TOGETHER FOR CHRISTMAS

by

Lisa Plumley

B&N | AMAZON

Kismet, Michigan

T-minus 21 days until Christmas

Babysitting wasn’t usually in Casey Jackson’s repertoire.

Neither was snow.

Taken together, that made it pretty damn confounding that he was currently driving through a blizzard on his way to a babysitting job. But this babysitting job was special. It was, quite literally, a babysitting job he couldn’t refuse.

Not if he wanted to stay gainfully employed, at least.

Which he did. It was a matter of necessity. And pride.

Squinting through the windshield of his rented four-wheel-drive Subaru, trying not to become hypnotized by the flurries of snowflakes hitting the glass, Casey reminded himself he could do this. He could babysit. And he could drive through a snowstorm.

Hell, he could do anything! He might not typically hang out with rug rats (a very deliberate choice) or grapple with badass subzero weather conditions (or any weather conditions, really)—as a top troubleshooter with one of L.A.’s premier talent agencies, he had little need to do either—but he did get things done. He got problems sorted, difficult divas placated, and on-set imbroglios smoothed over.

Making things right was Casey’s specialty. Handling things that other people couldn’t manage was his forte. He was the man who got in, got everyone back on track, and then got out…leaving everyone in his wake satisfied, harmonized, and improbably happy to have been “managed” by the best in the business. It was just what he did. He didn’t know why he did it so well. He just…did.

Until Casey had joined his agency, his job hadn’t even existed. One crucial averted crisis later, it had. Thanks to his first major success, now his agency paid him to go wherever he needed to to rehab star athletes’ dinged public images, settle down wild rockers and rappers, and mollify demanding megastars—megastars like pop sensation Heather Miller, whose over-the-top, over-budget, wildly ambitious Live! from the Heartland televised Christmas special had brought him to Kismet in the first place.

His agency didn’t usually pay Casey to babysit. But they did trust him enough to give him a very long leash. That meant that he was free to deal with crises like this one on his own terms. If Casey wanted to spend the next few weeks making like a muscle-bound, frostbitten, ridiculously overpaid man-nanny while he worked his deal-making magic with Heather Miller and her TV special, he could. So that’s what he was going to do.

Even if the thought of doing it while stuck in the tiny, touristy, northwestern Michigan burg of Kismet made him want to bolt for Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, some fifty miles distant, and forget he’d ever set foot in town.

Seriously. The place was like a freaking Christmas card come to life, Casey realized as the blizzard momentarily eased up. He ran his windshield wipers to push away the snow and then peered outside again, taking in the picturesque, snow-piled, lively small-town streets surrounding him. Old-fashioned holiday decorations were plastered over every inch of available space. Holiday music wafted from municipal speakers, penetrating his car’s windows as he waited at a stoplight. Shoppers bustled to and fro on the surrounding sidewalks, carrying overstuffed bags and smiling at one another. A few of them even smiled at him.

He frowned, momentarily bewildered by their neighborliness. Then he smiled back. He lifted his gloved hand in a brief wave.

The passersby waved back, then kept going. Still flummoxed, Casey watched as they made their way into a nearby sweetshop, stamping their booted feet and adjusting their woolly scarves.

L.A. was friendly enough—hell, just about everyone everywhere was friendly to Casey—but this bucolic, over-the-top holiday jollity was different. It was totally inexplicable.

Somehow, he realized, his newest assignment had taken him to The Twilight Zone 2.0: The Hallmark Channel Edition.

Most of the year, as Casey had learned before leaving L.A., Kismet was a resort town full of lakeside B&Bs, busy bait-and-tackle shops, dusty antique stores, and rundown mom-and-pop restaurants. Thanks to in-state day-trippers and out-of-state vacationers who were willing to pay for its kitschy ambiance, the town had done all right for itself, even in a shaky economy.

What Casey hadn’t uncovered beforehand—what everyone at his agency had undoubtedly hidden from him (with good reason)—was that, in December, the whole damn place turned into Christmas Central. It was, Casey thought as he surveyed the scene anew, like a Norman Rockwell painting crossed with a Bing Crosby song dosed with a big handful of silvery tinsel and hung with candy canes, then broadcast in surround sound and Technicolor. It was idyllic and authentic and damnably jolly.

It smelled like gingerbread, too. All over town. He’d noticed that as he’d gotten out of his car on location to meet Heather Miller. The fragrance still lingered here, miles away. How was that even possible? Who ate gingerbread, anyway? Elves?

The upshot was, Kismet was everything Casey typically avoided. Times ten. Wrapped in a bow. With chaser lights on top and a garland of mistletoe on the side and way too much ho-ho-ho-ing going on in the background. Because, to put it bluntly, Casey was not a “Christmas” kind of guy. As a matter of principle, he dodged all things green and red and sparkly and heartwarming. As a matter of necessity, he didn’t “do” the holidays. As a matter of fact, he’d never even been tempted to.

Nothing short of a catastrophe on the scale of Heather Miller’s problem-plagued, currently in-production holiday special—and the lucrative bonus Casey stood to earn if he brought it in on budget and on time—could have made him spend more than an hour in a town like Kismet: a place that promised candlelit ice-skating sessions, an official Christmas parade, a fanciful holiday-light house tour, sleigh rides with genuine jingle bells, a Santa Claus-lookalike contest (in the town square, right next to the community’s fifty-foot decorated Noble fir tree), and a weekly cookie-decorating get-together and jamboree.

It was all so flipping wholesome. Casey thought he might be breaking out in freckles and naiveté already. It was possible he felt an “aw-shucks” coming on. He’d only been in town an hour—long enough to meet Heather Miller, hear her initial demands, and start laying the groundwork for the two of them to come to terms. At this rate, he’d morph into Gomer Pyle by lunchtime.

Muttering a swearword, Casey set his Subaru in motion again. He suddenly craved a cigarette, a shot of tequila, and a week’s worth of irresponsible behavior—not necessarily in that order.

Boundaries made him itchy. Coziness made him cranky. And the holidays…well, they sent him straight into Scrooge mode.

While Casey realized that that character quirk was part of what made him ideal for this job—because his antipathy toward the holidays gave him a necessary clarity about Heather Miller’s TV special and all its escalating complications—he still wasn’t ready for…this.

He hadn’t been ready for Heather Miller’s opening salvo in their negotiations, either. Probably because she’d caught him off guard.

The problem is my little sister, the pop star had told Casey bluntly and confidentially, giving him an almost credible dose of blue-eyed solemnity in the process. I haven’t been back home to Kismet for a while, Heather had confided, and frankly, I think she’s a little starstruck. I need someone to keep her…occupied for a while, so I can focus on performing.

Casey had been dubious. He’d pushed Heather a little more, relying on his ability to establish an almost instant rapport.

But People magazine’s pick for “sexiest songstress” had remained adamant. However unlikely her story, she’d stuck to it.

If you can keep Kristen busy for a while, I’m sure I can make fabulous progress on my special! Heather had insisted. She’d tossed back her long, famously blond hair (there was a shade of Garnier hair color named after her), offered him a professionally whitened smile, and added, Kristen is a great girl. Just a little…unsophisticated. She’s never left Kismet. She doesn’t “get” show business the way you and I do.

By the time the former Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Vogue cover girl had quit describing her “tomboyish” younger sibling, Casey had formed a pretty clear picture of the braces-wearing, cell phone-toting, gawky girl with Bieber Fever and a wardrobe of Converse sneakers whom he was expected to babysit.

He’d decided to agree to do it, too. To babysit. Him.

Or at least, if not technically babysit—because Heather hadn’t actually used that particular word—then entertain the kid long enough to allow Heather to get down to work.

It wouldn’t be so bad, Casey figured. He’d probably trail little Kristen Miller to the mall, listen to her squee over the latest Twilight movie with her bubblegum-chewing friends, and watch her check in to Facebook a zillion times a day. Maybe he’d help her with her homework or something. Maybe he’d take her to the zoo. If the zoo was open in December. Whatever it took to keep her out of her older sister’s way until the TV special was in the can, that’s what Casey was prepared to do.

Frankly, he’d agreed to do worse a few times in his life.

As a gambit meant to earn some goodwill with Heather while encouraging her to fulfill her contractual obligations to the network, it wasn’t ideal. It was time consuming and inefficient and oblique. He didn’t like the idea of keeping the younger Miller sister “out of the way,” either. It seemed heartless. As far as Casey was concerned, Heather should have worked out her differences with her kid sister herself, straightforwardly and reasonably, the way a regular person would have done.

But in this scenario, as in all others, Heather was “the talent.” That meant she was exempt from normal human behavior and normal human expectations. Casey had logged plenty of hours pacifying performers like her. He knew the score by now. More than likely, Heather’s little sister did, too.

If Kristen Miller was wreaking havoc on the TV special, causing delays for America’s sweetheart, she’d have to be dealt with. Casey would have to be the one to do it. The sooner, the better. Once he’d assessed the situation more closely, he’d reevaluate things, he promised himself. For now, he planned to meet Kristen, figure out her angle, and see what happened from there. It wasn’t a perfect beginning, but it was a start. And Casey believed, above all else, in moving forward.

Because nothing ever lasted forever.

Except maybe fruitcake.

And that persistent gingerbread aroma all over town.

It was actually starting to smell good to him. Spicy and sweet and full of down-home goodness, with just a hint of—

Ugh. Screw this, Casey decided as he noticed the unbelievably sappy direction his thoughts had just taken. He was jonesing for old-timey gingerbread, daydreaming about its flavor profile like a wine aficionado anticipating a limited-run Napa Valley merlot, craving its Christmassy qualities most of all. I need a detour from Christmasville before I do something stupid.

So he wrenched his steering wheel sideways, floored the gas, and pulled into his destination fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. He might not find the Teenaged Terror of TV Specials in the first place Heather had suggested he look, but anything was better than giving in to Christmas…and all the syrupy, sentimental, deceitful promises that came right along with it.

A little more about Lisa: