“Hotness,” Terryl said as she and Livi moved into the kitchen to work on Christmas Eve dinner. “Total hotness.”
“Not just hot. He’s smart and funny and generous,” said Livi.
“Single, I assume? I mean, it would be a dirty trick if Santa dropped such a man on your doorstep and he turned out to be married.”
“He’s not married.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No,” Livi said with a grin. She put the ham in the oven to heat, and she and Terryl started scrubbing potatoes.
“Not yet, you mean,” Terryl said. “I saw the way he looked at you.”
The way he’d looked at her before he left, like she was something special, had warmed her through and through. She could already picture them engaged, sitting before a roaring fire and planning their wedding. Of course, that was way premature. But a girl could dream. And dreams could come true, especially this one because everything about this romantic beginning with Joe Ford felt so right.
“Is he rich?” Terryl wanted to know. “Not that it matters, but considering the fact that you run a nonprofit it would be a nice bonus.”
“I’d say so. He drives an expensive foreign car and throws around fifty-and hundred-dollar bills like they’re fives.” And he knows how to melt a woman with a kiss.
“What is he, an Amazonian or Microsoft millionaire?”
“No. He’s part of his family’s business.”
“If he’s driving a fancy car the business must be doing okay. I wonder what it is. Not that it matters,” Terryl added with a shrug. “Did he donate to Christmas from the Heart?”
“Oh yes, starting with the fruitcake competition. In fact, he wound up stepping in for one of our judges who got sick, which was really sweet considering the fact that he doesn’t like fruitcake.”
“That had to be interesting,” Terryl said with a snicker.
“It’s been interesting the whole time he’s been here,” Livi said, and put the potatoes in the oven. Including an extra one in case Joe decided to come back. “And he’s been such a help.”
“He sounds like a great guy. And any man who’s willing to eat fruitcake for you has got to be a keeper. Pretty cool that his car just happened to break down in Pine River. Maybe this is Santa’s way of making up for your losing Hightower as a donor.”
“Maybe,” Livi agreed. “I hope he comes back for dinner before he starts for his mom’s.”
“Me, too. I want to get to know this potential...donor better,” Terryl added with a grin. She leaned on the counter and watched as Livi pulled out the ingredients to make red velvet cake. “So, give me deets. What was the moment when you knew he was the most amazing man ever? Well, second most amazing, right after your brother.”
“I know it’s going to sound silly,” Livi said as she cracked eggs into the mixing bowl, “but the minute he got in my car, I almost felt this déjà vu thing, like we’d met before.” And when he kissed me. That kiss they’d shared at the kitchen table—it had been delicious. And then, the encores.
Good grief, she was like a tween with her first crush. She focused on measuring sugar into the bowl.
“That is so romantic,” Terryl said with a sigh. “So, what was it about him that attracted you in the first place? Was it his smile?”
“That certainly got my attention.” Livi added the last of the ingredients and began to mix up the batter. “He was just...so nice. You know? I mean, there he was stranded and not wanting to put me to any trouble. I really had to do some fast talking to convince him to stay with us. But you know what’s most important, he’s generous. I think what really did it for me was when he went out and bought all those turkeys.”
Terryl pulled out the cake pans. “Oh well, yeah. If a man bought me a turkey I’d be all over him.”
“We couldn’t buy as many this year thanks to Hightower letting us down. And Joe saw how few we had to give and went to the store and bought them out. He bought two dozen hams, too. It was so kind.”
“Okay, that makes it official. He is the perfect man for you.”
Livi remembered the wish she’d made when she first hung the mistletoe. Joe was everything she’d ever wanted in a man, Livi was sure. But she was half-afraid to get her hopes up. What they’d been enjoying was almost too good to be true.
“It’s probably too soon to know,” she said.
“I knew right away with your brother. I hope this works out for you. You deserve to be happy.”
“I don’t know about what I deserve,” Livi said as she put the cake in the oven. “But I can tell you, right now I’m pretty happy.”
The landline rang. She picked up the kitchen extension to find Morris on the other end. “Livi, I just learned something about Joe Ford.”
His tone of voice made it sound like he’d discovered Joe was a serial killer. Livi frowned. What was Morris up to now? “Morris,” she began, her voice stern.
“You need to hear this. Are you sitting down?”
Who was Guy kidding? He wasn’t going to outrun a phone call. And he knew as surely as he knew there was no Santa that Bentley was already on the phone with Livi, leaking his true identity. He had to go back to the house and face her, explain his changed outlook on life. But how was he going to get her to even listen to him?
He couldn’t show up empty-handed. He’d dated enough women to know that was a strategic error. If you showed up empty-handed, your apology came across equally empty. He needed a peace offering, an olive branch.
He pulled into the downtown and began to cruise the slushy streets, looking for a flower shop. Flowers 4 You. It had a number of nice-looking floral arrangements in the window. Perfect.
Except the owner of the shop was turning the sign in the window to Closed. No! Don’t do that!
Guy jumped out of his car and raced to the door. He could see the woman moving toward the back of the shop. He banged on the door.
She was somewhere in her fifties, pudgy with dark hair and thin lips. She turned and looked at him, the lips getting thinner.
He gesticulated wildly, begging for her to come let him in.
She shook her head, and even though he wasn’t good at reading lips it wasn’t hard to figure out what she was saying. “We’re closed.”
The store hours said ten to five. It was all of one minute after five. “Oh, come on,” he groaned, and banged again. “Have a heart.”
She glared.
He held out his hands, beseeching mercy.
She shook her head and turned and disappeared. What ever happened to good customer service?
“Oh yeah. Thanks. And Merry Christmas to you, too,” he growled.
He got back in his car and roared off for the grocery store. They had a floral department, and they understood the importance of being open late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve.
The grocery store was busier than Santa’s workshop, with people buying last-minute grocery items and salt for their driveways. The floral department was busy, too. A woman passed Guy bearing a bouquet of red roses, baby’s breath and ferns. Another was making a selection from a bucket filled with red-and-white carnations. Carnations wouldn’t do. Not expensive enough. Roses were nice but trite. Guy moved to where the floral arrangements sat. He saw a big, impressive one and reached for it just as an older man snagged it. Full of Christmas spirit, Guy swore under his breath.
But lo and behold. What was this? There sat a miniature red wooden sleigh with all manner of greens and red-and-white flowers sticking out of it. And a candy cane to boot. Oh yeah. Livi would love that.
Someone else thought it looked good, too—a teen boy wearing a stocking cap and a collection of zits on his nose. Guy snatched it away as the kid reached for it.
“Hey,” the kid protested. “I was gonna buy that for my girlfriend.”
“You gotta be fast, kid,” Guy said. “Get her some carnations and chocolate.”
Poor kid. He was probably hoping he’d get lucky with this cutesy little offering. Well, there was getting lucky and there was desperation. Guy was desperate.
He hurried to find the fastest checkout line. There was no such thing. Every checker was busy and the lines stretched clear to the North Pole. Even the express lane was clogged. Guy’s blood pressure was going to go through the roof.
He got in line behind an old man with a cart that was practically overflowing. Eggnog, boxed dressing, enough onions to make an entire kitchen crew cry while peeling them, spuds, lettuce, turnips and carrots, canned soups, canned green beans, some kind of rolled-up white lump of meat, whipping cream, little colored marshmallows, canned pineapple and other cans of fruit. Butter, eggs, milk. Pop, beer. Red paper plates and napkins, tinfoil. Was there any shelf in the store the old man hadn’t hit? Antacid. Guy could have used some of that. His stomach was churning.
“It’s a fifteen-item limit in this line,” he pointed out to the old man.
The man was stooped and skinny. He had bushy eyebrows and hair growing out his ears. The wedding band on his left hand suggested that he’d been given a list and checked it twice. And the downturned mouth suggested he was in no mood to be messed with.
“Close enough,” he said, daring Guy to contradict him.
“Can I at least go in front of you?” Guy asked. “I have to be somewhere.” I’m late to my execution.
“No, you can’t,” the man snapped. “My wife needs this stuff for dinner.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Wait your turn.”
The old man not only had too many items, he had coupons. The same woman who had rung up Guy’s purchase only the day before was working the register. She gave Guy an apologetic look.
“Oh for crying out loud,” Guy said in disgust, and shoved a twenty at the man. “Here. Take this. It’s worth more than your damned coupons anyway.”
The man looked ready to give him a verbal lashing until he saw the bill. “You young pups are always in such a hurry,” he grumbled. But he took the money and pocketed his coupons and let the checker finish up without any more delays. Then he shuffled away.
“Sorry,” Suz the checker said to Guy as she rang up his purchase. “I’m not allowed to say anything to people when they get in line with too many items. I’d get in trouble.”
“It’s okay,” Guy said, and paid her. He was already in deep shit so, really, what was his hurry? Oh yeah, anxious to explain, anxious to try to fix this mess. To know how his story was going to end. The suspense was killing him.
Or maybe it was guilt.
“Merry Christmas,” Suz said to him, handing him his receipt.
It would be anything but merry if he couldn’t make things right with Livi. He wished Suz a merry Christmas and made his way back to the car.
Darkness was taking over and as he drove to Livi’s house he tried rehearsing different openings. “Livi, I know what you must think of me... I know I should have told you who I was right from the start... Give me a chance to explain...”
He kept stalling out after that last opening. He had no idea how to explain.
He drove down Livi’s street. Porch lights were winking on and Christmas lights coming to life. A group of people dressed in winter garb stood in front of a house singing a Christmas carol. Everything looked greeting card perfect. The churning in Guy’s stomach picked up speed.
The white icicle lights were on at the Bergs’ house, and so was the porch light, inviting visitors to stop by for hot cocoa and a chat. This was going to be some chat. Inside his fleece-lined leather gloves, Guy’s hands were sweating as he clutched the floral arrangement. He forced himself to go onto the front porch and ring the front doorbell. He was fearless on the slopes, zipping down double black diamond trails, but he stood on Livi Berg’s front porch with his mouth dry and his heart hammering.
The door yanked open so quickly and forcefully, he found himself taking a step back. There stood her brother, looking ready to pull off Guy’s head and drink his blood.
“I need to see Livi,” Guy said, keeping his voice even.
“She doesn’t need to see you,” said brother David.
He was about to close the door when Livi appeared behind him, her parka in hand. “It’s okay, David,” she said, and slipped past her brother onto the porch, shutting the door behind her.
The expression on her face was a hundred times worse than her brother’s. She was disgusted, and Guy felt every bit of that disgust. He hadn’t felt like that since he got hauled into the principal’s office when he was twelve for blowing up a hair spray bottle in the girls’ bathroom.
“I’m surprised you had the nerve to come back,” she said. The words came out like chips of ice.
“I had to. I couldn’t leave letting you think...” Here he skidded to a stop, unsure where to go next. This was already coming out badly.
“Letting me think what? That you’re a stingy, sneaky fake? How dare you pretend to be a decent human being.”
“I am a decent human being,” he protested.
“No, you’re not. You’re...Guy Hightower.” She spat out his name as if it were a dirty word.
Well, it wasn’t. Maybe this latest generation of Hightowers weren’t the most perfect men on the planet, but they weren’t crooks or scoundrels, either. They were men trying to run a company under the mighty shadow of a father who had been larger than life. They were trying to keep things going and not screw up. Okay, so they made some less than stellar choices along the way. Did that make them a pack of Scrooges?
“Yeah, I’m Hightower,” he said. “That means I’m responsible for the finances of an entire company and hundreds of jobs. I do the best I can, make the best decisions I can.”
“Oh really? And was the way you treated Christmas from the Heart the best decision you could make?”
“Well, excuse me for giving money to other charities. That’s what really made you mad, wasn’t it? You didn’t rate as high and it rankled.”
“No, that’s not it,” she shot back, her voice rising.
“Oh? Really? Then what?”
“You...deceived me.”
“Well, can you blame me? If I’d told you who I really was, you’d have run me over instead of giving me a lift into town.” She’d been more than willing to help a stranger. He flashed back to how she’d grilled him about his business as she drove him into town. It hadn’t hurt that he was a rich stranger. “As it was, you took one look at my car and couldn’t wait to help me out. Why was that, Livi?”
“You were stranded!”
“Yeah, a rich dude stranded right here in Pine River,” he said. “You know, I thought when you first picked me up that you were being nice. That you were into me. Were you into me or my money, Livi? Did you really see a man stranded by the side of the road or a rich sucker to hit up?”
Her eyes flew open as if he’d just slapped her.
Okay, that was a low blow and totally unfair. Why was he turning the tables when he should be on his knees, begging her to forgive him?
“I thought I saw a knight in shining armor,” she said, her voice trembling. “I thought I’d met a nice man with a good sense of humor and a generous heart, but really all I met was a fake. You lied to me, Joe. Guy. Whoever you are.”
“I told you why I lied.”
“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”
He held out the floral arrangement. “Yeah. Right now. It’s why I came back.”
His gift didn’t have the desired effect. She looked at it in disgust. “Are you trying to buy my forgiveness?”
“No. This is a peace offering.” She was making this so difficult. He swore. “Come on, Livi,” he urged. “We got off to a bad start months ago. I was a jerk. I admit it and I’m sorry. But I was stressed. Our company’s been going through some hard times.”
“A lot of people are going through hard times,” she said and her gaze rested on his Maserati parked at the curb. Judging him because of his car?
“Come on. Seriously? You’re going to judge my business decisions by the car I drive?”
Her only response was to lift her chin to a holier-than-thou angle.
“You know, you’re not the only nonprofit out there. I’m a CFO trying to keep my company alive and well. Every decision I make is for the good of the company. And just because I drive a nice car it doesn’t mean I’m made of money.” Now his voice was rising.
“Poor, poverty-stricken Guy Hightower and his expensive foreign car,” she mocked. “You were on your way somewhere when I first met you, weren’t you? I’d better let you get going. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t invite you in for dinner after all. I’m sure you can find something to eat on your way. Oh gosh, I hope you can afford it. Times are tough.”
There it was, that same adder’s bite he’d seen in her email. His own chin lifted. “Nice speech. Sweet little Olivia Berg, the darling of Pine River. Until you cross her. Maybe I’m not the only fake around here.”
The rosy hue disappeared from her cheeks and her face suddenly looked pale as snow. Crap. He was a tool.
He opened his mouth to say so, and, once more, ask to start again, to remind her of everything he’d done for Christmas from the Heart since he came to town, but she cut him off. “I’m sure your mother will love those flowers,” she said, and yanked the front door back open.
“Livi, don’t!” he protested as she slammed it shut.
“Come on, we’re bigger than this,” he pleaded, banging on the door. It didn’t open.
And now here came the carolers, singing “Joy to the World.”
All the joy had sure been sucked out of Guy’s world.
He left the floral arrangement on the porch, then slumped to his car. He drove away, going back over every word he’d said on Livi’s front porch, analyzing where he’d gone wrong, trying to figure out what it would take to climb out of the deep, dark Grinch hole he’d dug for himself.
He should turn around, go back. Pound on Livi’s door until she opened it. Promise her anything. Tell her that he wanted the life she had, that he wanted her.
But he didn’t have the life she had. He never would. And he sure wouldn’t have her.
He called his mom. “I’m on my way.”
“Good. I can hardly wait to see you.”
Somebody would be glad to see him. A little way out of town he found a fast-food burger joint and pulled into the drive-through. A burger and a shake, Christmas Eve dinner of champions. Yeah, merry Christmas.