Santa, Honey

  “Me?” Emma laughed. “That mug was already hanging on the edge of the desk. I’m not even sure what law of gravity was keeping it upright.”

  Casey eyed the computer plug dangling from her sister’s manicured fingertips. “Whatever. Just plug that thing back in, okay? I’m busy.”

  Emma swung the cord like a lasso. “Oh, really? Doing what?”

  “Working.”

  Emma’s brown eyes went wide with feigned surprise. “So you’re a professional minesweeper now? I had no idea.”

  Casey blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Just. Plug. It. In.”

  “No. Not until we talk. I hate competing with your electronics.”

  A flicker of real hurt showed in Emma’s eyes. Casey felt a vague stab of guilt as she scrutinized Em more closely.

  Her hair wasn’t done, and she was wearing her old community college drama club sweatshirt. The one with “Chicago” on the front and a list of cast members on the back, Em’s name near the top. The thing was so ratty, a homeless ragpicker would have rolled his shopping cart over it without so much as a first glance.

  “Something’s wrong.” It wasn’t a question. “You didn’t get that audition you wanted so badly, did you? But so what? It’s a Broadway production. You knew just getting in the door would be a long shot.”

  A very long shot. A minimum distance of about a dozen light years, in Casey’s private opinion. Sure, Emma was a decent actress, with the looks of a beauty pageant contestant, but this was New York, for chrissakes, not Broward County. It was Broadway theater, not center stage at a South Florida community college.

  There had to be a zillion aspiring actresses with Emma’s looks and talent in the city. Most of them, including Emma, were waiting tables. But Casey’s star-struck sister was ever hopeful. Casey tried hard to keep her skepticism at a low boil.

  “No, I didn’t get in,” Emma sighed. “But then, I didn’t really expect to. I don’t know the right people yet.”

  “Then what’s with the sweatshirt?”

  Emma sank down on the chair next to Casey’s desk, shoving a stack of tech magazines onto the floor. She dropped the computer’s cord on top of them.

  “Oh, Case, it’s over. Me and Todd.” She made an angry sound in her throat, and Casey could almost see the steam coming out her ears. “I caught him with his tongue down Ashley’s throat! Can you believe it? There I was, covering three of the jerk’s tables, along with all of my own, while he was getting hot in the walk-in freezer!”

  “Hope you told the maitre d’,” Casey muttered, eyeing the plug, just inches away from the tapping toe of Emma’s knock-off pink Prada sneakers.

  “You bet I did,” Emma shot back. “She was on Todd’s balls in two seconds flat.”

  “Fired?”

  “Yep. Ashley, too.”

  “Good. So forget the loser. You can do better.”

  “Oh, I know that.”

  Casey hid a smile. Her little sister was nothing if not confident. And not without reason. Emma was blonde and beautiful, with a Barbie-doll figure that caused men to drool and women to turn green. She was never single for long.

  Casey leaned over and picked up the computer cord. She really needed to think about getting a backup power system.

  “I suppose it’s all for the best, really,” Emma went on. “Now we can spend the holiday together. Honestly. I never should have booked that Adirondack Christmas weekend in the first place. What was I thinking? Why didn’t you talk me out of it?”

  The trouble was, Casey thought wryly, that Emma didn’t think. Ever. She acted on impulse, and could rarely be talked out of anything. Emma’s sudden Christmas plans had caught Casey by surprise, to say the least. She’d been a little hurt at first—this was their first Christmas in New York, after all, and Casey had assumed they’d spend it together. But after some thought, she’d decided she really didn’t mind the prospect of skipping Christmas. She had a lot of work to do before New Year’s Eve.

  But now it looked like Christmas was back on. Casey, plug in hand, dropped to her knees and reached sideways into the dark space between her desk and the filing cabinet. The electrical outlet was back there. Somewhere.

  “That’s great,” Casey said. “We can go uptown, maybe see the big Christmas tree at Rocke feller Center.”

  “Well, I suppose we could drive by the tree on our way out of the city.”

  Casey twisted her head to look at her sister. “What do you mean, on our way out of the city? What are you talking about?”

  “The Adirondacks,” Emma said with exaggerated patience. “Hello? Weren’t we just talking about this?”

  Casey sat back on her heels. “You mean you still want to go to the Adirondacks? With me instead of Todd? Oh, no. No way.”

  “Why not? It’ll be fun.”

  “Fun?” Casey repeated. “Fun? Are you nuts? What it’ll be is cold. Freezing. Forget it. Just cancel the hotel and get your money back.”

  “But I can’t. It’s a small family-run lodge, not a hotel. A special holiday deal, no refunds. And, Case, I really was looking forward to it. It’ll be so pretty. Like Christmas in the movies. Do you realize there’s already snow in Dutch Gorge? Probably more than either of us have ever seen in our lives.”

  “And that’s way more than I ever want to see. I was perfectly fine with South Florida Christmases.”

  It hadn’t been her idea, after all, to migrate north. It had been another of Emma’s harebrained schemes—go to New York and become famous. Casey could hardly let her little sister launch herself on the New York theater scene without backup. Emma was barely twenty-two, without a penny in the bank, and with an erratic work history. She couldn’t afford to rent a roach-infested broom closet in this city.

  “Oh come on,” Emma wheedled. “It’s not like you’re doing anything this weekend anyway.”

  Casey finally united cord and outlet. She pushed to her feet as the blessed squeal of the computer start-up began. “Not doing anything? Emma, are you insane? I’ve got to get an interactive billboard on Times Square linked up with three social networking websites by New Year’s Eve.”

  “Oh, right. But Case, your boss can’t possibly expect you to work over Christmas weekend!”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “That’s criminal. What kind of Scrooge do you work for, anyway? You’ve been working night and day for weeks as it is! For heaven’s sakes, you’re not a machine. You need to unplug for a couple of days. And it’ll be good for us to get away together. We hardly even see each other anymore.”

  That was true enough. Since they’d moved to New York last spring, Emma had spent every spare minute tracking down potential casting calls and networking with other wannabe actors, while Casey had worked about a zillion hours of overtime at her job as a computer programmer for a digital interactive marketing agency.

  “We hardly need to go to the frozen back of beyond to spend time together,” Casey said. “I can grab a few hours this weekend, and we can catch a play or something.”

  Emma grimaced. “Please. I need a break from the business. I need to get out of Manhattan for a few days. But I really don’t want to go alone. Please say you’ll come with me? Please?”

  Casey’s resolve wavered. “Geez, Emma, why couldn’t you have bought Todd a trip to Jamaica?”

  “Because it’s Christmas! I want a winter wonderland. You know, like in the movies. Snow. Ice-skating. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Come on, Casey, say you’ll come. It’s only four days. Dutch Gorge is…well, it’s kind of off the beaten trail. If I had to find it on my own…”

  The thought of Emma lost in a rented car on some mountain back road sent a chill down Casey’s spine. To put it mildly, her sister and road maps didn’t mix. Even with a GPS, she couldn’t find her way out of a cardboard box. Casey did some hasty mental calculating. She could probably spare the time to drive upstate.

  “Oh, all right. My team’s pretty much on schedule with the Times Square deadline. If Tony and Ge
orge can cover for me, I should be able to take the weekend off. But you can forget about seeing me in ice skates. I’m bringing my laptop, and staying inside.”

  Emma blinked. “Your laptop? Um, Casey, do you really think you’ll need it?”

  “Yes. I really do. Don’t argue with me on this one, Emma. I need to put in at least twenty hours between now and Sunday.”

  For a moment, Emma looked as if she would argue. Then she shrugged. “All right, then, bring your computer. I don’t mind.”

  Chapter Two

  Emma peered through the windshield. “The turnoff to Dutch Gorge is coming up. Soon, I think.”

  Casey sighed and kept driving. The narrow country road cut tight arcs through a forest of graceful white birch trees. The falling snow made things even more picturesque.

  It was pretty, she supposed. Even if the rent-a-wreck subcompact car reeked of cigarette smoke. Even if Casey’s phone had lost its GPS satellite linkup five miles of mountain road ago. Even if Casey had less than no experience driving on snow. Were you supposed to turn into a skid, or out of it? She could never remember.

  Emma’s blonde hair fell forward as she studied the tiny map on the Dutch Lodge brochure. “Actually, I think we might have already passed the turnoff.”

  The last thread of Casey’s patience snapped. She hit the brakes…and felt her back tires slip to the left. She jerked the steering wheel in the same direction.

  Thank God. She’d guessed right. Somehow, she managed to slide to a stop without pitching headlightsfirst into the drainage ditch that ran alongside the road.

  She snatched the map from Emma’s fingers. “Here. Let me see that thing. All I need is for it to get dark, and I’ll never find the place. Geez. You might have told me Dutch Gorge was in the middle of nowhere! Any farther north, we’d be chasing down Canadian Mounties.”

  Emma sniffed. “But you have to admit, the snow is pretty.”

  “Yeah. Pretty dangerous.”

  Casey glared at the map. As she’d suspected, they’d gone too far. Shoving the brochure back at Emma, she executed a slippery three-point turn on the narrow road. The snow—the beautiful, dangerous snow—was coming down in big heavy flakes. Casey switched on the windshield wipers and prayed she was still on the pavement.

  If they hadn’t been so far from the state highway, she could have turned back. But the last town they’d passed had been miles and miles ago, and night wasn’t far off. There was no way she’d make if back to civilization before dark. And they couldn’t be more than a mile or two from Dutch Lodge.

  “Finally.”

  The turnoff was barely paved, and all but unnoticeable. Frowning, Casey made the left, her muffler scraping ice as the rental car bounced in and out of a frozen rut.

  “Lovely,” she muttered.

  From there, it was all downhill. Literally. Steeply. Apparently, the “Gorge” part of Dutch Gorge wasn’t a fanciful marketing ploy.

  She felt like she was descending into some kind of icy version of hell. At least the potholes provided some traction. And the series of hairpin switchbacks ensured she didn’t fall asleep at the wheel.

  “Oh. My. God,” Emma breathed, one hand braced on the dashboard, the other clutching the side of Casey’s headrest. “We’re going to die.”

  “And to think,” Casey groused, “we could have died in Jamaica. Lying on the beach. Drinking piña coladas.”

  Her knuckles had gone white. Her thumbs were numb. She would have turned around if the road had been wide enough. Or backed up if the road hadn’t been so steep. As it was, she could do neither.

  She rode the brake, inching forward as quickly as she dared through snow-dusted evergreens, the afternoon light fading far more quickly than she would have liked. She prayed the road leveled out before her nerves snapped completely.

  “This had better be the right road. There had better be a lodge at the end of it. Because by the time we get to the bottom of this hellish ditch, it’s going to be too dark to climb back out.” She felt her blood pressure rising. “I swear, Emma, don’t you have two brain cells to rub together? I should be shot for going along with this stupid idea.”

  “It wasn’t stupid!”

  “It was! It’s another one of your half-baked schemes. Can’t you ever think twice before dragging me into one of your fiascos?”

  Emma stiffened. “Well. I’m sorry you feel like that about celebrating Christmas.”

  “You could have at least rented an SUV instead of this death trap.”

  “I was trying to save money! And anyway, there’s no use complaining about it now. It’s too late to go back up that mountain. We’re committed.”

  “Oh, one of us should be committed,” Casey said darkly. “I just don’t know if it’s you or me. How the hell did you find out about this place, anyway?”

  “There was an ad in that free newspaper they give out all over the city.”

  “And just what, exactly, did it say?”

  Emma half turned toward the passenger window. “Something like…Get away from it all. Enjoy a romantic old-fashioned Christmas.”

  “Lovely,” Casey said again through gritted teeth. Her jaw was starting to ache.

  The paved road ended abruptly. Casey’s wheels skidded on gravel. The snow-dusted evergreen boughs seemed to part before her, as if revealing some longheld secret.

  Some secret. A snow-slicked parking lot occupied by a battered pickup truck and five SUVs.

  “There’s no sign.” Casey scanned the parking area and the old stone farmhouse on the other side.

  “This is definitely the place,” Emma replied on a breath of pure relief. She waved the brochure photo. “See?”

  The rental car slid down the last few feet of road. Too fast. Casey hit the brakes. Too hard. The car went into a wide, taillight-first spin.

  “Oh, shit!”

  The back tires hit a mound of snow. Casey’s head thumped against the headrest. She jerked on the steering wheel, but the front wheels kept sliding.

  They hit the snow bank, Casey’s right front fender kissing the back bumper of a massive black SUV with Massachusetts plates.

  “Thank God,” Emma breathed.

  Cautiously, Casey turned the wheel to the left and eased her foot onto the accelerator. Her tires spun. She gunned the motor harder. The tires spun some more.

  “That’s it,” she said. “The end of traction as we know it. This rotten excuse for a vehicle isn’t traveling another inch. At least not tonight.” She sighed and opened her door.

  To a blast of frigid winter wind.

  “Damn, it’s cold.” She hopped from one foot to the other as she fished her gloves out of her coat pockets.

  On the other side of the car, Emma hiked her furlined hood up over her head. “But it’s so beautiful.”

  It was pretty, Casey had to admit. Even—especially—in the falling snow. Like a Christmas card. The slate-roofed farmhouse stood framed against the steep-wooded hill behind, smoke curling from one of its three chimneys. A covered porch sheltered a large bay window, softly glowing. An old stone well adorned the front yard, while the huge old tree nearby, its leafless branches painted white with snow, spread its arms over the attic dormers. Casey could just identify the outline of a red barn behind the house.

  “Look,” Emma said suddenly, clutching Casey’s arm.

  “Emma. I’ve got to get the luggage—”

  “Forget the luggage! Just look.”

  Casey looked. Two men had rounded a corner of the farmhouse, arms laden with firewood. Casey watched as they added the logs to a stack in a lean-to near the porch.

  “Yeah?” she said. “So?”

  “So? Ohmygod! Did you get a look at those guys?” Emma waved a hand. “Yoohoo! Hi!”

  The men looked toward Emma, then back at each other. Casey thought they exchanged a few words before dumping the rest of their firewood and starting across the snow-covered yard.

  “Oh. My. God,” Emma breathed. “They’re even better look
ing up close. That tall one is gorgeous.”

  He was. Tall, broad, and hatless, the bigger man was blindingly handsome. Around thirty, Casey guessed, with snowflakes gathering in his thick dark hair. His legs were long, his faded jeans ending at battered tan work boots. His bulky red sweater, and the old Army surplus jacket he wore over it, were speckled with wood chips. Casey had no trouble at all believing he’d chopped every stick of firewood in the shed. The man looked like every woman’s lumberjack fantasy.

  His eyes flicked past Casey, and settled on Emma.

  Typical. Guys always noticed Emma first. Casey was used to it. But for some reason—probably because of the harrowing drive down the mountain—tonight it hurt.

  But it wasn’t the lumberjack who returned Emma’s greeting. It was the other man—a bit shorter, a bit thinner, a bit less handsome, but still way above average in the good-looks department—who grinned and waved.

  “Hello, ladies! Lost?”

  “I don’t think so,” Emma said as the four of them met on the path leading to the front porch. The walk had been shoveled recently, but the new snow was quickly recoating the flagstones. “This is Dutch Lodge, isn’t it?”

  The men exchanged a look.

  “Yeah,” the shorter guy said. “It is.”

  “Then we’re in the right place.” Emma flashed him a smile, then batted her eyelashes at the lumberjack.

  “We have reservations for Christmas weekend.”

  “Really?” Mr. Talkative asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Well, of course we are! Do you think we would have driven all the way out here from Manhattan if we weren’t?”

  Amusement flashed in the lumberjack’s blue eyes.

  “And I have to say,” Emma continued, “the lodge is beautiful. It looks just like the picture in the brochure. So romantic!”

  “Well, then,” the shorter man said, with an air of resignation. “Come on in, and Aunt Bea will sort everything out. I’m Jake, by the way. Jake Van der Staappen. And this is my brother, Matt.”

  “You two are brothers?” Emma exclaimed. “Why, we’re sisters. I’m Emma. Emma Harbison. And this is Casey.”