Tanya Michaels - Mistletoe Cinderella

“Thanks,” he said weakly, officially feeling stupid. A distantly familiar and much-loathed sensation.

With Candy glaring after him-apparently it was bad form to be obsessed with some lesser brunette when she’d offered her dance card-he slunk through the doors to the ballroom. Except for the bright stage spotlights, the lighting was dim. Dylan paused, letting his eyes adjust, and scanned the crowd for flashes of telltale red. When I get my hands on her…

Wrong line of thought. He hardened at the memory of how she’d felt in his hands.

Okay, no touching this time. But “C.J.” definitely owed him an explanation. After a purposeful circuit of the room, he was forced to conclude she wasn’t there. Natalie was, though. The blonde danced with a tall man Dylan didn’t remember. As the song ended, he started toward them. Natalie could give him answers, but he didn’t get anywhere near her.

“Echols!”

Nick Zeth, known in years past as Z-Man, and former outfielder Shane McIntyre intercepted him. Shane had on a suit and tie; Nick had opted to pair his old baseball jersey with black slacks. Both men wore name tags that featured yearbook photos. Dylan found that he was suddenly a rabid supporter of name tags; people should be required to wear them at all times. Especially enigmatic brunettes with identity crises.

The guys insisted he have a drink with them. They grabbed a couple of beers and sat at a table far enough away from the speakers to have a normal conversation. Shane said he’d caught one of Dylan’s broadcasts when he was in Atlanta on business, and Nick, now a local firefighter, revealed that he’d divorced his college sweetheart last year, although he seemed more rueful than bitter. Eventually talk turned to Coach Burton’s retirement dinner, which they were all attending.

“He was the best,” Shane said.

“He was like a dad to me,” Nick reminisced. His own father, also a fireman, had died rescuing a civilian when Nick was in middle school.

It seemed wrong for Dylan to add that Coach B. had been like a dad to him, too, since Michael Echols had been alive.

“Everything okay, man?” Shane nudged his arm. “You keep looking around the room.”

“Looking for a woman,” he admitted.

Nick grinned. “Dude, they’re nothing but trouble. You’re better off with us.”

“Not my type.” Dylan grinned back.

“You still got a thing for redheads?” Shane wanted to know.

“This one was brunette. But she was wearing a red dress.”

“Oh, so you’re not just looking, you’ve already found one?” Nick scanned the crowd curiously.

“She temporarily got away,” Dylan said. “I’m trying to figure out who she was.”

“You could always check the table over there,” Shane suggested. “Where the name tags are? Someone on the reunion committee put together a book, a ‘where are they now’ thing that has pictures and info about everyone.”

Dylan got to his feet. “Great. You guys don’t mind if I…?”

“Nah.” Shane waved his hand. “I was thinking about asking someone to dance. You’re not my type, either.”

“We’ll catch up with you at the coach’s banquet if not tonight,” Nick said. “Go get her, bro.”

There were only a few unclaimed name tags on the long table, Dylan’s among them. He winced at the picture of himself, the cocky smile that said he knew what his ticket out of here was and that he was off to bigger and better things. Far away from the struggles he hadn’t liked people to see and, more important, away from Michael Echols. And here I am, back again. Dylan shoved the tag into his coat pocket and studied the remaining female faces on the table.

Chloe Ann Malcolm? Her middle name wasn’t even Jane!

Squinting, he double-checked, comparing the wide-eyed teenager in black and white to the temptress who’d kissed him on the balcony. Not the best picture, but that was her, all right. Chloe Malcolm. He couldn’t remember anything about her, but his recollections were probably clouded by his time with her tonight.

On the corner of the table was the green binder Shane had mentioned. Someone had printed out a label and stuck it on the front: Mistletoe High, Class of 1999. He flipped through the alphabetical entries until he located Chloe. Background information included her graduating with honors, top ten of their class and her superstar status in Academic Decathlon. Since high school, she’d gone to college, where she earned a degree in computer science. She’d ultimately settled in Mistletoe, near her parents, and ran her own business building and maintaining Web sites.

Dylan ground his teeth. She was a braniac, one of those people who’d effortlessly earned A’s when he’d struggled for C’s. What had possessed her to tell him she was a cheerleader and an interior decorator? Instead of correcting his mistaken impression that she was Candy, she was having a laugh at the dumb jock’s expense.

He must really be dumb. Co-worker Liza Finnell was attracted to him, but she didn’t cause even a blip on his radar. If he had half a brain, he’d ask out the sweet, easy-to-read woman. Instead he’d been drawn to Heidi, who’d used him as a rung on her social-climbing ladder but had at least been honest about the basics-say, her name . Then he’d spent tonight flirting with a woman who didn’t respect him enough even to tell him who she was. Everything his old man had ever said about his lack of intelligence circled through Dylan’s mind like a cruel wind. He had noticed inconsistencies in the way Chloe was behaving tonight, but he’d never once dreamed that she might be flat-out lying to him.

It was the second time in a month he’d been left looking like a fool because of a duplicitous female. Before he left Mistletoe, he and Ms. Malcolm were going to have a chat.

THE PHONE RANG at such an unholy hour of the morning that it certainly would have wakened Chloe if she’d actually been able to sleep. She’d gotten tired of staring at the dark ceiling overhead sometime between three and four, tromping in her robe and bare feet to the computer. Might as well get some work done, she’d reasoned. But her mind had been too preoccupied with replaying each second with Dylan-particularly the kissing-to focus on database fields.

“Hello?” As she answered, she experienced a frisson of irrational fear that it would somehow be Dylan on the other end.

Thank heavens it was Natalie instead. “Hey! You took off way too early last night. You had to know I would call first thing for details. What happened that sent you sneaking away without a goodbye?”

Chloe could insist that she hadn’t been “sneaking,” that she’d merely wanted to get home and knew Nat was busy with her reunion responsibilities, but this was her best friend. “I screwed up. You never should have left me alone with Dylan! I was a mess.”

“You’ve always been more critical of yourself than anyone else is. Candy notwithstanding,” Natalie conceded. “Even if you stammered or put your foot in your mouth, I’m sure he didn’t find it as noticeable as you did.”

“He thought I was Candy.”

“Huh?” Nat sounded appropriately flummoxed. In what parallel universe could Chloe be mistaken for head cheerleader and budding socialite Candy Beemis?

“Maybe it was seeing me with you that threw him, but he honestly thought I was Candy. And I…sort of let him go on believing that. I told him to call me C.J., and that I work as an interior designer.”

There was a strangled sound that was either laughter or a gasp. “You’re kidding me!”

“Oh, how I wish I were.”

“So…the two of you talked for a little while, under false pretenses, and you felt so bad about it that you went home?”