Marry-Me Christmas (5 page)

Flynn gave up on his cell phone, got dressed and went downstairs. The scent of freshly brewed coffee drew him like a dog to a bone, pulling him along, straight to the dining room. Several guests sat at one long table, chatting among themselves. Swags of pine ran down the center, punctuated by fat pinecones, puffy stuffed snowmen with goofy grins, unlit red pillar candles. A platoon of Santa plates had been joined by an army of snowman coffee mugs and a cavalry of snowflake-handled silverware. The Christmas invasion had flooded the table, leaving no survivors of ordinary life.

He’d walked into the North Pole. Any minute, he expected dancing elves to serve the muffins.

“Good morning, good morning!” Betsy came jingle-jangling out of the kitchen, her arms wide again. Did the woman have some kind of congenital disease that kept her limbs from hanging at her sides?

“Coffee?” he asked. Pleaded, really.

“On the sideboard. Fresh and hot! Do you want me to get you a cup?”

“I’ll help myself. Thanks.” He walked over to the poinsettia-ringed carafe, filled a Mrs. Claus mug, then sipped deeply. It took a few minutes for the caffeine to hit his brain.

“I don’t know what your travel plans are, but the plows are just now getting to work, and the Indianapolis airport is closed for a couple more hours. They’re predicting more snow. I’m so excited. It’ll be a white Christmas, for sure!” Betsy applauded the joyful news.

“Thank you for the update.” A little snow wouldn’t stop him from getting the story out of Samantha Barnett. It might delay his trip down to southern Indiana, but the job—

Nothing delayed the job.

“No problem. It’s just one of the many services I provide for my customers. No tip necessary.” She beamed. “Oh, and Mr. MacGregor, we’ll be singing Christmas carols in the parlor after breakfast, if you’d like to join us.”

He’d rather do
anything
but that. “Uh, no. I—”

The front door opened. Flynn turned. Samantha Barnett, her arms loaded with boxes, entered the house. Excellent timing. Flynn hurried forward, taking the top few from her.

“Thanks. I thought I might lose those.” She flashed him a smile that slammed into Flynn with more force than the caffeine’s punch.

He told himself it didn’t matter, that it hadn’t affected him at all. Instead, he put on the friendly face that had won over many an interview subject. “It’s not often that I get to come to the rescue of baked goods. Or that they come to mine.”

“My goodness, Mr. MacGregor. Did you just make a joke? Because I didn’t think you had it in you.” Samantha paused in laying the boxes on a small table in the dining room. “Sorry. Sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain.”

Betsy handed Samantha a set of serving platters, but didn’t linger to chat, because one of the guests called her over to ask her a question about local events.

“It’s this town,” Flynn said after Betsy was gone, keeping his voice low, lest she overhear and come back to argue. “It’s like bad lighting on an actress. It brings out the worst in me.”

Samantha bristled. “Riverbend? It’s not perfect, but I can’t imagine why anyone would hate it. You really should give this place a chance before you condemn it. You never know, it might grow on you.”

“So do skin rashes.”

“You
are
Scrooge,” she whispered. “Don’t let Betsy hear you say that. People around here are proud of their town.”

“I know. She’s been trying to recruit me for the caroling crew all morning.”

Samantha gave him a nonchalant shrug. “It might do you some good. Infuse you with some Christmas cheer.”

Flynn let that subject drop. Infusing wasn’t on his menu. He didn’t settle in, didn’t get to know the locals. Of course, once he came in and ripped apart the local steakhouse in the pages of
Food Lovers
, he wasn’t exactly invited back for tea anyway. “You know, there’s a big world out there that offers a lot of great things like
civilization
, Internet connections, cellular towers, reliable public transportation. All without paying the price of Christmas carols in the parlor.”

Samantha placed the last of the baked goods on the platters and let out a long sigh. “All my life I’ve dreamed of seeing that world, but…”

“This bakery is as binding as a straightjacket.” He’d written that story a hundred times. Shop owners complaining about how small-business life drained them, yet they stayed in the field.

But he understood them. He might not be braising roasts or reducing sauces, but he knew the spirit that drove entrepreneurs. That hunger to climb your own way to the top. To be the only one who fueled success. It didn’t matter what it took—long hours, financial worries, constant demands—to make it from the bottom to the top of the food chain.

Because he had done it himself, and his climb had paid off handsomely. Flynn had become known as the top writer for the food industry and his ambition had created a career that allowed him to call his own shots. Because he was the one that got the story, no matter what it took. No matter how many hours, how many weekends, how many holidays.

He remained unencumbered, without so much as a mortgage, a wife, kids. And though he may have lost his footing this summer—that was a temporary setback. He’d be back on top, after this piece.

“It’s not just that the bakery keeps me tied down,” Samantha said. “I have other reasons for staying here.”

Her tone, almost melancholy, drew him. He could hear the scoop underlying the words, note them like a bloodhound on the trail of a robber. “Like what?”

She quickly pulled herself together. “You’re interviewing me about Joyful Creations, Mr. MacGregor, not my personal life.” A smile crossed her face, but it was one that had a clear No Trespassing sign. “Let’s stick to that, okay?”

“Certainly. Business only, that’s the way I like things, too.”

Except…she’d intrigued him with the way she’d shut that door so firmly. Most people Flynn interviewed spilled their guts as easily as a two-year-old with an overfilled cup of milk. Samantha Barnett clearly wouldn’t be letting a single drop spill.

And he wouldn’t let a drop of sympathy spill, either. He refused to fall for whatever had brought that wisp of emotion to her eyes. To let her move past his reporter curiosity.

Except…a part of him did wonder about the story behind the story. He had to be crazy. Clearly made delusional by all this Christmas spirit surrounding him. That was it.

Except, Flynn wasn’t a Christmas spirit kind of guy.

“How’s the weather out there?” Flynn asked, even though he already knew the answer. His comment was simply meant to retreat to neutral ground. He’d circle around to the article in a while, once he got his head back in the game.

“The storm has eased a bit, but they’re expecting another front to move in, later this morning.”

“If Earl’s got the part for my car, that gives me just enough time to get out of town, if you have time for us to finish our interview before I have to go.”

Samantha laughed. “Go and do what? The road travel will be awful again in a couple of hours, not that it’s all that great right now to begin with. You might as well stay. In fact, I don’t think you’ll have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Miss Barnett.”

“Well, unless you convince the National Guard to convoy you out, Mr. MacGregor, I think your only choice is to stay put.” She closed the last of the boxes and stacked them into a pile. “I have to get back to the shop, but if you want to finish your interview, I’ll be free at lunch for twenty minutes or so.”

He’d be here all day, from the sounds of it. Have hours and hours of time to kill. He could, most likely, get what he needed from Samantha Barnett in twenty minutes. But the idea of rushing the questions, scribbling down the answers over a corned beef on rye—

Simply didn’t appeal like it normally did. He must be in need of a vacation. Why else would he not be in a rush to meet his deadline? To move on to the next headline?

“No,” he said.

“No?” One eyebrow perked up.

“I want more than that.”

“More?” Now the other eyebrow arched.

“Dinner.” The noise from the other bed-and-breakfast guests had risen, so Flynn took a step closer, and caught the scent of vanilla in her hair. Had he just said that word? Offered a dinner date?

Yes, he had, and now, he found himself lowering his voice, not for intimacy he told himself, but for privacy. Yet, everything about their closeness, the words, spelled otherwise. “A long, lingering dinner. No rushing out to fill boxes with cranberry muffins or to bring frosted reindeer to screaming three-year-olds.”

“Just you and me…”

“And my pen and notepad. This is an interview, not a date, Miss Barnett,” Flynn added, clarifying as much for himself as for her.

“Of course.” Her gaze lingered on his, direct and clear. “But either way, would you do me one favor?”

“What?”

“Stop calling me Miss Barnett. I feel like a schoolteacher, or worse, the lone spinster in town, when you do that. My name is Samantha, but my friends call me Sam. Let’s start with that.”

He nodded. “Sam it is.” Her name slipped off his tongue as easily as a whisper.

“And one more thing.” She picked up a cookie from one of the platters and held it out to him. “I’m not leaving here until I know you’ve tasted my wares.”

His grin quirked up on one side. “That could be taken in many ways, Sam.”

She brought the cookie to his lips. “The only way I’m meaning is the white chocolate chip kind, Mr. MacGregor.”

“Call me Flynn, and I’ll do whatever you ask.” Was he
flirting
? He never did that. Ever. Maybe Betsy had spiked the coffee.

“Flynn,” she said, so softly, he was sure he’d never heard his name spoken like that before, “please take a bite.”

“These aren’t those special romance cookies, are they?”

“No,” Sam said. “Although my Great-Aunt Ginny thinks I should give one to every eligible male that crosses my path.”

Her face colored, and he knew she regretted sharing that tidbit. So. Samantha Barnett’s life was a bit lonelier than she wanted to admit.

“You’ve never tried them?” he asked. Then wondered why he cared.

“No. But I assure you, Flynn, that my white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are just as delicious.” A smile crossed her lips. “And even better, there’s absolutely no danger of falling in love if you eat one.”

Before he could tell himself that it was far smarter to resist, to ignore whatever silly, impractical feelings Sam had awakened in him, Flynn found his lips parting and his mouth accepting the sweet morsel.

The minute the cookie hit his palate, Flynn knew this interview would be unlike any other.

And that would be a problem indeed.

S
AM CHANGED
into a dress. Out of a dress. Into jeans. Out of jeans. Into a skirt. Out of the skirt and back into the jeans. Finally, she settled on a deep green sweater with pearl beading around the collar and black slacks, with pointy-toed dress boots. Nothing too sexy, or that screamed trying to impress the guy.

Even if she was.

Though she couldn’t say why. Flynn MacGregor had been incredibly disagreeable, and not at all her kind of man. Even if he did have nice hands. Deep blue eyes. Broad shoulders. And a way of entering a room that commanded attention.

All that changing and fussing over her appearance made her ten minutes late. She entered Hall’s Steaks and Ribs, brushing the snow from her hair and shoulders, half expecting Flynn to make a note in his notebook about the Joyful Creations’ owner’s lack of punctuality. Instead, he simply gave her a nod, not so much as a smile, and rose to pull out her chair. “Is it still snowing?”

Okay, so she was a little disappointed that he hadn’t said she looked pretty. Hadn’t acknowledged her one iota as a woman.

She was here for an interview, not a date. To grow her business. “It’s a light snow now. The weatherman said we’ll only get another inch or two tonight.”

“Good. Hopefully Earl has my car fixed and I can get back on the road in the morning.” Flynn took the opposite seat, then handed one of the menus to Sam.

She put it to the side. “Thank you. But I already know what I want.”

“Eat here often?”

“When there’s only one restaurant in town, this is pretty much
the
date hot spot.” Sam felt her face heat. Why had she mentioned dates?

“Are you here often? On dates?” He glanced around the dark cranberry-and-gold room, decorated in a passably good imitation of Italianate style, considering the building was a modern A-frame. The restaurant was crowded, the hum of conversation providing a steady buzz beneath the instrumental Christmas carols playing on the sound system.

“Me?” Sam laughed. “Yeah, in all my spare time. Like those five minutes I had back in 2005.”

He let out a chuff. “Probably the same five I had.”

A waitress came by their table—a willowy blonde on the Riverbend High School pep squad whose name temporarily eluded Sam’s memory—and dropped off two glasses of water, but didn’t pause long enough to take their orders.

“You must travel a lot for your job,” Sam said.

Flynn took a sip and nodded. “About half the year I’m on the road. The other half I’m behind a computer.”

“So I’m not the only workaholic in the room?”

“My job demands long hours.”

Sam arched a brow. “Oh, I get it. You’re a special case. Whereas I’m…” She trailed off, leaving him to fill in the blank.

“Ambitious, too.” He tipped his glass toward her, in a touché gesture.

“Exactly. Then you can understand why I want to expand the shop.”

“I do. I just think you should understand what you’re getting yourself into when you start pursuing fame, fortune, the American dream.”

“I do.” The way he’d said the words, though, made Sam feel as if what she wanted was wrong. That she was being self-serving. Had she expressed her dream wrong? No, she hadn’t. He’d simply misinterpreted her.

Besides, Flynn MacGregor didn’t know the whole story, nor did he need to. She
had
to get out of Riverbend. Away, not just from this town, but from things she couldn’t change, things she’d given up on a long time ago. The life she’d wished she could have had, and had put on hold for so long, it had slipped through her fingers. Maybe then—

Maybe then she’d find peace.

Flynn picked up his menu and studied the two pages of offerings. “And where do you fit into that equation?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said.” His voice was slightly muffled by the vinyl-bound menu.

“You mean, free time for me?”

Flynn put the menu down. “From what I’ve heard around town, you’re not exactly…the social butterfly. You work. And you work. And you
work
. You’re like a squirrel providing for a never-ending winter.”

“You write for this industry. Of everyone, you should know how demanding a bakery can be.”

“That’s what the classified ads are for. To hire people to bake.”

“People around here,” Sam began, then lowered her voice, realizing how many of those very people were situated right beside her, “expect the baked goods to be made by a family member. Third generation, and all that.”

He scoffed. “Oh come on. In this age of automation, you don’t actually think that everyone believes you’re truly popping on every last gumdrop button?”

She stared at him, as if he was insane. “But I do.”

“Who is going to know if you do it, or a monkey from the zoo does?” Flynn asked.

“Well…I will, for one.”

“And the harm in that is…?” He put out his hands. “You might actually have some free time to see a movie? Go out on a date? Have a life?”

She shifted in her chair. His words sprung like tiny darts, hitting at the very issues Sam did her best to avoid. “I have a life.”

Flynn arched a brow. “You want me to write the story for you? Young, ambitious restaurateur, or in your case—” he waved a hand in her direction “—baker, goes into the business thinking she’ll be
different
.” He put special emphasis on the last word, tainting it with disgust.

“My circumstances were different.”

But Flynn went on, as if he hadn’t even heard her. “She thinks she’ll find a way to balance having an outside life with work. That she’ll be the one to learn from her peers, to balance the business with reality. That she, and only she, can find the secret to rocketing to the top while still holding on to some semblance of normality.” He leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table. “Am I close?”

“No.” The lie whistled through her lips.

“Listen, I admire your dedication, I really do. But let me save you the peek at the ending. You won’t end up any different than anyone else. You’ll look back five, ten, twenty years from now, and think ‘where the hell did my life go?’”

“Who made you judge and jury over me?” Sam’s grip curled around her water glass, the temptation to throw the beverage in his face growing by the second. “I’m doing what I have to do.”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Have to?”

His piercing gaze seemed to ask the very questions she never did. The ones that plagued her late at night when she was alone in the house her grandmother used to own, pacing the floors, wondering…

What if.

Before she had to come up with an answer, the waitress returned, introduced herself as Holli with an i and took out a notepad. “What can I get you?”

“Lasagna with extra sauce on the side,” Sam said, grateful for the change in subject.

“I’ll have the same.” Flynn handed his menu to Holli, who gave each of them a perky smile before heading to the kitchen. “Enough of me giving you the ugly truth about your future. I’m not here to play psychic.”

“And I’m not asking for your advice.”

“True.” A grin quirked up one side of his mouth. “I get the feeling you’re not the kind of person who would take my advice, even if I gave it.”

His smile was contagious, and she found herself answering with one of her own. He had charm, she had to give him that. Grudgingly. “I might. Depending on what you had to say.”

“Admit it. You’re stubborn.”

“I am not.” She paused. “Too stubborn.”

He laughed then, surprising her, and by the look on his face, probably even himself. “Now there’s a line I should quote.” He dug out his pen and paper.

Disappointment curdled in Sam’s stomach. “Are you always after the story?”

He glanced up. “That’s my job.”

“Yeah, but…just like you were saying to me, don’t you ever take a moment for you?”

His blue gaze met hers, direct and powerful. “You mean treat this as a date, instead of an interview?”

“Well—” Sam shifted again “—not
that
exactly.”

The grin returned, wider this time. “How long
has
it been?”

“Has it been for what?”

“Since you’ve been out on a date?”

Sam took such a deep sip of water, she nearly drowned. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“My answer’s easy. A week.”

“Oh.” She put the glass down. “I thought you said you didn’t have that much free time.”

“I was exaggerating. I’m a writer.” That grin again. “Given to hyperbole and all that.”

Was he…flirting with her? Holy cow. Was that why everything within her seemed touched with fever? Why her gut couldn’t stop flip-flopping? Why she alternately wanted to run—and to stay?

It was simply because he was right. She hadn’t been out on a date in forever. She wasn’t used to this kind of head-on attention from a man. Especially a man as good at the head-on thing as he was.

“So which would you rather?” Flynn asked. “A date? Or an interview?”

The interview, her mind urged. Say interview. The business. The bakery needed the increase in revenue. Her personal life could wait, just as it always had. The business came first.

“A date.”

Had she really just said that? Out loud? To the man who held the future of Joyful Creations in his pen? Sam’s face heated, and her feet scrambled back, ready to make a fast exit.

But instead of making a note on his ubiquitous notepad, Flynn leaned back in his chair and smiled. “You surprise me, Samantha Barnett. Just when I think you’re all work and no fun, you opt for a little fun.”

“Maybe I’m not the cardboard character you think.”

“Maybe you’re not.” His voice had dropped into a range that tickled at her gut, sent her thoughts down a whole other path that drifted away from fun and into man-and-woman-alone territory. He pushed the notepad to the side, then leaned forward, his gaze connecting with hers. When he did that, it seemed as if the entire room, heck, the entire world, dropped away. “Well, if this
was
a date, and we were back in Boston, instead of the pits of Christmastown here, do you want to know what we’d be doing?”

“Yes,” Sam replied, curiosity pricking at her like a pin. “Why not?”

He thought a second, considering her. “Well, since you haven’t been out on a date in a while, our first date should be something extraordinary.”

“Extraordinary?” she echoed.

“A limo, for starters. Door-to-door service.”

“A limo?” She arched a brow. “On a reporter’s salary?”

“I’ve done very well in my field. And they tend to reward that handsomely.”

Quite handsomely if the expensive suit, cashmere coat and Italian leather shoes were any indication. “What next, after the limo?”

“Dinner, maybe at Top of the Hub, a restaurant at the top of the Prudential building in Boston. Lobster, perhaps? With champagne, of course.”

“Of course,” she said, grinning, caught in the web of the fantasy, already imagining herself whisked away in the long black car, up the elevator to the restaurant, sipping the golden bubbly drink. “And after dinner?”

“Dancing. At this little jazz club I know where the lights are dimmed, music is low and sexy and there’s only enough room for me to hold you close. Very, very close.”

Sam swallowed. Her heart raced, the sound thundering in her head. “That sounds like quite the place.”

“A world away from this one.”

A world away. The world she had dreamed of once, back when she’d thought she was going to college, going places—

Going somewhere other than Riverbend and the bakery.

For just a second, Sam allowed her mind to wander, to picture a different future. One without the bakery to worry about, without the future of several potential additional locations to fret over. Without other people to worry about, to care for.

What if she were free of all that and could pursue a love life, a marriage, a family? A man who looked at her with desire like Flynn did—

And she had time to react, to date him? To live her life like other women did?

Guilt smacked her hard. She didn’t have time to dally with those thoughts. Too many people were depending on her. Later, Sam reminded herself with an inward sigh.

Later, it would be her turn.

Sam looked away, breaking eye contact with Flynn MacGregor. With the temptation he offered, as easily as a coin in his palm. She toyed with her silverware, willing her heart to slow, her breath to return to normal, and most of all, her head to come down from the clouds. “Well, that would be nice. If I lived somewhere else besides here.”

“If you did. Which you don’t.” Flynn cleared his throat, as if he, too, wanted to get back to business, to put some distance between them. “So, tell me. Why the lasagna?”

Of all the questions he could have asked, that one had to be the last one Sam would have expected. “I like lasagna, and the way they make it here is even better than my grandmother did—does,” she corrected herself. Darn. She had to be more careful. Sam brushed her hair off her face and opted for another topic, trying to stay on safe, middle ground. “Don’t you meet many women who like lasagna?”