Down Home Carolina Christmas (3 page)

“Naming an animal is the first step toward keeping her, I've heard.”

“Hub's got two pit bulls and I'm owned by a house rabbit. Say, Dixie, take Shasta home today. Trial basis. She's very sweet.”

“To my little apartment? Ten dollars a month pet rent? No, ma'am.” After a moment, Dixie resumed her previous line of persuasion. “We were talking about the casting call. It could be exciting to rub elbows with Hollywood folks. We might meet interesting guys besides.”

Carrie narrowed her eyes. “Why, Dixie Lee Smith! Is that the real reason you're going? Desperately seeking men?” Dixie had been known to bemoan the fact that guys were scarce these days.

“Well, let's face it. I'm pushing thirty. If middle age starts at forty-five, I'm two-thirds of the way there, with no husband in sight. You should be worried about this, too. Especially since you said goodbye to Mert over six months ago.”

“Forty-five is the new thirty-five. It's hardly middle-aged,” Carrie said, though she remained pensive for a moment. She was thirty-one, which was fine with her. The trouble was that girls tended to marry young in Yewville and have children early. It made late bloomers like her seem backward.

“Back to the casting call,” Dixie said. “Joyanne and I made a pact to try out together.”

“At least Joyanne was Miss Yewville and Soybean Festival Queen, not to mention she's played parts in community theater since she was yay high. She'll be a natural.”

“Also they're paying $104.50 a day.”

“How'd you find that out?”

“Joyanne heard it from somebody at the lake last week. Still not interested?” Dixie aimed a sly smile across the table.

“I've already turned down twenty thousand dollars from those movie people for the use of Smitty's. I guess I can do without their $104.50.”

Dixie's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “You turned down twenty thousand dollars?”

“Sure did, and from Luke Mason himself,” Carrie replied calmly. She stirred her sweet iced tea and watched the lemon slice bob around amid the crushed ice, taking pleasure in Dixie's rare speechlessness. She did not add that she'd spotted Luke's car idling past the garage a couple of times as if he'd been looking for someone. She'd stayed inside where she belonged, though she certainly was intrigued. Maybe she'd made more of an impression on him than she'd thought.

“You're a fool, Carrie Rose Smith,” Dixie said with great conviction.

“I don't want those people swarming all over my garage. They've already overrun the town.” A change of subject was long overdue. “By the way,” she told Dixie, “Tiffany Zill's chauffeur brought her limousine into the station for gas this morning. I don't even care to tell you how much it cost to fill it up.”

“I saw the limo, all right. It occupied the whole business district when it stopped at the traffic light. I bet it has a hot tub in it. Peek inside next time you're pumping gas.”

“That galloping gas guzzler could hide the whole peachoid inside and I wouldn't care,” Carrie said, smiling at Dixie's unabashed curiosity. The peachoid was Yewville's famous water tower, which the town leaders, mindful of peach farming's role in area history, had painted to resemble a peach. Unfortunately it much more resembled someone's very large fanny, which made it the most photographed feature in Yewville. People traveling north and south along I-95 went out of their way to snap pictures of it.

“Have you seen her yet?” Dixie asked.

“Who?”

“Tiffany Zill. I wonder if she looks as good in person as Luke Mason does. I bet she wears Gucci and Pucci and has her hair colored by a stylist named Raoul.”

“Like I care,” Carrie said as she slid out of the booth. “I've got to run, Dixie. I'll call you tonight.” She slapped a couple of quarters down on the counter for the waitress and hurried out into the humid afternoon.

Across the street at the bank, workmen were completing a facade that included a painted-on clock. Carpenters next door at the insurance office were removing a door; the new red one stood nearby. To Carrie, it seemed as if the movie people were fashioning Yewville to resemble a Norman Rockwell painting gone South.

“Painted-on clocks,” Carrie muttered. “New window boxes. Knowing these movie people, they'll probably plant polyester geraniums in them.” Her suspicions were correct. On the way past the Southern Confectionery Kitchen, where she customarily bought frozen bananas and, for New Year's celebrations, bottle rockets, she almost stumbled over two large cardboard cartons labeled Geraniums—Faux Silk.

“Faux silk,” Carrie said under her breath. “Fake, fake, fake. Isn't anything real anymore?” Well, Yewville
used
to be real before they started gussying it up. Carrie had no patience with such things.

Shaking her head, Carrie walked back to Smitty's, where nothing was illusion, where what you saw was definitely what you got. Including, presently, a real dog with real fleas.

During the next week, Luke Mason did his best to initiate another encounter with the delightful Carrie Smith, but she never seemed to be at work. He began dropping by Smitty's to refill his gas tank every time the gauge hit the three-quarters mark. Unfortunately the only person who was even around was the lanky mechanic who emerged from the nether regions of the garage and offered in an offhand way to pump fuel. Luke always declined. He figured that if he took his time filling the tank, that would give the elusive Ms. Smith a chance to show up.

“Where's Carrie?” he asked the mechanic one day.

“Oh, she's gone off somewhere with her sister,” said the man, whose name, Hub, was embroidered over the pocket of his coveralls. “You want me to tell her you're looking for her?”

“No, that's not necessary,” Luke said, but, of course, Hub stared at him until he drove away.

Luke didn't understand his fascination with the woman. She hadn't been particularly bowled over by him. Maybe the thing he liked about her was that she didn't fawn over him as women tended to do. Carrie Rose Smith treated him as if he were any other man in the world. This in itself was refreshing, but it didn't explain why he'd begun to have dreams about kissing her.

In one of them, they were making out in his Ferrari, cramped and uncomfortable but undeniably passionate. In another, they were in some dark, unspecified place, their bodies tangled amid rumpled sheets, and he was—

Better not to think about that, maybe. That one had ended up being X-rated because he'd done quite a lot more than kiss Carrie, and he wondered if in real life her lips were as soft as they had been in the dream. Softer, maybe. And willing.

Considering that he was trying his darnedest to get into the role of Yancey Goforth, he didn't need the distraction of daydreaming about making love to her. Or kissing her.

But if he ever got the chance, he would make sure it was a kiss that Carrie Smith never forgot. Since he hadn't managed to further their acquaintance, though, the likelihood was slim to none that he'd ever get to play out his dreams in reality.

He had an idea that Carrie would like kissing him. Women usually did.

“I
MUST BE AN IDIOT
to let Hub do that tune-up for me this morning. I don't belong here,” Carrie said as she and Dixie Lee waited with the rest of the crowd in the hot sun at the seed-company parking lot. A thickset man with an orange ponytail was striding purposefully here and there, conferring at times over his clipboard with a train of harried assistants.

“There's Joyanne,” Dixie said suddenly. She jumped and waved. “Hey, Joyanne!”

Their friend shouldered her way through the crowd. “Isn't this exciting?” she declared, bouncing with enthusiasm. She was a tall brunette with naturally curly hair, ridiculously high cheekbones and long, long legs. Carrie figured Joyanne Morrissey had the best chance of anyone of being chosen to work as an extra in a movie.

“I don't know about exciting, but it's certainly hot,” Carrie said, fanning herself with her hand for all the good it did, which wasn't much.

“Hush, Carrie, we're not letting you throw cold water on our parade, especially since it's the only one in town,” Dixie said self-righteously.

“I hope all three of us get jobs. It'll be fun being in a movie,” Joyanne said buoyantly.

“Luke Mason just stuck his head out of that trailer over there,” Dixie said, standing on tiptoe to crane her head above the crowd.

“Hot as it is today, he should have stayed inside so the sun wouldn't cook his brain,” Carrie muttered.

“Carrie, I'm warning you. No more of that.” Dixie thumped her on the arm for emphasis.

The man with the orange ponytail jumped up on a loading platform. “All right, all right,” he said. “Let's get started here.” He had to shout to make himself heard.

Everyone ceased talking except for Little Jessie Wanless, who was bouncing her baton off the ground and catching it while chattering a mile a minute to no one in particular. But her mother, Big Jessie, proprietor of the Wanless School of Dance and Baton, shushed her and confiscated the baton. Since she had nothing left to do with her hands, Little Jessie folded her arms over her flat chest and stuck out her chin—always a bad sign.

“I'm Whip Larson,” the man on the platform shouted. “I'm the producer of
Dangerous.
”

Because he was the person whose business card Luke Mason had handed her, Carrie studied Whip. He wore white pants that were decidedly California, loafers with no socks and a silk shirt printed with geometric designs. His tan must have been poured straight out of a bottle. In spite of the California sheen, he didn't seem like such a bad person. Carrie pegged him as sincere, and that was saying something. So far, her impression of the movie people was that most of them were phonies.

Whip went on talking. “The casting director, Fleur Padgett, and her assistants will be moving through the crowd. We'll call you aside if we're interested in you.”

Three chic young women wearing all-black outfits distributed cards to various members of the waiting group. Dixie got a card, and so did Joyanne. Hoping to avoid the same fate, Carrie slipped behind a refreshment stand, where two guys in T-shirts displaying the production company's logo were distributing cold bottles of water, presumably to ward off heatstroke. An awning projected a few feet beyond the stand, and Carrie intended to shelter in its shade for a few moments before continuing to her car. Unfortunately someone else had the same idea.

“Well, hello,” said the man. His velvet voice unexpectedly made her knees go weak, or maybe it was the heat that caused her to feel a bit faint at the moment.

“Luke Mason,” she breathed, taking a step backward. Today he sported a gray baseball cap and at least a two days' beard stubble, which should have put her off but didn't. “What are you doing here?”

“Scouting,” he said. “Trying to blend in with the locals so I can scope out how they walk, how they talk. Plus the disguise fools any stray paparazzi who might turn up to make my life miserable. How about you?” His eyes sparkled with mirth, presumably brought about by her discomfort at meeting up with him again.

Luke's movies generally consisted of snappy dialogue, an attractive cast and a couple of improbable car chases. She'd never considered that preparing for such a role involved research. “I only came to keep my sister and our friend company,” she said.

“Admit it. You were curious.” His eyes held a devilish glint. He rested one booted foot on a handy tree stump and gazed at her. Her pulse sped up, and she told it to simmer down. Not that it paid any attention.

“I am not interested in anything about movies, least of all what goes on at a casting call,” she said indignantly.

“I'd pegged you for a woman who is never less than honest.”

That stopped her short. Honesty was a trait on which she prided herself.

“So,” he said, leaning over her. “Why are you here?” He was so close she could smell the faint soapy scent of his skin.

“All right, I'll level. It's curiosity, just as you said.” She swallowed past a throat that had suddenly gone dry.

“That's better,” he said approvingly.

She forced herself to pick out all the things that struck her as peculiar about him, as not quite fitting in.

“Your hat's not right,” she blurted.

“What's wrong with it?” He sounded mystified.

She reached across the space between them and pulled it lower over his brow. “That's better, except no one around here wears a Dodgers cap—it'd be the Atlanta Braves. But most of the local guys favor hats with tractor logos.”

“Oh. My mistake.”

“Someone said they saw your head poke out of that trailer over there. Beats me how they'd recognize you.” She slapped at a yellow jacket; it buzzed off.

“Wasn't me coming out of the trailer. Could've been Rick Phillips, my body double. He isn't growing a beard and he looks a lot like me. Especially in the nude.”

Carrie gawked at him. “You're going to play nude scenes in this movie?”

“There's one. It takes place on Yancey and Mary-Lutie's wedding night.”

The intimacy of anybody's wedding night was the last thing she wanted to discuss with Luke Mason. Anyway, who knew what really happened on their wedding night but the couple themselves? She frowned. “Don't tell me any more. I don't care to hear about it.”

“Thing is, the movie audience won't know if it's really me in the buff or Rick.” Luke laughed ruefully.

“I've got to go,” she said.

He seemed cocky and all too sure of himself. “Too bad. I'm enjoying the scenery.”

There was no scenery at the old seed-farm headquarters other than flat dusty fields stretching to the horizon. None but her.

She edged away from Luke Mason, wary of falling under his spell. She'd better get out of here, go back to work, anything.

The awning struts from the refreshment stand barred her escape. Luke stepped closer, moving deliberately. His eyes never left hers, and she felt a definite tug as well as something else—a yearning, a knowledge of something important happening between them. A cricket chirred in the nearby shrubbery, and the voices on the other side of the refreshment stand receded to background noise. Luke's eyes searched hers for—what?

Without realizing it, she had backed into the hot metal shell of the refreshment stand, which felt unpleasantly warm against her back. She tensed, his self-confidence undermining her own.

“I stopped by the garage a few times,” he said, studying her reaction and apparently heartened by what he saw. “You were never there.”

She clasped her nervous fingers behind her back. “I have things to do,” she said. “Errands. Stuff like that.”

“Mmm,” he said. “That's what I figured. Am I supposed to make an appointment?”

“If you want something done to your car, yes,” she said.

“And if I want something done to me?” He was laughing at her, amusement bubbling up from the depths of his eyes.

“Depends,” she said. “On what it is.” She could have died once she'd said it, knowing full well that it sounded like a come-on.

“You could check my air filter. Or inflate something.” He grinned at her.

“I, um, “she said, resisting at the same time that she realized it was pointless.

“Or we could,” he murmured as he moved closer still, “do this.” He curved an arm around her waist, and she felt her will dissolve. She had turned completely to a puddle of mush bounded by quivering nerve endings, all of which were yearning toward Luke Mason's two-day growth of beard. She knew she could tell him to stop and he would. She could panic, even scream, but in her present state, neither occurred to her. All she did was stare, mesmerized as his hand cupped her chin ever so lightly and his lips descended to hers.

She smelled the sweat on his skin, the heat upon the rough cotton of his shirt. He didn't so much kiss as taste her, inhaling her breath, nibbling for a moment at her bottom lip and finishing up with a long delectable teasing incursion into her mouth. The worst thing was that it wasn't enough. She wanted more, lots more, but the last thing she would do was admit it to him.

After this swoon-making exercise in provocation, he moved aside. Their surroundings, which seemed to have faded away, sharpened into focus. Her arms and legs came back into being, though her brain was still wandering in the ether somewhere. Luke was smiling, somewhat sadly, she thought.

“Be on your way, Carrie,” he said softly. “If you don't, you may find out that Yancey Goforth wasn't the only guy who was dangerous.” He grazed a knuckle against her cheek and stepped backward, abandoning her to her comfort zone, which was much less comfortable than it had been, say, oh, ten minutes ago.

Instead of inventing a bit of repartee as she knew she should, Carrie could not think of one thing to say. Tried unsuccessfully to reconnect with her brain, which was still winding in from outer space. Made an effort to recapture her breath.

Darting one desperate glance back over her shoulder at Luke, she whirled around the corner of the stand, only to run smack into one of those women passing out cards. They bumped heads, and Carrie reeled backward with stars of the uncomfortable kind bouncing off the backs of her eyeballs.

“You're definitely a possibility,” the woman said chattily. “Here you go, and don't forget to include your phone number.” She pressed a card into Carrie's hand.

“Take this back,” Carrie said, fending her off with a flap of her hand. “I don't want to be in the movie.”

“Nonsense, go talk to Fleur. You'd be perfect for the Miss Liberty 500 scene. Go
on,
” said the assistant.

“Carrie? Carrie Rose Smith!” Joyanne called over the heads of the milling crowd, and Whip Larson, who happened to be passing by, halted in his tracks. He flicked his gaze over Carrie's figure.