The Rock Star's Christmas Reunion: contemporary holiday romance (A Charisma series novel, The Connollys Book 1) (2 page)

“Sure, but you know, your cousins have lived here since they were young. I don’t know if they are that in touch with Norwegian holiday traditions these days. But they do eat fish.”

“You’d know better than me. Okay, then, salmon however you like.” He waved his hand dismissively.

“I could do smoked salmon, dry-cured Norwegian style, as an appetizer,” she offered. “Do you want additional appetizers?”

His mouth worked. “I would say I’d just leave it up to you, but now you’re making me nervous.” He pushed his hand into his shaggy hair. As he had lifted his hand, she saw what looked like a scar running the length of his inner wrist and a tattoo she hadn’t noticed before.

“With the vegan thing?”

“Yep.” He tilted his neck from side to side, until she heard a cracking sound. “Life is compromise. You know what we always loved?”

She thought of him, half-undressed, roaring fireplaces, drinking grasshopper hot chocolate on a thick rug. “What?” Her voice sounded cracked, drunk with arousal.

“Fish and chips.” He licked his upper lip. She melted. “How about you make that? Smoked salmon appetizer, and then fish and chips for dinner. Just fried deliciousness with coleslaw and maybe some kale salad for the girls. Girls seem to live on a steady diet of kale these days.”

“Oh, shoot,” she said, then clapped her hand over her mouth. She’d been travelling the erotic highway, and he’d been planning a menu.
What an idiot.

“What? No kale in Washington State? Is that a California thing?” His brows knit.

Not at all what she’d hoped for as a first catering job. But who was she kidding? This was Battlefield and she was lucky not to be hired to barbeque hot dogs with bottled sauce from the local Kroger grocery store. “Of course we have kale. You bet, great menu. Let me work up an estimate. Let’s see. Eight people.”

“Nine, including me.”

“Right.” Hands shaking with embarrassment, she quickly did math on her phone’s calculator, then held up her sheet to him. It was a triplicate form that had his order all costed out. “How about this?”

He tapped the page. Did he realize his finger was basically hovering over her vagina? “Perfect. We can do great things together.”

She knew he meant her food, but her body heard his words in an entirely different fashion. “Oh?” She wished she didn’t sound quite so sexually excited.

He tilted her clipboard toward himself. “I’m going to have at least one more party this month, and probably some dinners too.”

Her voice cracked. “A big entertainer?” Oh, shoot, she was talking in porn dialogue now. “I mean, large entertainment. I mean, you know, a party.” She waved her hands.

He must be an expert at ignoring hyper-sexual women and their come-ons, because he continued speaking as if she wasn’t an idiot. “Yes, and I sure don’t cook. I remember your grilled cheese and tater tot dinners from when you would babysit my cousins. It’s all coming back to me.”

“I’ve come a long ways,” she assured him. “Not sixteen anymore.”

His eyes fixed on hers, serious. “No, I loved that stuff. I could go half the night playing guitar after carbing up when my dad was gone. It was all meat when he cooked.”

“Maybe you’re a natural vegetarian,” she suggested.

He snorted. “Everything in moderation. Brush up on your fish skills, Yakima, because you’re going to need them.”

A rock star that followed the creed of “everything in moderation?” She didn’t buy it. “I understand.”

“I’ll run up and get you a check. I’m sure you’d love to be paid ahead of time.”

In sexual favors, please
. But no, she needed the money. She pointed to her sheet. “This is the deposit I ask for.”

“I’ll pay for everything now,” he said. “I trust you.”

She had the feeling he didn’t remember her very well, despite that big hug at the front door. Trustworthy hadn’t exactly been her middle name in high school. She wouldn’t refuse the money though. A new business devoured money like kids eat Christmas cookies.

~

“How are you going to serve the smoked salmon?” Haldana Connolly asked in Yakima’s rented commercial kitchen on Friday as she took off her coat. She had no features in common with her cousin Bax that Yakima had ever noticed. Other than beauty, of course. But otherwise, she was tiny where Bax was over six feet, curvy where Bax was rangy, blond where Bax was dark-haired.

“With lime juice and lingonberries. I found them at Ikea,” Yakima said. She took a square of tofu out of her specialized press and set it on her cutting board.

“Great. How long did you cure the fish for?”

“I bought that salmon on Monday afternoon. It’s been curing ever since. I turn it every day.”

Haldana opened the commercial refrigerator and lifted the plastic wrap the covered the fish. “I can smell the dill. Delicious.”

Yakima picked up her knife and sliced down the short side of the tofu block, cutting it in half. Then she diced it into even one-inch pieces. “All we have to do is rinse and slice it, then we’ll assemble with crackers, a squeeze of lime, and berries tomorrow right before the party.”

“Sounds good. Are we doing other apps?”

“Red onion jam on focaccia toast.”

“Yum,” Haldana said. “Love me some Persian food.”

“Good stuff,” Yakima agreed.

“So, Bax?” Haldana’s tone was expectant. “What did you think?”

Yakima reminded herself that she was speaking to the man’s cousin, practically his sister, really. “Have you seen him since he came back?”

“No. He’s been holed up in his new house. I talked to him once. That’s when I told him I worked with you.”

The kitchen’s phone rang. Thankfully. They needed business. She hit the speakerphone button. “Yakima Catering.”

“Yakima, dear,” said a cracked, elderly voice.

Yakima recognized the voice instantly. It belonged to her old piano teacher, widow of the town’s former general practitioner. “Mrs. Roth! How good to hear from you.”

“You’re sweet, dear. Is your catering business open?”

“Just started Monday officially.” Yakima pointed at the tofu, then the glass container that already had a marinade ready. The tofu was going to be turned into buffalo-style appetizers that she was taking to a city council meeting in order to network. Haldana nodded and started dropping the tofu cubes into the marinade.

“Well, my arthritis is acting up, but I need to have Christmas cookies for my grandchildren. They are coming over Sunday afternoon. My son only has them on Sundays.”

Yakima knew all about that divorce, the wife who’d been caught red-handed in bed with the mechanic who’d long babied her elderly BMW. “Such a pity, Mrs. Roth. Do you want me to decorate them for you?”

“Oh yes. Nothing absolutely spectacular, you understand, but I think there will be six children. Maybe you could make hot chocolate, too?”

“I have a great recipe. Much better than powder,” she assured Mrs. Roth.

“What will you charge me?”

She glanced at Haldana, who shrugged. One or both of them was going to have a very busy Sunday morning, but they could bake the cookies today or tomorrow morning. She named a figure, and thankfully, Mrs. Roth agreed.

“Wonderful. I’ll bring them over Sunday, about fifteen minutes before you want them, so that the hot chocolate is a perfect temperature,” Yakima said as Haldana pumped her fist.

“Thank you.”

Yakima hung up. She ought to bring over a contract and have it signed, but she doubted Mrs. Roth would cheat her.

“That’s exciting. One week in business and two jobs already.”

“It’s not enough.”

“I’ll keep cooking at the teriyaki place until you can take me on full-time,” Haldana assured her. “It’s not the kind of food I want to do, but everyone’s nice and they are flexible with my hours.”

Yakima rattled a jingle bell on the two-foot plastic Christmas tree in the center of her worktable. She’d feel more in the holiday spirit if she had money coming in. “Do you think it was a mistake to start my business here? Should I have moved down into Vancouver or even Portland?”

“Not at all. You already own your house and it doesn’t make sense to uproot yourself from your family.”

“I just wonder how much business we’re going to get. I’ve been driving my van around for two weeks and the only call came from Bax so far.”

“He’s a good start. I’m sure he’ll be in contact with musicians in Portland and Seattle. We can cater parties along the I-5 corridor.”

“Caterer to the local music industry? But Bax hasn’t released an album in six years. Is he still relevant?” He’d always be a rock god to her generation, after two Number Ones with his first band, and then his huge solo summer hit that reigned on the charts for over a month eight years ago, and all the other Top Forty hits, but still. Six years.

“He moved into production after his wrist fusion surgery,” Haldana said. “He can’t play at a professional level anymore.”

Yakima felt physical pain in her stomach at the news. “You’re kidding. Why not?”

“He lost flexibility, but at least it doesn’t hurt anymore. And he stopped taking the opioids.” She shuddered. “You know that’s an addiction that can kill people.”

Oh, shoot.
Opioids
. She shuddered. Poor Bax. “Why don’t I know any of this?”

“We didn’t know about it either,” Haldana admitted, as she covered the marinade and put the container into the refrigerator. “He didn’t tell anyone, but I know he had trouble on his last world tour five years ago. That’s when he was taking the painkillers. He had a medical exam when he was in rehab and decided to have his wrist fused after he learned how badly damaged the joint was.”

Yakima’s heart rate had sped up as layer after layer of bad news was relayed. “Bye-bye career.”

“It was a rough time. We didn’t know he was in rehab until after it was over, and he didn’t even mention the surgery. Uncle Harry thought he’d quit music to escape the drug scene. He even went down to Los Angeles when he heard Bax had signed up to produce The Dealy Band.”

“Aren’t they country?”

“Yeah. Bax had a plane ticket to Nashville the same day Uncle Harry arrived. Luckily they overlapped by a couple of hours and he explained everything.”

“When was that?”

“Three years ago. He lived in Nashville for two years and produced both of their albums, but now the leader singer is a new mom and they are on hiatus. So he went back to Los Angeles.”

“And now, all of a sudden, he’s in Battlefield after twelve years away. Sounds strange to me.”

Haldana shrugged. “He’s obviously rich. Maybe he can afford to retire.”

“But he never even vacationed here in all these years.” And a small town that had briefly felt like a magical place, birthplace of a rock god, had slowly returned to normal.

“Maybe it hurts too much. I mean, his mother killed herself in this town.”

Chapter Two

Yakima straightened the Santa Claus tea towel hooked over the oven door in her rented kitchen. This was so not a Christmassy conversation. She tilted her head, jangling her jingle bell earrings. “Mrs. Connolly took her life almost five years before Bax moved away. I’m sure he’s dealt with that.”

“I doubt it,” Haldana said. “You haven’t lost your parents, but I’ve lost both. It’s not something you get over. Besides, he found his mother’s body.”

Yakima shuddered. “Let’s stop talking about this. I want good energy in the holiday reunion party food.”

“Fair enough,” Haldana said equably. “What do you want me to do?”

“Shred cabbage and cut the potatoes for steak fries. We’re going to do slaw two ways, kale and red and green cabbage with dried cranberries. The last thing we’ll do today is prep the fish for the main courses.”

“What about dessert?”

“I’m going to work on a traditional Irish whiskey cake,” Yakima said, consulting her list. “Tomorrow we’ll prep baked apples, too. I used to make a simple version in the microwave when I babysat you guys.”

“Quite a feast.” Haldana reached under the worktable and grabbed a ten pound bag of potatoes. “I look forward to eating it.”

~

Bax opened the garage door late Saturday afternoon when he saw Yakima’s catering van come up the driveway. She pulled into the empty bay as he walked through the door between the house and the garage.

“Kitchen is straight through,” he said, admiring the long legs exiting the driver’s seat. She was dressed for comfort in jean leggings and athletic shoes and had a white chef’s coat on top. Yakima’s body was slim and perfectly proportioned. If she’d just been an inch or two taller, she might have escaped this tiny town by modeling. He’d never forgotten that amazing hair, and surely there was room for a Native American supermodel in the universe. Instead, she’d confined herself to town, and her life here. Why? He remembered her as a girl with a big personality, to the extent that he’d noticed anyone back then. Totally swept up in his music, his only dreams were to leave this small town and be a professional guitarist. It had even happened, for a while.