.
“I’ve got several things to tell you,” he said, making sure his tone stayed even, calm. “But first we need to clear the air. I know you’re angry with me—”
“Wrong. I’m not mad. I’m overwhelmed. Reality finally sunk in.”
Cash frowned, disturbed by the flatness in her tone. “What do you mean?”
“This morning I got a big dose of what it’s really like to be with you. Amy and your ultrafans in Twilight aside, I honestly didn’t get what your world was all about. We’ve been living in a protected little bubble in this town. Where, for the most part, people have respected your privacy.”
“It’s not always like this,” Cash said, and then stopped. Celebrity did carry a price and she had every right to voice her opinion without him interrupting. He shut up.
Their gazes connected, sewn together by an invisible thread.
“You might crave this kind of attention, but I don’t.”
He started to protest, stopped. She was right. He liked the attention his music brought him. It was validation that he had worth in the world.
“I’m not complicated, Cash. I like a simple life. Friends. Family. A roof over my head. Enough food to eat. Work that keeps me busy.”
“Your work might keep you busy, Paige, but are you satisfied? Are you living up to your full potential?”
For the length of a heartbeat, her eyes stayed steady and clear, locked on his. A pucker jerked the corners of her lips, as if she’d eaten something sour and couldn’t get the taste out of her mouth. Then her expression shifted and he saw a combination of old hurts and vulnerabilities that jerked his heartstrings and his protective instincts.
“Everyone can’t be some big-shot star,” she said in a voice so tight and small he knew he’d wounded her.
“That’s not what I meant, Paige.”
“Not all of us are wildly talented.”
“You . . .” He pointed a finger at her. “Are a very talented dancer and it’s a shame you’re not putting your skills to good use.”
“We can’t all live pipe dreams.” Her eyes turned brittle as ice, cold and sharp. “Some of us find it impossible to turn our backs on our families for the sake of our own careers.”
Zing. Jab. Slap.
Cash thought of his grandparents, pulled a palm down his face. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“I didn’t say it to be mean. There are two sides to every argument. You think your way works best, I think my way does.” She shrugged as if it was no big deal, but her eyes were shadowed and sad.
“Well, apparently, I’m not the big star everyone seems to think.” He cringed. That sounded pathetic. He wasn’t trying to make her feel sorry for him. He was still wrestling the demons that Deet’s news about Sepia had dredged up.
That story had yet to break, but when the news got out, it would only feed the social media frenzy and the Internet trolls’ schadenfreude. He’d been down this road before when Simone cheated and broke up The Truthful Desperadoes.
Paige canted her head. “What are you talking about?”
“The songs I wrote since I met you . . . the best damn thing I ever wrote because I met you . . . Sepia dropped me over them.”
Her mouth formed a wide O and her eyes softened with pity. That was not what he’d been angling for.
“Oh, Cash,” she whispered in a sound as soft as a caress. “That’s awful news. A real blow.”
“It’s the first time I’ve been out of contract in ten years,” he said. “I know I’m lucky on that score. I’ve had a great run . . .”
“But why did Sepia drop you? They are lovely songs.”
He told her about Deet’s phone call, why Sepia had dropped him, related the whole story. Opened up. Took a risk. Held nothing back. Confessed his fears that he wouldn’t get another contract, that if he stuck with this new direction he’d have no choice but to go indie.
“I am so sorry.” She shook her head, eyes brimming with compassion. “I know how much those songs meant to you.”
“They mean so much to me because you inspired them.” He reached across the seat, took her hand. “All my life I wrote and played what was commercial. My only goal was to get to the top and that meant creating the kind of music the majority of people want to listen to. And that was fine. I was happy enough . . . or so I thought.”
He paused, rubbed his thumb over the knuckles of her hand. “And then came you.”
“Cash . . .” She was breathing only from the top part of her chest. The sound of his name dropped fragile and winded from her lips.
“You changed everything. You changed me.” He took both her hands in his, looked squarely into her sweet hazel eyes.
She hitched in an audible breath. Her hands were trembling. She must be cold. He folded her fingers into her palms, wrapped his hands around her small fists, trying to warm her up.
“These past few weeks have been the happiest of my life.”
“Cash,” she said again, and he heard something heavy and atonal rushing up from her throat, something urgent and insistent, as if she were desperate to stop him from saying what he was going to say next.
Nothing could stop him. Cash was on a roll. He’d worked up the courage to say the words he would not use lightly and he was going to say them. “Paige Hyacinth MacGregor—”