The Rock Star's Christmas Reunion: contemporary holiday romance (A Charisma series novel, The Connollys Book 1) (7 page)

He stared at her, hard. Where did that come from? “Why not? You’re an old friend and easy on the eyes.”

She dropped her napkin on her plate. “I’m not a supermodel. What if someone took our picture together?”

“You might want to repaint your mouth.” He mimed swiping a tube of lip gloss over her puffy, but somewhat grease-stained lips. “But otherwise, you’re flawless.”

Her cheeks flushed. “That’s sweet of you.”

“I’d never be anything but sweet to someone who makes a milkshake like you do. Let’s serve them at my party on the seventeenth, okay?”

“Sure. We can do that.” She pushed back her chair, stood, and went to a notebook she had on top of a thick pile of hardback cookbooks on a small table.

He couldn’t help checking out her curvy ass. Blood pumped into regions hidden behind his jeans. She was one of those girls with a tiny waist and mega-assets below. Some guys dug models for the pride of having one on your arm. Others went for the body type that made a man sit up and pay attention. He was one of those, and Yakima, matured past the elfin slenderness of the sixteen-year-old he remembered, had serious curves.

He contemplated going to bed with her. She’d sure make the Christmas season more special for him, if she knew what to do with that sexy body. Problem was, Haldana. How would his cousin react if he had a fling with her friend and boss for a few weeks? Yakima was old enough to know the score with a guy like him, but Haldana was only twenty-one.

“We have lots to talk about with your party,” Yakima said as she closed her notebook. “We can use the time in the car for discussion.”

“Sure,” he said.

She looked at him strangely. “What?”

He licked his bottom lip, and watched to see if she reacted. With some girls, any sign of attention from him had their nipples standing to attention. But either Yakima was immune or was wearing a bra that hid such things from view. “That is a very baggy sweater.”

She stared down at herself and plucked at her khaki green button-up sweater. “It’s wool. Nice and warm.”

“You have a great body. You should show it off.”

“While shopping for a used car?”

“Absolutely.” He grinned. “Enchant the sales guy into giving you a better deal.”

“Well, maybe, if the sales guy wasn’t a Connolly brother. Your brothers are sharks, Bax.”

~

An hour later, the back of his SUV was filled with an oversized, fragrant Christmas wreath. Bing and Frank were warbling on the stereo as they drove to a local Home Depot in search of lights. They’d already come up empty, as Yakima had predicted, in Battlefield.

Yakima, defiant, hadn’t changed out of her baggy sweater, but she had brightened her lips and done something with a peachy bronzer, he suspected, to highlight her high, flat cheekbones. He didn’t understand why he hadn’t thought of her as hot when they were in high school. Had he been so focused on his music that he hadn’t noticed his cousin’s sexy babysitter?

It didn’t make sense to him, but he could enjoy her now. She talked on about party food in that bubbly voice she used when chatting about her favorite subject. He mostly tuned the words out, focusing on the tone of her voice. It soothed him, like she was a Bax whisperer.

When he pulled into the Home Depot parking lot, she looked surprised. “What?”

“We got here so fast. Traffic at this time of year is usually torture.” She tapped her steering wheel.

“You should try Los Angeles.”

She shuddered. “No thanks. Small town girl.”

“And yet you want to cater for celeb parties?”

Her gaze squared with his. “I want to make a living. Celebs have money.”

“Fair enough.” He considered her. “Would you be willing to be a personal chef? I’m sure I could hook you up.”

“Not right now.” She forced a smile. “Ask me in a year, if my business doesn’t take off. I’d have to move, right?”

“Probably. New York, L.A., Nashville. Someone will want a vegan chef on staff.”

She patted his knee. “Not, yet, but thanks.”

He stared at her hand, slender, but knife-nicked brown fingers. Could anything be more alluring against the deep blue of his jeans? Her hand on him could be an album cover.

Her hand vanished. He heard the door open and realized she was getting out. He’d let that image of her hand take him out of time and place. But he wasn’t a performer anymore, wouldn’t do another album, and he needed to let that go. Songwriting was one thing, but he didn’t need ideas for cover art anymore.

She hadn’t waited for him. By the time he caught up to her, she was talking to a tall, very stooped man in his late sixties. He gave her a hug and she stood on her tiptoes to hug him back. She turned away, grinning, his arm still around her shoulders.

“If it isn’t the oldest Connolly boy,” the man, who wore a Seattle Seahawks pullover, said with a grin.

Bax lifted his eyebrows to Yakima.

“You remember Coach Nichols, don’t you?” Yakima asked.

“I didn’t do sports, sorry.” He held out his hand and the man shook it.

“I coached both of your brothers. Junior varsity football. And taught you American History.” Coach Nichols peered over his glasses.

“Of course, Coach Nichols,” Bax said, though he had no memory of the man. “High school seems like a long time ago.”

“I guess you outgrew us, son,” the coach said. “How’s your father holding up after his knee replacement?”

“Uh, my dad didn’t—” He stopped when Yakima shook her head.

“That was in February,” she said. “Practically forgotten now.”

“Well, sure, if it went well.” The coach pushed his glasses up. “Now my older brother had the same surgery and didn’t do the aftercare, ended up needing narcotics for six months and never fully regained range of motion.”

Bax tuned the man out as he went on and on about his brother’s surgery. He heard music, “Wonderful Christmastime,” and registered, then blocked, the sound of a toddler crying. He considered that life in a small town meant having to run into your old teachers for the rest of your life.

Maybe returning to Battlefield had been a mistake, when you’d blocked out the past as thoroughly as he had done. What had he thought to find here? He pulled out his phone and pulled up the texts from an ex that he’d been ignoring. Time to respond. He should have back-up plans. Some reason to leave if things didn’t work out with his family. Returning to an ex would be a face-saving excuse to cut and run if he needed one.

Chapter Five

They hit pay dirt just over the Oregon border at another home improvement store. Yakima snatched the last container of her multicolored, blinking lights off a naked shelf while Bax looked on, amused. For all her excitement, she might have just heard her single had landed on the Billboard Top 100. At least they’d been successful at last. He’d had to drag her out of the first Home Depot after the fourth person walked up to her and started a holiday season catch-up conversation.

“Great! Can you believe we found the same lights as mine?” she asked as they waited in the twenty-minute long check-out line.

“I was taking your word for it that they were hard to find,” he said.

“How did you decorate in Nashville? Did you hire someone to do it?”

“I lived in a condo there. My house is in L.A. and my gardener took care of the decorating.”

“La di da.” She flipped her hair from one shoulder to the other. “You know what sounds really good to me right now? A homemade peanut butter cup.”

“Not me.” He patted his stomach. “That milkshake did me in.”

“You can never eat too much dessert in December. It’s the holidays!”

“I prefer not to hate myself in January,” he deadpanned.

She flipped her hair again. “I had like two ounces of milkshake, so you can’t judge me and you need to gain weight.”

“I wasn’t judging.” He leaned behind her and checked out her ass. “Seems to me your junk is in the perfect trunk.”

“Now you’re talking in country lyrics,” she protested. “Or at least, that’s what it sounds like.”

He considered. “Maybe the chorus.”

“What would the verses be?”

“Something about trying to get the girl to kiss me.” They locked eyes, then she broke their shared gaze as the line shuffled two feet closer to the register. He forgot about his ex and her persistent texts.

“You have trouble getting girls to kiss you?” She scoffed. “Hardly.”

“It’s a song. Country songs are about longing, self-deprecation. Not arrogant like certain other genres of music.”

“Good ole boy Bax Connolly, lookin’ for love,” she twanged in a faux-country accent.

“No, good ole Will Dealy,” he corrected. “I’m just the songwriter.”

“I doubt he has any trouble getting girls either.”

“He’s a bold one,” Bax agreed, envisioning the strapping country music star in his habitual plaid flannel shirt, jeans and boots. “Many a time I’ve seen him swoop down just like this.”

He wrapped his arm around Yakima’s shoulder, careful to go under her hair, and locked one boot around her heel, using his torso to gently tilt her back. As her eyes widened, he slanted his head, and pressed his lips against hers softly. She parted in surprise but he didn’t take advantage, keeping it sweet and Home Depot-friendly. After a moment he grinned at her and helped her stand up. Her hands had clutched his biceps somewhere along in the proceedings.

He heard clapping. Yakima put her palm over her mouth, her eyes still wide, but he just grinned. What a cocky fool he was. Still couldn’t stay out of the limelight.

“Oh my gosh,” a girl in her mid-twenties enthused. “It’s Bax.”

Her companion gaped at them. The line shuffled forward another couple of feet.

“Wait, that’s Yakima,” said another young woman. “Girl, what you doing, kissing on Bax?”

“Oh, hey, Whitney,” Yakima called. She plunked her lights into Bax’s arms and went to greet the girls a few middle-aged couples behind them.

He watched the trio share hugs with Yakima. Not surprisingly, he recognized none of them. But he was beginning to realize what a great thing he had in Yakima. A well-liked local girlfriend would do wonders for his life around here. She could help him settle in, maybe even win Dare over.

Just then, his phone pinged. He shifted the box of lights and the plastic case of bulbs into one arm and pulled out his phone. Remy had texted again.

~

“What more do you have left to do?” Yakima asked Bax the next night as he opened his kitchen door off the garage. He’d texted her at two, asking if she had dinner plans. When she’d said no, thinking he was going to invite her out, he texted, “Come help me decorate.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But something is missing.”

She pulled a mid-sized plastic tub of decorated Christmas cookies from her passenger seat. They were left over from her baking project for Mrs. Roth. With the disappointment of not being asked on a date after that kiss, she’d need the cookies for solace.

He took it from her as she stepped into the house. “What’s this?”

“Holiday cheer?”

He opened it and closely examined the brightly decorated snowmen and stocking shapes. “You’re a great decorator.”

“Haldana and I did them together. This was my other paying job for the weekend.”

“Any other prospects?” he asked.

“Yes, I had a panicked call from a woman who discovered her elderly mother had promised to cook for a holiday party and isn’t able to do it, so I’m going to do that on Thursday, then the next thing is your party on Saturday.”

“So two jobs again this week.”

“So far. Better than nothing, right?” She glanced around his kitchen. “Do you have boxes of decorations to put up?”

He leaned against his refrigerator. “Just the second wreath we bought.”

Her lips curved. Maybe her instincts weren’t wrong. “I feel, sir, that you brought me here under false pretenses.”

He snapped the lid of the cookie container back on. “Not really. I asked you if you were free for dinner. I’m providing dinner.”

“What?”

He picked up a packaged loaf of sandwich bread and dangled the plastic end from his fingers. Then he opened his fairly empty refrigerator and pointed at a tub of spreadable butter and a pound of an expensive Cheddar cheese. When he shut the door, he gave her a self-satisfied grin. “And I have kale.”

“Oh, dear, kale.” She laughed.

“Good, huh? Grilled cheese sandwiches and kale?”

“I’m vegan, Bax. I don’t eat cheese or butter made from animal by-products. It’s sweet of you though. Very advanced thinking for a meat eater.”

“Oh, right.” The corners of his mouth turned down.

She couldn’t help getting close to the guy and giving him a hug. “It’s okay. I can see that you really tried.”

“But you made me a milkshake.”

Was he whining? “Almond milk. Cashew ice cream. It was vegan.”

His eyebrows went up in comic disbelief. “But it was so good!”