Texas Christmas

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Agnes Sherwood was one of the Dallas area’s most influential doyennes. She was the grand dame of the small affluent town of Celebration, Texas, and the woman had more money than the U.S. Treasury and commanded twice as much respect. She was just about ready to commit to a tidy donation for the pediatric wing but had to confer with her financial advisors.

“So it won’t be long now and you’ll have your own entourage following you around tending to your every whim.”

He scowled at his sister, and she laughed at him in return. She knew how much he hated the concept of an entourage. Yet he couldn’t help but think her word choice was ironic, given that he had just used it to describe Pepper and her lack of followers.

It was more like Pepper Merriweather, party of one. Pepper Merriweather with the rosebud mouth.

Pepper Merriweather, who’d obviously taken up residence in his head.

Chapter Four

Pepper wasn’t quite sure she’d heard the man correctly. She leaned in, over the desk in the Celebrations, Inc., catering office that stood between them, and asked, “Excuse me?”

“I said, exactly how much did your father bilk out of the people who trusted him?”

Pepper blinked and glanced at the Catering to Dallas cameras, which were rolling, then back at the man. Her first thought was, Oh, okay, this must be someone’s idea of a joke. A bad joke, granted, which they would edit out of the final footage. But when she smiled at the man and waited for him to smile back or give some other hint at a punch line, he didn’t.

That’s when her stomach fell and Pepper realized this wasn’t a joke. The man was serious. She’d been set up.

Before Pepper had returned to work on the set of Catering to Dallas, she and the show’s producers had agreed that any and all talk about her father and his case was off-limits on the show. Her father’s attorney insisted that trying Harris Merriweather’s case on a reality TV show could only hurt his chances for a fair trial when he got his day in court.

“Answer me!” the angry man demanded.

Pepper wanted to kick herself. How could she have been so naive to believe that the bigwigs of a reality television show that thrived on sensationalism would pass up the opportunity for the inside scoop about scandal and intrigue? Even Pepper had to acknowledge that it was fodder for good ratings.

But they’d promised.

And she’d believed them.

The producers had put the man on the shooting schedule, had him masquerade as a customer interested in a catering estimate. They’d even told Pepper they were bringing him in for a short “day in the life of Celebrations, Inc.” vignette. This was to be a simple shot of her interacting with a potential customer. It was supposed to be a good way for her to ease back into the show.

But obviously the joke was on her.

Her next thought, as she glanced from the angry man to the rolling television cameras, was, Ooh, this was not how happily-ever-after was supposed to begin.

As the man proceeded to berate her and her father, Pepper’s fight-or-flight response kicked in. She knew she had to get out of there. Without saying a word, she calmly turned around and grabbed her purse from a drawer in the filing cabinet behind her, stood and began walking to her car.

“Follow her!” hissed Bill Hines, the director of Catering to Dallas.

Pepper dared not glance back over her shoulder. Because if she did, she would be staring blankly into a television camera pointed at her face. She’d look like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. Except, as she beelined for her car, she decided it was more apt to say she felt like a deer on the run at the opening of hunting season.

Thank goodness she’d gotten enough of a head start to allow her time to get into her car, lock the doors and drive away, escaping the unanswered questions that hung between Pepper and the camera crew.

Maybe she should’ve stayed in St. Michel. She’d only been home for three days, and already things were going haywire. She’d managed to slip back into the country unnoticed on an uneventful flight that arrived in the wee hours of the morning. Then she’d accepted a ride from a stranger who had kissed her senseless and disappeared into the ether.

Although he had told her to call him if she needed saving again. And she did. What would he do if she called?

Naah. She was perfectly capable of saving herself.

The first day back, when she’d finally opened her eyes, rested and refreshed, back in her own bed, back in Celebration, Texas, it was as if she’d awakened from a bad dream. For a very short window of time—with Robert Macintyre’s kiss still fresh on her lips—everything seemed to indicate that she had, indeed, made the right decision to come home.

Pepper had expected that sense of security and rightness to carry over when she went back to work. She’d also hoped that somehow she’d hear from Rob again, but then she reminded herself that he didn’t have her number—though he had Sydney’s. She’d dialed it with his phone. He knew where she lived. If he’d wanted to see her again, he could’ve made the effort.

She hadn’t told her girlfriends about the kiss. From this vantage point she was glad she hadn’t. If she didn’t tell, she could pretend that it never happened.

Which was probably for the best. Because coming fresh off that disaster, here she was, her first day back on the job, and she’d walked right into a setup.

She was beginning to sense a pattern.

It certainly wasn’t the stuff that happily-ever-after was made of. At least not the happily-ever-after she’d held in her heart a few days ago in Maya’s Chocolate Shop.

Before turning onto her street, she glanced into the rearview mirror to make sure no one was following her. When she was sure the coast was clear, she pressed the garage door opener and pulled, quickly pressed the button to shut the garage door behind her and killed the engine. She sat there for a few moments listening to the engine tick and sigh in the cool, quiet, dim space. The only light was the eerie yellow glow from the fixture attached to the automatic door opener.

For a moment it crossed her mind that this windowless garage might be the only place in the world where she could truly escape the perils and scrutiny of the outside world. Inside the house, there were windows and the television, which seemed to run a constant commentary of judgments and opinions about her father’s presumed guilt, the family’s involvement, her mother’s choice to run away to St. Michel and Pepper’s own choice to come home.

The beginning of a headache throbbed in her temples. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against the lids, but it didn’t help. When she opened her eyes again, the dim garage door opener light had shut off. In the gray darkness, everything looked fuzzy and out of proportion, especially the shadows.

A voice of reason—a voice of fight—made her stare down the shadows, because that was the only way she could prove this dread that threatened to consume her was not bigger than she was. She alone had the power to expel all the shadow monsters, but that light had to come from inside her. Still, first she had to get out of the car.

As her eyes focused, she could see her running shoes sitting on the stoop leading up to the kitchen door. A set of golf clubs that she’d used only once leaned against the wall next to it. Her bike was suspended by chains from the ceiling above the clubs.

Wow, she’d taken so many things for granted before the rug had been yanked out from under her family.

A chill wound its way through her body. Despite the cool December weather, the air felt clammy and clung to her like a warning.

If she stayed here, it would essentially be her own version of house arrest. The thought made her heart feel so heavy it hurt.

She took a deep breath to calm herself and gripped the steering wheel. It felt good touching something tangible, something tactile, to ground her in reality.

Who would’ve thought that the garage and the safety it provided had the potential to become her favorite room in the house?

And that thought was just pathetic.

She had to get herself out of this funk. Who better to call than Lindsay and Carlos, the show’s executive producers? They hadn’t been there today. Surely, they didn’t know what had happened. There was no way they would’ve allowed it.

She took out her cell phone and dialed Carlos’s number from her contacts. After four rings, the call went to voice mail.

“Dammit,” she muttered under her breath, as she listened to the mailbox greeting. At the beep, she said, “Hi, Carlos, it’s Pepper. We had a bit of confusion during filming today, and I need to talk to you and Lindsay about it. Please call me as soon as possible. Thanks.”

Just as she was hanging up, another call was beeping in. The name AJ Sherwood-Antonelli flashed on the screen. AJ was Pepper’s lifelong friend, business partner and costar on Catering to Dallas. Even seeing her name on the phone’s screen made Pepper feel better.

“AJ, hi. I’m so glad you called.”

“Hi, Pepper, what’s going on? I heard there was some trouble during the shoot today.”

Pepper shifted in her seat and the leather squeaked under the movement. “Well, that’s putting it mildly.” She told AJ about the bait and switch and the ensuing panic attack that had her bolting from the set.

Since her father’s arrest, she had been prone to heart palpations and sudden gripping moments of utter panic. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was almost like an out-of-body experience.

They always passed in due time, but as they were happening, the attacks were terrifying. She always had the most insane urge to run.

Fight-or-flight syndrome was what the doctor had called it. Obviously, she was a flier, not a fighter.

“I’m so sorry, hon. What a horrible thing to happen. Have you talked to Carlos and Lindsay about it? I just can’t see them being okay with something like that.”

“I called but didn’t get an answer.”

“Yeah, they mentioned that they’d be tied up with something. Probably sponsor-related. That’s just about the only thing that would keep them incommunicado.”

At least they were incommunicado for a valid reason. Not pathetically hiding out in a car parked in a garage. Besides, it was a little cold out here. When she’d run out she’d forgotten to grab her coat. As she let herself out of the car, she made a mental note to get it the next time she was at the Celebrations, Inc., office.

The thought gave her a sinking feeling.

“Hey, I left my red coat in the office,” she said to AJ. “Could you bring it home with you when you leave today? Maybe I can get it later.”

She let herself into the house. It seemed eerily quiet, but the way the sun shone in through the windows lifted her spirits.

“Sure thing,” AJ said. “We don’t have any jobs on the schedule tonight. So, I should be home around seven. Want to come over for dinner?”

“That sounds heavenly. This weary soul could use some good food and a good friend—”

The doorbell rang. Since Pepper was standing in the hallway that led to the foyer, she saw Bill Hines, director of Catering to Dallas, staring back at her through the beveled glass door. Her heart pounded, and for a split second she wished she’d stayed in the garage despite the cold.

“Ugh, Bill is at the door,” she said to AJ. “I really don’t want to talk to him right now.”

“Don’t answer the door.”

“I have to. We’re staring at each other through the glass.”

“Well, if you didn’t let him in, it would serve him right.”

“Or at least it would send him a message,” Pepper said. “I’ve got to deal with him sometime. It might as well be now. But I swear to you, if he’s come with a team of cameras. I will not be responsible for my actions.”

“If he ambushes you for a second time, you’d be within your right to deck him on grounds of self-defense. Or you can at least take comfort in knowing I will bail you out of jail.”

There was a beat of silence on the line. “Umm, sorry about that,” AJ said. “That was a poor word choice. What I was trying to say is that I’m here for you, but I’d better let you go before I put my other foot in my mouth.”

Poor AJ. “No offense taken. You don’t have to walk on eggshells with me. Besides I might very well need you to come and bail me out if Bill gets too fresh.”