Make-Believe Mistletoe

Chapter Nine

“What question do you want to ask me?” Banner said, injecting just enough resignation in his tone to let Lucy know what he really thought about this exercise-which should be her first clue to their incompatibility, he mused.

His reluctance to participate didn't seem to bother her in the least. She reached for one of the cookies he had set out to accompany their tea when she replied. “Question one. Hmm. What's your birthday?”

Hardly a question of deep importance, he thought, which meant he could answer without weighing his words, “April 3. I'll be thirty-one.”

“That's two answers for one question,” she observed cheerily. “I should get extra points.”

“I didn't know we were awarding points.”

“I'll fill you in on that part later. Your turn to ask a question.”

The woman wasn't quite normal, which, Banner had to admit, if only to himself, was one of her charms. “I can't think of anything to ask. You go ahead.”

She sighed heavily. “Banner, you have to play the game correctly. Surely you can think of something to ask me.”

He shrugged. “Okay. What's your birthday?”

“July 25. I'm a Leo. Since you're an Aries, that makes us a very interesting combination.”

He cleared his throat, feeling the need to derail that train of thought before it got a good start. “Yeah, whatever. I've never been particularly interested in astrology. You don't really believe in that stuff, do you?”

“No cheating, dude. It's my turn to ask a question.”

He couldn't help chuckling at her wording. “So it is.”

She lowered her teacup and picked up her half-eaten cookie. “I like it when you laugh. You don't do it often enough.”

“That wasn't a question, it was an observation. Doesn't count.” But he liked that she liked it when he laughed. Which only demonstrated how much she messed with his mind, he thought in exasperation.

She seemed delighted that he was participating in her game, however reluctantly. “Okay, question two. What's your favorite color?”

He didn't know how she figured she was going to get to know him with such superficial questions-nor did he know how he was going to convince her of how different they were if all she asked were trivialities-but he gave her an answer, anyway. “Blue, I guess.”

“Most men say blue. Did you know that?”

“Is that another question?”

“No, just an observation.” She swallowed the last of her cookie and reached for another. “What's your next question?”

“I don't know-what's your favorite color?”

She frowned at him. “You aren't giving this enough thought. You're simply asking the same questions I am.”

“So maybe I really want to know your favorite color. What is it?”

“You know that pinky-purple color that a clear blue sky turns to just before sunset? That's my favorite color.”

Of course it was. He certainly shouldn't have expected her to give a simple, predictable answer like red or green or yellow.

She propped her elbows on the table and studied him. “What sort of music do you like?”

Question three, he thought. Only seventeen more to go. “Alan Jackson's in my CD player right now. Last week I was in the mood for Celtic tunes.”

“Ah. An eclectic listener. So am I-though I suppose I listen to classical recordings more than anything else.”

That was no surprise to him, either. Hadn't he read somewhere that there was a strong connection between mathematics and Mozart? “I didn't ask you what sort of music you liked.”

She chuckled. “Consider that a freebie. You still have eighteen questions.”

Oddly enough, he felt much more relaxed now than he had earlier. Had that been her intention with the whimsical game? He decided it probably had been her plan, since her questions weren't exactly thought provoking.

He tried to think of another question for her. There were a few things he wouldn't mind knowing about her, but most of them seemed too personal to ask. So he asked, instead, “What's your favorite snack food?”

“That's a good one,” she said with a nod of approval. “You can tell a lot about a person from their favorite foods. Have you ever had a deep-fried Twinkie?”

“I can't say that I have. That's your favorite snack?”

“No, but I had one at the state fair last year. I'm a fiend for chocolate-covered malted milk balls. I love the way they dissolve in your mouth when the chocolate is gone.”

Banner cleared his throat and shifted a bit in his chair. Something about the sensuous look on her face aroused him all over again. “I see.”

“Aren't you going to tell me your favorite snack?”

“You haven't asked,” he reminded her.

The way her full lower lip protruded when she pouted was enough to raise his blood pressure by a few dozen points. He dragged his gaze away from her mouth and reached for a cookie as she said, “Okay, if you have to be picky about it, I'll make it a formal question. What's your favorite snack food?”

“Moon pies.”

“Chocolate or banana?”

His left eyebrow rose. “That's question number five?”

“No. It's four-A.”

His mouth twitched with a wanna-be smile. “I'm not sure that's in the rules.”

“I make the rules,” she reminded him airily. “Chocolate or banana?”

“Banana.”

“Yuck.”

“No editorializing, please. That happens to be my favorite.”

“I don't remember seeing any moon pies in your pantry.”

“I'm out. Finished them off a couple of days ago and haven't been back to the store since. I'll stock up with a half-dozen boxes next time I go to town.”

She looked him up and down in a leisurely manner that made his heart start to pound. “Sure doesn't look like you eat half a dozen boxes of moon pies at a time. Not an extra ounce on you.”

Damn. He could almost feel himself starting to blush. Because she had embarrassed him, he blurted his next question without thought, grabbing randomly for another cookie at the same time, even though he hadn't taken a bite of the first one yet. “Have you always been afraid of the dark?”

Lucy didn't seem to find the question too personal. Nor did she seem to mind answering. “I think it started when I was ten or eleven. That's when my mother got sick, and she seemed to always be worse at night. Several times I woke up and found a baby-sitter in the house after my father had taken my mother to the hospital. It got to where I was afraid to go to bed because I didn't know what would have changed in my world by the time I woke up.”

She sighed a little and gazed down into her teacup as she continued, “I woke one morning to be told that she had passed away during the night-just as I had always predicted, I suppose. I've given a lot of thought to my neurosis during the past few years, and that's the best answer I can come up with. It's not that I'm so terrified of the dark that I turn into a screaming hysteric or anything like that-I just don't like not being able to see.”

Because he didn't know what to say in response to that heart-wrenching explanation, and being so lousy at expressing sympathy, Banner changed the subject. “Are you cold? We can move back into the living room in front of the fire, if you are.”

“No, I'm fine. This sweater's warm and the hot tea tastes wonderful. And I'm enjoying our game. It's a way for me to get to know the real you.”

That was the problem, of course. He wasn't sure how to show anyone the real him. He just…was.

Still looking at him much too knowingly, Lucy said, “My turn to ask a question. What's your first name?”

That made him frown. “Haven't I told you that already?” She smiled again. “No. You said to call you Banner.”

“Oh.” Embarrassed, he shrugged. “Habit, I guess. It's Richard. Richard Merchant Banner.”

“You don't care for the name Richard? And that's question 6-A, not a new one.”

He shrugged again without protesting her fast-and-loose rule making. “It's my father's name. I answered-reluctantly-to Ricky as a kid, but I outgrew that by the time I was in high school. Never really liked any of the other nicknames for Richard and my middle name is my mother's maiden name, not exactly one I'd want to answer to. Banner just seemed to suit me.”

“Richard Banner. It's a nice name.”

“It's my father's,” he repeated. “I'd have preferred a name of my own.”

She seemed to consider that response as she slowly chewed a bite of cookie, and then she swallowed and prodded, “Your turn.”

“Er-what's your middle name?”

“Jane, after my maternal grandmother. My aunt Janie was named for her, too.”

He really couldn't think of anything else to ask about her that seemed safely impersonal. Wasn't she tired of this game yet? Did she really intend to ask him fifteen more inconsequential questions? He didn't see what she thought they were accomplishing, other than killing time by making small talk.

She certainly wasn't getting to know the “real” him with such trivialities.

But Lucy's next question turned out to be far from innocuous. “What was your ex-wife like?” she asked, her gaze focused intently on his face.

Banner's response was a startled, “Why?”

“I'm just curious. We're trying to get to know each other better, remember? I'll tell you about my last serious relationship, if you like, and you don't even have to use one of your questions. Not that there's much to tell. I thought I had found a partner, and he thought he had found a second mommy. Wanted me to take care of his needs without giving much consideration to mine. Needless to say, it didn't last long. How about your marriage?”

Deciding to think about what she had told him later, he concentrated on her question. “It lasted less than a year.”

“Did you love her?”

It was an extremely personal question, of course, and he had every right to decline to answer. Some things didn't belong in any sort of game. Instead, he scowled and said flatly, “I thought we were suited. I was mistaken. I was trying to prove that everyone else was wrong about my ability to maintain a meaningful relationship with another person, but all I succeeded in doing was proving that they had been right after all.”

Lucy shook her head in exasperation. “You decided that from one failed relationship? Didn't it occur to you that perhaps you simply ran your experiment with the wrong partner?”

He shrugged. “I know exactly what I proved. And that was your seventh question, by the way.”

Her hands wrapped tightly around her teacup, she ignored the reference to the game. “You're afraid to try again to have a real relationship with anyone.”

“I'm not afraid,” he countered instantly. “Just realistic.”

“So the kisses we've shared have been…?”

She let the quiet words fade off, waiting for him to complete the sentence.

“They were nice,” he said after a moment. “But I know you'll have to leave soon.”

He was making it clear that he would do nothing to detain her. “Nice,” she repeated with a lifted eyebrow. “That's the way you describe our kisses?”

A faint flush crept up his neck from the open collar of his sweatshirt. It seemed that he had accidentally tripped over her feminine ego. “They were, uh, really nice. Great.”

Without warning, Lucy rose and rounded the table toward him. He rose instinctively to meet her.

Stopping directly in front of him, she reached out to stroke a hand up his chest. “I really think I can do better than 'nice.' Why don't you give me a chance to prove it?”

He really tried to resist her. But then her other arm went around his neck, and his willpower crumbled just like the cookie he'd been mutilating only moments before.

His arms went around her and his mouth met hers.

The spectacular kiss-much better than nice-was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. It wasn't a sound Banner heard much, so it took him a moment to identify the sound. Dragging his mouth from Lucy's, he released her and snagged the receiver from the kitchen extension. His voice was gruff when he barked, “Hello.”

After only a slight pause, a man's voice asked, “Is Lucy Guerin there?”

“Yeah. Hold on.” Banner motioned with the phone toward his guest. “It's for you.”

He moved aside as she took the phone, giving him a smile that made his chest tighten again. Lucy's high-voltage smiles were definitely dangerous, especially when they followed one of her mega-watt kisses.

Hulk was sitting at the door, patiently waiting to be let outside. As Banner moved to open the door, he heard Lucy say into the phone, “Daddy! Merry Christmas. Are you at Aunt Janie's house?”

He wasn't eavesdropping, Banner assured himself. But he couldn't help overhearing a little of her conversation as his dog ambled out through the open door. The affection in Lucy's voice was obvious, indicating that she loved her father despite having lived away from him since she was very young.

He wondered if Lucy's father had made a special effort to stay in touch with his daughter despite the distance between them. Had he called regularly on the phone, sent her cards or letters, made sure she had a gift from him for every birthday? He wondered if Lucy's father had been there for any concerts and dance recitals and sporting events she might have participated in.

Banner would bet Major Guerin had done all those things when his military career had allowed-unlike Richard Banner, who had always been much too busy to regularly remember the son he had fathered with his high school girlfriend.

Maybe if Richard had made the effort occasionally, Banner himself would have turned out differently-or maybe not. And it was too late to dwell on such things now, anyway.

Disgusted with himself for his uncharacteristic bout of self-pity, he tuned out Lucy's warm, happy voice and stepped onto the porch, ignoring the cold that seeped through his sweatshirt and jeans. His breath hung in front of him as he stood at the top of the steps, watching Hulk halfheartedly give chase to a fat squirrel.

Banner stuck his hands in his pockets to warm them and studied the damage the ice had done to the surrounding trees. Broken limbs littered the ground and hung precariously from the tallest branches. Most of the ice had melted into splotches of mud, though frozen patches still gleamed in some of the deepest shadows where the sun hadn't yet penetrated.

The sky was clear, the almost blinding blue of a crisp winter day. He could smell the tang of bruised evergreens and the wood smoke that drifted lazily from his chimney.

Hulk seemed to be in no hurry to go back inside, having been cooped up for the past couple of days. Banner knew the feeling. He wouldn't mind going for a long run, himself. He seemed to be in need of some heavy physical activity to take his mind off…well, other things.

He was lucky no limbs had crashed through his roof, he thought as he surveyed the mess on the ground to distract himself from what had gone on inside the house. He had a lot of cleaning up to do in the next few days. Damage control, he thought.

He would be wise to limit the damage to broken limbs, rather than risk any personal scars left behind by a certain kissable Christmas elf. He just wasn't so sure he had any more control over that than he'd had over the weather.

Lucy was watching the back door when she hung up the phone. Banner had gone outside almost ten minutes earlier and he hadn't been wearing a coat. He must be half frozen by now.

If he'd left to give her privacy, it hadn't been necessary.

She hadn't said anything to her father that she would have minded Banner overhearing.

She opened the door quietly, catching her breath when a gust of cold air rushed inside like an impatient visitor. Banner must not have heard the door open. He had wandered into the yard and was studying a small tree that looked to have broken nearly in two beneath the weight of the ice.

Lucy would have been shivering like crazy out there in a sweatshirt and jeans, but Banner seemed indifferent to the temperature. Was he really that tough or just that good at blocking his feelings?

As if he had sensed her standing there, he looked around, his eyes meeting hers. Even with the distance between them, she felt the impact of his intense gaze like a physical touch.

“Aren't you cold?” she asked after clearing her throat. “Would you like me to bring you your coat?”

“No. I'm coming in. C'mon, Hulk, leave that squirrel alone and let's go get warm.”

Lucy moved out of the way as Banner and the dog came back inside. Banner passed almost close enough to brush against her, and she could feel the cold radiating from him. What had driven him outside so impulsively that he hadn't even stopped for his coat?

She followed him into the living room, where he threw another log on the fire and then stood there soaking in the warmth. “Looks as though there was a lot of damage to your trees,” she said to start him talking again.

“Yeah.”

“Was there any damage to your house? Are all your water pipes okay?”

“They're well insulated. I think everything is fine.”

The dog gave a huge yawn, turned around a couple of times and settled down for a nap on the hearth rug. Banner looked down at the beast as if he were considering joining him.

Lucy settled into the rocker where Miss Annie had spent so much of the past two days. It was amazingly comfortable, the slat back and solid oak seat carved to cradle her. An easy push of her foot set it in motion, probably giving her an appearance of relaxation she didn't feel just then.

The afternoon sun streamed through the windows, shining on the glittery stars Joan's children had left behind. The scent of cedar wafted from the corner, drawing Lucy's attention to the cheery little Christmas tree, and the fire popped and sputtered merrily, as if trying to do its part to lighten Banner's tense mood.

It didn't seem to be working. He just stood there, staring moodily into the fire, apparently oblivious to the decorations…and to her. It seemed the game she had so impulsively initiated was over, ended by her switch from casual, impersonal questions to a more personal-and more painful-subject.

Maybe she should go. In Springfield, she would be welcomed with smiles and open arms, unlike the strained atmosphere of this room.

She had never been one to hang around where she wasn't wanted-and she did eventually take a hint, though sometimes she was a bit slow to give up when she had set her sights on something. Maybe this was one of those times when she should throw in the towel.

There was only one way to find out how Banner felt about it. Placing her hands on the arms of the rocker, she pushed herself to her feet. “I think it's time for me to let you have your privacy back. I'll just get my things out of the bathroom, and I'll be on my way.”

He reached out unexpectedly to catch her arm when she would have walked past him. “Wait.”

She looked up at him with a renewed hope. “Something else you want to say?”

“Something else I want to do,” he corrected after a rather lengthy hesitation. And then he drew her against him.

“You're really not one for conversation, are you?” she murmured, smiling as she slid her hands up his still-chilled chest.

“Sometimes it's better not to talk,” he muttered in return, and proceeded to demonstrate.

Okay, this was definitely promising, she thought, letting herself sink into his kiss. Maybe Banner had trouble with words, but he communicated beautifully this way.

Standing on her tiptoes, she clung to his neck and allowed her mind to shut down. To paraphrase Banner: sometimes it was better not to overthink things.

Once again it was the shrill ring of the telephone that brought an end to the kiss before it flared out of control.

Aroused and somewhat disoriented, Banner glared at the insistent instrument. Damn it, he hadn't had half a dozen calls in the past month. And now the stupid phone rang twice in one afternoon, each time interrupting a very interesting interlude?

It was probably an omen that he should heed. Instead, he heard himself urging, “Just let it ring this time.”

Lucy rolled her eyes and motioned toward the table where the telephone sat. “We can't do that. It could be an important call.”

He shoved a hand through his hair and tried to regain control of his raging hormones as he reached reluctantly for the receiver. “Hello,” he said, frustration making his voice even more curt than usual.

“Hi, Rick. I just called to say merry Christmas.”

He recognized his paternal half sister's voice after only a momentary hesitation. “Thanks. You, too. How's it going, Brenda?”

“My sister,” he mouthed to Lucy, who was hovering close by in case the call was for her again.

She nodded, then turned to leave the room, obviously to give him privacy.

Banner turned his attention back to the call, hearing his sister say, “Everything's fine, I suppose. We wish you could have joined us for Christmas, of course. We missed you at the dining table.”

Banner doubted that was true. As little as he usually contributed to one of the lively, and most often political, mealtime discussions at his father's table, he couldn't imagine that his presence had been missed. His sister was simply being polite. “Tell everyone I said hello,” he said.

He wasn't particularly surprised that his father hadn't called. Richard Banner wasn't exactly supportive of his eldest son. He had never approved of Banner's decision not to attend college and to attain limited success as a woodworker rather than in the higher-profit and higher-profile careers Richard's two younger offspring were pursuing.

Banner's mother hadn't called, either. That, too, was no surprise to him. His mother was sulking because he hadn't attended her Christmas dinner, even though she usually wasted their time together criticizing his appearance, his lack of interest in social skills and his decision to live in rural Arkansas “like some backwoods hillbilly.” Her words, not his. She had always been miffed that he preferred the simple existence of his great-uncle to the social climbing lifestyle she and her husband maintained so frantically.

As different as they were, Banner's parents still shared one thing in common. They were both disappointed in the son they had produced together.

He supposed he would call his mother in a little while. A call from him would appease her somewhat-at least until the next time he didn't live up to her expectations, which would come along soon enough.

“You know, Rick, you could try to get along better with Dad,” Brenda said, the argument an old and tired one as far as Banner was concerned. “You are a member of this family. I don't know why you pretend you aren't.”

“I know exactly where I stand in the family. And I get along fine with the old man. He talks, I pretend to listen, and then we both go back to our own lives. I guess you could say it works for us.”

“But Tim and I hardly know you. You don't let us get to know you.”

It wasn't that Banner didn't care at all about his half siblings. He simply didn't have much in common with them. Couldn't imagine that they had very much to say to each other on a regular basis.

Brenda shouldn't take it personally. He didn't interact any more with his two other half sisters, as his mother frequently pointed out. Not that his mother wanted him to have any undue influence over her well-connected daughters, but she would have been royally perturbed if she thought he was closer to his father's offspring than to her own.

Banner's family-both of his families-were basically nice people. His parents were hardworking, successful, upstanding citizens, and all his siblings seemed to be following that same path. He didn't dislike any of them.

He simply didn't fit in. He never had. He couldn't imagine that he ever would. It had taken him a lot of time and a lot of anguish before he had finally accepted that fact.

Because he didn't want to deliberately hurt his sister's feelings, he made an effort to sound interested when he asked, “So, how are you and Tim? Everything going okay for the two of you?”

The resignation in her voice when she responded told him that she knew exactly why he had asked. “I'm fine. Very busy, of course, but that's just part of the career I've chosen. Tim-well, I guess he's fine, too.”

“Something wrong?”

“I don't know. He's seemed unusually distracted lately. A little subdued. Probably the natural stress of a first-year law student.”

“Probably. Well, tell him I said hello, will you? And, uh, merry Christmas.”

“Sure. I'll tell him. Goodbye, Rick.”

He hung up knowing that he had disappointed her. It was something he seemed to do to other people on a regular basis without even trying.

Which, he reminded himself, was why he had chosen to isolate himself from other people to a large extent, learning to be content with his own company and his own pursuits.

It still seemed like a good plan to him. One he would probably be foolish to change at this stage.

After a moment he went into the kitchen to rejoin Lucy. She was sitting at the table reading a woodworking magazine he'd left lying on the bar. She seemed oblivious to the chill in this room that did not benefit from the heat of the fire in the living room.

Hulk padded into the kitchen, moving without hesitation to his empty food bowl, where he stopped to look hopefully at Banner. Banner reached into the pantry to pull out a bag of dry dog food, which he poured into the big stainless steel bowl.

“Your sister called to wish you a merry Christmas?” Lucy asked, looking up from the magazine.

He nodded as he turned to replace the dog food bag in the pantry. “Yeah. She must have been the designated caller from Dad's family.”

“Did I hear you call her Brenda?”

“Right. My father's daughter. The medical student.”

“She probably missed seeing you today.”

“She said she did.”

“Don't you miss seeing her? And your other siblings?”

He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the stainless steel water bowl he was washing and filling with clean water. “I think I've told you before that I'm not really close to my half siblings. Not much in common with them.”

“But you love them, of course. After all, they're your family.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He reminded himself that Lucy couldn't understand what it had been like for him, belonging to two families but not really being a part of either of them.

Sometimes Lucy had a way of looking at him as if she could read his mind. As if she really could understand, after all. And that, too, was a dangerous way for him to think, tempting him to believe they were more alike than they really were. To harbor a faint, foolish hope that, with Lucy at least, he was more than just a misfit.

Turning away from that gaze that looked entirely too perceptive, he set the dog's water bowl next to the food dish. “I'd better call my mother,” he said gruffly. “She'll be annoyed if I don't call her today.”

There was nothing like a chat with his mother to bring him back to harsh reality, he assured himself.