Once Upon a Christmas (32 page)

Before she could protest being served breakfast while she
was still half-dressed, four more hotel employees came in through the opened
honeymoon suite doorway. Uniformed and carrying instruments, they gathered
beside the room service cart. All four of them stared at Stacey, then turned
expectantly to Dylan. “Are you ready for us, sir?”

“You bet!” Looking boyish and pleased with his
surprise, Dylan stuck the plate of food in Stacey’s hand. “That is,
breakfast in bed
with music
. I’ll bet you’ve never tried this before.”

She hadn’t. Balancing her filled plate in one hand, Stacey
hauled the covers higher and watched the musicians. They quickly tuned up, then
launched into a twangy-sounding Christmas carol. Grinning, they drifted toward
her and surrounded the bed. The music got louder. So did the sound of someone
banging on the wall of the neighboring hotel room.

Dylan ducked beneath the upraised arm of the violinist,
carrying a filled breakfast plate of his own. Climbing on the silk comforter,
he settled against the headboard beside Stacey with perfect assurance, despite
the fact that he still wasn’t fully dressed.

“Do you like it?” he asked. “Are you
surprised?”

“I’m surprised, all right.” What she
wasn’t
was hungry. Not with a T-shirt and panties wardrobe and four strange men grinning
down at her as they played the southwestern version of “Merry Christmas,
Baby.” For Dylan’s sake, and for the sake of the honeymoon charade, Stacey
picked up a strip of bacon and nibbled it.

The music picked up tempo. Dylan smiled at her, bobbing his head
along with the music as he packed away forkfuls of pancakes dripping with
butter and maple syrup. Trying to get into the swing of things, Stacey forked
up some scrambled eggs.

They shook off her fork and landed in her lap. She tried
another bite. It wiggled off the tines, too. That’s when she realized the bed
was vibrating. The musicians’ knees bumped rhythmically against the mattress as
they played their hearts out for the “honeymooners.” Somebody pounded
again on the other side of the neighboring hotel room wall, but everyone else
seemed too engrossed in the music to notice.

This was way too much activity for a Saturday morning.

And Dylan was doing far too much to take over the honeymoon
suite charade. This was
her
problem. She’d be the one to solve it. Her
way.

“This isn’t very inconspicuous,” Stacey remarked.
Doing her best not to flash the six hotel employees gathered around their bed,
she eased her plate onto the bedside table then snuggled the comforter up to
her chin again. “I thought we had a deal.”

“What?” Dylan cupped his ear and leaned closer.

“Inconspicuous, remember?”

The musicians charged into the final chorus of the song.
Their hotel room neighbor banged away at the wall, suddenly sounding strangely
as though he was keeping time with the music. It was like breakfasting amidst a
full-blown holiday fiesta.

Dylan frowned. “What? I can’t hear you.”

“Please make them leave.”

“What?”

“
Make them leave
!” Stacey yelled as the
music stopped.

Shocked silence filled the honeymoon suite. The musicians froze
in place, their instruments lowered halfway. The guitar player shook his head.
Five pairs of sad eyes—Dylan’s included—stared back at her.

“Sorry,” she peeped.

“My wife gets terrible migraine headaches,” Dylan
explained rapidly, rising from the bed with more quick thinking than Stacey
would have credited him with. “I’m sorry. The music was wonderful, but I’m
afraid that’ll have to be all for now.“Guilt-stricken, Stacey pulled the
black silk comforter over her head and listened to Dylan explain away their
abbreviated morning serenade. Their neighbor had quit banging on the wall, she
noticed. Dylan would be disappointed—he might not have called the hotel
management to complain yet. You couldn’t get much more conspicuous than having
yourself reprimanded by the management for unruly behavior.

Probably that had been Dylan’s plan all along. Why not? It
wasn’t
his
family at stake. He’d decided on a course of action for the
honeymoon suite charade, and by God, he meant to follow through with it. No
matter what she wanted.

Money rustled in his wallet, many pairs of feet shuffled
toward the doorway…then, silence. Stacey poked her head out.

“What did you think you were doing?” she yelled,
scrambling for her pajama bottoms. She found them and managed to pin Dylan with
her most scathing look as she yanked them on beneath the covers. “All I
wanted was a nice, peaceful breakfast in a little café someplace, away from all
the craziness of this hotel—and especially away from this honeymoon suite. So
what did you do? Invite in four people to join us!”

“Aunt Geraldine—”

“Don’t even give me that.” Shaking, Stacey threw
back the covers and, finally dressed, leaped out of bed. She stomped over to
where Dylan stood and put her hands on her hips. “This might have been
another one of Aunt Geraldine’s honeymoon surprises, but you took every
possible advantage of it.”

“I thought you were enjoying it.”

She had been. A little.

But that was beside the point.

“You’re just, just, just”—she cranked her arm in
the air, trying to summon up an explanation—“just taking over everything!
You bulldozed in here, made me take you on as a partner in this stupid charade—”

“Wait a minute. You agreed that I—”

“No,
you
agreed.” Stacey shook her head. “You
agreed you should be here. You agreed you weren’t leaving until the weekend was
over.
You
agreed I needed help.”

Dylan gazed over her shoulder, probably hoping she’d wrap up
her tirade soon so he could go back to his pancakes. His indifference only
infuriated her more. Even now he wasn’t listening to her.

Just like Charlie.

“As usual,” she said as she folded her arms to
hide her trembling hands, “you didn’t stop to consider what I wanted.”

His gaze slipped to her face. His expression sobered. “That’s
not true,” Dylan said quietly. “All I thought of this morning was
what you wanted. What you’d like.”

She unfolded her arms and paced across the suite. Why couldn’t
he see how everything he’d done made it impossible for her to even find out
what she wanted? He hadn’t so much as asked what she wanted for breakfast or
where she wanted to go—or what kind of musical accompaniment she’d like, Stacey
fumed. Dylan was a man who intended to be in charge, and he’d put himself
squarely there.

“But what about our deal, our deal to be inconspicuous?”
She hated the wail in her voice but was unable to squash it in time. “You’re
breaking our deal right and left.”

“I only thought of what would please you.”
Crossing the suite’s plush carpet, Dylan stopped beside her and rubbed his
hands gently along her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

“That’s what they always say.”

He dropped his hands from her shoulders. Obviously, Dylan
had no defense. “No. But I’ll bet that’s what your ex-husband used to say.
The difference here is, I mean it.”

Wavering, Stacey stared at him, trying to gauge if what he
said was true. Was she overreacting because of her past with Charlie?

No. Dylan really
was
trying to take over the
honeymoon charade. The breakfast had only been more proof of that. Still, she
supposed it was possible he meant well.

She bit her lip, then reached out to touch his shoulder. “Oh,
Dylan, I don’t know. This whole thing has me going nuts. If I survive the
weekend, it’ll be a miracle.” He couldn’t help wanting to be in charge.
That was just the way he was. Who was she to hold it against him? “I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean—”

He held up his hand. His gaze swept the room service cart
and their empty bed, then came to rest on her face. “No need to explain.”
His mouth twisted into a half smile that somehow hurt her more than the anger
she expected. “I understand. You’ve got me confused with someone else. We’ll
have to change that, won’t we?”

She gazed up at him without the slightest idea how to reply.
She’d been so certain of his motives. But if Dylan really didn’t care what she
wanted, then why did he look so disappointed?

“Enjoy your breakfast,” he went on quietly. “I’ll
be in the shower, getting ready for the rest of this charade. We’ve got a golf
date in a little more than an hour.”

Before she could answer, he disappeared into the bathroom
and closed the door behind him. Hugging herself, Stacey stared at the door as
the shower spray turned on, punctuating the end of their discussion.

The end of the easy playfulness between them.

And the end of her certainty about anything.

Chapter Six

“Not quite what you expected?” Dylan smiled at
Stacey, stretching his arms overhead with a golf putter in hand.

If her expression was anything to go by, she’d expected to
set foot on a course very different than the one they’d arrived at twenty
minutes ago in fulfillment of Aunt Geraldine’s next honeymoon surprise.

Of course, he could be totally off-base.

It wouldn’t be the first time he was wrong about her.

Dylan lowered his putter and leaned on it, watching the
enticing sway of Stacey’s hips as she traveled the length of the path leading
to their tee-off point.

“No, not quite what I expected,” she called,
propping her putter over her shoulder. She stepped toward him looking like some
department store’s version of Sporty Femininity, wearing canvas sneakers, a
flippy white skirt, and Dylan’s favorite bit of attire, a chest-hugging pale
pink sweater. “But I like it. It’s cute.”

So was she. She stopped next to him, beside the statue of a
giant saucer and teacup emblazoned with the words Tee-Time, and looked around.
The miniature golf course surrounding them was filled with meandering paths,
statues, the requisite windmill, a pond with a waterfall, and huge plaster
apple trees.

Shading her eyes, Stacey gazed over it all. “Finally.
We can just relax and be ourselves for a few hours.”

As a dig about their breakfast-in-bed plans gone awry, it
was pretty mild. But the memory of her reaction to this morning’s surprise
added enough bite to her remark to make it sting. Dylan still wasn’t sure how
things had gone so wrong, so fast.

Strike one, the Renaissance dinner.

Strike two, the breakfast serenade.

Strike three…and he’d be out of the action for good. If he
was going to convince Stacey to give him another try, he’d have to be more
careful the next time he planned a romantic surprise.

Turning, Stacey flipped her putter from her shoulder. It
swung through the air with a whoosh, forcing Dylan to duck or else be brained
with the thing. He surfaced at eye level with her waist as she spun around.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

Not thinking about miniature golf, that was for sure
.
Her snug sweater had ridden up as she moved, revealing a smooth glimpse of
belly and driving all golf-related thoughts straight out of his mind. Probably
part of her strategy.

“Warming up,” Dylan improvised, making good on his
claim by touching his toes a couple of times. He straightened to a skeptical
wrinkling of her nose and added several side-to-side windmills for good
measure.

Stacey raised her eyebrows. “The better to play
competitive mini-golf, I suppose?”

“Yeah. Aggressive game, if you play it right.” He
bent his knee in a quadriceps stretch, grabbing his foot and raising it until
it touched the back of his pants.

He smiled. She’d never believe his cutthroat mini-golf
story, but it was too late to turn back now. He’d just have to show Stacey he
was serious. About this, about the honeymoon charade…about having a second
chance with her.

Any self-respecting guy would still be mad at her, after her
blatant lack of appreciation for his first Big Romantic Gesture. Looking at her
now, Dylan guessed his willingness to forgive and forget meant he valued
spending time with Stacey more than he valued that particular brand of
self-respect.

He grabbed his other foot and repeated the quadriceps stretch,
ignoring her open skepticism. “You’ll be sore tomorrow if you don’t
stretch out,” he warned. “Don’t come crying to me if you wake up and
can’t move.”

“That’s what the masseuse is for.”

She twirled to pick up one of their assigned golf balls. Her
skirts flared with the movement. So did Dylan’s body heat level. The woman
could interest him more with a glance in his direction than most women could
with a bikini, a bucket of body oil, and a blatant invitation.

“I’ll put myself in the masseuse’s capable hands,”
Stacey added.
Speaking of body oil
, Dylan groused silently. She tossed
her bright orange golf ball into the air and caught it again neatly in her
palm. “And come out feeling better than ever,” she finished, smiling
at him.

He hoped not. Dylan didn’t think of himself as a violent
man, but the idea of the nameless honeymoon surprise masseuse touching Stacey
made him feel like punching the guy in the nose. He gazed out over the golf
course to cover the sudden surge of unearned possessiveness he felt and
tightened his grip on his putter.

“So,” Stacey said, sounding tentative. “Do we
start here?”

He turned to find her frowning down at the bright
indoor-outdoor carpeted green, still tossing her ball. Nah. She couldn’t mean
what he thought she meant.

“You’ve never played mini-golf before?”

“You say that as if it’s un-American, or something.”

She hadn’t
. “It
is
un-American. What kind
of childhood did you have, anyway?”

“A perfectly normal one,” she assured him.

“Not without mini-golf.” He edged up behind her, guided
Stacey’s putter in her hands, and covered her fingers with his own. “First
you hold the putter.” He bent low enough to speak against her ear. “Just
like this.”