The Rock Star's Christmas Reunion: contemporary holiday romance (A Charisma series novel, The Connollys Book 1) (6 page)

He patted his flat belly. “I can handle it.”

Her house was in walking distance of the main road through town, his about a mile further north. Five minutes later she pulled into her driveway. All of a sudden, she felt self-conscious. He had a two-story mansion, and her house was a two-bedroom bungalow. She’d turned her aunt’s bedroom into an office and kept the smaller room for herself.

“Here goes nothing,” she said, as she opened the door. She’d left the lights on this morning, and the multi-colored icicles blinked dully in the daylight. It had taken her hours to string them, but she loved the look of December and wished more neighbors would decorate. “I’m glad you strung lights on your trees,” she said as Bax came around the van.

“I see you decorated early, too.”

“It always seems like a long season just after Thanksgiving, and then,” she spread her fingers wide. “Woosh!”

“Yep.” He shook his head. “I don’t remember this street. It’s not even fully residential.”

“No, I could have rezoned and converted it to a commercial kitchen, but some developers put in an outdoor mall several years ago that hasn’t done well. I was able to rent a kitchen there that met my needs perfectly.”

“Got it.” He pointed at the eaves over her bedroom. “You’ve got some lights out over there. You must have a bulb that needs replacing.”

“I’ll get on that later.” She unlocked the door, which opened right into the living room, a small space overpowered by her Christmas tree, covered in an astounding assortment of German Christmas decorations. She had all the glass and pewter ornaments a body could handle, in triplicate. Even if she had a brood of destructive kids, she could replenish from the additional boxes of ornaments in the crawl space above the garage.

“Nice tree,” he commented. “Very loud.”

“Auntie believed in color. It’s all hers.”

“Nothing Native American on the tree,” he said. “What tribe are you? I don’t remember.”

She couldn’t imagine they’d ever discussed it. “Chehalis, but my great-grandparents left the reservation after some dispute over bylaws in 1939. Other than teaching me how to weave baskets as a child, my mother never shared much about our heritage.”

He pointed to the top of the bookcases in the living room, where a number of baskets were displayed. “Are those the real things?”

“Absolutely. Whoever made them was way better at weaving than me. They probably belong in a museum but I haven’t touched them.”

“I like the zigzags on that one,” he said, pointing at a cream and brown basket with an open-looped triangular pattern, almost ribbon-like, around the lip of the basket.

“Me, too. It’s my favorite.”

“Zigzag,” he muttered. “Sounds like a good description of my life.”

“I know,” she said. “Maybe you forgot how complicated your family was. You’ve been gone a long time. But so much happened when you were a kid with your mom and your cousins.”

“Do you think I should go back to L.A? Give up on reconnecting?”

The thought horrified her. “It doesn’t sound like that would be good for your sobriety, or whatever.”

“I’m a pretty lame addict,” he said. “Not to joke about it, but it really was over and done in less than a year. I did my work in rehab, and I still go to meetings sometimes.”

“You go to meetings because of the pills?”

He chuckled self-consciously as he took off his jacket. “I can identify with the drinking issue, too. It’s a lifestyle, the rock-and-roll thing. What’s normal when you’re touring isn’t healthy. Sometimes I need a reality check.”

She sighed as his arms were revealed. The barbed wire tat was still there, though enhanced. He’d had it done shortly before he’d left town. It was supposed to mean he had a wall around his heart and it couldn’t be touched. “You can get that here,” she assured him, holding out her hand for his jacket. “We have meetings in one of the churches.”

“Yeah, I looked all that up online.” He sniffed and gave the jacket to her. “Do I smell cedar?”

“Probably from the baskets. They are made of parts of the cedar tree, as well as grasses. I’m amazed you can smell it over the spruce.” She quickly checked out his other arm as she placed his jacket over the back of a rocking chair. While he hadn’t gone full-sleeve, she saw a guitar, a scroll with musical notes that must be a lyric, and some kind of text in Gothic script down the inside of his forearm. Very sexy.

He pointed to the far wall. “It’s not the baskets. You have a cedar chest open.”

“Oh, right,” she followed the path of his finger. “My aunt’s daughter’s hope chest. She died in a car accident in her twenties, never married. I finally opened it to go through it.”

“Sad.”

“Yeah. No wonder my aunt travelled as long as she could. I used to pretend to be her, you know, like a game? I’d run away from home and go adventuring.”

“How far did you get?”

“Portland. I’d promise to stop then do it again, get a ride from a friend of my brothers’ or something.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“I had a bad scare my freshman year of high school. I hitchhiked and the guy tried to rape me, but we were at a rest stop and I got away with a family. I was a fourteen-year-old moron. My aunt finally made me see reason. She swore I’d have the money to travel safely one day.” She turned slowly around the room. “This is what she meant. She made me her heir.”

“But you aren’t traveling.”

“I did some. I worked at ski resorts in the winters for a few years. Colorado, Wyoming, Utah. Got the taste for cooking. Before that I didn’t have much direction.” She heard Bax’s stomach rumble. “I’d better get on those veggie burgers. Luckily I have a few different kinds waiting in the freezer.”

“What are you going to make me?”

“A black bean and mushroom variety. You’ll be amazed by how close to a hamburger they look, but they are so much better.”

“Delightful.” She already recognized the defensiveness of his crossed arms. Why had he returned if he had so many walls built up?

Leaving him in the living room, she went into the kitchen. She turned on the oven and the grill, then pulled burgers from the freezer and set them on a plate to defrost a bit, then quickly sliced potatoes. He’d mentioned he preferred shoestring fries versus the steak cut version she’d done for the party, so she prepared them accordingly, then prepped them to be baked. She wouldn’t give him fried today.

Bax walked into the kitchen about ten minutes later, holding a wood frame strung in a spiderweb pattern. Faded feathers were clipped to the leather web. “Not Chehalis, right?”

“No. Where did it come from?”

“The trunk.”

“Oh, must have belonged to Terri. Dreamcatchers were Ojibwe originally, though they’ve spread throughout the tribes.”

“Looks handmade. I think my mother had one like it.” He scrunched up his forehead. “Yeah, with pink feathers. I thought it was a piece of Adam Ant memorabilia.”

“Huh?”

“Her favorite rock star when she was a teenager. He wore feathers sometimes. I collected all kinds of odd facts like that, when I was planning my look. As a kid you start learning with your parents’ old albums.”

“Well, you can keep it. It doesn’t have sentimental value for me.”

“Thanks. I feel a country song coming on.” His lips pursed, giving him that pouty bad boy look that melted panties.

She tried to sound coherent. “Do you still write for Nashville?”

“I’m stockpiling for the Dealys. They’ll be back in the studio eventually. I wrote about half of their first two albums.”

“Cool. Wouldn’t it be funny if Terri and your mother had been friends? Like we had a family connection long before we ended up next door to each other.”

“Yeah, and they’re both long dead and died young. Lucky them.” Bax looked away.

“I’ll check the cemetery,” Yakima said, worried about his depressed words, she kept talking. “Now I’m curious. When was your mother born?”

“1962.”

“I should visit Auntie’s grave anyway. I’ll visit Terri too, while I’m at it. I remember she died in 1986.”

“You weren’t even born yet.”

“Maybe not you either,” Yakima said. “Depending on the month.”

“I’ll put this by the door,” he said, hoisting the dreamcatcher. “After lunch, why don’t you let me buy you a Christmas wreath? Your door is naked, and besides, you need to pick up some new bulbs for outside.”

“I have to test the string,” she said. “See what’s wrong.”

“I’ll buy you a new string of lights. That way you can replace the broken one and figure it out later.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked. While she didn’t think he should be alone for a while after such a traumatic interaction with his family, she wasn’t sure about accepting his gifts either.

“At this point you’re an improvement over my family.” He rolled his eyes.

“Not your cousins,” she protested.

“That’s what you think. Rah Rah was a real pain last night, and the twins are still doing everything she does. Haldana has the makings of a great girl, but she’s still basically a fetus.”

Yakima laughed. “You turn thirty and your entire world view changes. I thought rock stars stayed eternally young.”

“Nah, we just keep forcing it. But I’m out of that game. Just behind the scenes now. It’s already a distant memory.”

“Really?” She remembered his suspicions on his doorstep at their first meeting.

“Yeah. My wrist is permanently disabled.”

“Can you play at all?”

“Sure, but just recreationally. I’m sure I’ll break out the axe for Christmas carols later on in the month, but no touring for me.”

“You can still sing.” And he was still sex on a stick.

“I never could without a guitar in my hand, even when I was in Thunder Road. So no, I’m really done.”

“Huh.” She turned back to the stove and opened the oven door, then put in the baking sheet with the fries. So he’d dealt with the physical pain, but what about the emotional pain? Despite the money and fame, her old neighbor had experienced some rough times. “I’m good in here, okay? There’s a piano in the hall if you want to work on your song. I think there’s music paper in the seat.”

“That’s okay. Why is it in the hall?”

She touched her burgers to see how frozen they were, calculating grill time. “Doesn’t fit anywhere else.”

~

Bax wiped his lips with the cloth napkin Yakima had provided and stretched his neck from side to side. He’d seen her trying to be cool while checking out his tattoos. She’d had time to waste because she ate faster than any girl he’d ever met, practically inhaling her food. Meanwhile, he, a foodie like many wealthy musicians, had enjoyed his food at a leisurely pace.

“That was a seriously brilliant milkshake,” he said, after tilting his head back to drain the last sip of creamy goodness.

“It’s the chocolate syrup and ice cream. Only the best.”

“It made the beans go down,” he said. “I’d eat a bean burger again if you served that milkshake with it.”

“Wait until you try my strawberry milkshake in June, when the strawberries are fresh-picked off the vine.” She kissed her fingers. “To die for.”

“If I’m still around.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” she exclaimed. “It hasn’t gone that badly with your family.”

He snorted. “They are the only reason to stay in this town. If I can’t get along with them, I’m heading out.”

“Don’t even think about it until after Christmas. You know how many people hate December? It’s such a stressful month for a lot of people.”

“I know. That’s why I always spent it on a beach with a bottle of tequila before now.” He smirked at her horrified expression. “Oh, we both know that’s how I used to do it. I know you aren’t really that surprised.”

“I’m still trying to remember the old you.” She set her napkin on her plate. “But as much as I was around your house, we weren’t friends.”

“Were you friends with my brothers? You’re the same age as Dare. Did you date?”

Laughter bubbled out of her. “Dare? No, definitely not. Your brother has always had a chip on his shoulder. I didn’t even talk to him in school.”

“I suppose you were in all the advanced courses, and his dyslexia kept him in Special Ed.”

She shrugged. “We ended up in the same place. Cash-strapped small business owners with college degrees. He didn’t let his dyslexia keep him from an education.”

“He’s tough.”

“You’re a family guy too, Bax, even if the other Connollys don’t see it right now. It will work out. As stressful as the holidays are, they can still be magic.”

“Speaking of the holidays, let’s go get you that Christmas wreath and string of lights.” He stared at his empty cup with longing. She had the gift of kitchen magic.

“The wreath is easy. Let’s hit the Boy Scouts tree lot. But it’s hard to find lights at this point in the season.”

“We’ll go to Portland if we have too. Or Seattle,” he declared.

“Are you sure you want to spend that much time with me?”