Together for Christmas (16 page)

So far, Shane Maresca was the only person Casey couldn’t “fix”—the only person he’d ever failed to come to terms with.

“—since I’ve encountered a blatant bullshit artist like you,” his former best friend went on. He gave an acknowledging wave. “I’ll admit it: I did go for it at first. You were pretty convincing. You wound me up with all that competitiveness—”

That part had been real, Casey knew. But he didn’t say so.

“—then you got transfixed by all the people outside, which meant
I
had to know who was so fascinating out there.” Shaking his head, Shane chuckled. “You’ve been pulling that trick since we were young enough to still believe in happy endings, bro.”

“You know as well as I do—there aren’t any happy endings.”

Shane arched his brow. “Even with your new lady friend?”

Casey didn’t want to talk about Kristen. Especially not with Shane. He compressed his lips, then looked outside.

He swore. “Another blizzard is on its way.”

Shane laughed. “Jesus, you’re ham-fisted today. Am I supposed to actually bite on that? The
weather?
”

Most people would have, Casey knew. Maybe he’d forgotten how long it had been since he’d seen Shane, too.

Maybe he’d forgotten how well Shane knew him.

That didn’t exactly bode well for the job at hand.

It was a long shot, but . . . “Tell me you’re not here for the Heather Miller job,” Casey said. “Because if you’re not—”

“If I’m not, then we can be friends?” Shane’s laid-back look turned a few degrees sharper. “Nice try. I don’t buy it.”

Casey shrugged. He could accept that. He’d learned a long time ago not to get too close to people. There was no reason Shane should be the exception. Or Kristen, for that matter.

“How’s La Vieuville?” Casey asked. “Did you see him last time you were in Paris? You’re still neighbors, right?”

“Jacques is doing well.”

“Still working on those S&M-themed designs he loves?”

Shane’s wary look was as good as a yes, Casey figured.

“If you get a chance, you should check out the animatronic reindeer displays around town. I hear they’re . . . unique.” Casey pulled out his car keys. “You’ll like the bondage elements.”

For a few seconds, Casey waited. But Shane knew better than to tip his hand straightaway. When he’d been bragging to Kristen about his Paris pied-à-terre and the “diplomats and designers” who were his neighbors, he probably hadn’t expected Casey to be familiar with his association with Jacques La Vieuville.

Then Casey got lucky. Or Shane got sloppy. Either way . . .

“If you’re suggesting my friendship with Jacques had something to do with his involvement in—let’s be honest here—the fucked-up costume design for Heather Miller’s TV special . . .” Shane spread his hands in sham innocence. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. I wasn’t even on the job when that decision was made.”

“Right. And it would be
so
unlike you to hedge your bets,” Casey said acerbically, “just in case you got called in later.”

“Totally.” Shane turned jovial again. “We’re all hoping Heather Miller’s special goes off without a hitch. Right?”

“Yeah.” Frowning anew, Casey held up his hand in a curt good-bye. Then he reconsidered. “Just do me a favor, okay?”

With even more guardedness than before, Shane waited.

For a heartbeat, Casey had the impression Shane was hoping that his “favor” would mean . . . what, exactly? That he was asking for a détente? A cease-fire? A
reconciliation?

The way he saw it, they’d lost that chance long ago.

“Stay away from Kristen,” Casey said. “She’s not used to people like you.”

Shane shook his head. “People like
us,
you mean.”

Maybe. But Casey didn’t want to say so. “Just do it.”

To his surprise, Shane conceded. Partway. “I’ll think about it.” He glanced around the B&B’s foyer, filled with twinkling lights and mini fir trees and enough evergreen garland to reach from Kismet to L.A., if laid end to end. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” Shane said quietly, “but . . . Merry Christmas.”

For a second, Casey believed he meant it. He remembered everything they’d shared, everything they’d confided in one another, everything they’d been through as “difficult to place” kids in a tumultuous foster care system. Then he remembered that, once upon a time, Shane Maresca had taken everything Casey had ever wanted for Christmas, and he’d taken it for good.

That memory still hurt. Every time Casey heard a Christmas carol, every time he saw a Christmas tree, every time he smelled a rum-soaked glacéed fruitcake, it knifed him all over again.

“Yeah.” Casey nodded. “I can’t believe you’re saying that, either,” he said. Then he opened the door and stepped out of the past and into his future—starting with a surprise visit to the set of Heather Miller’s troubled holiday TV special.

For the first time in her life, Heather Miller felt like a verifiable
genius
. Because although her plan to sic Casey on Kristen (temporarily) while Heather tried to woo Alex Taylor into falling in love with her had been an admittedly spur-of-the-moment thing, it seemed to be working out
wonderfully
.

It had been three days now since The Terminator had shown up unexpectedly on set. Since then, Heather had been through sixteen more vocab words on her Word of the Day calendar (because she had to stay ahead of Alex, of course). She’d endured five more outrageous rumors about her private life (thanks to those loser paparazzis). And she’d wrangled several more delays on the pretaped portions of her “live” holiday TV special (with the end result of seeing
lots
of Alex). But she’d heard not a peep from Kristen about the potential problems she’d unleashed on her in the form of Casey Jackson. And while that wasn’t typical of her straight-talking, take-no-guff younger sister, it wasn’t like Heather to look a gift favor in the mouth, either.

Casey,
of course, had been back. Heather’s assistant had told her that Casey had made a surprise visit on the evening of day one, just as everyone was wrapping things up after another day of (purposely) failing to make their shooting targets. But, according to her assistant’s (besotted-sounding) coverage of that visit, all Casey had wanted was to “say hi” to everyone.

After that, supposedly, he planned to leave them alone.

And okay, so
first
he’d mentioned to the production crew—and the backup dancers and the makeup artists and the hairstylists and the PAs and the few lingering, allegedly infatuated-with-him extras—that he’d be working from a rented booth at the Galaxy Diner, Heather recalled her assistant saying. And he’d assured everyone that they could find him there, if they had problems to confide, and he’d do his best to help them. But that was it.

And
that’s
where Casey Jackson had tripped up, too.

Because now Heather knew Casey’s M.O.: his
modus operandi
(thank you, Word of the Day from two weeks into the future!), and even better than that, she knew it wasn’t going to work.

Because everybody
already
went to the Galaxy Diner on a daily basis. They didn’t
need
to go there to see
Casey
. Duh.

He’d accomplished exactly
zero
with his “cunning” plan.

Remembering it now, Heather had to conclude that fate was conspiring to help her. How else to explain that Kristen had conveniently refused to hand-deliver her top-secret-recipe, extra-delicious pies-in-a-jar and other goodies (like mushroom veggie burgers and homemade potato tots, yum!) to the crew on set? Kristen had claimed that she didn’t have the time or the resources to do deliveries. She’d also added that she didn’t intend to give her own sister “the diva treatment.”

But to Heather, that had been all right. Because she’d already known by then that she was desperate to make Alex Taylor notice her. Having the crew scamper several blocks away for “coffee breaks” on a moment’s notice only helped her cause of delaying production while she enchanted Alex and tried to get him to look at her more closely through his sexy, nerdy, cutie-pie glasses.

Not that Casey Jackson knew that. That’s where the fate part came in. Casey didn’t know anything about Kristen’s pledge to treat Heather like a regular person (which was kind of endearing but ultimately doomed, of course). He probably thought he’d outwitted Heather and separated her from her staff so they could rat her out. But that only proved Heather’s theory. Because anyone who was really trying to do his job of cold-heartedly shutting down her holiday TV special would have done the necessary research and come up with a better strategy.

It was almost, Heather thought as she peered into her dressing room mirror, as if Casey Jackson was one of those people who was just marking time. A clock puncher. A slacker.

A
malingerer
. That was a funny one. She smiled as she thought of it. Sometimes she was pretty sure her Word of the Day calendar was making up new words. There was no other way to explain a goofy-sounding, so-called word like
malingerer.

“Maaaaliiiingerererer,” Heather said into her mirror.

“I’m three minutes late! You don’t have to call me names.”

She turned at that sound . . . and Alex was there, smiling at her.
Yay
. He’d maintained his businesslike cover by bringing some new set-design plans to their “meeting.” He’d dressed the part of a hardworking crew member by wearing a sweatshirt, gloves, and his pair of broken-in jeans with the busted-out knees that hugged his backside to perfection. But Heather knew that he knew that she knew that they weren’t
really
there to discuss the set.

“Sorry! Just practicing one of my Words of the Day!”

“No problem.” Alex paused, looking charmingly concerned and polite and seductive. “Should we have our meeting later?”

Okay. Maybe he
didn’t
realize what they were there for.

But she knew he was brilliant enough to get it, if she made things clearer. So Heather rose from her seat. She sashayed her way toward him, using her best girl-on-the-prowl walk (the one she’d used in her last music video). Then she gave him a smile.

“No, stay,” she purred. “Right now is perfect for me.”

You’re perfect for me,
she longed to say, but didn’t.

Because she couldn’t afford to overplay her hand. Not now. Not when she was close. Not when she’d already—

Rats!
She’d already forgotten her prop: her book of poetry.

Hastily, Heather grabbed it. She opened it at random, squinted at the pages, then nodded. “Yes, it’s a perfect time.” She peered at Alex. “I was just doing a little light reading.”

“Are those new glasses you’re wearing?”

“Hmm? These old things?”
Special ordered
.
With rush delivery
. A nonchalant shrug. “I wear them sometimes.”

He looked at the spine of her book. “‘. . . and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart,’” Alex said in a dreamy-sounding voice. “‘i carry your heart (I carry it in my heart).’”

Heather gawked. That was
beautiful
. But . . . “Huh?”

“Your book.” Alex raised his brows. “E.E. Cummings?”

She looked at the spine. She laughed. “Oh yeah. Right!”

God. She
really
had to start actually
reading
this stuff.

“I love his work.” Alex gestured. “Can I see it?”

Heather shoved the book at him. “Keep it! It’s yours!”

“I can afford books, princess. I just want to see if one of my favorite poems is in this volume, so I can show it to you. I think you’ll like it. ‘My father moved through dooms of love’?”

“My father moved through the use of the air horn and the interstate highway system. He was a long-haul trucker.”

“No, that’s the first line of the poem.” Alex shot her an inquisitive look. “You haven’t heard of it, I guess? It’s one of his best-known works. It was originally published in
50 Poems
.”

This was getting out of hand. Heather laughed. “Actually, I’ve had my nose stuck in the tabloids lately. I didn’t want to admit it, but . . .” She paused for dramatic effect, knowing her next revelation would definitely get Alex’s attention. “Now they think I’m pregnant!” she cried. “They think I’ve been running around all over town with some sexy bohemian boy toy!”

At that, Alex’s frown deepened.

Heather’s heart raced.
It was working
. It was really working. Alex’s reaction was worth all the aggravation and trauma she’d been through over those vicious rumors.

For about two minutes, she’d seriously wondered if
Kristen
was pregnant, and the paps had somehow confused the two of them. Kristen insisted that sometimes happened to her, even though it
never
happened (in reverse) to Heather. But no. There was definitely something more nefarious going on. Because the tabloids actually had
pictures
of “Heather” making out with her “boy toy” all over town. They had snaps of her “baby bump,” too.

Heather was starting to wonder if Kristen was
purposely
causing those rumors to spread somehow, out of petty envy or competitiveness or spite or . . . something else that was mean.

Granted, that kind of behavior wouldn’t be typical of Kristen. At all. But those photos were pretty damning evidence. There weren’t that many people who resembled Heather—complete with leopard-print coat, blond hair, and huge sunglasses—and she couldn’t think of another explanation for it. Unless she’d been experiencing short-term amnesia. And then forgotten it.

“You shouldn’t worry about it, though,” she assured Alex, gently stroking his muscular arm to reassure him. “It’s not me. I’m pretty sure there’s a crazy ‘Heather Miller’ impostor in town who’s pretending to be me. Probably someone I went to high school with, who’s envious of my success. That happens a lot.”

Privately, Heather congratulated herself for
not
revealing her semi-suspicions that her own sister might be involved. Even for Alex’s sake, she refused to throw Kristen under the bus.