Together for Christmas (33 page)

Including her heart. She’d kept it to herself long enough.

“Well, my part’s done.” Casey pushed away his mason jar, then rubbed his flat belly. “I guess we have a deal.”

“I guess we do.” Kristen tossed aside his shirt. Arms empty—but not for long—she sashayed over to him. She draped her arms around his neck, then gave him a provocative look. “We should probably do something to commemorate the occasion.”

“Mmm.” Looking interested, Casey swiveled on his bar stool. Appearing dubiously guileless, he reached for her. “That’s a good idea. I wouldn’t want our agreement to go uncelebrated.”

“Me either,” Kristen said, meeting his sham sincerity with an artless look of her own. “It’s an important alliance.”

“A monumental coming together.”

“A party in the making.”

“A party?” Casey raised his eyebrows in that sexy, playful way she loved so well. “Let’s get the party started, then.”

His new position placed her squarely in the V of his legs, and Casey took advantage of Kristen’s nearness by bringing his hands to her waist. He slid his palms higher, caressing her through her short silky robe, making her feel lightheaded and needy and swamped with desire, all over again. With Casey, being touched was like a drug. She couldn’t get enough of it.

His hands quit moving with his thumbs mere inches from her breasts. Breathlessly, Kristen resisted an urge to push herself all the way into his hands—to take what he was
almost
giving and show him how well she knew how to party. But then he kissed her, and his tongue slid against hers in an especially knee-weakening way, and a passionate moan rumbled from his chest to hers, communicating all the same yearning they’d shared for days, and it was all Kristen could do to hold on to him and kiss him back and remember to stay upright at the same time.

When their kiss finally ended, she gazed at him in wonder.

“If you could bottle your expertise at kissing me,” Kristen said, “you’d be a millionaire. You could retire early from your troubleshooting job—”

“And take up kissing you full-time.” Casey looked as though he approved of the idea. He also seemed just as moved by their kiss as she’d been. His jaw was stony, his eyes were compelling, and his mouth . . . Well, his mouth was
fabulous
. “Let’s do it.”

“Let’s kiss some more?” Giddily, Kristen agreed. Among all the things she loved about Casey, his willingness to
not
be deadly serious about sex (at least not all the time) was at the top of the list. She lowered her hands to his fly. “Yes. Let’s.”

But just as she was getting to the good part—just as Casey was gazing at her through those dark eyes of his with caring and kindness and a gratifying amount of lust, just as Kristen was feeling herself becoming more and more liquid and languid and heated beneath his continuing touch—an irritating noise sounded.

Kristen started. She had the impression, somehow, that the sound had been going on a while. Casey didn’t seem to care, but—

“I think that’s your cell phone,” she said, stroking him.

“It’s probably yours,” Casey insisted huskily, “with another ‘something-in-a-jar’ suggestion from your favorite ‘consultant.’” He nuzzled her neck. “I silenced my phone.”

“This time of year, my phone plays ‘Here Comes Santa Claus,’” Kristen disagreed, panting. “That’s definitely yours.”

Casey frowned at her. “I keep my phone segregated with call lists for whatever job I’m on, and I don’t let calls come through when I’m not on duty. I already made some calls and checked in with my agency in L.A. while you were in the shower earlier. The only way my phone could be ringing now is if—”

The unwanted reality hit them both at the same time.

“—if something’s gone wrong with Heather’s TV special,” they said in unison.

At their synchronized hypotheses, Kristen and Casey both swiveled their gazes toward the source of that sound. As Kristen had predicted, Casey’s cell phone skittered atop the peninsula near the pile of discarded hats and mufflers, chattering for attention with a decidedly non-Christmassy ringtone.

“Sorry.” Casey gave her a beleaguered look. “That means there’s an emergency on set. I’ve got to take this.”

Kristen tried to be understanding. Truly, she did. But as much as her rational mind tried to communicate to her hot-and-bothered body that (for now) sexy-fun-time with Casey was on hold, the message did not get through. The pulsing sensation between her thighs only continued. So did the yearning in her hips, the breathlessness in her chest, and the achiness in her breasts. Her nipples felt hard enough to cut glass; her fingers couldn’t resist trailing along Casey’s thigh as he spoke on his phone to whomever was on the other end of the line.

Mmm. His thigh was tight and warm and muscular, and it led conveniently to a very intriguing Y-junction in his pants. Just when Kristen was approaching nirvana, Casey covered her hand with his. His quelling gesture effectively shut down her explorations. Kristen pouted up at him.
Buzzkill,
she mouthed.

“All right. Yes. I understand,” he said into his phone.

Commiseratingly, Casey caught her eye. He squeezed her hand, too. But most of his attention was directed toward the apparent crisis he was being rudely interrupted to deal with.

Kristen didn’t like it. She’d been hoping the “emergency” call was anything but—just an overeager gaffer who needed Casey to give him investment advice or a Galaxy Diner regular who wanted to invite Casey to yet another holiday party.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said authoritatively.

Impatiently, Kristen waited, hoping there was still a chance that
as soon as I can
would translate to
after I make love to Kristen on a bar stool and drive her wild with desire
. But to her dismay, when Casey disconnected the call and set down his cell phone, he did not pull her nearer and resume what they’d already started. Instead, he shot her an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry,” Casey said again, already looking around for the rest of his clothes. After days of intermittent nudity, they wouldn’t be easy to find. “I have to be on set right away.”

“What’s the matter?” Kristen asked. “Did a fight break out between the grips and the set decorators? Did someone find drip coffee in their espresso cup? What’s the catastrophe this time?”

Not answering immediately, Casey grabbed his wrinkled shirt. He dragged it on. Hastily, he tucked it in his pants with the air of someone who had no time to waste on niceties like ironing. He strode around her apartment with an efficiency that could only have come from having a photographic memory of where he’d dropped his socks, tie, vest, and suit coat. With all their former intimacy clearly forgotten, Casey stopped in front of Kristen as he pulled on his overcoat and adjusted his collar.

“Heather is back on set,” he said, “and she’s given the crew twenty-four hours to finish filming the TV special before she gets on a plane and buggers off to God only knows where.”

Kristen gawked. “Heather is
leaving
Kismet?”

“Apparently so.”

“But she’s been in quarantine!”

“Evidently, it’s ended.” Casey pocketed his cell phone. He put on his cherished, ultraexpensive watch, then double-checked his wallet. “But her quarantine did put the production even more behind than it was before. Hence her rush, I’d imagine.”

“Heather actually gave the crew an
ultimatum?
”

That didn’t sound right to Kristen. Ordinarily, her sister was not the world’s most ambitious pop-star songstress. Heather was content to sail along with other people directing her career. For her to take charge now didn’t quite make sense.

But Kristen was too annoyed, just then, to worry about it beyond her initial sense of confusion. Because Casey appeared to be getting ready to bolt from her apartment (aka their impromptu love nest) without so much as a backward glance. And that kind of behavior, given all they’d shared, kind of hurt a girl’s feelings. Especially a girl who’d been overlooked and/or thrown over, time and time again, for her glamourpuss sister.

Kristen frowned at Casey. “Can’t someone else handle it?”

“It’s my job. This is what I’m here for.”

“I know, but . . .” A brilliant, practical, sexy-time-saving idea hit her. Doggedly, Kristen pursued Casey as he searched for his keys amid her apartment’s jolly Christmas décor. “What about Shane? He could take care of this, couldn’t he?”

Casey gave a dark chuckle. “He’d like that. But no.”

“Why not? He’s practically your doppelganger!”

“He’s more like my evil twin.” Casey jangled his car keys. “And the fact that you’re suggesting he could double for me means you haven’t spent nearly enough time on set.”

“Oh. So now I’m an insufficiently supportive sister?”

“Huh?” Appearing genuinely baffled by her aggrieved tone, Casey stopped. “What are you talking about?”

Kristen couldn’t believe he didn’t understand why this situation bothered her. “What if I asked you to stay here?”

What if I asked you to choose me?
she added silently.

But Casey only smiled. “You wouldn’t ask me to do that.”

“Why not?”

Now he looked certain. “Because you don’t need to.”

His cryptic reply irked her. “Obviously I do,” Kristen said, “since you’ve got one foot out the door already.”

“Very funny.” Smiling, Casey cradled her jaw in his hand. Then he kissed her. “Thanks for a great . . .
everything,
” he said.

Then he tossed her a wink and headed off at a near run to answer Heather’s imperious beck and call, just the way everyone always did, leaving Kristen behind to be forgotten about . . . just the way everyone, inevitably, always did.

Chapter 20

South side of Kismet, Michigan
14½ mixing, stirring, fudge-making, expertly garnished
days until Christmas

It wouldn’t have been Christmas in Kismet without holiday lights, a big snowy parade, and jingle bells. And it wouldn’t have been Christmas at the Galaxy Diner, Walden had learned, without marshmallow-filled, chocolate Bûche de Noël mini-cupcakes, chubby gingerbread cookies in the shape of teddy bears with buttercream details, and several batches of traditional mincemeat pies-in-a-jar with brown sugar hard sauce and candied cranberries for a garnish. Unfortunately, the plethora of specialized holiday goodies—and the sheer volume of demand for those goodies—meant that he and the rest of the diner’s pastry department were under constant pressure during the month of December. As the days piled up and Christmas Day loomed ever closer on the calendar, he felt increasingly frazzled.

Maybe that’s why everything came to a head with Talia.

It started off innocently enough. Walden was working in his apartment’s cramped kitchen, spending his day off deeply engrossed in testing different ways to sugarcoat fresh cranberries—because he was kind of a workaholic that way—when Talia arrived. Walden didn’t know that it was her at first. Because despite the fact that he’d given her a key shortly after their Heather-boy toy masquerade began, Talia never used it.

Instead, she knocked on his front door. Elbow deep in sugar, surrounded by bowls of cranberries coated with vanilla-bean-infused simple syrup and a variety of test sugars, Walden decided not to traipse all the way across the room to answer it.

“Come in,” he called. “It’s open.”

“Walden? It’s me! Talia!”

Then why was she bothering to knock? “Come in!”

She did come in, but not before opening the door and peering around its edge in a very tentative, very un-Talia-like way. Holding a bunch of shopping bags by their handles, she stepped inside, wearing the leopard-print coat she used to impersonate Heather Miller.

“I gave you your own key,” Walden groused, unaccountably bothered by the fact that she refused to use it. And possibly by the fact that Talia was
still
pretending to be Heather, when she was awesome as herself. “Just use it already, will you?”

Talia looked startled. Then, defensive. Her gaze swept his messy work area. As usual, his kitchen counters stood littered with bowls of chocolate ganache, scraps of parchment paper, and other accoutrements of his ongoing baking experiments. For Walden, creating new baked goods wasn’t just work; it was an art and a hobby. This time of year, it was also insanely demanding.

“Oh, am I
bugging
you, Mr. Grumpy Pants?” Talia asked archly. She dropped her shopping bags, then rummaged through one. “Hold on a sec. I can fix that. I can cheer you right up.”

“No, you’re not ‘bugging’ me.” With a sigh, Walden watched as Talia huffily pulled out something hairy-looking, blond, and about two feet long. Another wig. “But if that’s a Heather wig, you can put it away right now. I’m not in the mood.”

“But the Heather wig
puts
you ‘in the mood’!”

“Not anymore, it doesn’t,” Walden grumbled.

Talia’s eyes widened. “Yes, it does!” she insisted. “The Heather wig is the whole reason we’re together right now.”

She couldn’t seriously still believe that. Could she?

It was true that Talia had hinted a time or two that she thought he only wanted her as Heather. But that was too ridiculous to take seriously. He’d wanted her all along. He just hadn’t had the nerve to say so until the right opportunity—their Heather-and-her-bohemian-boy-toy charade—had come his way.

“Just put it away.” Walden gestured irritably at the wig. Fully fed up with pussyfooting around this issue—and feeling more than time-pressed at that particular moment—he decided to get down to brass tacks. “Whatever you think that wig is doing for you, it’s not.”

“I . . . what?” Talia stared at him. “But I thought—”

“I know. I should have told you sooner,” Walden interrupted regretfully, wiping off his sticky hands. “You, me, that wig . . . I can’t hack it anymore, Talia. I’m sorry if that sounds mean, but it’s the truth. I don’t like it. I’m done pretending I do.”

Looking inexplicably stricken, Talia clutched her mangy wig. Her chin wobbled. Watching that uncharacteristic movement, Walden wasn’t sure what was happening. On another woman, he’d have thought some waterworks were imminent. But Talia was way too tough and too cool and too self-assured to cry. So why . . . ?