Together for Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  “Why can’t you do that out here?” she wanted to know.

  “Because I can’t,” Casey said vaguely. “But if you still think I’m a Machiavellian jerk afterward, I won’t complain.”

  She examined him. “This sounds like a trap.”

  “Only if you’re worried about being too easily led.”

  The very idea was ludicrous. “I’m not worried. I know my own mind,” Kristen said. “I have the advantage of knowing what you’re doing, too, so I don’t see how—”

  “You’re stalling.” His too-astute gaze challenged her.

  Unfortunately, being challenged was catnip to an independent-minded person like her. “You’re goading me. It won’t work.”

  “It’s already worked.”

  Darn it. He was right. “Fine,” Kristen said. “Let’s do it.”

  They both slid out of the booth. Casey left his things; she took a quick glance around the diner to make sure everything was still under control. It was, but her reflex to make sure only reminded her of what Casey had said earlier.

  Most people like to think they’re in control . . .

  Well, she was in control, Kristen told herself. Especially here, in her own diner, her unofficial home away from home.

  Partway to her office, she realized she ought to try to prepare herself—just in case Casey really was as dangerous as Heather seemed to think. After all, she’d seen him convince people of some pretty unlikely things over the past few days.

  What if he manipulated her into thinking that changing her menu was a good idea? Or becoming convinced that the only thing standing between her and the Tour de France was a better grade of Schwinn than her existing vintage cruiser? Or believing (like him) that Christmas was an overcommercialized waste of time?

  “Hey.” Kristen tapped him. “What are you going to try—” Manipulating me into? No, she couldn’t say that. Otherwise they’d be stuck arguing semantics all day. “Convincing me of?”

  “That’s easy.” Cheerfully, Casey glanced over his shoulder at her. “I’m going to persuade you to abandon your litmus test.”

  At that, Kristen stopped. “My litmus test?”

  “Yeah. The one that dictates who you’re interested in sleeping with.” Casey gave her a faux innocent look. “Or do you have more than one? Because that’s the one I’m targeting.”

  Oh boy. “Nope. Just the one!” Kristen said.

  Then she edged in front of Casey and took the lead. Because while her own big, fat mouth might have gotten her into this fix, she was determined that Casey wasn’t going to get her out of it. Not on his terms, at least. Not today.

  Chapter 13

  Galaxy Diner

  17 mixing, piping, cookie-spritzing, chocolate-dipped days

  until Christmas

  Walden first realized that he might be getting serious about Talia when he started having withdrawal symptoms.

  After several exhilarating days of sneaking around Kismet, dressed as Heather Miller and her boyfriend du jour, and making out everyplace they were likely to be spotted and photographed, Talia and he had been forced—because of Heather’s chicken-pox quarantine—to cool it. After all, not even divalicious pop stars could be in two places at once. And everyone knew, thanks to an overconfiding In Touch cover story, that Heather was communicably ill. So Walden had, grudgingly, agreed to put a hold on his new favorite off-hours activity: being with Talia.

  It wasn’t easy, though. Especially since they still worked together. Being near Talia and not being able to touch her was like starving while sitting atop an uncrackable vault full of caramel pecan pie and bourbon whipped cream. It was giving him the shakes. It was making him antsy and needy and distracted.

  The worst part was, it wasn’t the making out that Walden missed most. It was her. It was Talia. He missed her smile and her laugh and her smart-mouthed comments. He missed her cute little wiggly walk when she sneaked around a corner to pinpoint a paparazzo. He missed her touch—and not just her sexy touch, either. He missed her tender touch, too . . . like when she fixed his collar or tugged his dreads to tease him or held his hand.

  Walden didn’t know how he was supposed to survive losing that. Every day, he saw Talia doing something endearing and sexy, like delivering maple syrup to table three or reaching into the rotating pie case for a jar of peppermint chocolate mousse pie with candy cane sprinkles. Or—as was the case just then—innocently stepping into the diner’s walk-in refrigerator at the same time Walden was there to bring out some eggs.

  “Oh! Walden! Hi!” Talia turned her cerulean gaze on him. Skittishly, she took a step forward. “Um, how’s it going?”

  “Better now.” Walden stepped forward, too. It had been hours since they’d last touched one another. He could think of little else. He couldn’t remember what he’d come into the walk-in for. He could only gawk at her. Yearningly. “I miss you.”

  “You don’t have to say that.” Talia picked up a stainless steel tub full of prepped sage-garlic butter. She hugged it to her middle like a shield. “There aren’t any cameras here.”

  “You look great,” he said. “I like your skirt.”

  “Everyone wears this skirt,” she protested in her usual wry tone. “It’s identical to the ones that Kristen and Avery wear.”

  “And those boots. Those boots are sexy.”

  “Again.” Talia rolled her eyes . . . but her cheeks took on a pretty pink glow. “They’re the same boots everyone else has.”

  “Maybe. They look different on you.”

  “Only because you’re myopic.” She seemed to forget the compound butter in her arms. “Did you forget your contact lenses today? Because you’re looking at me kind of cross-eyed.”

  That was probably true. “I’m imagining you in my arms.”

  “Oh.” A winsome smile spread over Talia’s face. “It’s too bad we agreed not to do any more ‘practicing’ here at work.”

  Avery had nearly caught them during their first make-out session. They’d decided, since then, to limit their Heather/ boy toy run-throughs to other locales. Just to be circumspect.

  “I’m imagining you,” Walden went on as if she hadn’t spoken, hearing a certain husky tone roughen his voice, “wearing those boots and that skirt while I make love to you standing up, right here in the walk-in. It’s pretty cold in here, but that would definitely warm us up.”

  “What about my tights?” Talia inquired. “And my panties? They’d be in the way,” she pointed out practically, “so you couldn’t technically warm up either of us without more effort.”

  He stifled a grin, loving—despite everything—that she’d chosen that moment to be contrary. It was just like . . . her.

  “It’s a fantasy,” he said. “Try to roll with it.”

  “Aha.” At that, she brightened, getting in sync with him instantly. “On the other hand, this is a pretty private place. And we could be quick about it. And we could use the practice.” Decisively, Talia set the container of sage-garlic butter on the shelf. “Just hang on. I’ll go get the wig.”

  He thought they’d been over this. “You don’t need the wig!”

  I want you as you, Walden thought. Not as pretend Heather.

  But Talia didn’t even slow down. He didn’t know why—the timing of their “fling,” maybe, or the fact that it had taken him so long to let Talia know he liked her—but she seemed under the impression he only wanted her now that she was “Heather.”

  Walden wasn’t even sure she heard him. By the time he said anything, Talia was already ducking out of the walk-in, clearly on a mission to enable their spur-of-the-moment quickie. It was almost as if she’d come there on purpose, Walden realized, looking for him. Wouldn’t that have been great?

  But he didn’t know if Talia wanted him . . . or a “boy toy,” either. After all, she hadn’t liked him until their Heather ruse had started. Maybe she just wanted to be thoroughly practiced up for whenever Heather finally got out of chicken-pox quarantine.

  A
minute later, Talia was back, sporting her long blond Heather wig. At the sight of it, Walden felt an obvious pang.

  He liked her real lavender hair. He liked her.

  “I really care about you, Talia.” Earnestly, he reached for her wig, dying to take it off. “To me, this is more than just—”

  A fling, he wanted to say.

  But she interrupted before he could.

  “Shut up and kiss me.” Intently, Talia grabbed his chef’s whites in both hands. She hauled him closer. Their bodies crashed together. “Before Gareth realizes I’m gone.”

  “But I wasn’t suggesting a quickie!” Walden said. “It just popped into my head and straight out my mouth. I couldn’t help it. I’m impulsive like that. But I was only having fun.”

  “What do you think I’m doing?” Talia kissed him. Eagerly, she rubbed against him. “Solving trigonometry problems?”

  Uhhh. Just then, she was driving him crazy.

  “I didn’t mean we should get busy right here next to the mustard-seed aioli,” he managed to say between breaths. “It’s not very romantic.”

  “Romance is overrated.” She unbuttoned his chef’s jacket. Her hands delved beneath his T-shirt underneath it, then flexed against his bare chest. “But you’re not overrated,” she purred. “You’re even better than I expected. Who knew you were so hot?”

  “Not in here, I’m not hot. Brr,” Walden joked, trying desperately to slow down the Nookie Express before he forgot how to speak altogether. “It’s just that I’ve realized some really major things lately. About us. When I saw you just now, I’d missed you so much, and I knew that could only mean—”

  “Prove it.” Determinedly, Talia unzipped his pants. She delved her hand inside. “Prove you missed me. I want you to, Walden,” she urged. “Come on. Be my bohemian boy toy.”

  Helplessly, Walden groaned. He wanted to communicate to Talia that he needed to be more than that to her. That he wanted this to be real between them. That they should probably have a serious conversation. Soon. But with her tongue in his mouth and her hand zeroing in on his own personal sweet spot, he could barely think, much less speak coherently about relationships.

  Valiantly, he tried again. “I love . . .”

  You, Walden wanted to say. Instead, he only panted.

  Talia chose to interpret that as an invitation to caress him. Suspended between pleasure and tender emotion, he closed his eyes, trying to find enough fortitude to poetically profess his love for her without simultaneously dry humping her. That wouldn’t have had the necessary gravitas. The necessary love.

  But it wasn’t working. Talia was just that good. Her touch took every lucid thought he had and scattered it to the wind.

  Giving up, Walden opened his eyes. When he did, he focused on Talia’s sweet face—and for a heartbeat, he knew he glimpsed comprehension there . . . and a certain reciprocal feeling, too.

  Was it possible? Did Talia love him, too?

  “This,” she finished for him, breathlessly. She kissed his neck. His mouth. His neck again. “Me too! I love this, too.”

  Transfixed by what he’d seen, Walden went still.

  Talia loved him. It was everything he’d ever wanted.

  Then she flung her long, blond, fake tresses over her shoulder, reminding him of her insistence on wearing that damn Heather wig, and Walden knew it was more complicated than just loving him. Talia was more complicated than just loving him.

  Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been getting it on in a superchilly walk-in refrigerator, surrounded by plastic-wrapped foodstuffs, all for the sake of not being caught together.

  At the realization, he shuddered. He had to change this.

  “Are you still cold?” Talia felt his tremor and completely misinterpreted it. She winked. “I know how to warm you up.”

  Then she tossed down her apron for an impromptu cushion. She gave him a uniquely tenderhearted smile. Then she dropped to her knees and quickly made Walden forget everything he knew about . . .

  Well, pretty much everything in the universe that didn’t involve her mouth, his body, and the wonderful things that happened when the two of them came together.

  With a sense of steely resolve, Casey followed Kristen into her tiny office in the back of her gas-station-turned-diner.

  He watched her march with swivel-hipped, tomboyish élan through the Christmassy chaos in the front of the house, usher him inside her private sanctuary, and then close the door behind them. He watched her prop her hip on the edge of her desk. He watched her cross her arms, take a deep breath, then nod at him.

  “All right. I’m ready,” she said. “Take your best shot. Make me abandon my litmus test. If you really think you can.”

  Uh-oh, Casey realized. It was even worse than he’d thought.

  Kristen seemed convinced he was exactly the kind of manipulative, semishady con man she’d accused him of being a few minutes ago. Judging by her uplifted chin and I-dare-you expression, it wouldn’t be easy to change her mind, either.

  But that’s how Casey knew he had to try. Because with that single gesture, Kristen communicated to him something he’d already begun to suspect . . . but hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.

  Kristen was perfect for him. Despite all the Christmas brouhaha. Despite the inconvenience factor of her pop-star sister. Despite the fact that she came as a matched set with an unnerving diner-based family of lovable nonconformists. Despite all those things, Casey couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  He needed her. He wanted her. He might even . . .

  Well, he couldn’t say he loved her. He wasn’t completely sure what that meant. He didn’t know what it felt like.

  If love felt like finding it captivating when Kristen tried on stuffed-felt reindeer antlers and modeled them for the regulars . . . Casey had it.

  If love felt like seeing a goofy, spangled, made-in-China piece of craptastic “holiday décor,” thinking that Kristen might like it, and then secretly buying it for her . . . Casey had it.

  (He might also have had some sort of psychological break while experiencing that one, because he’d actually touched a Christmas ornament, on purpose, then paid for it.)

  But he had to move on.

  Because if love meant hearing a song and wishing Kristen could hear it too, because it described his feelings for her in a lyrical-but-impossible-to-say way . . . Casey had it. He had it bad.

  And he was starting to fear that Kristen didn’t.

  Worse, that she never would.

  Because he was him, and she was her, and the two of them, together . . . Well, the two of them together would be fantastic, if only they could get over a few of the hurdles first. And the first and most daunting of those hurdles was Kristen herself.

  Frankly, Casey had seen plastic mannequins at the department store look more malleable than she did just then.

  Not cutting him any slack—and thereby proving herself his perfect woman again—Kristen arched her eyebrow. “Can’t do it?”

  “Oh, I can do it,” Casey assured her. But his usual mojo didn’t seem to be working. With her, it sometimes didn’t.

  Damn it.

  All those years of moving from home to home, of struggling to understand his new environment and somehow ingratiate himself within it, of working his ass off to be the best possible kid—they all felt like wasted time right now. Sure, they’d paid dividends in Casey’s ability to go anywhere and get along with anyone at the drop of a hat. But with Kristen, things were different. They were more important. They were essential.

  Why hadn’t she been able to see the real him? Casey wondered as he took another look at her, still feeling vaguely upset by what she’d said about him. Why hadn’t she been able to look past what he did for a living to who he was on the inside?

  The fact that she hadn’t had hurt. It still did.

  So far, Christmas in Kismet was one big carnival of pain.

  Because of that, Casey wanted to leave. Instead, he stepped closer to Kristen. Bec
ause sometimes, he knew, the only way to get out was to go through. Sometimes the things that scared you most were exactly the things you needed. And Casey Jackson was nothing if not brave. His entire life had taught him to be.

  “You can ‘do it,’ huh?” Kristen asked, breaking into his thoughts. She glanced at the wall clock. “If you’d quit with the double entendres, we might get somewhere with this.”

  Except it hadn’t been a double entendre, Casey knew. It had been a heartfelt expression of his most fervent and most closely held wish.

  Oh, I can do it. I can make you want me, Casey had wanted to tell her.

  But he hadn’t. Not outright. And that’s when he realized the truth. It nearly bowled him over, too. Kristen had never seen the real him because he’d never shown her the real him. He’d limited their conversations to innuendo and flirtatious banter and quests for information about Heather’s TV special.

  He’d treated Kristen, he realized, just like everyone else.

  When she couldn’t have been more different. From everyone.

  So, dredging up every ounce of bravado he had, Casey showed her the real him instead. He hoped like hell she’d approve.

  He started by gazing at her. “I like you,” he said.

  As though he’d announced that he liked to spend his spare time training monkeys to juggle, she gave a cautious nod.

  “I like you, too.”

  “You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever known,” he added earnestly.

  “I’ll assume that’s a good thing,” she countered, “since you’re trying to seduce me into sleeping with you right now.”

  Casey blinked. “Is that what you think? That all I want to do is sleep with you?”

  “That’s what you implied a few minutes ago,” she reminded him. “Why else would you mess with my litmus test?”

  “Well,” he hedged, “I do want to sleep with you—”

  But there’s so much more to it than that. He just didn’t know how to explain it. He’d never had to try before. Usually, if he’d been alone with a woman for this long, one or both of them would have been ripping off each other’s clothes already.