Muriel Jensen - The Man Under The Mistletoe

She finally realized he’d taken off in another direction and raced to follow. “Why don’t I ever get to drive?” she asked, catching up with him. She climbed into the passenger seat as he got in behind the wheel.

The Mustang did zero to sixty in five seconds, shooting out of the parking lot like a thumbed rubber band. It wasn’t as though the fire would be out before they got there, but he always wondered what he was missing while he was still on his way.

“You have a tendency to drive where other cars are parked.” He braked at the corner and cast her a grinning glance before looking quickly left, then right.

“One time! I hit a parked car one time!”

“It was a police car.”

She groaned. “The cop forgave me. Isn’t it time you did?”

“It was embarrassing.”

“Oh, get over yourself. It’s time you trusted me.” She put commands into her laptop even as she spoke to him and helped him watch for a break in the traffic. “We’ve been on stakeouts together, we’ve barfed at traffic accidents, we’ve lied our way out of tight spots, we’ve cried together…”

“When?”

“That story on the children’s wing of the hospital. Remember? The little girl with—”

“Oh, yeah.” He raised a hand to silence her. Somehow that little girl fighting lymphoma had reminded him of his own child, who’d never even lived to see the light of day. “I remember.”

The road clear, he sped off, as much to escape the memory as to take advantage of the opening in traffic. “I’m an important photojournalist now.” He faked an imperious air. “I have an image to protect.”

Jenny made a scornful sound. “Well, unfortunately for you, my mother believes that. You’re invited to dinner again next weekend.”

Jenny’s mother had designs on him for her daughter. She tried to be subtle about it and failed miserably. Matt and Jenny smiled at her matchmaking efforts, knowing that nothing more than friendship was possible between them. Matt was too reserved for Jenny, and her hyper behavior made him crazy.

He made the turn toward the department store. Smoke and flaming cinders filled the air. She pointed ahead. “There’s the police barricade.” He pulled over to park.

“Notice how I did that without hitting anything?” he said.

She punched him in the arm.

In the next block fire trucks and hoses were entangled in the street and a crowd of people had gathered to watch the flames. “Please offer your mom my apologies,” he said, reaching for his camera, “But I can’t go. I’m leaving tomorrow for my sister-in-law’s wedding.”

Jenny frowned at him. “You mean, the dragon’s sister is getting married?”

“Who said she was a dragon?”

“Aren’t exes always dragons?”

“I don’t know. Rosie’s the only ex I have, and she’s more of a…” What? he wondered. What described a woman who’d withdrawn so completely he could no longer reach her? “A turtle, I think.”

“You mean she moves slowly?”

“No.” He shook his head to end the discussion. She didn’t get it. But then, he’d been there, and he didn’t get it completely, either. He pushed his door open. “Come on before they put the damn thing out.”

“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Rosie’s mother did a turn in her deep pink mother-of-the-bride silk suit. “Imagine silver hoop earrings, a white poinsettia corsage with silver ribbon, and Ferragamo pumps and clutch.”

Rosie opened her mouth to tell her she looked spectacular even without the accessories. But she was interrupted by her aunt Virginia, who’d arrived two days ago for the wedding. Known as Ginger to everyone, she’d earned her nickname because of her sharp opinions on everything.

“Very pretty,” Ginger said, walking around her smaller, more curvaceous sister. Then she swatted Sonny’s backside with sibling familiarity. “But I’m not sure you need two layers of fabric right there where you’ve always had more than the rest of us. You should have gone for a shorter jacket.”

Sonny put both hands behind her and looked over her shoulder, checking her reflection in the mirror over the mantel. She had to walk some distance away before she could see herself.

“It looks beautiful,” Rosie assured her, then said politely to her aunt, “We Erickson women are proud of our curves. And the heels will give her more height. She’ll look perfect.”

“They’ll also give her more jiggle,” Ginger declared. “You are wearing a shape enhancer, Sonny?”

“A what?”

“A girdle,” Rosie translated, then made a point of looking at her watch. “You don’t need one, Mom. And aren’t you two meeting Camille Malone for dinner?”

The ormolu clock on the mantel chimed six as though in compliance with Rosie’s need to get her mother and aunt out of the house—and out of her hair. She had every detail of the wedding under control except for those two.

“We are!” Ginger exclaimed, shooing her sister toward the stairs and the bedrooms. “Hurry up! Let’s get changed.”

“Relax.” Sonny resisted the attempt to hurry her. “Camille won’t be upset if we’re a few minutes late.”

“I want to try to charm her into writing her autobiography,” Ginger said, hurrying around Sonny and starting up the stairs. “Old movie stars are hot stuff these days,” she said.

“But she’s led a very quiet personal life.”

Ginger nodded greedily. “But I understand there’s a scandal involving her oldest daughter’s father.”

“Jasper O’Hara?” Sonny asked, clearly puzzled.

Ginger continued up. “He wasn’t the father,” she said.

“What? How could you possibly know that? You’ve been here all of two days.”

Ginger shrugged. “It’s a gift. I know where the stories are and who wants to buy them. I met a woman on the train coming in who knew all about her. She was returning from Christmas shopping in New York. Seems Camille told a mutual friend of theirs in confidence and she told me.”

“Some friend.” Sonny chased her up the stairs. “You will not ask her about her…” Her voice faded as a door closed.

Oh, no. Camille’s daughters, Paris Sanford and Prudence Hale, were Rosie’s friends. Rosie knew there were shocking facts about Paris’s father that Camille wouldn’t want to discuss. Rosie trusted her mother to talk her aunt out of promoting the book idea.

Of course, talking Ginger out of anything was a major undertaking. She’s been married at seventeen, divorced at nineteen, married again at twenty-one, divorced five years later—and then married a third time at the age of thirty. She was now divorced again.

The four Chamberlain sisters, of whom Ginger was the eldest, had grown up in Beverly Hills, daughters of a prominent heart surgeon and a gifted cellist. Ginger was now a literary agent in New York City, while the second eldest, Sonny, had given up her plans to study law when she’d married Hal Erickson in her senior year at Princeton. Sukie, or Susan, had been sickly most of her life but thanks to a doting husband, lived comfortably in Palm Springs; Sonny and Ginger planned to visit her together right after the wedding. The youngest sister, Charlotte, had had a brilliant career in music, before dying in a tragic traffic accident when she was only twenty-five.

Rosie still found it difficult to equate the motivated and single-minded mother she knew with the dewy-eyed college senior who’d thrown in her lot to support the brash and ambitious son of a longtime Maple Hill family.

Hal Erickson had built a large, successful construction company in Boston. When his father passed away, he sold his business and took over the helm of his father’s Berkshire Construction in Maple Hill. He’d maintained the company’s reputation for quality work, got involved in bringing business to the community. He’d been serving his second term on the town’s Industrial Growth Committee, and Rosie had been in the middle of her first term, when Jay had the accident. The projects under way at the time were stalled by his death, and Tolliver Textiles had backed out of the deal. The committee had been dormant until its resurrection at the fall festival dinner. She was convinced that if she was staying here, she had to take a hand in strengthening business.