Falling for Mister Wrong (5 page)

“She’s a twig,” Claire snapped. “She says she
wants to lose her baby weight, which means she’ll eat celery for a
week and be perfect again and then I will have to kill her. And
roast her and eat her because if I go on Weight Watchers again I
will be hungry all the time and cannibalism will start to seem like
a viable option.”

Will bit back a laugh, not sure whether she
was serious or not. “Unless it snows and I have to teach, I’ll take
your kids, but if Julia asks I’m gonna take hers too. I’m not
getting in the middle of whatever Weight Watchers vendetta you guys
have going.”

Claire humphed. “You’re so annoying when you
won’t take sides.”

“Whenever you tell me I’m annoying, I always
feel like I’ve done something right and virtuous.”

“Be nice to me or I’ll start sending women to
your door, telling them that you’re dying to take them out.”

“Be nice to
me
. I don’t have to
babysit the monsters on Saturday.”

“Yes, you do. Don promised me afternoon sex
if we get all the presents wrapped. Do you know how long it’s been
since we’ve had sex on the kitchen table?”

“Jesus. TMI, Claire. I’ve eaten on that
table.”

“Oh relax. We wash it.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Hugs and kisses!” She made annoying smoochy
noises into the phone until he disconnected the call.

As much as he might want to be frustrated
with her meddling and tendency to over share about her sex life, he
was grinning as he tossed the phone on the counter and poured
himself a cup of the coffee that had been brewing while they
talked.

That was the beauty and tragedy of family.
They loved you and pushed you to be happy even when you just wanted
to have a nice long wallow in the shit-show your life had become.
Dinner was likely to be more of the same—only with more players.
He’d be smothered by pity and well wishes all night. Maybe he could
turn it into a drinking game. A slug of eggnog every time someone
told him it was a crime to be alone on the holidays.

The music above had stopped and he flipped on
the CD player to fill the silence with Dvorak.

Maybe he wouldn’t take baked goods to Ms.
Gregg after all. She probably had a cute little granddaughter she’d
want to set him up with as soon as she realized there was a single
male living below her. Much better to mind his own business and
lick his wounds in peace and quiet. He had enough women in his life
without adding one more. Even a septuagenarian music teacher.

Chapter Five

“Merry Christmas!” the Christmas tree on her
landing shouted cheerfully. Then it pushed through the door and
Caitlyn saw the petite form of her best friend buried in the
branches.

“Well, if it isn’t the Christmas elf.”

Mimi glared through the pine needles. “One
more crack about my height and I’m shoving this tree somewhere
unpleasant.” She grunted, tipping slightly to the side and Caitlyn
leapt forward to steady her and the uneven pile of branches that
vaguely resembled a tree. “Where do you want it?”

It wasn’t the majestic twelve foot fir she’d
always dreamed would look perfect in front of the windows, but the
scraggly four foot pine would still be the most festive thing in
her place. “Let’s put it by the windows.”

Together they carried their cargo, which was
more awkward than heavy, over to the designated spot.

As soon as it was propped safely against the
glass, Mimi tackle hugged her.

“Welcome back!” Mimi squealed. “I missed you
like crazy. Did you have fun? Were the other girls totally catty?
Is he even better looking in person? Why didn’t you call me the
second you got back?”

Mimi Kwan-Torres was five-feet of pure energy
and enthusiasm. After years in sedate blacks as second chair viola
at the Seattle Symphony, she’d embraced color with a vengeance
since her retirement and taken to wearing eye-popping neon
combinations. Today’s lime green leggings, scarlet leg warmers and
fluorescent blue
Naughty Is More Fun
sweater were no
exception. Even her chin-length black hair was streaked with
color—red and green, this week, doubtless in a nod to the
season.

Caitlyn laughed, squeezing her friend tight
and feeling lighter than she had in months. She ignored most of the
questions, answering only the last one Mimi got out before she had
to stop for breath. “I was jet-lagged to within an inch of my life.
How did you know I was back?”

“Tuller Springs Gossip Hotwire. Monica over
at the Lodge saw a fancy driver in a fancy black car unloading a
bunch of bags in front of your place.” Mimi bounced away from her.
“It’s so good to see you and you are going to tell me
everything
, but first things first. Do you have a Christmas
tree stand?”

Caitlyn frowned, studying the Charley Brown
tree. “I could probably come up with a bucket.”

Mimi flapped a hand dismissively. “I brought
one, just in case. It’s in the car with the rest of the stuff.”

“The rest?”

“I know you. You’ll decide it isn’t worth the
trouble since it’s just for you and I am
not
going to let my
best friend have a grinchy Christmas when she just got back from
being totally brave and throwing herself into the jaws of love. I
know you don’t have much stuff, but the kids are constantly making
us Christmas decorations and I told Ty I’m donating the stuff we
don’t have room for anymore to a good cause. The Let’s Drown
Caitlyn in Christmas Cheer Charity.”

Caitlyn tried to smile, but her throat closed
and that familiar pressure was back, leaning on her tear ducts.

Mimi was the reason she’d moved to Tuller
Springs in the first place. And now she would be leaving her.
Indiana or Los Angeles, they were both hundreds of miles away.
Whenever she and Daniel had talked about their plans for the
future, staying in Colorado hadn’t even come up as an option. She’d
been so caught up in the romance of Spain and Bermuda and Tahiti,
she hadn’t really thought about how much she would be giving up.
Her students. Her little chalet with the mountain view that always
made her feel warm and peaceful and safe. And Mimi. Mimi would be
the hardest to give up.

“Hey. Don’t get all sappy on me,” Mimi
demanded with mock severity. “We have decorating to do.” But when
she turned away, she took a surreptitious swipe at her own
glittering eyes.

Caitlyn grinned through the wetness in her
eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

#

Two hours later, they sat in the kitchen,
surveying their work and eating gingerbread cookies Mimi had baked
in Caitlyn’s often neglected oven. The Christmas tree sat in Mimi’s
second best tree stand, listing slightly to the right, and
glittering with white lights and round glass ornaments Mimi’s
children had declared too boring to be allowed space on their tree.
A liberal sprinkling of tinsel helped cover up the gaps in the
branches. Mimi had apologized profusely about the inferior tree
quality, protesting that there wasn’t much left this close to
Christmas, but Caitlyn liked the lumpy, lopsided tree. It had
character and she was tired of perfection.

The rest of the decorations were primarily of
the construction paper variety provided by Mimi’s kids, but sparkly
red and white garland also wrapped around the loft banister.
Garland Mimi insisted was ragged and hand-me-down even though
Caitlyn had spotted her yanking the store tags off and stuffing
them in her pocket.

The end result may not have been as posh and
flawless as her mother’s glittering Upper East Side show place was
during the holidays, but it glowed with holiday warmth.

“You know, I think I’m actually looking
forward to Christmas.” Her last Christmas in Tuller Springs.

“Ty and I were talking. I know you usually
come over in the afternoon and have Christmas dinner with us, but
do you think this year you could stay over Christmas Eve too? You
can play and sing carols with the kids and then help us do the
Santa thing. Neither Ty nor I have any freaking idea how to put
together Mia Grace’s doll house and you’re so good at that stuff.”
Mimi devoured a cookie in quick economical bites.

Caitlyn’s throat tightened and she set down
her own cookie, uneaten. “That’s your family time.”

“And you’re family. Duh.”

And just like that, Caitlyn was
blubbering.

She’d never really had a normal family life.
Her parents hadn’t ever seemed to like one another much, even
before they officially got divorced. Her father was flighty on the
best of days, drifting around the world chasing whatever his latest
passion was. Her mother was the prototype for a rigid and
unforgiving socialite. When Caitlyn had demonstrated an unusual
aptitude for piano at a young age, it had seemed for a while that
the one thing they could agree on was her music. She practiced
harder, for them, and by the time she was nine she was playing
major concert venues.

But even her music couldn’t keep them
together. When her travel demands had escalated, they’d taken turns
touring with her. On her thirteenth birthday, they gave up the
pretense and told her they were divorcing. Her mother retained
custody, her father drifted off, and for a few years Caitlyn had
hated the piano. Hated the concerts and the unending display of it
all. She’d only just begun to find her love of music again when she
took a residency with the Seattle Symphony for the season she
turned nineteen.

Mimi was second chair viola with Seattle at
the time, already twenty-eight and dating the software engineer she
would eventually marry. Caitlyn’s mother had always told her not to
get distracted mingling with the orchestra—if she needed to
socialize there were plenty of other soloists who were on her
level—but the first time she’d hung out with Mimi she’d laughed
until her stomach hurt and they’d been friends ever since.

Shortly after Caitlyn left Seattle for her
scheduled concerts in Vienna and Prague, Mimi married Ty Torres and
moved with him back to his home town, Tuller Springs, but Mimi and
Caitlyn had never lost touch. Mimi only played for the occasional
wedding quartet and community orchestra these days, but when
Caitlyn decided to give up touring and performing, it was Mimi’s
guest room she’d stayed in while she figured out what she wanted to
do with the rest of her life. It was Mimi who’d gone with her to
look at apartments and Mimi’s husband Ty who had set up her website
for lessons and debated with her around their kitchen table about
how much a former world-renowned prodigy could charge to teach
second graders their scales.

Mimi was more family than Caitlyn’s flesh and
blood. Mimi who hugged her as she sniveled over gingerbread before
handing her a wadded handful of napkins. “Here. Pull yourself
together, you sap.” She snagged one of the napkins herself, dabbing
at her eyes.

“I missed you.” Caitlyn wiped away the worst
of the damage. She’d never been a cute crier. Her face was probably
swollen and blotchy, but Mimi wouldn’t mind.

“Missed you too. Not hearing anything for
months has been killing me.” Mimi swiped up another cookie. “I felt
awful when you left. Like I sort of bullied you into sending the
audition tape in the first place and if you were miserable it would
have been all my fault.”

“You didn’t bully. You not-so-subtly coerced,
but you didn’t bully.”

Caitlyn would never have considered
Marrying Mister Perfect
if Mimi hadn’t been so forceful
about it. At the time she’d been fed up with e-Dating and
complaining to Mimi about the whopping five single men in Tuller
Springs to choose from. Mimi had been avidly watching the previous
season of the show and had insisted that even if she didn’t land
Mister Perfect, any girl on that show would have men flocking to
her from miles around.

Caitlyn had resisted at first—she’d just
gotten herself
out
of the limelight—but after another
particularly disastrous first date, she’d been willing to try
anything and the infamous audition tape was born.

The irony was that the initial appeal of the
show was that men would flock to her and she would never have to
leave Tuller Springs, but now she would have to pack up and leave
Tuller Springs to get that happily ever after. Without telling
anyone in advance that she was planning to leave Tuller Springs.
The whole thing was enough to give a girl a headache—and she
couldn’t even discuss it with her best friend without getting sued
into the next decade.

“Was it awful?” Mimi asked. “Did you hate
it?”

“I didn’t hate it.” She wanted to comfort
Mimi that the show had worked out better for her than she’d ever
imagined, but the damn nondisclosure agreement tied her tongue. All
she could say was, “It wasn’t always easy, but I’m glad I did
it.”

“Good.” Mimi beamed. “And now you can sit
back and watch the men come to you. It’s gonna be a feeding
frenzy.” Her eyes lit as she popped another cookie. “Oh! Speaking
of hotties. You remember Ty’s friend from school? Don? Well, his
wife’s brother is a total catch—I met him at their summer BBQ and
he’s a doll. Not to mention hot enough to burn my retinas right out
of my eyes. Anyway, he and his evil witch fiancé broke it off like
six months ago, so he’s had time to heal and he’s ready to get back
out there and I thought—with you just getting back to town that you
guys would be perfect together—”

“Mimi, I can’t,” she interrupted before her
friend could start picking out wedding colors. “I can’t date as
long as I’m still on the show.”

“No, I know that, obviously, but I figure we
should line this up for when you’re good to go, because I am not
exaggerating this guy’s hotness and he is gonna go fast. The only
reason he isn’t bagged and tagged already is because his family has
been giving him time to heal and providing like a buffer around him
or something, but now that the ban is lifted, it’s hunting season,
baby, and some girl is gonna mount that on her wall.”