Christmas On Nutcracker Court (19 page)

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Authors: Judy Duarte

BOOK: Christmas On Nutcracker Court
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Grant's hair, which was usually a lot longer than Max would have ever worn his, had been cut and styled. When he noticed Max, he gave a quick nod of his chin in greeting. “Hey, how's it going?”
“Not bad.”
“You're out and about early today,” Grant said.
Max didn't see the need to explain what he was up to or why. He just lifted the briefcase he held and said, “Business meeting.”
They stood like that for a moment, both a little surprised to see each other anywhere other than Nutcracker Court.
“Nice haircut,” Max said.
“Thanks.” Grant nodded toward the salon. “The stylist was Carly.”
“Oh, yeah?” How was that for a coincidence? “Have you been going to her long?”
“No, this was my first visit.”
“She did a good job.”
Grant chuckled. “I think so, too, but even if she'd whacked it all off, I'd probably make another appointment. She's a real sweetheart and nice to look at, too.”
Max, who kept things close to the vest, wasn't about to admit that he had a lunch date with that same sweetheart of a stylist. Okay, so their meeting wasn't actually a date.
Before either man could continue, Lynette, the young blonde who played poker with the Diamond Lils at Helen's house, came out of the shop.
She winked at Grant and said hello to Max.
Another coincidence? Before Max could come to a conclusion, she said, “I've gotta run. I'll see you guys later.” Then she struck off down the street, swaying her denim-clad hips.
Grant must have noticed the question in Max's eyes because he said, “Lynette's been trying to set me up with Carly, her hairdresser.”
“Oh, yeah?” The news had an unsettling effect, although Max had no idea why. Maybe because he felt a little protective of Carly and her kids, and he didn't think Grant was the kind of guy she needed.
“Actually,” Grant said, as he looked down the street, “when Lynette first approached me about making an appointment with her hairstylist, I thought she was hitting on me. But she threw me a curve when she said I'd really like Carly.”
Max could see how that might come out of the blue. In his mind, Grant and Lynette made a better match.
“To be honest,” Grant added, “I was a little disappointed at first, but then I met Carly, and she's a knockout.”
Max had noticed. And he couldn't fault Grant for thinking so, too.
“I hear she's got a couple of kids,” he found himself throwing out there, although he wasn't entirely sure why he had. To inject a dose of reality, he supposed, and maybe put a damper on a possible romance that might crash and burn eventually.
“Yeah, well, it's only dinner on Saturday night. It's not like I'm expecting anything to develop between us. But who knows?”
Well, Max knew—or at least, he had plenty of doubts about things working out between those two. One time, when he and Grant had been shooting the breeze, Grant had mentioned loving the bachelor life. And Carly, with her ready-made family, was sure to end those beach-boy days and hot-tub nights.
“Good luck,” Max said, being a little more sarcastic than sincere.
“Thanks, but I'm not sure I even want to be lucky. Either way, Carly's the kind of woman a man wouldn't mind looking at from across the table or spending the evening with, so no matter what happens, a dinner date isn't going to be a waste of time.”
Max would be looking across the table at her in a few short minutes. And he didn't think it would be a waste of his time, either.
 
 
After Grant left, Max had been tempted to enter the salon, find Carly, and ask if he should wait until they could leave together, but he'd told her he would meet her at the restaurant and decided to stick with the game plan.
When he entered the California Bistro, a trendy little eatery just down the street, he approached the matronly hostess.
“Just one for lunch?” she asked.
“No, I'm waiting for a lady. There's going to be two of us.”
The hostess reached for a couple of menus. “Would you like me to seat you now? Or would you rather wait for your friend?”
He was just about to say that he wasn't in any rush to be seated when Carly entered the diner wearing a breezy smile.
“Hi,” she said. “I'm sorry I'm late.”
“No problem. I just walked in.”
Even though the hostess was prepared to lead them to their table, Max couldn't help sketching an appreciative gaze over Carly, making note of sable brown hair that cloaked her shoulders, a pair of blue-green eyes highlighted by long dark lashes, a pretty mouth with a fresh application of pink lipstick.
She smiled again, and his pulse spiked.
You'd think that this was a real date and not just a neighborly favor of one lost soul helping out another.
The hostess took them to a quiet table for two, which bore a white linen covering and a black ceramic bud vase holding a single red rose.
As the hostess pulled out a chair for Carly, Max took the seat across from her.
“I'll leave these with you,” the hostess said, handing them menus before she returned to the front of the restaurant.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Max said. “How long do you have?”
She glanced at her watch. “I had an hour, but we're down to fifty-three minutes now. I had a phone call I needed to return.”
“Then I'll talk fast.” He shot her a casual smile, and when she returned it, he couldn't help feeling a little like a nerdy tenth-grader who'd just gotten introduced to a varsity cheerleader.
Had Grant felt the same way earlier?
“I'm not sure how much I can help you,” Carly said, “especially since I don't know what your problem is.”
“Actually, it's a fictional problem.”
She stiffened and furrowed her brow. “You mean you only made up an excuse to meet me for lunch?”
“No, I didn't do
that
.” Apparently she didn't know that he was an author—or at least, a wannabe at this point. “It's a
real
fictional problem. I'm writing a novel, and it seems that I've written myself into a corner. So I was hoping to get a woman's perspective on a scene that's not working.”
“I had no idea that you were an author. Do you have a pen name?”
He couldn't count how many times that happened. Whenever he mentioned writing a book, people just assumed he was already published with hardbound novels on the shelves.
“I haven't sold the manuscript yet,” he admitted, “but I've gotten some positive feedback from an agent and would like to get the full manuscript back to him before his office closes for Christmas and New Year's, but I'm at a crossroads. I need to either cut a character completely out of the story, which is what I probably ought to do. Or . . . Well, this might sound weird to someone who doesn't write, but the characters seem to have taken this story and run away with it.”
“That's interesting.” She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “A runaway plot?”
“Not exactly. The action works well, and I like what's happening so far, but my protagonist's wife just dropped a bomb on him, and . . . Well, that's where I was hoping you'd come in and tell me what I'm missing.”
She merely looked at him, as if not knowing what to say, what to do.
“I . . . uh . . .” He reached for the briefcase he'd left on the floor next to his seat. “I brought a scene for you to read—that is, if you don't mind.”
She didn't say no, so he flipped open the briefcase, pulled out his pages, and handed them to her.
“I'm not sure how helpful I'll be,” she said, taking them from him. “What kind of a book is it?”
“A men's action-adventure novel, I guess. It's got some suspense . . .”
“Blood, guns, guts?”
“A little bad language, too. Would you be opposed to reading it?”
“No, but all I can do is give you a reader's perspective.”
And that's just what he wanted—a female reader—although he wasn't sure that his book would appeal to most women.
She glanced at the pages he'd given her—about ten, double-spaced—then started reading.
In the meantime, the busboy brought them water with lemon slices, as well as a basket of bread. Max thanked him, but Carly seemed oblivious to those around her. That was, he decided, a good sign. She was pulled right into the story.
It took all he had not to get up, circle the table, and read over her shoulder. But he bided his time, taking a sip of water, reaching for a slice of bread, and trying to pretend as though he could actually look at the menu and make a choice.
When the waiter came by to take their orders, Max waved him off. “Just a minute,” he mouthed to the guy.
Finally, when Max didn't think he could take the suspense any longer, Carly looked up from the pages.
“Logan's a jerk,” she said. “Is he the bad guy?”
Was she kidding?
Of course, she only had ten pages that were taken from the last third of the book, so he cut her some slack. “No, he's not the villain. He's the protagonist. He's sharp, and he doesn't take any crap from anyone.”
Carly sat back in her seat. “Yeah, well now his wife isn't taking any crap from him.”
She had a point, he supposed. And it looked as though she'd hit the same wall he had. Of course, she didn't have a synopsis to go by and had no idea how he'd planned to wrap things up.
“So now what?” he asked. “Logan can't chase after her.”
“Why can't he?”
“Because he's tough. And he's not the kind of man who would beg a woman to stay.”
At that moment, the waiter eased closer again, and Max nodded.
“We'd better order,” Max said. “Or you won't have a chance to eat.”
“Can I answer any questions for you?” the waiter asked. “Or do you already know what you'd like to eat?”
Carly said, “I'll take the tortilla soup.”
Max wanted something heartier than that. “What's your special?”
“Fish tacos,” the waiter said.
“Great. I'll have that.”
The guy nodded, then took off, leaving them alone again.
“Okay,” Max said. “Here's what I'm thinking. Maybe I need to kill off Priscilla. Or do you think it would be best to eliminate her character completely?”
“You can't do
that
.”
“Why can't I?”
“Because I like her. And I felt myself cheering for her when she left him.”
Oh, brother. Maybe asking Carly to read the scene had been a bad idea.
“You're just saying that because you're a woman,” Max said. “And if I do what you're suggesting, I'd turn a men's action/adventure novel into a romance.”
“I'm not telling you to do anything. It's your book, but I think there needs to be some emotion here on Logan's part. How was he feeling when she walked out? Did he feel crushed, betrayed, guilty, what?”
“That's the problem,” Max said. “I don't know what he's feeling. And I don't have a clue why I even let him be married in the first place. He'd make a much better bachelor.”
“Well, there you go.” Carly set his pages on an empty part of the table, leaned back in her seat, and crossed her arms. “Why did they get married? What did Priscilla see in him? Why did they fall in love?”
“I don't know.” The comment came out a little snarkier than it should have, but he couldn't help it. “And who said anything about love? Maybe they were just sexually attracted to each other and found marriage convenient.”
“That's your problem,” she said, as if she had some kind of literary degree. “You're afraid of having any emotion in your book.”
“I've got emotion—fear, anxiety, anger.”
“But not love.”
“This is
not
a romance.”
“I'm not saying that you need to have a happily-ever-after ending. They can actually divorce, if you want them to. But he's got to feel something about the loss of his wife, about the failure of his marriage. And until you get a handle on that, I don't think you're going to sell it to anyone—an agent, an editor, or a reader.”
Max chuffed. “Maybe I should just eliminate her character completely. Maybe Logan is a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor. Or maybe his first love cheated on him, so he's sworn off women for good.”

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