Authors: Christi Barth
Becca nibbled the corner of a cheese curd. Obsessing over Jack was an old habit she shouldn’t fall back into. An indulgence best saved for later. Right now she needed to decrypt why all things merry and bright made him so mad.
“Look, I’m pretty sure you can afford to give all your friends Rolex watches for Christmas nowadays. Money’s clearly not a sore point for you anymore. I think any therapist would tell you that you can’t let your childhood dictate the man you are now.”
“Wow. Guess I’ve really been an asshole, if after a couple of hours in my company you’re sentencing me to therapy?”
“I didn’t mean—” Becca reconsidered correcting him. Sometimes the ends justified the means. “Yes. You’re so far off the rails with your holiday hatred, I think you’ve got two options. Either see a therapist...or talk to me.”
He quirked his lips to the side. “How much do you charge?”
“Half your cheese curds?”
“Deal.” With his knife, he separated the golden brown clusters into two piles. “And for your information, I don’t need to be bribed into talking to you, Becca. I’ve got a feeling you’re better therapy for me than someone with a string of letters after their name.”
Ridiculous how much she warmed to such a half-assed compliment. She popped a cheese curd and shot straight to the point. “Is Christmas really ruined just because you grew up poor? Because there’s so much more to the holiday than gifts.”
Jack scrubbed his hand across his face, creating a soft, raspy sound from his goatee. Let out a big sigh. “For a long time, Christmas made me angry. Angry about the things I didn’t get, couldn’t do. Then, Ty and I got some projects going. Shoestring budgets, always just a day or two away from shutting down.”
It was a stark reminder of how hard her two friends had worked. They’d more than earned every bit of their astounding success. Becca’s respect for Jack doubled. “Sounds like the early days were rough.”
“Yeah. Every day counted, every hour we could eke out of people could be the difference between finishing a film or it never seeing the light of day. Right about then was when I discovered nobody works at Christmas. Or if they do, they’re bitching about it and everything takes five times as long as it should. I guess it fanned the embers of my old resentment. Easy to fall back into the habit of hating Christmas.”
“Fanned the embers of your resentment?” Becca didn’t buy for a minute that phrase had just come to him, naturally. “Nobody talks like that. Not without some major self-actualization. “Fess up. Did you actually go into therapy about hating Christmas?”
“Ha! No. But I’ve done a lot to try and help Ty. Including talking to professionals about him.” Jack’s head lolled backward as he stared at the ceiling. “About me. About our partnership. About anything that might keep him away from drugs.”
Okay, that made her respect for him triple. If this kept up, she’d have to carve him a pedestal. “You’re such a good friend. I wish I’d known. I wish I’d tried just as hard as you to help him.”
Now his eyes closed. “Yeah, well, apparently nothing makes a difference until Ty decides to actually try.” Jack looked sad. Exhausted. And she remembered just how long of a day he’d endured already. Kind of thoughtless of her to continue to put him through the emotional wringer.
“Let’s talk about something else. Anything else.”
“Okay.” His eyes opened, head snapping forward. “Why are you here with me on a Saturday night? It’s date night, Becca. Shouldn’t you be heating up the straight iron? Working on getting the perfect smoky eye for some guy?”
She almost did a spit take of the coffee—which did taste like liquefied tinsel, presents and snow. But in a good way. “Wow. Did Ty forget to tell me that you morphed into a girl over the past few years?”
“I’m a film director. I probably know more about makeup than you do. And anytime you want me to prove my manliness to you, just let me know.”
Good thing she’d set down the coffee cup. The thought of Jack’s manliness, not to mention how he might prove it, sent a quiver through her limbs. Was he teasing? Was he for real? Becca desperately wanted to know. Before she did something foolish like launching herself across the table straight onto his lips. “Um, date night doesn’t have any significance on my calendar. I haven’t dated in, well, a long time.”
He slapped his hand against the table. “What the hell is wrong with the men in this state? God, Becca, you’re sweet. Beautiful. A crappy singing voice, as I recall, but nobody’s perfect. Why hasn’t some guy snapped you up?”
As if. “I haven’t had time to date.”
“Hey, regular sex is every bit as important as hitting the gym three times a week. You can’t stay too busy with book clubs and girls’ night out and fashion shows to take a couple of hours to wine, dine and screw.”
Such a typical guy. Thinking sex and dating were synonymous. Not that she’d accomplished either one recently. “Sorry to disappoint. My social calendar doesn’t come close to your description.” Might as well tell him. Even though the newly formed emotional scab would hurt like the dickens to peel off. “I was the sole caretaker for my grandmother. She died two months ago of breast cancer.”
“God, Becca. How awful.” Jack reached across to cover her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
After taking a deep breath, she rushed into the rest of the story. “Gram got the diagnosis during my senior year in college. I moved in with her right after graduation, to help out while she went through chemo and radiation. As soon as I did, the rest of my family happily washed their hands of any responsibility. So I stayed.”
It sounded so cut and dried put like that. No mention of the countless happy evenings on the porch with Gram. Or the pain-wracked nights where Becca clutched her hand and helped count off the hours until the next dose of Percocet. Each round of treatment took more out of her. Cancer hop-scotched around Gram’s body, landing in a new, vital organ almost as soon as the last one had cleared.
A gentle squeeze. Jack brought his other hand underneath to sandwich hers. “This is why you’re still here, isn’t it? Why you didn’t move to New York?”
She nodded. “My dream was always to be a producer. Sure, Broadway—even Off Off Broadway would be great. But Minneapolis is a huge theatre town. I’ve had steady work. I’m not complaining.” Not out loud. That would be selfish. Back-burnering her dreams didn’t compare to Gram losing her life.
“You should be.”
“No,” she said, aghast. Both at the idea and that he might be seeing straight through to the innermost thoughts she regretted. “I loved Gram with all my heart.”
“And that’s great. But don’t sugarcoat it. Not to me.” His voice dropped to a rumbling whisper. Those blue eyes stared at her with the focused tightness of a laser. “I’ve been looking after Ty for almost as many years while he cycled on and off the drug roller coaster. I understand
exactly
what it means to give your life over to another person.”
He got it. The immense weight of responsibility, the burden, the pressure, all tangled up with the love. Jack was the first person she’d talked to who could truly grasp what she’d gone through over the past six years. His comprehension, his empathy lifted off several layers of pain and regret. Her subconscious felt refreshed, as if he’d given it a chemical peel.
Becca needed to return the favor. Cut him some equal slack. “In the spirit of sharing, I’ll admit that I sort of understand your antipathy toward the holidays.”
“Great. Want to go knock the heads off of snowmen with me?”
His teasing lightened her mood even more. “No. But I’ll threaten to knock
your
head off if you breathe a word of this to the cast.”
Jack tossed a wad of cash on the table. A thick enough wad to suggest a tip three times what the waitress expected. Generous. Although it would kill him to admit it, a fitting holiday gesture. With a sweeping wave of his arm, he indicated they should leave.
“Becca. Really? Idle threats?” He clicked his tongue against his teeth as they put on their coats. “All you had to do was ask me to put it in the Super-Secret Secret Safe.”
She almost,
almost
snort-laughed. “I forgot all about that.” After taking a minute to remember the motion, she put her hands on his chest and mimed turning the crank on a giant safe door. Jack crossed his heart, then pretended to close the door and recrank it. “Now your secret’s safe. Go on.”
They walked out of the coffee shop into the frigid night. A few soft flakes danced out of the dark sky. “This is my first Christmas without Gram. She always made it so magical. Decorating together, cooking, shopping—it was our special thing, ever since I was a little girl. The holiday’s lost its luster without her. Almost like I’ve lost part of myself.”
“Maybe you haven’t lost anything. Maybe now you finally have the chance to find yourself.”
Jack had an interesting way of looking at her life. But looking was much easier than doing. “Maybe you just like it better if I’m anti-Christmas along with you.”
“Agreeing with someone is easy. Trouble is, easy doesn’t always equal right. I’m not going to get a hard-on for Christmas just because the rest of the world has one. Sprinkling nutmeg on life for a month doesn’t fix anything.”
Aha! Becca saw her opening. This was her chance to find out if Jack Whittaker really was flirting with
her
, or if he was just an unabashed flirt. She stopped at the edge of the parking lot. Put one hand on the wrought iron fence laced with garland and red bows to brace herself for the answer. “What about the kiss today—what did that fix?”
“See, that’s easy.” He turned. Caged her in with both forearms on the fence, which put his face a breath away from hers. “My question—unanswered for the thirteen years since we met—how would it feel to kiss Becca Heglund?”
Wait. What? He’d had a crush on her as long as she’d crushed on him? How had Becca not known this? “How did it feel?”
“You know I was always bad at pop quizzes. Give me a minute.” Then he kissed her again. Right there, on the street corner. With fat snowflakes dusting past their cheeks. “White Christmas” came out of the parking lot speakers in a static-filled burble. It was probably the most romantic kiss of her entire life. And a complete one-eighty from their kiss earlier in the day. This one was all slow, tender heat. Soft lips exploring, nibbling, teasing. Almost as if Jack was using his mouth to say hello. It made Becca want to invite him right on in.
Jack pulled back with a satisfied grin. “For the record, it feels great.”
Chapter Four
“Jack, why are you standing in line?” Becca leaned out of the other set of glass doors at the front of the brick building. A confused frown centered between her eyes. Like a sexy milkmaid, her long blond hair was done up in two braids. They hung straight down the perky breasts outlined by her cream sweater embroidered with white snowflakes. Just looking at her heated Jack up enough so that he didn’t have to hunch into his jacket anymore. Well, almost. Son of a bitch, but Minnesota was even colder than he remembered.
“Isn’t this the line to get into the theatre? You told me yesterday that there are more than a hundred people in the cast. Figured they were all waiting to sign in. I’m not one of those diva directors who cuts a line.”
She giggled, shaking her head. “This is the line for the box office.”
“You’re kidding.” He goggled at the easily thirty people waiting their turn. In the cold. Sure, the sun was out, but the wind chill hovered in the nether regions below zero. Cold enough to scare off even the most die-hard theatre buffs. “The show doesn’t open for ten days. Why the big line?”
“
Season of Celebration
always sells out before opening night. I predict there’ll be a line here all day long.” She waved for him to come join her.
Doling out a few apologetic head bobs, Jack ducked out of line and walked straight to the doors. But instead of letting him in, Becca slipped outside. Put her fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle. “Hey, everyone. Thanks for coming out today. As a special treat, I want to introduce you to our famous guest director, Mr. Jack Whittaker!”
Everyone in line clapped, most whipping off their gloves to make actual noise. A few cheered and fist-pumped the air. Christ. If he could melt into the sidewalk, he would. Jack liked some of the perks of his status. He liked getting into the hottest new restaurants. He liked watching studio cuts of films before they were released. Even, with some guilt attached, enjoyed the pricey swag they handed out at award shows. Last year’s best gift bag had some sake-infused chocolates that had knocked him on his ass. In a good way.
But what he absolutely hated about being famous was, well, the fame. The accolades. The last thing Jack wanted was for people to applaud for him. All he cared about was turning his artistic vision into a reality. Pissing off as few people as possible along the way. Making enough money that investors would be interested in picking up his next film. Period. People treating him like a superstar made Jack about as comfortable as a jockstrap full of cactus leaves.
“Mr. Whittaker?” An elderly woman bundled in a pink parka with a matching wool hat tugged at his sleeve. He’d catch hell from his publicist if he shook her off. So Jack tight-lipped a smile.
“Yes?” Why hadn’t she let go of his sleeve yet? He was paying attention. Or at least, pretending to—which ought to be good enough.
“I want to thank you for coming all the way to Minnesota.
Season of Celebration
must be small potatoes to a big name director like you. But this production, well, it means the world to me.” She slid her hand down to grasp his. An earnest fervor lit her clouded blue eyes. “It’s the high point of the entire Christmas season.”
“No problem.” He patted her Nordic-patterned, undoubtedly hand-knitted glove, hoping it would loose her hold. “Glad to fill in.”
She babbled right on, with the speed of a woman fifty years younger. And on a sugar rush. Her breath puffed out in tiny white clouds. “Not just for me, but for the whole group of us from the senior center.”
“Always glad to have a full house.” Jack looked at Becca. Tried to give her the classic help—a-guy-out eyebrow raise. Cheerful goodwill seeped out of her like radiation from a crashing nuclear plant. But she made no move to intercept and cut off the conversation. In fact, if her tells hadn’t changed over the years, Becca’s teeth on her lower lip indicated she was one bad pun away from laughing her ass off. At him.
“Young man, I’m not sure you understand. None of us have any family around to celebrate with. They live out of state. Some are too busy, or just don’t bother to come visit anymore. So this show
is
our Christmas.”
Oh. That was a whole different story. That actually tugged at Jack’s knotted, rusted holiday heart strings. “What’s your name?”
“Ellen Nordlinger.”
“Ellen, I want you to be sure to buy tickets for our opening night. You and all your friends are invited to the reception afterward, as my guests. I’ll tell the box office right now.”
She stood on tiptoe to pat his cheek. With her glove on, it felt a little like being touched by a Muppet. “That’s wonderful. Thank you so much.” Finally, she let go and Jack hightailed it through the doors.
Becca beamed him a look of approval. “You did a good thing.” She shivered, from the idiocy of going outside without a coat just to give him some unwanted hoopla. So Jack rubbed her arms briskly.
“Don’t make a big thing out of it. And for God’s sake, tell me that there’s actually an opening night party planned.”
“You’re covered. Don’t worry.”
He realized his rubbing had slowed to more of a stroke/caress hybrid. Jack pulled back his hands and stalked across the lobby to a row of doors that hopefully led to the stage. “Sweetheart, I’m about to start rehearsing a cast of amateurs, kids and goats. I’m gonna do nothing but worry for the next ten days.”
Three hours later, Jack was considering changing his tune. Oh, he’d still worry. Any director worth a damn maintained a certain level of rampant panic over every last second of stagecraft right up until the first curtain. Worry that the actors might forget their lines. Forget their blocking. Hell, this show was a musical, so that brought in a whole other level of problems. No dancing—not a lot of polka numbers in the old King James version—so that was good. But the microphones might crap out. The recorded orchestra track might blip. And yes, for the first time, Jack actually had to worry about a goat taking a dump in the middle of the stage. That was a new one.
But his worry wouldn’t be at Defcon Ten. Threat Level Midnight. Code Red. Whatever. Turned out that this ragtag bunch of rank amateurs actually knew their shit. Most of them were repeat cast members, so they’d been trained in the basics. They knew their upstage from downstage, knew to look for the spike tape and stand on top of it, and most important of all, knew when to shut up and listen to the director. This show wouldn’t be the gigantic cluster fuck he’d expected.
When the stage manager called for a ten-minute break, Becca slid into the seat next to his. “How’s it going?”
“That’s a loaded question.” He shifted, stretched his arms overhead. Hoped the gym in his hotel came with a whirlpool and steam room. The whirlpool to relax his stiff muscles. The steam room to thaw his frozen bones. “Do you really want to know? Or is this show a sacred cow to you?”
Becca leaned back. Kicked her Sorel boots up onto the chair in front of her, which showed off about a mile and a half of long leg. Even through the navy blue cords, he could get a sense of the shapeliness of her legs from the way they clung. Same way he wished his hand could cling to her thigh. Not that he’d actually follow through on that impulse. At least, not during rehearsal.
“I’ll admit, I have a soft spot for this production. Probably because I’ve done it for so long, and I know it touches so many people. Like that woman you met out front. But not just the audience members. The cast, the crew, the board—everyone feels the holiday magic, as corny as that sounds.”
She’d told him that Christmas had lost its luster without her grandmother around. If Becca got this mushy over the holidays at half-speed, he’d hate to see what sort of overexcited elf she turned into when she decided to go full-throttle. “It sounds cornier than a corn-shucking contest—in overalls with a banjo playing—at the Minnesota State Fair.”
Becca waved off his comment with a languid movement of her long, tapered fingers. “All sentiment aside, I’m a producer first and foremost. I’ve got a professional reputation to maintain. When my name is listed on the front of a program, it better be a damn good show. So yes, I really do want to know how it’s going. What you think.”
Now she was speaking his language. And it turned Jack on even more than the way her breasts rose and fell beneath that tight sweater, mere inches away from his arm. Sure, the physical attraction and friendship he’d always felt for her was still there. It boomeranged back pretty much the moment he saw her. Hell, to be honest, there wasn’t a month that had gone by over the past ten years when he hadn’t thought about Becca. Wished for the chance he’d never gotten with her. But now, seeing her obvious talent in his chosen field? That shared professionalism and dedication? It amped up his attraction even more.
“I think you’ve done an amazing job turning dross into gold. I think the level of this production is heads and tails better than I expected.”
Her smile was like the sun coming out after a hurricane. Bright, shiny and oh-so-welcome. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear you say that.”
“Don’t get me wrong.” Jack looked down at his legal pad full of notes. “The blocking’s pedantic, the guy playing Herod strokes his fake beard every damn time he says a line, and the lighting chart I saw will have to be completely reworked for filming. But overall? It doesn’t suck.”
“High praise, indeed.” Becca twisted in her chair to look at him. Leaned on one hip, keeping her balance on the armrest. Jack wished he was on the other side of her, to get a better view of that sweet ass canted up in the air. She lowered her voice, and leaned in close enough he could smell her perfume. Perfume that smelled like a bottle of pure spring air, if that air came from a wildflower-filled meadow with a rollicking stream. “So what’s wrong?”
“I just told you.” Jack stabbed his pen on his notes. “Those red gels are too harsh, and I’ll freaking handcuff Herod to a pole if it’s the only way to keep his hands off the beard. Who wears a fake beard days before the dress rehearsal, anyway? If he likes it so much, he should just grow a real one.”
“Forget about Herod. I’ve been watching you all afternoon. Every so often, this look of utter sadness washes over you. Or maybe you’re pensive? Hard to tell, since I was sprinting by each time.”
“Shit.” He dropped the pen onto his script. You’d think ten years apart would’ve slackened the incredibly strong ties between them. But Becca seemed just as able to read him as when they’d spent every waking hour hanging out together in high school. “You’re not wrong.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
No. Yes. Hell, no. But Jack knew that if there was only one person in the whole wide world he could spill to, it would be Becca. He looked around, but they were alone. Most of the cast was miles away up on stage. Nora, the costumer who dressed like a bag lady, had a bunch of people out in the lobby for fittings, and the stage manager had disappeared. If he knew stage managers, the guy was outside on a smoke break. Might as well spit it out.
“I miss Ty.”
“Of course you do.” Becca patted his leg. The feel of her hand just a few inches away from his crotch almost made him lose his train of thought. But then he looked down at his notes. Saw that he’d numbered each question, each direction. A habit Ty had insisted on from day one. Jack promised himself he’d switch to bullet points tomorrow. Just because he could. Or just because he needed to make a clean break.
“Ty’s my best friend. We worked side by side, day in and day out. Shared an apartment the first few years.” Even shared a woman once, but that certainly wasn’t a story he’d tell Becca. “Suddenly he’s gone. Poof. I know it’s for the best. That Ty needs to get healthy. But...I miss my friend.” God, he sounded like a pussy.
“It’s like you’re a starfish,” she said, with a big-eyed nod.
“I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
“Hear me out. You can cut off an arm of a starfish. It hurts, and the poor thing doesn’t like ambling through tide pools missing a limb. But then it grows back. Right now, you’re limping along without him. It’s hard. It hurts. Just remember, though, that in a few months, he’ll be back.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” The words surprised Jack. He’d tried not to voice that particular fear even to himself. “Maybe things have to change. I don’t know.”
“Gram always said that you shouldn’t worry about what you can’t control.”
Right. That old adage probably hadn’t given the woman much comfort as cancer ate away at her. “Well, at least I can control this show. I’ll whip it into shape.”
“I have no doubt. I really have been watching you. Noticed the way you talk to the actors like people, instead of barking orders. How patient you were with Marty when he barged in with that half-finished manger.”
“The old guy?” Jack knew an institution when he saw one. The whole cast had treated the wizened man in the too-big cardigan with deference. “Trust me, I wanted to yell at him for interrupting rehearsal. But he looked so frail I was scared I’d give him a heart attack. Dealing with paramedics would just put us further behind schedule.”
“Save your bad-tempered bluster for someone who’ll believe it. ’Cause I see right through to the real Jack Whittaker.” Becca drilled her finger into his sternum. “The award-winning director who made a point of telling that Roman soldier with no lines that he ‘portrayed military stoicism well.’ You care, Jack. Don’t bother trying to hide it.”
“A production is only as good as its weakest link. I think Napoleon said that about his army, but it holds true.”
Laughter burbled out of her glossy pink lips. “Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach.”
“Well, that’s true of a show too. Actors—even the super-skinny Hollywood types—jump at any excuse to eat. Ty and I used to buy pizza any time we accidentally shot past midnight. We bought
a
lot
of pizzas. Even when we were barely scraping by.” It was a good memory. But remembering the good times made the stark absence of Ty here and now even more painful.
Becca winced. “Sorry, but I’m quite sure our budget doesn’t run to midnight pizza. You’ll have to find another way to keep morale up if rehearsals go late.”