I waited to see if anyone would move to stop her.
She slowed her walk, still pontificating, as she reached for the door handle. “If I step through this door, you’ll regret it.”
Still, not a movement.
“This is your last chance. Without me this concert series will fail!”
Not even a wee flick of a wrist or bat of an eye.
Ava blushed bright red, turned on her heel, and slammed the door.
All was quiet for about two seconds, then Pauline patted me on the back. “You’ll make a great Christmas concert director, Meredith.”
“Me?” I said, stunned.
“Yes, you will,” Howard mused. “It will be an extraordinary event. It’ll be the bomb. The bomb of all concert series.”
I puzzled over that one. The bomb of a concert series?
“Who votes for Meredith?” Barry Lynn said, raising her hand. Those hands shot into the air before I could say, “My Santa, you sure are fat.”
“Oh no. Heck no.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” Pauline said.
“Jingle bells,” Barry Lynn said.
“Oh no,” I said again, feeling panicky. “I can’t.”
“You can!” Val said. “You’re going to make a beautiful Mrs. Claus, darling. Have you thought about who should be Mr. Santa Claus? We’ll need a Mary, too, mother of Jesus!”
“Not me.” I was appalled. “Someone else!”
But the “someone elses” were already getting slices of the Shot and Stirred Strawberry Angel Cake I’d made and that was that.
I, Meredith Ghirlandaio, whose bed and breakfast business was struggling, who worked almost all the time, a whacked out woman who was trying to handle two troubled kids, was elected director of the Telena Christmas Concert Series.
“This is delicious, Meredith,” Howard said. “Divine.”
I buried my head in my hands.
Why did Logan Taylor’s manly, smiling face dance in front of my eyes?
* * *
No sane person is up at 1:00 in the morning decorating a Christmas tree in her dining room with pink and white angels and pink lights. No sane woman thinks nonstop about a man unless she is losing it.
I must be losing it.
Logan. Taylor. Taylor, Logan. Meredith Taylor. Oh, stop it!
Why did he have to have such a romantic name? Why did he have to be huge and tough-looking? Why did he have to have a chest that I wanted to lie on? Why did he have to have a gravelly voice that oozed through my body?
Why did I keep replaying our last encounter in my head . . . ?
* * *
“Hello, I’m Logan Taylor.”
I ignored Logan’s outstretched hand. We were outside the bar, which was where I’d yanked him after getting rid of the sea urchin and friends. The snowflakes drifted down, and it felt like we were in one of those sappy Christmas TV specials. Except the heroine in those movies is not generally in possession of a red-hot temper and a powerful right hook.
“I know who you are, Mr. Macho. I don’t need rescuing. This is Montana, remember? Or, have you spent so much time out of state you forgot? Women ride tractors through snowstorms, hunt, and shoot rattlesnakes out of the ground if they get too close to the house. Barry Lynn runs this bar and has broken up fights with modern day warriors. My friend, Katie, gave birth to all her kids without drugs, and my friend Vicki runs one of the biggest cattle ranches in this state.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Logan drawled, grinning at me. “My mother’s family has been here for four generations. I have an aunt who could shoot a mosquito from fifty feet away and a great grandma who could guzzle any man under the table and then wrestle a calf to the ground. I am well aware of the strength and courage of women here.”
“Then you were doubly in the wrong to interfere. That was an obnoxious show of testosterone and maleness.”
He raised his eyebrows at me, and I could tell he was trying not to smile.
“Do you find me amusing?” I snapped. Can desire knock a woman to her knees or is that only in the sappy Christmas TV specials?
His smile became wider. “Yes, Meredith, you are somewhat amusing. But you are many other things, too.”
“How do you know my name?”
He hesitated. “I’ve heard of you.”
Oh, darn it and Christmas bells! What did the man know? “And?” I snapped.
“And it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I crossed my arms. “Why, you truck-sized male? Why is it a pleasure to meet me?”
He stepped closer, and I tried not to swoon, but golly gee, if mistletoe had dropped right out of the sky at that second, I would have been hard-pressed not to make a grab-and-kiss gesture.
Nothing wimpy or pale or weak about Logan Taylor.
Such a man!
And he will judge you harshly, exactly like all the others, so put a lid on this brief foray into passion, I told myself. Don’t set yourself up.
“It’s a pleasure to meet a woman who can deck an obnoxious drunk, wears a red cowboy hat, and has an attitude. I hear you bake well, too. Thick French toast with homemade raspberry syrup that’s to die for. An Italian omelet that brings shame to all other omelets. Cinnamon rolls with a secret recipe.”
“I like decking obnoxious drunks, and I like my red cowgirl hat, and my omelets are lighter and fluffier than anyone’s. I will never tell the recipe for the Ghirlandaio Family Go-Go Cinnamon Rolls, but I don’t have an attitude.” Instantly I envisioned cinnamon rolls circling Logan.
“Yes, you do.”
“I defended myself against a leech and I have an attitude?”
“Perhaps it was the way you defended yourself.” Those eyes, those green-gold eyes twinkled at me. No kidding. There was twinkling going on here!
“And how’s that?” I was still ticked off.
He paused, and the smile disappeared. “Fearlessly. Confidently. With total control. Almost as if you were used to it.”
“He touched my hair!”
Logan’s eyes examined the white streak through the black. “You don’t like your hair touched?”
“Not by him.”
He nodded, serious now. “I understand. The man was a disrespectful, rude creep. Had I been there earlier, I would have removed him from your presence immediately so you wouldn’t have had to deal with him.”
“I can protect myself,” I said, but it was weak. So, okay. Maybe it was a teeny tiny bit romantic for a man to be protective, to want to rescue me from a situation. Was it anti-feminist to think that? “All right, tough guy, nice meeting you, stay out of my business and my life, don’t ever try to rescue me again, and a Merry Christmas to you.” I turned to go back into the bar, but he caught my arm.
“All right, tough lady, it was nice meeting you, too. I won’t get in your business again until at least tomorrow, I won’t interfere with your life unless you invite me or I invite myself, and a Merry Christmas to you, I’d like to see you again.”
No. Definite no. That would be a disaster. “Why do you want to see me again? I haven’t been pleasant, I yelled at you, called you a testosterone-driven cowboy oaf and told you not to treat me like a damsel in distress. That doesn’t usually lead people to want to see others again.”
He was so close now that if it hadn’t been snowing, I was sure I could have felt his heat. My, I did love his cowboy hat. Cowboy hats are so earthly, Americanly sexy.
“Here’s what I know already, Meredith,” he said, his voice soft. “I’ve never seen a woman in action like you before.” He chuckled and that chuckle ran down my spine in an earthly, Americanly, and sexy way. “You’re a tough lady, and smart. You stood up for yourself, fought for yourself, and stayed cool the whole time. You’re articulate, even when you’re knocking a man on his butt.”
“I wanted . . .” I was getting all confused again. “Honesty is the best policy.” I cringed. Honesty is the best policy? What was I? A school teacher?
“Sure is, and I’m being honest
here. I like how you don’t filter what you’re thinking; I like the way you dress with all the different cowboy hats I’ve seen the last two weeks; I like the sound of your voice, and your smile. I wanted to introduce myself before this, but couldn’t quite catch up to you.” He winked.
I inhaled sharply. Yikes. He knew I’d been avoiding him!
“I like your independence, too.” He grinned again, his green eyes smiling at me, inviting, welcoming. “Are those good enough reasons? Can I take you to dinner?”
I pinched myself as a haze of lust started swirling around me. This, I had to call a halt to. I needed to reject before I was rejected.
“No, they’re not good enough reasons. Look here, testosterone cowboy. I don’t want to go out with you. What’s the point? I go to dinner with you a couple times, you want to swing me into bed, and then that’s that, you go back to your ‘work’ in whatever state that’s in now. You want a Montana sweetie, don’t you? You want a little hee-haw like those drunken fishermen in there, but you wrap it up prettier, isn’t that right? I don’t do that type of thing.”
All vestiges of a smile were now gone, his face hardening. “I don’t either, and that’s not what I meant.” I did not miss the sharp anger lacing through those words.
“Good. Because I’m not that kind of lady.”
“I never thought you were, Meredith,” he bit out, shoulders back as if I’d hit him. “I was asking you to dinner because I thought we’d have great conversation if you could refrain from decking me. I thought maybe we’d laugh, and I could get behind that nail tough exterior you wear so mercilessly. I could get to know you, without the armor. Would I want to take you out to dinner a few times, throw you into bed, and then leave? No. That’s not in the plan. I’m not that kind of man. Do you always judge people so harshly?”
“I judge what I see.”
“You judge what you see?” His eyes narrowed, and he did not look so gentle anymore. “So, let me get this right. I come into the bar, step into a fight you’re having with one man, which is soon going to be four men, I lift the man off his toes, make them all apologize to you, and you’ve got me pegged as a man who will flip a woman into bed and then drop her when I move on? Have I got that about right?”
I nodded. Gall. Wasn’t I right?
“Well, guess what, Meredith, with the white streak in her hair and a dangerous right hook, you’re wrong. Entirely wrong.”
We glared at each other in the silence of the snowflakes. This argument would not fit into one of those sappy Christmas shows.
“Damn, but you are going to be difficult, aren’t you,” he muttered. “Not a moment’s peace will I have with you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, Meredith Ghirlandaio, that I’m going home, to my ranch, outside of town, and I will see you soon so that you can begin torturing me with your difficultness.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not going to see you soon—”
Logan Taylor wrapped one arm around me, drawing me close from chest to knee, put his hand on my cheek, tipped my head back and said, “I would really like to kiss you, but I won’t. You’re a classy lady, and first we’re going to date and I’m going to treat you like a lady should be treated. Then, when you’re ready, and you ask me to, I’m going to kiss you and that’ll be the start of us.”
“Us?” I said weakly, breathlessly, and I cursed myself for it. Where was my tough cowgirl attitude?
“Yes. Us. But it’s too much for tonight, my lady Meredith, so, good night.”
He released me, and all his warmth was instantly gone. Poof. I leaned against the wall of the oldest bar in Telena with the bullet holes to prove it, and attempted to breathe.
I was in trouble. No doubt about that.
Chapter 3
Two days after going weak in Logan’s arms, I sat next to Jacob at the piano.
“Hi, Jacob.”
Jacob took his hands off the keys and placed them in his lap. I dropped an arm around his shoulders. He was rigid and stiff at first, but then leaned into me.
“Everyone talked about how beautiful your Christmas songs were this morning.” That was true. There was a reason that on Saturday and Sunday mornings we were packed for breakfast from 9:00 to 1:00. Jacob, a piano genius at age twelve, usually played about three and a half hours then. People called asking when he would play. My answer was always, “He’ll play when he feels like it.” I looked at his tip jar. “Looks like you made another haul of money.”
Jacob had a mop of brown hair and huge brown eyes that showed every emotion he was feeling. Unfortunately, he hardly spoke. When I asked him why he loved piano, he said, “I like that I can make music with my fingers.”
When I asked him why he liked to play for hours every day, he said, “Because then it’s just the piano and me, not me and my loneliness.”
When I asked him how school was going, he said, “Not so good. The kids think I’m weird.” He had not made friends this last year here. “No one likes me. I’m always alone at school unless the kids are bugging me. I’m invisible.”
Jacob and Sarah’s childhood had so far been lousy. Though their mother, Leia, and I were born and raised here, Leia had left and wandered from city to city after high school. She had two boyfriends who produced Jacob and Sarah and who had both taken off into the wild blue yonder.
Our parents tried to visit with their grandkids as much as possible, when they could locate their daughter. I came and got them for three weeks every summer and took them to stay with me in New York, starting when Sarah was five and Jacob was three. They had been so happy to see me, so tearfully grateful, it was gut-wrenching. No child should be that pathetically relieved to be away from his or her mother.
Leia had finally settled in a small town in Idaho for about six months, before she declared, “I cannot be a mother for one more minute. I have to live my life. My spirit is crushed, my inner soul is crying for freedom, and I know my destiny isn’t here. I’m sorry, kids.” She left the kids with a neighbor and called me. “Sorry, Meredith! They like you better anyhow.”
She was sorry. Sorry. Well, good golly, apology not accepted, you selfish she-devil. I smashed down that well of anger that flowed against my sister for numerous, complicated reasons.
My parents, both doctors, prepared to leave a new medical clinic for kids that they’d helped to open in Africa to take care of their grandchildren. I didn’t see that happening. Leave all those kids? No. So, after a long, long argument, and a gale of tears, I quit my chef ’s job in New York City, packed up, and flew out to Leia’s.
“I’m sorry, my sweet daughter,” my father wept. “I’m sorry for all that Leia has done to you. We could not control that girl. I know your teenage years were so hard with her moods, her rebellion, her tantrums, and then with the accident, honey. She was dropped on her head by the nurse when she was about a day old. Maybe that’s what caused all this.”
“It’s my fault,” my mother groaned. “In every single generation in my family line in England, there is one girl who is so naughty, so very naughty, and your sister is it. It’s the royal curse, I know it. I have drunk so much tea over that girl.”
When I arrived at Leia’s neighbor’s house, I couldn’t see how I could possibly make a living at anything in her town, so I thanked the woman profusely, packed up the kids’ possessions, bought this three-story brick house with almost every penny I had, and “set up shop,” as my mother would have said.
It was a good decision to leave Idaho. Leia, as usual, had not made a stellar reputation for herself. In fact, she had spent more than enough time in bars, and had had many boyfriends, most not married. Jacob and Sarah had been on the receiving end of kids’ merciless teasing because of it. Heartbreaking.
“Come on in, Jacob, and I’ll make you some of my Excellent Eggs Benedict with Cranky Crab.”
He glanced up at me, skinny, pale, sad, and I ached so bad for that kid, I thought the pain would reel me backwards.
/>
“And, I’ll throw in some Boo Boo Blueberry French Toast on the side and cut them into Christmas trees.”
That got a small smile out of him. I gave him a hug. “I love you, Jacob. You are a talented, kind person. Never forget that, buddy. I am so proud of you.”
He hunched his shoulders. “Aunt Meredith, has my mom called at all? Or e-mailed you?”
Oh, how I had struggled when he and his sister, Sarah, had asked me these questions over the last months. Did I tell them the truth: No, she hadn’t contacted me.
Or, did I lie to them to spare them hurt?
I opted for the truth. These children needed no more lies, no more deception, no more blows to their sense of reality. It was disrespectful to them and would only lead to more pain.
“No, honey, she has not.”
I hugged him close when he wiped tears from his eyes with both hands, made a choking sound, then banged his fingers on the piano keys, before drifting into a well-known, depressing song.
He liked the Christmas tree blueberry French toast, though.
* * *
The police were at my door at 2:00 the next morning. They knew to ring the doorbell to my upstairs quarters only, so as not to awaken my guests. I hurried down the creaking steps and yanked open the front door in my pink robe.
“Hello, Sato, hello, Juan,” I said to the officers, pushing my white streak off my face and searing Sarah with what I hoped reflected my truly tremendous anger at her.
“Good evening,” Juan said. Juan is the size of a Mack truck. He secretly reads romance novels.
Sato is slender and enters, and wins, weight lifting competitions. He has six children, and his wife is a firefighter. He was two years ahead of me in high school. “She wears the pants in the house,” Sato told me once, then stared up into the air with a smile on his face, “But, dang, she looks so good in them, so I let her.”
“Hi, Meredith,” Sato said. “We found Sarah downtown again behind the Santa Claus display. Her male friend ran off. Sarah did, too. She’s fast if I do say so myself, but she made a wrong turn down the wrong alley, so we caught up with her.”