Mistletoe Cinderella

Chapter Six

Dylan wanted to pump his fist in the air and let out a whoop of victory. He couldn’t have asked for a better moment than this, his beautiful liar of last night caught off guard, her eyes wide and stricken. When he’d read her bio at the reunion, he’d been furious and imagined a straightforward confrontation, asking her point-blank about her identity and watching her squirm over the inevitable truth. But some imp took hold of him as he studied her. With all her hair skimmed back in a high ponytail and wearing practically no makeup, she looked as fresh faced and innocent as she probably had in her teens.

It incensed him anew that a woman who would knowingly make a fool out of him looked so damn much like a schoolgirl. Only her colorful shirt-get lei’d?-and shiny full lips hinted at possible naughtiness. He was annoyed to find himself wondering if she once again tasted like chocolate.

“I was sorry you had to leave in such a rush last night,” he said, trying to forget how hopeful he’d been about seeing her in the ballroom. And how terrible he’d felt for possibly scaring her off with overzealous ardor. Idiot. He managed not to grit his teeth. “I hope it wasn’t anything I did?”

“N-no. Nothing like that. I had somewhere I needed to be.”

“The reunion?” he pressed. “I looked for you downstairs.”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “When I was fixing my makeup, I noticed…that I had a text message. From a friend. Needing help.”

“I see. Is everything okay?”

“Mmm-hmm. It was just a, um, girl thing. All taken care of now.”

The fact that she was a lousy liar made him feel like an even bigger chump for not seeing through her last night. How could he have fallen for anything that came out of her mouth? Maybe because you were too busy fantasizing about the mouth in question.

He handed over a twenty that covered the few basics he’d picked up for his mother, then followed Chloe out the door without bothering to wait for his change. No way was he letting her escape before she confessed her perfidy.

“I was sorry we didn’t get to talk longer about your job,” he said.

“My job?”

He nodded, grinning as a spontaneous plan took shape. “The interior decorating. What’s your specialty?” He had no idea whether decorators even had specialties.

“Feng sway?” It came out as a tentative squeak. “Shui. Feng shui.”

“Because I was thinking of having my condo redecorated.” He wondered how much rope he needed to hand her before she hanged herself.

“B-but you live in Atlanta!”

“Hardly the far corners of the earth.” He shrugged. “It’s not too bad a drive. Surely not all your clients are in Mistletoe? If I hired you, I’d know I wasn’t getting ripped off by some stranger in the city. And as an extra bonus, I’d get to see you again.”

“No, I-” She broke off, looking even more alarmed than before, if such a thing were possible.

He followed her gaze to a pregnant woman farther down the sidewalk. The spring breeze plastered her blue maternity dress to the small baby bulge, and a headband was keeping the raven-black hair out of her eyes while she took pictures with a digital camera. She seemed to be photographing storefronts.

Turning back to Chloe, he asked, “Someone you know?”

After a brief hesitation, Chloe admitted, “Rachel Waide. But she’s working right now. For the chamber of commerce. Very artistic. She hates to be bothered while she’s trying to get the perfect shot,” she added, already striding in the opposite direction.

Dylan amiably tagged along. “I don’t know if you realize this about me, but I’m very stubborn. Coach taught me to hang in there all nine innings and go for the win. I really would like to talk to you more about decorating my place. Or at least coming to look at it before you turn me down completely.”

They were passing a woman with what appeared to be her teenage son, and Chloe ducked her head, clearly hoping not to be recognized by any of her fellow citizens.

“How about I buy you lunch and we can chat?” He aimed his most charming smile directly at her. “Come on, you owe me for running off last night, C.J. Is the Dixieland Diner still in business?”

“I can’t go out to lunch. My ice cream would melt.”

“Dinner, then?” he persisted. “Or why don’t you just give me your business card. I’ll come by your office later and-”

“I work from home.”

“Even better. We can go there and have lunch together. To protect your ice cream,” he added with a smile.

She stared back with a deer-in-the-headlights look, finally sighing in resignation. For a moment, he thought she was about to cop to not being an interior decorator. “Fine. Follow me.”

Game on, then?

He nodded. “Lead the way.” This should be interesting.

CHLOE BRIEFLY entertained the fantasy of mashing down the accelerator and not stopping. She’d recently decided she wanted to see more of the world-here was her chance! Yet she was slowly realizing that Dylan Echols wouldn’t be that easy to shake. Besides, she only had about a quarter of a tank of gas. As great escapes went, that wouldn’t get her far.

Cursing her luck, she stayed right at the legal speed limit, neither too slow nor too fast, and dutifully signaled with her blinker well before each turn. Story of my life. Until this weekend, anyway. Dylan stayed close, impossible to miss in her rearview mirror. Even his car was sexy-a recent-model dark metallic-blue Mustang convertible.

Driving around with the top down, he looked like a man without cares. If she hadn’t known about his shoulder injury and subsequent career disappointment, she would have bought into the illusion. He seemed to have bounced back well, though. She wondered if he enjoyed his sports reporting job. Addressing a faceless audience with a camera trained on her sounded like purgatory to her. Chloe did better in front of a computer than she did in front of people.

Which made it thoroughly ironic that she was having two meals with Dylan in as many days. Why in heaven’s name had she capitulated to his suggestion that he come over for lunch? Well, there had been the fear of being recognized, of course, and her escalating need to end their conversation in front of the store, but that was the logical, intellectual reason. On a purely instinctual level, when a man like Dylan Echols said, “Take me home,” a woman’s automatic response was yes!

When Chloe parked under the carport, he was quick to hop out of his own vehicle and offer a hand with the groceries. She thanked him as she gave him the bag of ice cream.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you have anything you need to put in the refrigerator?”

He shook his head. “I just grabbed a few things to take over to my mom’s this afternoon. Nothing that won’t keep for a little while.”

That was nice of him; she could identify with taking care of your parents. Not only did Chloe miss Aunt Jane horribly, her passing made Chloe even more conscious of her parents’ age.

She swallowed. “How’s your mother doing? I mean, I heard that your dad had passed away. That must be hard on her, living alone after so many years of marriage.”

He was silent, remote behind the sunglasses he wore. Then he said, “I suppose it is,” and strode past her on the sidewalk even though he’d have to wait for her to unlock the front door.

Lesson learned. Apparently, even with the months that had passed, he wasn’t ready to talk about his late father.

She climbed the steps to the front porch, thinking back to earlier in the week. It had been such a surprise to find that package from Aunt Jane. How could Chloe have known she was in for a bigger shock-Dylan Echols right here at her door? She ushered him inside, grateful for the tiny bit of redecorating she’d managed since moving into the house. Undecorating, rather.

Chloe was the only child of adoring parents, and the place had looked like a shrine to her. Framed pictures of her entire childhood had filled the wall space in the hallway and trophies from the Academic Decathlon and sophomore science fair had perched on the mantel. Her parents had taken their favorite portraits with them to their smaller apartment, but had left so much of it here that she’d felt a little embarrassed living among the memorabilia her first week back at home.

Was the Echols house a similar museum to Dylan’s achievements? Like her, Dylan was an only child, and she imagined his parents must have been bursting with pride for him. There were probably team pictures, from kindergarten community league to the major leagues, and sports trophies in every room.

“So this is your place, huh?” Sliding off his glasses, Dylan glanced around at the serviceable but worn furniture, her mother’s faded floral curtains and the rug Chloe planned to replace with faux hardwood. Eventually.

Dylan raised an eyebrow. “I have to admit, it’s not what I expected from a decorator. But then, you’re just full of surprises.”

Her heart hammered. Surprises as in her kissing him last night, or her fleeing immediately afterward? “Well, you know what they say about the cobbler’s children having no shoes? It’s like that with decorators, too.”

The sensible thing to do would be trying to convince him that she was a lousy decorator so that he’d abandon any half-baked notion of hiring her. But she was already humiliated enough over last night and hated for him to think she was completely incompetent.

She found herself adding, “Besides, I haven’t been here long enough to renovate much. It was my parents’ place, and they recently gave it to me. Moved into their own apartment at the seniors’ center. They’re older than a lot of my friends’ parents,” she explained. Nat’s mom had recently hit fifty, but could pass for a woman in her late thirties-good genes in that family.

“These your folks?” Dylan gestured toward a magnetic frame on the refrigerator. In the picture, her mother was wearing a bright green sweater and her dad a suit with a Christmas-tree tie.

Chloe nodded. “Yeah. That was taken at the Winter Wonderland Dance.”

“I remember that dance.” His smile was nostalgic. “For this town it was like homecoming and prom all rolled into one.”

He was right. Even though it seemed more heavily chaperoned than a high school event because of all the adults, the annual charity formal had always been a big deal among her classmates, wondering who would invite whom. Even the strictest of parents normally allowed their children to attend since it was a community fund-raiser, benefiting the seniors’ center and adjacent medical complex. No guy had ever asked Chloe, though. Her junior year, Natalie had tried to force a double date with her own date’s cousin who was visiting for the holidays, but it had turned out to be such an awkward fiasco that Chloe had skipped the whole thing her senior year, telling her parents she’d rather use the time to study for winter finals.

She didn’t realize she was scowling until Dylan asked, “Did I say something wrong?”

“Not at all. Just trying to decide on a plan for lunch. Pizza okay with you?”

“Sure.” He stayed out of her way while she bustled around the small kitchen, stowing her newly purchased groceries. “But I still can’t believe you opted for manual labor over my buying you lunch at the diner.”

“Well, there was the ice cream to consider,” she reminded him lamely.

The bigger consideration was the half-dozen people who would have greeted her at the diner, where she was a regular. Just the thought of being exposed as a fraud left her wanting her inhaler. Dylan would be gone again soon. Couldn’t she have this small, stolen period of time with him and retain her dignity?

Then say something, she scolded herself, and stop just standing here with a guilty expression. She cleared her throat. “Besides, my dinner plans are for the diner.”

“Ah. Hot date?”

If it weren’t for the faint brackets of tension around his mouth, she would have assumed he was poking fun at her, but she reconsidered from his perspective. If Dylan Echols had deemed her attractive and interesting enough to have dinner with last night, why wouldn’t she be good enough for some other guy to take to dinner? It was an unfamiliar yet pleasant way to think of herself.

“Just dinner with a friend. Nothing romantic.”

His shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly. “As embarrassing as this is to admit, I think I would have been jealous.”

It ranked among the most flattering things a man had ever said to her-right up there with technophobe Zachariah Waide telling her that the Web site she’d created for his supply store was a user-friendly work of art. “Th-thank you.”

Dylan’s eyes held hers. “You’re welcome.”

The moment took on an intimacy that heightened both her attraction to him and her discomfort. She turned away to preheat the ancient oven, then got out a baking sheet. When the metal hit the counter, she realized for the first time how quiet her house was. It never bothered her when she was alone, but somehow it seemed even more quiet with him here.

As she threw away the cardboard box and plastic wrapping, he asked, “How’d you get into feng shui?”

“You could say I followed an impulse.”

“I’ve heard of it in passing, but never met anyone who uses it. I’d love to hear some specifics.”

Gulp. She’d only mentioned feng shui because, at the time, it had been the single decorating term she could even think of. In retrospect, she should have told him her specialty was commercial interiors. Since there was no way he had the authority to hire her to redecorate a television station, that would have been a tidy way to end the discussion. I have to get better at thinking on my feet.

Except what she really meant was that she should get better at lying, a thought that made her queasy. Her parents would be horribly disappointed in her.

“Well, as you probably know, feng shui is an ancient Asian art. Or maybe more like a tradition. A philosophy. Having to do with the placement of items in the home and the different ways said placement can affect the home owner.”

“Such as?” He took a seat, watching her with fascination.

Chloe wanted to groan. After hearing Nat and other girlfriends complain about dating guys who talked only about themselves, why did she have to find such a good listener? Stalling, she opened the refrigerator with vague intentions of pulling together a salad to accompany the pizza. Until she remembered that she’d not bought any produce because she’d been dodging Dylan. And here he sits in your kitchen. Excellent job with the avoidance, girl genius.

She straightened. “Are you sure you’re really interested in hearing this? It’s pretty metaphysical. Probably not your cup of tea.”

“Why, because I’m just a jock?”

Oddly, in that moment, he reminded her of Candy Beemis, the way the other woman would say something under the pretext of “just kidding” when, in reality, she was speaking her mind. The difference was that Dylan wasn’t targeting someone else with the disparaging humor, but himself. Though his tone was light enough to be considered jesting, there was a vulnerability in his green eyes that sliced straight through Chloe. An insecurity, even.

Had someone made him feel like “just a jock”? He had to know there was more to his personality than that…although maybe he was more sensitive to the issue now that baseball had been ripped out of his life. A knot formed in her chest. On top of her other crimes this weekend, she’d inadvertently belittled him just because she was trying to cover her own butt. After all the times she’d felt inadequate in her life, she couldn’t stand to do the same to someone else, even accidentally.

“I’ll come to your apartment,” she blurted.

Both his eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding.”

Well, he couldn’t be any more surprised by the spontaneous offer than she was.

“You caught me unawares today-I don’t usually give presentations to former crushes while standing in my kitchen in bright purple T-shirts of dubious taste-but I’ll get my materials together and do a formal consultation for you later in the week.” After she’d had time to learn something about feng shui but before she lost her nerve. Unless…“I’m afraid it will have to be soon. Starting next month, my schedule just takes off. But if you don’t have the time right now, I under-”

“Not a problem.”

“Oh. Great,” she lied. This is getting to be a bad habit.

She wanted to smack her forehead and just admit all; it seemed simpler than continuing this far-fetched charade. But she looked into those green eyes and forgot what she was going to say. As Natalie had grumbled during their teen years, Chloe avoided conflict whenever possible, even if it meant letting someone like Candy occasionally run over her. While Chloe hoped she’d matured past some of that, the thought of the conflict, the contempt, she’d cause if she told Dylan the sordid truth made her stomach clench.

Grateful to break eye contact, she put the pizza in the oven and set the timer.

As soon as she sat at the table with him, he asked, “So, you have a home office?”

“Down the hall. But it’s way too messy for anyone to see,” she prevaricated. Chloe was compulsively neat, a holdover from her mother believing that if they could just keep the home dust-free Chloe wouldn’t have asthma attacks. Rose had kept the house meticulous and raised Chloe to do the same.

“Fair enough. But do you have a portfolio of your work here that you show perspective clients?”

“Actually, no. That’s a good idea, though.”

“Surely you have a Web site.”

“It’s, um, down temporarily. Being transitioned to a new server.” She bounced out of her chair like a demented jack-in-the-box. “I’m being a terrible hostess. Can I get you a drink?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

Her hands trembled as she pulled a jug from the fridge. Dylan sat looking so relaxed in comparison that she wanted to scream just to relieve some of her tension.

He smiled. “For the record, I like the bright purple shirt. Have you actually been lei’d?”

Lemonade sloshed over the top of the pitcher. “Excuse me?”

He flashed that same wolfish smile from this morning. “What I mean is, have you been to Hawaii? You mentioned wanting to travel. I wondered if the shirt was a personal souvenir or a gift from someone else or…”

“Ah.” Barely paying attention to what she was doing, she tore too many paper towels off the roll to clean up her spill. “Gift. From my late aunt Jane. She was really something…visited at least four continents. She sent me all kinds of crazy things. She died on her most recent trip. In her sleep, in the Caribbean. There are definitely worse ways to go, so I should be glad.”

Dylan studied her, the playfulness gone from his tone. “You miss her.”

“A lot. Even though she wasn’t in Mistletoe much, she was still a major presence in my life.” She blinked hard against the tears she hadn’t expected. “We just buried her last week. To tell you the truth, I haven’t been myself ever since. I…”

“Yes?” There was empathy in his voice. Because of how much he missed his father?

Chloe leaned against the counter, staring into the eyes of a man she hadn’t seen in ten years, a man who hadn’t even known she existed ten years ago. Yet she felt she could tell him anything. Would he understand how she’d so desperately wanted to become the person Aunt Jane saw in her? Chloe knew that her aunt had loved her, had been proud of her, but she was also aware that Jane had hoped for more for her niece. Recently Chloe found herself yearning for an undefined more…but not enough to change a carefully organized and mostly satisfactory existence to reach for it. At least, not until last night.

That had been a big enough shake to register on the Richter scale. She probably should have hurried for the nearest doorway as soon as she’d seen Dylan in the lobby.

“C.J.?” His tone was heartbreakingly gentle. “Was there something you wanted to say?”

But she didn’t think she’d be able to get the words past the lump of emotion. It was all tangled together, and the minute she tried to explain any of it, she’d start sobbing. Her eyes were already stinging. She had plenty to regret about her behavior this weekend, and she wasn’t going to add to the list by bursting into tears in front of Dylan.

So she swallowed, reaching for the timer before it had a chance to buzz. “I think the pizza’s ready.”

“Right.” He looked away, and the startling connection between them was broken.

Chloe didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

CHICKEN-FRIED STEAK wasn’t nearly as good when it was cold, Chloe discovered. The gravy had congealed unappetizingly while she filled Natalie in on the details of the past twenty-four hours. Natalie, sitting on the living room floor on the opposite side of the rectangular coffee table, had finished her dinner, almost choking on laughter and mashed potatoes when Chloe repeated her supposed specialty.

“Feng shui?” Natalie had sputtered. “What on earth possessed you to say that?”

“It’s not like I have an extensive mental encyclopedia of decorating terms to choose from! Heck, I’m lucky I was able to come up with that on the spot. It was just…everyone in this town sees me as a computer geek, which I am, but it was nice for Dylan to see me as-” A total fake? Yeah, much better.

Chloe pushed away her take-out container of untouched food and considered her rash promise. “I can’t believe I agreed to go to his apartment.” He’d just looked so irresistibly vulnerable. She would have agreed to virtually anything in the moment.

“What I cannot believe is that you’ve scored more alone time with Dylan Echols.” Natalie wagged her brows. “Lucky girl.”

“Alone time is how I got into this mess in the first place.” Chloe sighed, resting her head against the couch behind her. “Maybe it’s not too late to…Think I could convince him that every graduating class has a senior prank and this was it, ten years later?”

“We did have a senior prank. Back in ’99. A few guys from the swim team and a few from the chess club took apart the lavatory stalls and reassembled them on the front lawn.”

Only partly listening, Chloe tried to regroup. It was devastating to imagine telling Dylan she was a big fat fake. How could she admit that after the way she’d once idolized him, after the immensely flattering way he looked at her? The way he-her skin flushed with warmth-kissed her. She’d officially gotten herself in too deep to undo all the fibs, including the comparatively innocuous one that she had dinner plans with her parents tomorrow. Before he’d left today, Dylan had invited her to be his last-minute date to the dinner honoring the coach.

Stupid irony. The guy of her dreams was seeking her out at seemingly every opportunity, and she had to turn him down because of her own self-sabotage.

Her intellect argued that he was seeking her out for local weekend events because he happened to be here in Mistletoe and she was convenient. Even then, he probably would have rapidly lost interest if she’d said, “Don’t you remember? I’m Chloe, the mousy tongue-tied girl you ignored throughout high school. I stayed in Mistletoe, live in my parents’ house and work with computers.” Where was the glamour and sex appeal in that? Most people were not turned on by HTML code.

“I think I want to be someone else,” Chloe said.

“Okay, but Candy?” Natalie pulled a face.

“No, not her. Someone with her confidence maybe, but not her cruel streak. Someone who knows how to talk to men. Someone who, when she notices a guy staring, assumes it’s for a good reason and not because she tucked her dress into her panty hose. Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed in Mistletoe.” Chloe was an arguably successful adult; would she have fared better if she’d started fresh someplace, where no one knew her as the wheezy kid or uncoordinated teen?

“Hey!” Natalie looked genuinely alarmed. “I, for one, am thrilled that you stayed in Mistletoe. Don’t move!”

“I won’t. I was just thinking out loud.” Her parents would be crushed if she abandoned them. She knew she couldn’t do that.

Natalie shook her head. “I can’t believe one stupid reunion has you second-guessing your entire life. It was just a dance, Chloe.”

“It isn’t only the reunion-it’s me. Even before Aunt Jane died, I…Knowing you want to make changes doesn’t mean you know where to start. It’s scary. And it’s difficult to re-create who you are in a place where everyone’s known you since preschool. I think, subconsciously, that’s why I told Dylan that my name is C.J. and I’m an interior designer. He doesn’t know me. It was my big chance.”

Natalie looked thoughtful, refraining from judgment. “Well, C.J., what are you going to do now?”

“Exactly what I told him I would. Go to his place on Wednesday.” She took a deep breath, reminding herself that she’d always been a quick study. With facts and books, anyway, if not people. “I can do this.”

“Do what?” Natalie’s blue eyes widened. “Decorate his place?”

“No, it won’t come to that. I’ll quote him a ridiculous price or suggest we do everything in orange and pink feathers or something. He won’t hire me. All I need is enough information to bluff my way through a conversation at his apartment. I’ll look up some decorating terminology online, maybe get one of those ubiquitous and insultingly titled books. You know the type. Feng Shui for Fools, Danish Modern for Dumbasses.”

Natalie snorted. “Now there’s the Chloe I love. You have a delightfully dry wit when you’re not censoring yourself. I get antsy on bad dates, eager to recap them for you because I know your observations will be more entertaining than the date itself. You can be wicked when you want to.”

“Thank you. I think. Jane was like that, unafraid to speak her mind even if it shocked people around her. And it always shocked Mama. Funny, you’d think she would have gotten used to it after all those years.”

“Chloe.” Natalie hesitated, which was so unlike her that it made Chloe sit up and pay closer attention.

“What is it?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but your parents? They could be really protective. I know you were sick a lot when you were a kid, but that was a long time ago. Don’t let their good intentions smother you. You don’t have to be perfect for them.”

“Last night, I went up to a hotel room with a guy I barely know and I’m losing count of the lies I’ve told him. I don’t think we need to worry about me being perfect.”

“I just meant-”

“I know what you meant.” Chloe just wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Her parents had tried to do right by her, and she loved them a lot. But she had to admit, there had been times she’d chafed under their sheltering strictures.

Natalie stood. “Come on, then.”

“Ice cream time?”

“No, let’s hit the Web and see what we can find out about feng shui.”

“I hate that you’re helping,” Chloe said. “I feel like I’ve made you an accessory, like I’m taking you down with me.”

Natalie waved a hand. “Are you kidding? This is exciting stuff. Besides, you know I’d help with anything in my power. I owe you. You’re the only reason a bubble brain like me passed math.”

“You’re not bubble brained!” Chloe protested vehemently.

“Math sure made me feel like I was. Until I met you.”

“You just had some bad teachers.” Though Chloe herself had never had trouble in school, she knew that some instructors weren’t flexible enough to account for different learning styles. “Look at you now! Taking care of the books for a profitable retail operation. You rock.”

“Back atcha,” Natalie said with a smile. “I was serious about helping you. If you want to make changes, I’m happy to lend advice. Or shoes. Or alibis.”

Chloe laughed. The fact that the person who knew her best thought she might need an alibi showed that, for better or worse, Chloe was changing already. Here goes nothing.