Shaking the Sleigh Page 9

  "Well these are fantastic," I said. I washed down the last bite of the cookie and opened the folder I’d dropped on the table. "Okay, so this is pretty straightforward." I reviewed the existing contract with Lottie and went through the details so she'd know what to expect during filming. "Mostly, you just follow directions as they go through the house. You've indicated which rooms are off limits here," I pointed to the form, "so it should all be smooth. It'll take several hours, and then you'll be done. And actually, you really don’t need to be here unless you want to be, except to let us inside."

  "You can hang out at my house," Helen offered.

  "Not if you're just going to play video games while I watch," Lottie sniffed, clearly having experienced this type of hospitality before. "Plus, I want to be here."

  "Suit yourself," Helen said, taking another cookie and biting into it with obvious relish.

  "Okay, then we'll see you tomorrow," I said. "Any chance maybe the chinchilla could be like, in a cage, during filming?"

  "Who, Apollo?" Lottie looked surprised. "Well, maybe. I can usually lure him with food. But Adonis and Poseidon and Pat are not so easily captured, I'm afraid."

  "Pat," I repeated somewhat moronically, my head spinning.

  "She's not godlike at all," Helen explained.

  I took another cookie and searched for appropriate words, but found none. After a few seconds, I nodded, hoping that would indicate that we were finished here, and got to my feet.

  "Perfect," Lottie said as we stood. "Here, take these with you." She produced a baggie full of gingerbread cookies from just inside the front door and handed them to me.

  I accepted them, getting into my car with a wave, and had one in my hand as I drove away.

  If all else failed, at least I had cookies.

  10

  Secrets in the Shack

  Callan

  I got up to begin my day and found myself feeling strangely lighter than I had in the past months. I wasn't sure if it was the oddly homey feeling my house had now, all decorated for the holidays, or if it was the after-effects of the time I’d spent with my nieces the day before.

  Or if it was something else.

  My mind had circled around thoughts of April Hall as I had finished decorating the house after Cormac and the girls left. It had been strange, actually. I’d pictured her in the house as I’d finished hanging the garland on the mantlepiece, imagined us sitting together in front of the fire, thought of us looking at the twinkling tree on a cold night. It was like decorating the house had passed me through some kind of temporal warp into a Hallmark holiday movie. And while there were bits of my own holiday movie that were definitely too explicit for the Hallmark channel, I also found myself thinking how nice it would be just to have someone—maybe April—here, in this big house with me. Which was weird, because the whole point of buying a big house in the middle of nowhere was to be alone.

  I knew it was probably ridiculous—I didn't really think April and I were destined to settle down and live happily ever after or anything like that. It was more likely that I’d been so wrapped up in myself and my injury and my failed career for so long, that now that I was finally establishing a new life, my mind was ready to populate it with other things. And April had popped up just in time to take a spot in my imaginings. Despite my fascination with her thick dark hair and the way her hips curved and swayed when she moved, I was pretty sure any woman who'd appeared just when she had would have given me a welcome mental distraction from my own misery. It wasn't April specifically.

  Still, I thought, as I made coffee and took it out to the back porch, I probably owed her an apology.

  But what about the ridiculous show? The last thing I wanted was to be on television at this point—even if it was just my house that would have to appear. It was always possible that this would turn into something unintended, that the media would take an interest in what had happened to the miserable has-been who’d once filled their newsfeeds and come to pick over what was left of me. I’d finally ducked low enough to avoid the cameras and reporters who'd hounded me for the last year, finally dropped off the radar to the point that they'd moved on to newer spectacles, fresher fare. But if I was suddenly profiled as the newest resident of Singletree, if the show mentioned me at all, there would surely be speculation about everything from my mental state to my grisly injury. And I’d had more than enough of that.

  I knew I couldn't really apologize to April without giving her a firm answer about the show. I didn't really want to cost her a job.

  Maybe there was a way …

  That afternoon, I drove over to the inn, where I knew April was staying. I spotted the camera guys sitting in the lobby, which looked like someone had fired off a holiday cannon, covering every surface with snow, glitter, reindeer, elves, or poinsettias. I lifted a hand in response to the wave one of them gave me, and felt relief flow through me when I realized they were not going to come talk to me despite having recognized me again.

  I limped up to the desk, smiling at the woman behind it. Her name tag said "Annabelle."

  "Hi there, Annabelle," I said.

  She wore a red apron with striped ruffles, and a green shirt beneath it. She also had a Santa hat on her head and round wire-rimmed glasses. Mrs. Claus, I figured.

  "Hello," she said. "Can I help you?"

  I wasn't sure if she knew who I was or not. Her bright blue eyes were narrowed slightly at me, as if she didn't quite trust me, but her tone was friendly enough. "Yes, please. I was hoping you might be willing to call a guest for me? See if I might speak to her for a moment?"

  "There's a lobby phone right over there. Past the nutcrackers and just next to the reindeer."

  "Oh, right," I said. "Only, I don't know her room number."

  "Well, I can't tell you that," the woman said.

  "But maybe you could call up and see if she'd be willing to give it to me? Or to call me, maybe? She has my phone number."

  Annabelle's brows lowered. "If you have her number, why not just call her?"

  "I don't have her number. She has mine." This was becoming tedious. I shifted my weight as my ankle throbbed, reminding me that standing up for long periods wasn't a great idea.

  "Hmmm," Annabelle said, pressing a candy-cane striped fingernail to the side of her chin as she seemed to think. "All right. I'll call her for you. But April isn't here right now."

  Surprise spiked in my mind and I frowned at her. "How do you know I'm here for April?"

  Annabelle's face flushed and she looked surprised too, but then she made an exasperated noise and leaned forward. "Let's just drop all the pretending. I know who you are, and I know you're giving April a hard time about her show. It's a very small town, Mr. Whitewood, something you may have noticed. And we tend to try to treat each other in a friendly manner around here."

  "Is that why you're scolding me? This is Singletree's brand of friendly?"

  "Oh. No," Annabelle said, recovering herself and looking around guiltily. "No, sorry. That wasn't nice. It's just that … well, I like April."

  "I like April too."

  A third voice popped up over my shoulder. "You guys talking about me?" I turned to find April standing directly behind me, her pale cheeks flushed from being out in the cold, and her gorgeous hair falling around her shoulders.

  It was my turn to blush. What had I come here for again? I was having a hard time remembering now, after being chastised by a stranger and then declaring loudly that I 'liked' April as she stood behind me. "Hi, uh …" I stammered. "Can I talk to you?" I glanced at Annabelle who was watching me with a curious expression.

  April hesitated only for the briefest of moments, then said, “Yeah, sure. Hi Annabelle." She smiled at the woman behind the desk, and then moved across the lobby toward a little cottage. "We can talk in here."

  I followed her, wondering if there wasn’t maybe a conference room or somewhere we could have actual privacy instead of a fake gingerbread house in the corner. "Isn't this Santa
's house?"

  "He's not here right now," she said. "Mrs. Claus won't mind." She ducked inside and sat in a huge wing-back chair, leaving me a low stool at the table.

  "Okay, well," I sat on the little stool, feeling awkward. "Listen, I just wanted to apologize to you."

  Her face remained impassive, cold. "Okay. Thanks." She shifted her weight like she was about to stand up, and I found myself wishing vehemently that she'd stay.

  "So, I'm sorry, April. I was rude and harsh, and—"

  "No, you were right. I was trying to make you do something you clearly don't want to do, and I wasn't taking no for an answer." She leaned back in the chair again. "I should have just walked away."

  "You still didn't deserve me being rude. You were just trying to do your job."

  She shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

  I wasn't sure why her attitude had changed so dramatically, but I realized I didn't like this beaten-down version of the fiery determined girl who'd barged into my house that first day. I wanted to bring her back. "Why not?"

  "I've got all the other houses lined up. It'll just have to be enough. I didn't want to do this show in the first place." She sighed and put her elbows on the little table between us. "It was just that I had to leave my previous show, and my uncle runs the network. This was the only thing he'd give me, and it's my last chance. But I'm starting to realize that maybe television production isn't my passion anyway. Maybe I don't care."

  "You seemed pretty passionate that first day when you popped into my house uninvited," I said, trying to get a rise out of her, bring back some of the fire in her eyes.

  She squinted for a second, like she was thinking about that. "Yeah, well, I was worried about getting fired."

  "So are you going to get fired?"

  "Probably." She stood up. "Not your problem though."

  As she crossed the tiny room in front of me, I reached out and grabbed her hand without thinking. But as soon as I held her warm skin between my fingers, my mind raced, and my heart accelerated. I didn't want April Hall to walk away from me, and I didn't want her to lose her job because of me. "Listen," I said, as she turned and looked down at to where I still held her hand. "Maybe it'd be okay. The filming thing."

  "What?" Her eyes found my face and I reluctantly dropped her hand. "What about your privacy, and your peace, and your general desire to be surly and miserable and alone in your big old house?"

  "Ouch." I stood to face her in the close space, the size of the cottage forcing us to stand just inches apart. "I deserved that, I guess." I imagined I could feel the warmth radiating off her body, and I could definitely smell her—vanilla and citrus and cinnamon. Wild thoughts ran through my head, and I imagined myself lifting a hand to bury in all that thick hair, pushing her back against the wall and kissing her hard. I tried to clear my mind but was finding it very difficult as April stared up at me through dark thick lashes.

  "Are you serious?" Her voice was almost a whisper, and her eyes were locked on mine, pulling me in. "About the show?"

  I meant to say yes. I meant to agree to let them film my house and then go back to my car and go home. But my mind was working through other scenarios, and I couldn't seem to control it. And my mouth and my mind were running their own plays, ignoring the advice of my better judgment. "Have dinner with me," my mouth said while my better judgment stood on the sidelines yelling, "no, you moron! What the hell are you doing?" It was weird how my better judgment sounded a lot like the Sharks' old coach.

  "What?" April looked as surprised as I felt at the words that had just come from my mouth.

  I was already in it. So I went ahead. Hesitation never won me a thing. Not on the pitch. Maybe not here. “Have dinner with me. We'll talk about it."

  Her chest was rising and falling, and she stood there without saying anything for a long minute, her eyes wide. "Okay," she finally said. "Dinner. We'll talk about it." She ducked out the door then, breaking the spell that had held us inches from one another, staring into each other's eyes, breathing the same air. And as I followed her from Santa's house and back into the over-decorated lobby, something I hadn't felt in a long time took root in my chest and glowed there.

  I realized the feeling was hope.

  I walked just behind April as we left the hotel, descending the front steps and arriving on the sidewalk as a chilly wind blew through the small town of Singletree. And once there, we stopped and looked at each other.

  "Where do people eat here?" I asked her. I hadn't left my house often and had definitely not been out exploring the culinary options in my new town.

  April shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving my face. "I have no idea."

  "There must be something. Come on." We wandered up to the town square, where an enormous sleigh now sat on the grassy area near the central tree, the reins attached to a single feeble-looking reindeer. As we walked by, I got a better look at the thing, and while the sleigh was enormous, gleaming beneath a sheen of enamel red paint, the deer had absolutely seen better days. Its fur was coming off in patches, and one side of its head was pressed in a bit, making the eye on that side point in the wrong direction.

  "What happened here?" April wondered aloud. "Poor little guy. Looks like he's seen better days. Where are all the other reindeer? Aren't there supposed to be like six or seven? Dasher, Dancer, Rudolph?"

  I nodded. "This must be Thrasher."

  April stopped walking. "I'm not a holiday expert, but I'm pretty sure there's no reindeer named Thrasher."

  "Well, you don't hear about him much," I told her. "He's the hard hard-partying reindeer. Tends to overdo it and alienate the others, who are way more puritanical. You know Blitzen? He's in that twelve-step program now, and Prancer is a tee-totaler."

  April's eyes widened as she held in a laugh, her cheeks turning pink. "Oh really?" She said, letting out a little guffaw. "Tell me more. I had no idea you were such a wealth of esoteric Christmas lore."

  "Esoteric Christmas lore is my specialty," I quipped, nearly desperate to keep April smiling and laughing. This. This was the girl who’d bounced into my house that first day. My brain hummed as I realized how much I wanted to keep her.

  We crossed behind the sleigh, both of us heading for the glowing restaurant across the way, which appeared to be the only option on the square. We stepped inside together, leaving the cold chill of the street behind as the warm atmosphere of the restaurant engulfed us.

  "Welcome to Sam's Shack," the girl at the podium said.

  "Normally I try to limit visits to restaurants called 'shacks' to a minimum," I said quietly into April's ear. "But since this is the only option."

  April turned and smiled up at me, her bright eyes glittering in the soft light, and my stomach dropped as my breath caught in my throat. I lifted a hand and it was halfway to her face before I recovered himself. God, I wanted to touch her. She was so beautiful.

  "This way," the hostess said, bringing me back to my senses. We followed her, weaving through the crowded seating area to a table in the very back. Little glass balls were suspended from the ceiling next to empty crab catching cages—crab pots, I thought they were called. The whole place smelled of seafood and something spicy. "This is all we have," the hostess said, apologetically. It probably wasn't a prime table, isolated as it was from the center of the dining room. But it was quieter, and a little bit more private, and I thought it was perfect.

  "This is great," I said, and I stepped around to take April's coat and hold out her chair for her. She shot a look over her shoulder, like these actions were confusing or unnecessary, but the smile never left her face. I hung both our coats on a hook near the table, and returned, seating myself across from her.

  "So," she said, after we’d we’d glanced at the menus.

  "So," I agreed, feeling nervous jitters skate through me. I hadn't been nervous around a woman since high school, but something about April, about the fact that really, this wasn't a date—no matter how much I suddenly wished it were—had m
e off balance.

  "You've got me in your shack. Now what?" she asked.

  A low laugh rolled through me. "Did you notice that half the things on the menu come in buckets?"

  "I did notice that," she said.

  I glanced around, not wanting to offend anyone in my new hometown any more than I might already have done. "This is a strange little place."

  "Well, it's home now," April told me. "Guess you'd better develop a taste for Old Bay seasoning." She gazed around us, and I did the same, noticing for the first time that Old Bay was featured prominently in the décor of the little restaurant, with big spice box replicas swinging from the ceiling and old-fashioned prints with Old Bay ads in them on the walls.

  "Have I ever had Old Bay before?" I wondered aloud.

  She shrugged. "I don't know if I have." She pulled her phone from her bag and tapped the screen a few times. "It's a blend. Paprika, chili powder, celery salt, mustard …"

  "That's a lot of things," I said.

  "That's only like half of what's in there."

  "Howdy folks, I'm Jeff," said a voice from beside the table, interrupting the discussion of Maryland's favorite spice blend. "Can I bring you a punch bowl or a bucket of Old Bay fries to get started?" Jeff wore an apron with a crab on it that read Get Crabs at the Shack in bold letters. He had longish blond hair and bounced a bit as he spoke, as if he’d paused mid-run to help us.

  We exchanged an amused look. "A punch bowl?" April asked, picking up her menu again, probably to see if she could figure out what that was.

  "One punch bowl, coming right up." Jeff said.

  "Better make it two," I told Jeff, wondering what we’d just ordered. "And the bucket sounds perfect."

  "Bowls and bucket coming right up!" Jeff practically sang, and wandered away to the next table.

  "Oh god, what did we just order?" April asked, still scanning the menu.

  "I guess we'll find out."

  And we did. A punch bowl, according to the menu, was intended to be shared among two or more people, and had every alcohol known to man (including the local distillery's famous moonshine) in it. The drinks were literal punch bowls, maybe a little smaller than what you'd find on the central table at a garden party, and Jeff set one in front of each of us, along with a very long straw.