Together for Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  Ordinarily, she’d have beamed beneath his proud, approving expression. She’d have been thrilled by their shared word-geek camaraderie. But tonight, Heather only narrowed her eyes.

  “I look awful!” she moaned theatrically, hoping to keep up her cover. If she could get Alex to go into the other room and get dressed (she couldn’t believe she was actively campaigning for him to put on clothes), she could finish thumbing through his cell phone photos and find out exactly what kind of perfidy her shoulda-been, wasn’t-gonna-be boyfriend had been up to.

  Perfidy. That was a Word of the Day from next month. Now Heather was smarter—the way Alex had inspired her to be, against her will—and it was all for naught. No, for nothing. Argh.

  She was shredding that dumb Word of the Day calendar the first chance she got. But until then . . . “My hair is all stringy!” Heather complained further, hoping to explain away her moodiness. “My clothes are all gross, and my face is naked—”

  “Soon we’ll have to get the rest of you naked, too.”

  At Alex’s devilish eyebrow waggle, Heather nearly lost the will to go on with this. His potential treachery had sapped her strength and broken her heart. She’d thought he was special.

  She’d thought he was The One. The One for her.

  “—and I’ve got a huge bloated belly,” she pushed relentlessly onward, starting to get invested in what suddenly felt less like a cover story and more like the truth—more like a desperate plea for Alex to disagree with her. The way anyone else in her entourage would have. (No, you look fab, Heather!) “And I’m pretty sure my pedicure is completely shot, too.”

  Alex only smiled at her. “I’m pretty sure it is.”

  She gawked. “You’re criticizing my toes?”

  “I’m agreeing with you. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “Of course not!” Didn’t he know anything? Didn’t he know you weren’t supposed to agree with a woman who was kvetching about her appearance? It just wasn’t done. “I’m really upset!”

  Because I think you’re a traitor. And I trusted you!

  “I can see that. I’m sorry. Let’s start over.” Sobering, Alex came nearer. “All I mean is, the fact that you’re noticing what you look like is a good sign. It means you’re getting better. It means you’re feeling like yourself again.”

  “How’s that? Superficial?” she demanded to know.

  Another smile. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have believed Alex meant it. “When you’re sick as a dog with chicken pox,” he said, “you usually don’t care if you look like hell—”

  “I looked like hell?” Even though Heather knew it was true—objectively—it still hurt to hear him say it out loud.

  “—but when you’re on the mend,” Alex continued patiently, holding out his hands to ward off a potential freak-out, “you start to notice that you haven’t combed your hair or showered.”

  “Are you saying I stink?” Indignantly, she crossed her arms over her chest—a pose that had the advantage of isolating any supposed BO. She just got stealthier and stealthier. It wasn’t a quality she cherished in herself. “Are you? Just say it!”

  “Okay. You stink. A little.” Evidently not bothered by that, Alex came a little nearer. He really did look supercute in his towel. He even had nice-looking legs. And his chest was—

  “I stink?” With effort, Heather made herself quit ogling him. She had to have some self-respect here. She couldn’t get distracted. “Gee, Alex. You really know how to seduce a girl.”

  “I really do,” he assured her. With the same tranquility he always displayed, Alex gently unfolded her arms, making room to put his arms around her waist. He gazed meaningfully into her eyes. “I think I’m recovered enough to show you, too.”

  At the unmistakable sexiness in his expression, she balked. He couldn’t mean . . . “Show me? You mean you really want to—”

  “I really, really want to. With you.”

  No. She couldn’t fall for this. “Even though I’m—”

  Ugly? Lazy? Awkward? She couldn’t say those things aloud. But they dogged her thoughts and made her feel scared. Of this.

  Especially now, when she knew she couldn’t trust him.

  “Even though . . . everything.” Tenderly, Alex kissed her. “I’m not here for glamazon Heather. I’m here for real Heather.”

  “‘Real Heather’?” Deliberately, she scoffed. “That’s aiming pretty low, isn’t it? I mean, why settle for ordinary Heather, when you could wait for me to pull myself together and have—”

  “People magazine’s ‘sexiest songstress’?”

  “Well . . . yeah.” That’s what everyone wanted from her.

  With a thoughtful, semiamused look, Alex gazed at her. He actually looked as though he . . . treasured her or something. Wow.

  He definitely had to be scamming her somehow.

  “That stuff is what you do,” he said. “Not who you are.”

  Heather disagreed. “They’re the same thing.”

  “Not to me, they’re not.” Alex touched her grungy T-shirt. He lay his palm over her heart. “I like you. I like who you are when you’re alone with me, just hanging out. I like who you are when you think I’m not looking, and you sneak French fries from my Galaxy Diner delivery. I like who you are . . . no matter what.”

  Oh, boy. This was really weakening her. “You do?”

  Alex nodded. “We’ve been through a few things together over the past several days. I think I know who you are. Really.”

  Feeling herself begin to relax, inch by inch, into his arms, Heather tried once more to resist. “The members of my Facebook fan club think they know me, too. But they don’t.”

  “They haven’t duct taped mittens to your wrists to keep you from scratching your chicken pox spots, now have they?”

  “Argh!” Heather guffawed. “Don’t remind me of that!”

  “Hey, it made you laugh. It was worth every minute.”

  At the sappy look Alex gave her then, Heather was a goner.

  Maybe he was secretly planning to betray her. Maybe he had only pretended to have chicken pox as part of some nefarious scheme. But right now, Alex seemed so sweet and real and sexy . . .

  Well, right now, the possibility of sabotage felt very far away. Because Alex had his lanky arms around her. He was giving her the kind of love-struck look ordinarily only found in Nicholas Sparks novels and Pepé Le Pew cartoons. He had said he liked her, the real her, and Heather knew that that was an unusual quality for anyone to have . . . because no one, in her experience, had ever had it. Including her own parents, who seemed to appreciate their eldest daughter primarily because her fame brought them bragging rights and comped tickets and nice vacations to far-away places that were not like Podunk Kismet.

  Frankly, it hurt that they valued Kristen for who she was—smart, practical, determined, kind—and Heather for what she did.

  “You have taken good care of me,” Heather admitted, setting aside those painful family dynamics for now. She gazed curiously at Alex. “Not many people would have done that.”

  “Any one of your staff would have done it,” he said, poo-poohing her skepticism. “Your loyal hangers-on would have purposely infected themselves with the varicella zoster virus, dabbed calamine lotion on you, and done that taped-on mittens trick. They would walk through fire for you.”

  “Maybe.” Heather snuggled closer. She gave Alex a kiss that made him quit arguing and made her forget the uncomfortable revelation she’d had. “But they wouldn’t have done that.”

  His eyes turned even dreamier. “They might have.”

  “Really?” She caressed his bare chest. “How about this?”

  He swallowed hard. Nodded. “Probably.”

  “You make it sound as if I have a bunch of first-aid-trained, low-self-esteem prostitutes on staff.” Smiling, Heather trailed her hands down Alex’s chest to his towel. She was dying to pull it off. But first . . . “When really, all I have are a few well-paid sycophants
and a couple of genuine friends.”

  Alex’s bedazzled gaze met hers. “Sycophants. Word of—”

  Heather cut him off with another kiss, not wanting to be reminded of the linguistic bond they used to share. “Enough talking.”

  He nodded. Heat leaped between them. At the thought of what was to come—what she’d yearned for all this time—Heather nearly squealed with excitement. She was finally going to be with Alex!

  They were going to kiss and hug and get naked. They were going to be sexy and playful and intimate. They were going to take their relationship to the next, most necessary level.

  She’d never wanted anything more. Not even a Grammy.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Alex said in a wiseass tone she loved. In an admirable show of post-chicken-pox strength, he hoisted her in his arms. “No more talking. Just a lot of loving. Coming up.”

  He was so romantic! With a sigh, Heather laid her head on his shoulder, waiting for Alex to carry her to the nearby king-size bed, honeymoon-style, and then make love to her. She could hardly wait. Any man who could want to get busy with her while she was wearing a tatty old Disney T-shirt was a keeper for sure. She loved Alex. She just loved him! He was so perfect.

  Well, except for that potential photo-related sabotage he might possibly (almost assuredly) be planning. But maybe Heather was wrong about that, she rationalized. In the face of immediate temptation, she’d developed a very accomplished ability to rationalize. That’s what working in showbiz did to a person.

  “Here we go.” Manfully, Alex adjusted his grip on her, headed for that cushy bed. Tenderly, his arms cradled her. Adroitly, his fingers flexed against her flannel-covered thighs.

  He stopped moving. An unusual expression crossed his face.

  Oh God. “Am I too heavy?” Heather blurted, knowing it was true. “I am, aren’t I? I should never have had so much popcorn!”

  But Alex hadn’t stopped because she was too heavy for him. After all, he routinely hoisted heavy beams while constructing sets, she recalled belatedly. But he did set her down anyway.

  Confused, Heather righted herself, only to see Alex peering down at his hand—where he now held his formerly contraband cell phone. She recognized it instantly. Had it fallen out of her pocket? Had he felt an unusual lump in her pajama pants pocket and effectively pickpocketed her to find out what it was?

  “This is my phone.” His gaze sharpened. “What are you doing with this?”

  Oh no. Not this. Not now. “Um, making . . . a call?”

  “Your phone is right there on the nightstand.”

  “Yours is . . . cooler?” Heather tried.

  That almost worked. Flattering Alex’s guy-centered gadget sense almost bought Heather enough time to regroup—enough time to get them back to romantic gestures and sweet words and love.

  Alex tightened his jaw. “You were spying on me.”

  Heather’s heart dropped to her unpedicured feet. This wasn’t the way she’d wanted things to go. She’d thought she was in the clear. In fact, she’d sort of forgiven Alex, generously ahead of time, for the treachery he was going to enact on her.

  How dare he act like the offended party here?

  “No, you were spying on me!” Heather huffed.

  His betrayed gaze seared into her. She knew she’d never forget it. “Is that really what you think?” Alex asked.

  “It looks that way, doesn’t it?” she said cryptically.

  “Yes,” he said. “It does. And I’m sorry for it.”

  With a sigh, he turned away. For a heartbeat, Heather wondered if she’d made a mistake. Could Alex be innocent?

  Standing with his back to her, still nearly naked and rippled with lean muscle, Alex bowed his head. “Most of all, I’m sorry for you, Heather. Because if you can’t trust me . . . this can’t happen between us. And I was really hoping it would happen.”

  That sounded sort of heartfelt. And intelligent. And mature, too. But Heather felt too wounded and baffled to listen anymore. This was all happening much too fast for her.

  “Oh yeah? Well, don’t feel sorry for me!” she said, jerking up her chin in a dramatic way. “Because I can have anyone I want.” Except you, her poor naïve heart insisted on whispering. Ignoring it, Heather stomped across the suite. “And there’s no reason I’d want a glorified carpenter for a boyfriend!”

  Alex flinched. His troubled sidelong gaze met hers. His shoulders slumped another fraction of an inch. But he didn’t argue with her assessment of him. Heather decided that meant she was right about him. He really had been planning to hurt her.

  Who was she kidding? He’d already hurt her. A million times over. He’d allowed her to hope things could be different.

  That was the worst thing anyone could do to someone else.

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “That’s what I figured. That you wouldn’t want someone like me for your boyfriend.”

  Heather wanted to disagree. After all, she’d spoken hastily and (admittedly) untruthfully. She loved his expertise at his job. She loved him, too. She didn’t care that Alex was neither famous nor sophisticated. But she had too much pride to give in. She had too much pragmatism (now that Alex had demonstrated how to practice critical thinking) to simply accept him at his word. Especially not when there was damning evidence right at hand.

  Those cell phone photos of her had been awful. Furthermore, Alex did not, after all, have any chicken pox spots. Heather could see that for herself now, plain as day, after his shower.

  He’d been faking. He’d been pretending about . . . everything.

  Maybe he’d even been the one feeding the tabloids those bogus stories about Heather and her supposed bohemian boy toy.

  Four minutes later, Alex had dressed. Thirty seconds after that, he was at their suite’s door. There, he stopped.

  He’s going to say he didn’t mean it, Heather prayed. Then she could say she hadn’t meant it, either. Everything would be fine between them. That was the way arguments worked, wasn’t it?

  That was the way, in her experience, relationships worked.

  “If you ever decide to get real,” Alex said, “look me up.”

  “Ha!” Heather burst out, feeling as though her heart might be splintering somehow. “As if that will ever happen.”

  That I’ll call you, I mean, she thought. Not that I’ll get “real.” But by then it was too late. She was terrible at this.

  Alex cast her a final glance over his shoulder. “I hope it does happen. You deserve it, Heather. You deserve . . . everything.”

  His measured tone only made her want to shriek. Don’t go! was what she, specifically, wanted to howl. But she didn’t.

  “I already have everything,” Heather said smugly.

  Alex’s nod seemed to confirm it. But his eyes disagreed.

  So did her heart. Because she didn’t have him. She didn’t have love. And above everything else, Heather wanted that most.

  Why couldn’t she just say so? Why couldn’t she fix this?

  Was she just that dumb, that the obvious solution escaped her?

  With a woeful look, Alex raised his palm in a good-bye gesture. It felt like the last thing she would ever see him do.

  “You can’t go out there!” Heather blurted, unable to resist a last-ditch effort to make him stay. “You’re contagious!”

  Alex hesitated. Her heart performed a somersault.

  If he stayed, it would be a bona fide Christmas miracle.

  Reminded of that, Heather got even more desperate.

  “And it’s almost Christmas. Stay until Christmas!”

  It was as close to begging as she was willing to come.

  It almost seemed to work, too. Alex actually turned around. He gave her the ghost of a smile, making her heart lurch. “You really don’t pay attention to anyone except yourself, do you?”

  That stung. It confused her, too. What did paying attention to people have to do with Alex enjoying a few sugar cookies, some gifts, and maybe a karaoke Christmas carol or
two?

  Willing, now that it was crunch time, to swallow her pride a tiny bit, Heather smiled. “Please stay for Christmas.”

  Alex shook his head. “I’m Jewish. I told you that.”

  Uh-oh. Vaguely, Heather remembered that. “I . . . forgot?”

  But before she could concoct a more reasonable excuse for not paying attention to something as important as his heritage and personal beliefs, Alex opened the door . . . and left their suite.

  Stuck on her own with her troubling thoughts, Heather scowled at the empty doorway. “I don’t have to remember!” she yelled after him in her haughtiest tone. “I’m Heather Miller!”

  But for the first time in her life, that didn’t help.

  Because all at once, being Heather Miller was anything but fabulous . . . and facing down the rest of the night alone was going to leave her with far too much time to think about that.

  Chapter 17

  Downtown Kismet, Michigan

  T-minus 16.25 (kiss-filled) days until Christmas

  After Casey hastily parked his car downstairs near the coffee shop, he and Kristen hurried hand in hand toward her apartment. A light snowfall blanketed the quiet downtown Kismet streets, squeaking under their boots and diffusing the light from the garland-wrapped wrought-iron streetlamps. They reached an obscure door, just to the left of the coffee shop’s decorated plate-glass window, and turned-off-for-the-night neon sign.

  “It’s just in here.” With gloved hands, Kristen fumbled through her purse. She extracted a jangling set of keys, her breath frosty on the night air. “Down the hall, up the stairs—”

  “Sounds too far to go,” Casey said, and kissed her.

  Their mouths met in the semidarkness, open and hot and seeking more, and kissing Kristen felt exactly as good to Casey then as it had just moments ago, when he’d kissed her in the car. Within seconds of making his move, he’d been crushed against the driver’s side door as Kristen had all but pole-vaulted over the center console to meet him (more than) halfway.

  Panting and kissing and touching, unwilling to wait a second longer, they’d fogged up the car’s windows and tried to get closer. They’d nearly succeeded, too—until a late-night dog walker had happened past with a jingle-bell-wearing schnauzer on a leash and inadvertently broken the spell between them.