Tangled Hearts (Passion in Paradise) (16 page)

“Well?” Melody sniffled
two and a half hours later as she took a swipe at her damp cheeks with the back
of her hands.  “What did you think of the first movie?” she asked, turning to
look at where Cal sat beside her. 

Cal offered her a long,
revolted look.  “Holy.  Holiday.  Crap.  That’s what I think of that so-called
must-see film,” Cal retorted in disgust as he stared at the now blackened
television screen.  “You watch that movie every Christmas?  Seriously?”

“It’s a classic!”
Melody returned defensively, stiffening slightly as he dissed her movie. 
Obviously, they’d not been watching the same thing. 

“I’ll give you this
much; It might be classic crap,” Cal countered dismissively, making a face at
her and shuddering.  “
And,
it had zero to do with Christmas.”

“Are you kidding me? 
Did you miss the pivotal Christmas scene in the movie?  It was only like one of
the most important parts of the show!  It perfectly captured the spirit of the
holiday season,” she proclaimed staunchly, shooting him a glare.

“I saw it.  The dumb
chick decided to risk her life for a kid the doctors told her she shouldn’t
have,” Cal grumbled.  “Stupid woman didn’t listen though – refused to hear
reason.  Even from her own mom.  Oh, no.  Not that spoiled little diva.  Nope,
her stubborn, entitled ass just had to go and get knocked up.  And why?  To
please some damn man that was already out stickin’ it to other women,” he
scoffed.

“It was a Christmas
miracle
for Shelby,” Melody hissed, furious that he was dissing her favorite motion
picture of all time.  “Don’t you have a heart?

“Babe, believe me, I
have a heart.  I’ve got so much fuckin’ heart that I’d never have let my woman
put herself in danger like that Jackson fella did.  And for the record, that
was NOT a Christmas miracle, babe.  It was more like Christmas crap,” Cal
snorted.  “Those docs told that Shelby chick that she shouldn’t have kids, and
she deliberately went and got herself knocked up to keep her man happy and at
home.  It’s garbage.  If the dude had been any kind of man at all, he’d have
gotten his dick snipped so that his wife would have been safe from any kind of
risk.”

Melody fought the urge
to growl.  “You’re missing the big picture, Cal!” Melody argued passionately. 
“The whole point of that Christmas miracle was that the main character wanted
whatever time she had left – however little it might have been- to be happy
with her husband and child.  That baby made her happy.  She defied the odds. 
Really, how are you not getting this?” She wondered out loud.   Were all men
this insensitive or did she put off a pheromone that attracted them to her like
bees to honey?

“You mean that baby
that ultimately
killed
her?  The one that had to grow up without his
mother’s love?” Cal asked sarcastically, shaking his head.  “I’d tan your ass
if you took a risk like that.”

“Good thing that you’ll
never have a say in knocking me up then,” she huffed, pushing herself off the
sofa and stomping into the kitchen.

“Now, don’t get mad and
flounce off, Princess.  We’re just having a friendly disagreement.  A lively
debate of opposing views,” Cal chuckled, rolling to his feet and following her
into the kitchen and leaning against the sink as she yanked open the oven door
and pulled the rack out. 

Grabbing the turkey
baster, Melody narrowed her eyes as she used it to baste their Christmas dinner. 
“Unless you’d like a butter-based enema, I’d stay over there, Sergeant
Dumbass.  For future reference though, you should never insult a woman’s
favorite movie on your first Christmas together.  If you do, you might not be
around for the next holiday,” she warned as she shoved the rack back into the
oven and closed the door.

“So, you admit it,” Cal
crowed, pointing at her.

Turning to toss her
oven mitt on the counter, Melody frowned at him before she closed the oven door
on their turkey.  “Admit what?”

“You and I are
together.  You just said as much,” Cal returned, his eyes crinkling at the
corner as he grinned arrogantly

“That’s not what…. I
mean, that isn’t exactly...” Melody stumbled over her words as her cheeks
burned.

“Can’t take it back
now, Princess.  You just so much as announced that we were together,” he
declared firmly.  “No takesie-backsies.”

“I also said you
wouldn’t be around for the next holiday if you kept panning my movie choices,”
she argued quickly, silently cursing her loose tongue for getting her into this
mess.  Talk about a Freudian slip.  “And since we both know that you’ve never had
an opinion that you could keep to yourself, I don’t think I’m too worried about
changing my relationship status on Facebook.”

“Oh, babe, you have no
idea the lengths that I’ll go to in order to keep you in my life,” he murmured
as he sauntered across the kitchen to wrap his arms around her waist.  “You
just gave me the best gift I could have gotten from you today,” he said against
her temple as he tightened his arms around her.

“Whatever,” she mumbled
into his throat while she tried to ignore how freaking good he smelled. “Have
you picked the next movie yet?” she asked, finally managing to break free of
his arms and put a few feet between them.

“Yep,” he announced
with a decisive nod.  “And it’s a far better Christmas movie than yours was.”

“I bet,” Melody scoffed,
dropping her hands to her hips as she faced him.

“It is,” Cal
reiterated.  “In my movie, it
stays
Christmas for the entire film - not
just a measly three minute scene,” he sneered.

Melody rolled her eyes
at his snide tone.  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense.  What movie am I watching
with you?”

Cal smiled
confidently.  “That would be the blockbuster Christmas classic, ‘Die Hard’.”

Closing her eyes and
shaking her head, Melody prayed for her own Christmas miracle.  Namely, that
she refrained from maiming a certain male pain in her ass.

~~***~~

Staring at the darkened
television ninety minutes later, Melody wrinkled her nose, revolted by Cal’s
Christmas movie viewing choice. 

“Admit it,” Cal
ordered.  “That movie kicked some serious Santa butt.”

“I can guarantee you
that if St. Nick was forced to watch Bruce Willis in
that
so-called
holiday movie, he’d jump from his sleigh without a life jacket somewhere over
the Pacific Ocean just so that he wouldn’t be forced to watch it next year.”

“A suicidal Santa,
Princess?  Even for me, that’s just
dark
,” Cal admonished her with a
disappointed shake of his head.

Growling in
frustration, Melody looked up at the ceiling.  “Please Lord, can it just be New
Year’s Day already?”

“You know, if Sister
Bridget was here, she would have given you a lecture for wishing your life away
and then she’d have whacked you with a ruler,” Cal reminisced with a grin. 

“Well, that’s obviously
because you never forced Sister Bridget to endure that movie on Christmas,”
Melody returned with a smirk as she rose and headed for the kitchen.  “Lunch
should be ready soon,” she shared over her shoulder. 

“And then presents,”
Cal announced eagerly, clapping his hands together.

Melody laughed softly
as she pulled the turkey from the oven.  “You sound as eager as a kid, Cal,”
she chuckled.

“Maybe because I am,”
he replied with a shrug of his broad soldiers.  “Never really looked forward to
Christmas before now.  It was just another day, you know?  More often than not,
I volunteered to work the holiday so one of the married guys could have off. 
Never felt right being at home on Christmas morning when some guy with a wife
and kids was sitting behind a desk.”

Melody looked up from
whipping the potatoes to offer Cal a genuine smile.  “That’s sweet, Cal. 
Didn’t any of your guys ever invite you to their homes for the holidays
though?” she asked, feeling sad that he’d been deprived of a proper Christmas
until now.

“Sure, they did,” Cal
answered with a nod as he reached out to snag one of the sausage balls she’d
made yesterday.  Popping it in his mouth, he chewed thoughtfully for a moment. 
“Truth is, I just never felt right about intruding on those guys’ time with
their loved ones.  Being in the Army…that time is precious.  And scarce.  Never
knowing when we’d get called out to deploy, those guys had to cram months’
worth of love and affection into a few hours with their wives and kids.  They
didn’t need to worry about entertaining me while they tried to do that.”

 Pausing in the act of
scooping the mashed potatoes in a bowl, Melody stared at Cal.

“What?” he asked around
another sausage ball.  “What’d I do?”

Melody’s eyes were soft
on Cal as she smiled faintly.  “Nothing.  It’s just that sometimes I’m
surprised by how good a guy you are.  I mean, you act all gruff and tough
around here, and undoubtedly, you
are
a pretty hard man, but sometimes
your innate goodness just shines through before you can disguise it from me. 
And when it does shine through, it steals a gal’s breath.”

Cal flushed and looked
away from Melody.  “There’s a lot of people that would disagree with you on
that score, Princess.”

“Then those people have
never seen the real you, Callum,” Melody countered quietly.  “I have,” she
insisted.

Clearly uncomfortable,
Cal cleared his throat.  “So, I’m starving, woman.  What can I do to help?”

She decided to let him
change the subject.  “Why don’t you just grab the dishes and set the table.  I
should have the food ready by the time you’re done.  Then, we can eat.”

“That I can do,” he
responded, obviously relieved that she was going to allow him to change the
direction of the conversation.  Rushing to grab the bright red holiday plates
that she’d stacked on the counter, he asked, “So, we do lunch, then presents,
then…”

“Typically either we go
look at Christmas lights or we watch another movie until it gets dark enough to
look at Christmas lights,” she explained.  “But we could do something different
if you like… maybe start a Valentine tradition?”

Cal shook his head. 
“Not this year.  This year, I’m gonna soak up all things Reardon.  Learn the
ropes.  Maybe next year we’ll add something.”

Melody’s heart warmed
as she heard him talk about next year.  It was almost like he assumed he’d
still be here.  With her. 

And God help her, but
she liked the sound of that.

~~***~~

Another hour and a half
later, Melody giggled as Cal threw his cloth napkin on the table and leaned
back in his chair, clasping his hands over his stomach and groaning. 

“Christ, woman!  Where
the hell have you been all my life?  My stomach and I have been waiting for
you,” he groaned, leaning his head back against the high-backed oak chair at
the head of the table.  “I knew you could cook, Melody, but you outdid
yourself.  I think I gained ten pounds from this meal alone,” he complimented her.

Melody glowed under his
praise.  “You don’t need to say that, Cal,” she whispered, uncertain if he was
just being kind or if he really meant it.  Brad had always complained that her
food was too fattening and not health conscious.  But, in her defense, she’d
learned to cook from her mom and grandmother, two very Southern women that
believed practically everything was better when fried in lard.  In fact, lard
was practically its own food group in her neck of the woods.  Brad, however,
had grown up with a culinary chef on staff in his parents’ home.  His exacting
tastes and her tendency to rely on her home style cooking skills hadn’t exactly
merged well.  Needless to say, she and Brad had eaten out a lot.

“I know what you’re
thinking or rather,
who
you’re thinking about.  Don’t compare me to him,
Melody,” Cal’s deep voice warned somberly. 

Balling her own napkin
in her fist, Melody forced herself to smile tightly.  “What?  I wasn’t
comparing you to anybody,” she denied automatically, already shaking her dark
head at him innocently.

“Bullshit,” Cal
retorted, calling her on her lie, per his usual.

Melody winced.  “Okay,
maybe I was.  A
little
bit.  It’s just Brad despised my cooking.”

“I think
Brad
has proven on multiple occasions that he’s a douche canoe that couldn’t
recognize a good thing if he had a diagram of it in his hand.  What I can’t
understand is why you give that shithead any of your headspace.  He was an ass,
Mel.  Before
and
after you left him.  It’s just that you’re so caught up
in the after effects that you can’t see that the dude was
always
an
ass.”

“Maybe,” she admitted
begrudgingly.

“No, not maybe. 
Absolutely
,”
Cal corrected.  “Say it with me, Princess.  My ex-fiancé is a spiteful
sociopath that wouldn’t know good food if it tapped him on the shoulder and
said ‘Eat me!’”

Melody laugh-snorted. 
“Okay, Cal, you’ve made your point, but since it’s Christmas, I’ll give you
this one.  My ex-fiancé is a spiteful sociopath that wouldn’t know good food if
it said ‘Eat me’.”