Santa, Honey

  The nonelectric illumination was, she supposed, enchanting. Muted, and a little mysterious. Though it did mean that the Christmas tree, decorated with intricate blown-glass ornaments, wasn’t lit up like…well, like a Christmas tree.

  An elaborate Nativity scene, complete with angels, shepherds, and kings, was arranged on a low table nestled close to the evergreen boughs. As for the rest of the room, it was a cozy collection of furnishings—some antique, others just old. The walls were hung with oil paintings of nature scenes, except for one large watercolor of a windmill. A spinet piano, its cherry finish polished to a deep luster, stood against one wall.

  A low buzz of happy chatter circulated in the cinnamon-scented air. Casey’s gaze flicked over a half dozen lodge guests, separated into three happy pairs.

  One couple snuggled in a gold plush love seat, while another stood at the big bay window, arms entwined, watching the snow fall. Couple Number Three stood in front of the Christmas tree, exclaiming in low tones over the antique ornaments.

  And then there was Couple Number Four. Emma and Jake. Casey’s sister nestled in an overstuffed armchair near the fire, sipping a mug of something steaming. Jake sat on the chair’s arm, leaning toward her, talking in animated tones. Even though there was a perfectly empty chair two feet to his left.

  Casey adjusted her grip on her laptop case handle and stalked toward them.

  Neither noticed her beeline approach. Jake gestured with his free hand, touching Emma’s shoulder. Emma laughed, her low, throaty chuckle prompting Jake to lean even closer. He darted a subtle glance at Emma’s cleavage. If the man was a dog, Casey thought uncharitably, drool would be dripping from his open mouth.

  She stepped into her sister’s line of vision. “We need to talk, Emma. Now.”

  Emma smiled up at her, but the expression was belied by the frost in her eye. She was still angry.

  But Emma was an actress, and right now, Jake was her audience. She smiled sweetly. “Casey! Isn’t this room cozy? The tree is so beautiful. And the fire is so delicious.”

  The heat on Casey’s back did feel good. Especially after that frigid trek to the parking lot and back. But she was damned if she was going to admit it. “That’s neither here nor there,” she said. “You’ve got some explaining—”

  Jake jumped to his feet. “Um…Would you like something hot to drink, Casey? Tea? Spiced cider? Hot chocolate?”

  “Oh, let Jake get you some of the spiced cider,” Emma said. “It’s very good.”

  “Fine,” Casey snapped. Anything to get rid of Emma’s adoring puppy.

  “Coming right up,” Jake said.

  Jake headed Matt off at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I need a favor,” he said.

  “What, after taking my twenty dollars? You gotta be kidding.”

  “I’m dead serious. That Emma is a wet dream come true. And she just dumped some loser of a boyfriend. Which makes the timing even better.”

  Matt lowered Emma’s rock-filled pink suitcase to the ground. “So? Have at it. What’s stopping you?”

  “Her sister. The woman is out of her mind. She’s not a happy camper.”

  “That’s because Emma didn’t tell her about the electricity,” Matt said. “You should have seen Casey’s face when she found out.”

  Her expression had been priceless. If she’d walked into Matt’s agency at that moment, he’d have immediately cast her into a TV commercial—maybe one for laundry detergent. As the housewife who discovers a pack of muddy dogs mauling her newly washed basket of whites.

  But Casey wasn’t hoping to be cast in a TV commercial. Or a print campaign, or a theater production. She wasn’t an actress. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous. She was just a normal woman. Matt chuckled. A normal woman with a hidden violent streak.

  “Whatever,” Jake said impatiently. “The thing is, she’s getting Emma all uptight. The two of them are spitting like cats. Do you think you could distract Casey a bit tonight? You know, so Emma and I can have a little time alone? Please? A few private hours with that woman would really brighten up this drudge week for me.”

  Matt and Jake had been helping out with Dutch Lodge’s Christmas weekend for five years now, so the middle-aged married couple their aunt and uncle employed could spend Christmas with their married daughter in Montreal. Jake came solely out of a sense of duty—he’d much rather spend Christmas in Boston. Matt, on the other hand, looked forward to the trip each year. To him, five days of mindless manual labor—chopping wood, shoveling snow, cooking and serving meals—was a perfect antidote to the pressures of his New York City life. Just the thought of spending a few days out of touch by e-mail, phone, and BlackBerry was heaven.

  “Come on, Matt. Will you do it?” Jake said. “Keep Casey out of Emma’s hair?”

  And here was another chore Matt really didn’t mind.

  “Tell you what,” he said, handing off the pink suitcases to Jake. “Haul Emma’s bags up to the third floor, and I’ll distract Casey for as long as you want.”

  “Isn’t he cute?” Emma said, her eyes on Jake as he left the room. “And he really seems to like me.”

  “Big deal.” Casey sank into the empty armchair opposite her sister. She put her computer case on the floor between her feet. “Every man likes you.”

  “Jake’s brother doesn’t.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not. He’s barely made eye contact with me. Every time I look at him, he grimaces and looks away.”

  “I really doubt that,” Casey said. “But it hardly matters. Emma, this place doesn’t have electricity! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Emma’s eyes slid away. “Because you never would have come if you’d known.”

  “Damn right, I wouldn’t have come! I have a New Year’s Eve deadline! I need to work. And now there’s a freaking blizzard. We could be stuck here for days without so much as a single electrical outlet. I can’t believe you’d do this to me.”

  “Well, I can’t believe you can’t handle a few days away from that stupid computer. Especially on Christmas. Casey, you work sixty hours a week as it is! Do you have to work on Christmas, too?”

  “Someone has to pay our rent. Waitressing doesn’t pay squat.”

  Emma’s eyes turned frigid, and her next words dripped ice. “That was low, Case. And don’t think I’ve forgiven you for what you said in the car. You can be such a bitch sometimes.”

  “The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Casey muttered, then immediately wished the words back when real hurt flared in Emma’s eyes.

  “You have no room to criticize me, Case. Just look at yourself. All you do is work, and surf the Internet, and play computer games. We’ve been in New York for nine months, and you haven’t even tried to make a single real friend. Every time I invite you to a party, you turn me down.”

  Heat crept up Casey’s neck. She tried to tell herself it was because of the fireplace. “I went to some of your parties. I can’t stand the type of people you’re trying so hard to impress.” And I can’t stand how dull I feel next to them. “Actors. Models. Agents. Producers. There’s not a single genuine person in a hundred of them.”

  “Well,” a masculine voice said. “On that note, here you go.” A solid set of jean-clad legs and a steaming mug appeared in front of Casey.

  She looked up into a pair of dark blue eyes. Not Jake. Matt. He lifted a brow. Just great. He’d heard her whole rant. And now he probably thought she was a bitch. No—worse. A clumsy bitch.

  “Um…thanks.” She accepted her mug, sipping to cover her embarrassment.

  “Where’s Jake?” Emma asked.

  “Taking your bags to your room,” Matt said without looking over at her. “And after that we’re both due in the kitchen. So if you ladies will excuse me…?”

  “Of course,” Emma said.

  Casey let out a long breath as he moved away.

  “Way to go, Case,” Emma said. “Let every man within a hundred miles know how stuck up y
ou are.” She turned to stare into the fire, sipping her cider.

  Casey placed her own mug on the table next to her chair. Emma was right. Casey’s temper and sharp tongue—not to mention her insecurities—tended to get her in trouble. Almost as often as her clumsiness produced bruises. Emma, on the other hand, was grace and graciousness personified. Not for the first time, Casey wondered if one of them had been switched at birth. It certainly would explain why they were as different as oil and water.

  She zipped open her case and powered up her laptop. Just as she expected: her satellite Internet account status icon had a big fat red “X” over it. No service.

  Mrs. Van der Staappen—or Aunt Bea, as she insisted everyone call her, invited her guests to dinner a few minutes later. Matt’s aunt was a plump, pleasant woman with short gray hair and a ruffled apron. Her husband, Uncle Fred, sported a grizzled white beard trimmed in Dutch style, with no mustache. He looked like a friendly old lion in plaid shirt and suspenders.

  The meal was served family style, and was already laid out on the long farmhouse table when Casey and Emma entered the dining room. Aunt Bea and Uncle Fred took places at either end, while their eight guests, and their two nephews, filled in the chairs on either side. Emma smiled as Jake slid into the empty seat beside her. Casey studied her flatware as Matt, coming in late from the kitchen, dropped into the only available seat, on Casey’s left.

  The fare was hearty and simple: pot roast, peas, and mashed potatoes, with apple pie for dessert. The dinner conversation centered, of course, on the weather. The storm was blowing with a vengeance now, whistling and rattling the windowpanes.

  “Been a while since we had a good blizzard,” Uncle Fred commented over coffee.

  Privately, Casey didn’t think the words “good” and “blizzard” belonged in the same sentence.

  “Especially this early in the season,” Fred continued. “It’s shaping up to be a doozie. But don’t you folks worry none—we’re snug as bugs here in the valley.”

  “Will the road out of the gorge be cleared tomorrow?” Casey ventured.

  “Oh, no, honey,” Aunt Bea said with a soft laugh.

  “I imagine it will take at least two days for the county snow plows to get to us. Maybe even three.”

  Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. So in other words, Casey was stuck here until at least the day after Christmas.

  Matt gave her a subtle elbow in the ribs. Her head whipped around in time to see his lips curl. Casey could almost hear him thinking, I told you so.

  “Oh, it sounds so romantic,” one of the female guests sighed. She leaned into her husband. “Max and I have never been snowbound before.”

  “Me neither,” Emma said, her eyes dancing. “It’s going to be so much fun. Casey and I just moved to New York from Florida, you know. We’ve never so much as packed a single snowball before.”

  “Looks like I’ll have a lot to teach you this weekend.” Jake’s seductive whisper, aimed for Emma, was loud enough for Casey—and Matt—to overhear.

  Emma giggled.

  Casey scowled.

  Matt just chuckled.

  Chapter Four

  Casey was still camped out in the dining room.

  Matt ducked back in the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He’d been keeping an eye on her all evening, but so far he hadn’t needed to haul her away from her sister. Just the opposite. Right after dinner, Casey had powered up her laptop at the dining room table. She’d ignored Emma all night. Matt was pretty sure Emma hadn’t even noticed. She was too wrapped up with Jake.

  Matt had washed and dried the dinner dishes, and prepped the kitchen for tomorrow’s breakfast. All with minimal help from Jake, who’d disappeared with Emma more than an hour ago, right after Aunt Bea and Uncle Fred had finished delivering firewood and complimentary champagne to the guest rooms.

  His work done, Matt propped one shoulder on the doorjamb between the kitchen and dining room, eyeing Dutch Lodge’s most reluctant guest. It was well after eleven, and everyone else had gone to sleep—or at least, he amended, to bed.

  But Casey was still tapping away at her computer, her wild curls sprouting from her scalp in every direction. Every few seconds, she’d drag a hand through the mop, making it worse.

  Production: TV Commercial. Product: Curl control hair gel. Harried career woman rushes through a typical day, losing precious minutes every time she pauses to tame her wild hair. Finally, a concerned friend offers to share her hair gel…

  Matt shook himself out of his reverie. He wasn’t quite sure why he found Casey so fascinating. She certainly had a sharp tongue. And she seemed much more interested in her laptop than in people.

  What kind of work was so important she had to do it on Christmas vacation, anyway? He shoved off the doorjamb and peered over her shoulder at the screen.

  Minesweeper.

  He laughed. “I thought you had work do.”

  She hit another square on the screen, and didn’t look up. “I do. But I’m too pissed at my sister to concentrate on it.”

  “What is it that you do? For a job, I mean.”

  “I’m a computer programmer. I work for an interactive agency.”

  “What’s that, exactly?”

  “We do viral marketing via mobile communications and social networking websites. Like, for example, the project I’m working on is a contest sponsored by Diva Diamonds. You know, the big jewelry chain? Starting at nine o’clock New Year’s Eve contestants can upload pictures of the perfect romantic kiss via three social networking sites to a billboard in Times Square. Then people on-site and off will vote the kisses up or down via texts from their cell phones. The couple whose kiss is on the screen at midnight wins a diamond tiara and a trip to Paris.”

  “Wow. Interesting.”

  “Ha. A pain in the butt is what it’s been.”

  She neutralized another section of the electronic mine field. He leaned forward just a little, his chest bumping the back of her head. She started, hit the wrong square, and blew up the works.

  “Do you mind? You’re crowding me.”

  She started a new game. He moved back a step, and kept watching.

  “So how much juice you got left in that thing?” he said after a few minutes.

  “Probably not much.” She clicked the battery icon and grimaced. “In fact, hardly any at all.”

  She played a minute or so longer, then sighed when the low battery warning came on. Powering down the computer, she stowed it back in its case.

  “Shoulda paced yourself,” he commented. “You have at least two more days here.”

  She sat back in her chair, glancing up at him, and then away. “I know. I’ll be bored out of my skull tomorrow. I’ll probably be reduced to reading Emma’s fashion magazines. By the way, have you seen her?”

  “Not in a while.” He crossed the room and glanced into the living room. “I’m pretty sure everyone’s gone up to their rooms. The Romance of Christmas and all. You and I are the only ones left down here.”

  “Right.” She stood, hefting the computer case in one hand. “Well, I guess I’ll go up, too. Emma’s probably waiting for me.”

  Matt really doubted it. He knew his brother only too well.

  “Good night, then,” Casey said.

  He suppressed a grin. “Um…watch yourself going up the stairs. The gaslights are on the lowest setting.”

  He followed her into the foyer, then stood at the bottom of the stairs as her footsteps faded toward the third floor. The faraway rattle of a doorknob ensued. Then muted pounding. Then muffled voices.

  Matt leaned against the newel post, waiting. The footsteps returned, descending, heavier and angrier than they had been on the way up. He gave in to a laugh.

  Casey stomped down the last six steps from the landing, computer case in one hand, blue duffle in the other, her dark eyes flashing fire. With her wild curls sticking out from her head in every direction, she looked like Medusa.

  “Something wrong?” he
asked innocently.

  “Yes, something’s wrong. My sister’s locked me out, and left my bag in the hall. I need another room.” Her eyes narrowed. “You knew it, too, didn’t you?”

  “I had my suspicions,” Matt said. “I saw Emma leading my impressionable little brother up the stairs about an hour ago.”

  “Impressionable? Jake? Oh, please—”

  “And I might’ve gone up to the third floor a little while after that, and noticed your duffle outside the door.”

  She huffed. “You could have warned me.”

  “What, and miss out on the chance for a bit of entertainment? It’s boring out here in the country. You have to take whatever amusement you can get.”

  “Yeah, well, you can stop being amused and find me another room. Emma’s not going to open that door before morning.”

  His smile faded. “Are you sure she won’t let up in an hour or so? I can’t believe your sister would lock you out all night.”

  “Believe it. She’s pissed as hell at me.” She sighed. “It’s partly my own fault, I suppose. First we fought in the car. Then I was so angry when I found out about the electricity, I said a few nasty things to her. This is her way of getting back at me.”

  “You and your sister fight a lot?”

  “Like cats and dogs,” Casey admitted. “We always have. But it never lasts. Believe it or not, we’re actually very close. Emma will be all smiles by morning. But until then…just point me toward an empty room and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “Well,” Matt said. “That’s going to be a problem. Because there isn’t one.”

  “It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I don’t need a private bath—”

  “Didn’t you hear me? This isn’t a huge house, and it’s full. There is no empty bedroom. Bath or no bath.”

  Casey blinked. Then she sat down abruptly, on the second-to-last stair. “You’re kidding me.”

  “No. Sorry. I’m not.”

  “Then where am I supposed to sleep? On one of the loveseats in the living room?”