california christmas dreams (2 page)

“So tell me,” he said, “what exactly do you do with a ten-thousand-dollar belt?”

Annie pouted. “It’s Hermès. It’s a status symbol.”

Annie Gray was an up-and-coming recording artist with the voice of an angel, the beauty of a swan and the mouth of a truck driver. Annie’s mother had hired Jake to help her manage Annie’s money, but the singer was not being particularly cooperative.

“A symbol of what?” Jake asked, trying not to wince. As a financial advisor, he’d seen musicians come and go. Some came in poor and left poor, some came in poor and left rich. Annie wasn’t going to leave rich if she kept spending the way she was.

“It says I’m a star.” She batted her eyes at him.

He wanted to tell her she was stupid to think she would always be a star. “I know having money to spend on anything you want has its allure, but you have to think about the future.”

Annie shrugged. “I have enough money. I don’t need to worry.”

“You will if you keep buying ten-thousand-dollar belts.”

Again she shrugged. “I can’t do drugs no more, so I shop.”

Jake closed his eyes and prayed for patience. He would just have to ignore that issue. “Until you get back to work, you have to stick to your budget. On my advice, your mother canceled all your credit cards. You will be on a limited allowance until you’re working again.”

“You can’t do that. It’s my money.” She jumped to her feet, looking panicked.

“You just got out of rehab. Nobody cares who you were. And right now you’re a sort-of-famous, ex-junkie pop star whose only claim to fame is a song about sexting. I’m doing what I can to keep you solvent.”

She sauntered over to the edge of his desk, unbuttoning the top two buttons of her shirt and pulling the edges apart to show more skin and an evil-looking tattoo that curled around the inside of her breast. She leaned over and smiled at him. “Come on, Jakie. My mummy will listen to you. Tell her I’ll be a good girl. Let me keep at least one credit card.”

Jake sighed. Phase two. If pouting didn’t work, try seduction. She ran her fingers up his arm and he pulled away. He was thirty-two years old and had seen just about everything in the ten years he’d worked as a financial advisor. He pressed a button under his desk and a moment later his assistant, Vicki, silently opened the door and entered. “Just so you know, my secretary is standing right behind you as a witness to this meeting.”

Annie jumped back and rebuttoned her blouse. “This isn’t over.”

Phase three: the threat. “You don’t seem to understand what a conservatorship means. You have no control over your money because you can’t be trusted. That is no one else’s fault but yours.”

“You’re fired,” she snapped.

“And you can’t fire me, either,” he said with a half smile as she moved to phase four. Like so many others before her, she was completely predictable. “I’ve seen it all, sweetie. Your mother has your best interests at heart and you need to grow up and listen to her.”

“If I’d listened to my mother, I would have gone to college and not been a star,” she snapped.

“If you’d gone to college, you could have taken an accounting class and learned to manage your own money.”

“You’re mean,” Annie said, the pout returning. “How do I know you’re not trying to rip me off and take a piece of the pie for yourself?”

Phase five, he thought, was questioning his ability to keep her solvent. “Probably because I have a lot more money than you do and don’t need your piddly little 1.6 million.” Which she wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been hired by her family.

“You’re just an accountant. You can’t have more money than me.” She lifted her chin defiantly as though he’d be intimidated.

He resisted the urge to laugh. “I don’t buy ten-thousand-dollar belts.” Or fancy cars, or designer clothes. He’d bought his last Mercedes SUV used and lived in a small house in the Hills that he’d bought in a foreclosure sale. The only areas he’d splurged on had been his bedroom and the kitchen. Jake liked to cook and he wanted the best appliances he could afford. He also liked to sleep comfortably, so he did purchase a custom-made Swiss mattress that was so comfortable he fell asleep almost the moment his head touched the pillow.

She stomped her foot. “I’m going to go see a lawyer.”

Phase six: the final threat—seeing a lawyer. “Fine,” he replied. “See you later.”

She marched out of the office, slamming the door so hard the photos on the walls bounced.

“She’s going to be trouble,” Vicki said.

“Like we haven’t had that before,” he said with a sigh. Most of his clients were trouble with a capital
T.
And Miss Gray was proving to be one of the bigger ones.

“This is a heck of a way to make a living,” Vicki said, straightening one of the photos that had slipped askew from Annie’s door slam.

“That’s why I love it.” And he did, despite the juvenile behavior of so many of his clients. He loved the challenge of putting them back on solid ground. Many of them appreciated his efforts, but a few, like Annie, chafed under his control.

“Your sister called,” Vicki said. “I said you’d get back to her.”

He picked up the phone as Vicki walked out, closing the door quietly behind her.

He dialed his sister. Evelyn answered on the first ring as though she’d been standing right next to the phone.

“It’s Daddy. He’s lost his mind.”

Jake’s first thought was that his widowed father had run off with a twenty-year-old bimbo. Not that his father was easily led, but a pretty woman was a pretty woman, and he’d been a widower for a long time. “What’s going on?”

“He’s decided he’s not selling the park and is going to renovate instead. He’s already been to the bank and gotten a loan.”

Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. He and his father had talked about this. John Walters had inherited his family’s orange groves and had proceeded to turn them into an amusement park. With the downturn in the economy, the park had been suffering until Jake had finally convinced his father to sell to developers who’d been trying to get their hands on the property for nearly ten years.

“Did you hear me, Jake?” Evelyn asked, her voice sharp.

“I’m trying to pretend this is just a bad dream, but I heard you.”

“He’s turning his nose up at thirty million dollars,” Evelyn huffed. “And he’s planning some huge Christmas extravaganza to reopen the park with and has hired some woman, a has-been child actress to do the decorations at an obscene salary. She’s going to bankrupt him. Probably trying to bankroll her comeback.”

“That’s Dad’s decision,” Jake said calmly, though he agreed with his sister. Thirty million dollars was a lot of money to turn down to keep an aging amusement park open.

“I beg your pardon?” Evelyn asked, almost angrily.

“He doesn’t need the money,” Jake said. Jake’s father had been his first client. Originally his mother had handled the finances, but when she’d passed away, Jake had taken over even though he had only been sixteen. Jake had found he was good at handling money, and by the time he’d graduated high school he’d known exactly what he was going to do for a living.

“That’s not the point,” Evelyn replied. “He’s sixty-seven years old and should be sailing off into the sunset with one of his, you know, one of his honeys. He should be enjoying life instead of being at the park from six in the morning until midnight. He works too hard. He should be enjoying his retirement.”

“So you think Dad should sail off into the sunset with some gold digger?” The image amused Jake. While his father enjoyed the charms of the opposite sex, he wasn’t about to ask one on a cruise or be swayed to give her money.

“As if you’d let anyone touch his money,” Evelyn scoffed.

Jake said nothing as his thoughts raced. His father was of sound mind and body. And even though Jake had argued for the sale, he’d seen that his father was torn. On one hand, the amusement park was a family legacy, but on the other hand, it was a lot to take care of.

“What are you going to do?” Evelyn asked.

“Nothing.” He was disappointed in his father’s decision but not terribly surprised. His father was having a hard time letting go of his family’s heritage. Family meant a lot to John Walters.

“But...”

“Sis,” Jake interrupted, “the property belongs to him, and he’s of sound mind.”

“We all agreed he would sell. He sat at the dinner table with us and listened to our arguments and agreed with everything we said. My God, if he’s going to keep that damn park, my son is going to want to work there again. He’s already talking about skipping college and working for his grandpa, ruining his entire future.”

“He’ll change his mind.” He loved his sister. Evelyn had worked hard to get her doctorate in physics. She now taught at Cal State, San Bernardino and was on track to head the department.

Evelyn ground her teeth in frustration. “Can’t we go to court and stop him somehow?”

“Do you really want to try to have our father declared incompetent?”

A strangled sob came to him through the phone. “No, I guess not. It’s not your kids he’s filling with ideas that life is an amusement park and a little orange marmalade on sourdough toast will solve everything.”

Jake half smiled. His father had tried to sell him and Evelyn the same dream, but they hadn’t been converted.

“I’ll talk to him,” Jake promised, and ended the call.

He leaned back in his chair and looked out the window at the cloudless, blue Los Angeles sky. In the distance he could see the huge Hollywood Hills sign. One of the reasons he’d taken this spot was because he loved looking at the sign.

Evelyn was right; the man had lost his mind. Jake had spent six months putting the sale together, and his father was supposed to take the money and relax for the rest of his life. What had happened? He reached for the phone, intending to call his father, but then decided maybe a trip to Riverside would be better.

Chapter 2

M
erry stood in the center of her new office looking around. The room was a bit dingy, with gray paint on the walls, limp blinds on the windows and a battered desk, but she’d fix that with a little paint. A worktable was pushed against one wall, angled to catch the light from the window. The desk was a little battered, but Merry was a master at making old things look new again. Her whole house was a testament to her ability to take anything and make it look fresh and inviting.

She opened a box and started rummaging through it. Christmas lights spilled out. She found her electronic Santa Claus and hugged it. Her father had given it to her for her birthday. One of the things she’d hated as a child had been the fact she’d been born on Christmas, but her mother had solved the dilemma and celebrated her birthday on July 25. But that didn’t stop her father from giving her Christmas-themed gifts. As an airline pilot, he traveled the world and often brought back unique items for Merry and her sister.

A knock sounded on the door.

“Come in,” she called.

The door opened and John Walters walked in. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a round face, close-cropped gray hair already turning white and twinkling brown eyes. “Are you decorating for Christmas already? It’s August.”

“Getting in the mood,” she answered. She placed the Santa on the corner of her desk and plugged it in. “And looking for inspiration. I don’t have a lot of time to plan the Christmas decorations and get them up for your grand reopening.” John wanted to open the day after Thanksgiving and she had a lot of work to do. She pressed the button on the Santa and “Jingle Bell Rock” blared out at her. She grinned, suddenly feeling happier than she had since she’d made her decision to leave the safety of the Chapman Brothers theme park.

She’d always have a job with them, but accepting John’s offer gave her a new opportunity to shine. She didn’t want to play second banana anymore. She wanted more.

The song ended and John grinned at her. He looked into the box and pulled out another package of Christmas lights. “This is a good start.”

“Since you’re here, would you like to see my preliminary sketches?” She walked over to her worktable and turned on the light. She’d spent the past week measuring the park, the footprints of the different rides, the pathways between them and the orange trees that dotted the park. From that she’d worked up a blueprint that gave her an aerial view, though she was going to need more detail. She flipped open her notebook. “I’ve done four themes for you,” she said. “Christmas in California is the first one.”

John nodded as he glanced at the large drawing. She’d drawn a schematic diagram of the park, highlighting each section. John’s original concept for his park had been to showcase the variety of activities Southern California had to offer. The Los Angeles area had its own unique activities. A person could spend the morning at the beach, then the afternoon skiing in the mountains or looking at the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. John had tried to integrate those ideas into his park. Merry had to figure out how to layer a Christmas theme over the different sections and keep it cohesive with the original concept. She’d worked out four different ideas she thought could work. “I like this,” John said, pointing at her first idea of implementing the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. She’d decorated the orange trees with lights and added some gift boxes with large bows to the base of a tree. She’d sketched in various L.A. landmarks, such as the Hollywood sign, in various places near the different rides.

“This is a Currier and Ives Christmas,” she said, turning the page to show him the next one.

He glanced at the sleigh pulled by reindeer and nodded slightly. Another scene showed singers dressed in nineteenth-century garb. The third scene was a fireplace with stockings hanging from it and the fourth was a cute display of a Christmas tree lit up and decorated with bows.

“I’m not sure about this one,” John said.

She showed him the third idea, Christmas Around the World, and he disliked it immediately. The fourth theme, Hollywood Christmas, was a series of scenes from different Christmas movies.

“That’s a strong possibility,” John said, but he turned back to the first one. “I think this is the one to go with. I love the Hollywood Christmas, but Christmas in California is more accessible to children.”