All She Wants for Christmas (2 page)

Oh, hell.

Chapter Two

Ethan should really learn to say no to his daughter. If he had, he wouldn’t be standing in front of what was essentially the entire town of Deer Lake while facing down the woman who’d left him ten years ago in what had been the biggest scandal of the town. Because Riley had found him in bed with her then best friend, Amanda, who he’d subsequently married, and who had become the mother of the adorable but precocious little minx who’d managed to wriggle her way to the front of the line this morning in order to get the best view of country singing superstar Riley Jensen.

Yeah, hadn’t that been a fun time in his life ten years ago? Scandal, drama and tears, and he’d brought it all on himself.

Despite screwing it all up, though, he’d gotten Zoey out of it, and she was definitely the right thing. He’d never regret her.

But facing Riley again? That he hadn’t planned on. When she got her record deal and hadn’t come home to celebrate it, he figured he’d dodged the big bullet. He’d long ago given up hope of ever seeing her again.

’Til now. And staring at her until she turned tail and ran again probably wasn’t gonna happen, so it was time to man up and say something.

“Riley.”

She managed a bright smile that he knew was totally for the cameras. “Ethan. So great to see you again. This is your daughter?”

“This is Zoey, yes.”

“How…awesome.” She looked down and grinned at Zoey, and he was happy she didn’t plaster on a fake smile for his daughter, because Zoey had a bullshit meter that was good for about ten miles. “Nice to officially meet you, Zoey.”

Zoey slid her hand in Riley’s and shook it up and down. “Nice to meet you too, Riley Jensen. I have all your music on my iPod. I’m seven years old. My favorite song is the one you did for the cartoon movie,
The Princess Bee
.” She looked around Riley to meet Ethan’s gaze. “Daddy, what’s the name of that song?”

How about a nice earthquake to swallow him whole? No? Gee, thanks. “The Girl of My Dreams.”

“Yeah. That one. Daddy likes that one, too. He sings it around the house all the time, don’t you, Daddy?”

It was a damned shame it was December and a tornado couldn’t come sweep him away right now. “Sometimes.”

“He sings it in the shower. Really loud. I can hear him with the door closed.”

Riley arched a curious brow but he was saved by his daughter, who never let a moment go silent.

“Mayor Shims said you’re gonna give a concert, Riley Jensen. Are you gonna give a concert?”

“Shims is the mayor now?” Riley’s gaze shot to Ethan. His lips lifted at the look of horror on her face.

Stanley Shims had been the worst chemistry teacher at Deer Lake High School, and neither Ethan nor Riley had been particularly fond of him. The feeling had been mutual and their grades had reflected it.

“Yeah. As a matter of fact, he’s making his way to you right now.”

“Good God.” She pivoted just as the mayor arrived. “Mr. Shims! Or should I say, Mayor Shims. Congratulations.”

“Well, thank you, Riley. And congratulations to you on your success. I guess we both reached the pinnacle, didn’t we?”

Ethan was certain being mayor of Deer Lake didn’t compare to being a Grammy Award-winning musician, but Shims apparently couldn’t seem to make the distinction.

The mayor dragged Riley away to officially re-welcome her to Deer Lake and do some pontificating, which Shims did so well. Ethan grasped his daughter’s hand and gently tugged her back toward the crowd. Now they could blend back into obscurity, where he’d have been the entire time, if not for the fact Zoey didn’t have a shy bone in her entire body.

“Come on, muffin. You got to meet Riley, and she’s busy with other people now, so it’s time to go to Grandma’s. I need to get to work.”

“Okay.”

They started back toward the crowd but someone caught him by the sleeve of his jacket.

“Excuse me. Are you Ethan Kent?”

He turned around to face a gorgeous redhead with the longest false eyelashes he’d ever seen. She had on skin-tight pants and was wrapped in a thick coat and gloves as if she were expecting this to be North Dakota or something. It might be December in Missouri, but it wasn’t that cold.

“Yeah, I’m Ethan Kent.”

“And this is your lovely daughter, who obviously made quite the impression on Riley.”

Zoey smiled up at her. “You have pretty hair.”

“Thanks, honey.” She held out her hand to Ethan. “I’m Suzie Mitchell, Riley’s agent.”

“Nice to meet you.”

She handed Ethan a couple tickets. “Backstage passes to the concert tomorrow night.”

Zoey’s squeal damn near burst Ethan’s eardrums. Her eyes widened as she stared at Suzie like she was her fairy godmother. “Reallllly?”

“Yes, honey. Really. Riley wanted you to have these.”

“Can we go, Daddy? We’re going, right?”

Ethan pondered that learning-to-say-no-to-his-daughter thing, then nodded. “Sure.”

Which resulted in more ear splitting squealing from Zoey and a wide smile from Riley’s agent.

“Wonderful. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Ethan wandered away, wishing he’d never come today. Seeing Riley again had been bad enough. She looked beautiful. She’d always been beautiful, but she’d grown up, lost the roundness of her teen years. Now she sparkled like a woman, curved in all the right places. Her hair waved around her face and shoulders, still that honey-wheat blond. He was surprised she didn’t color it since she was famous now. Didn’t all women change their hair seemingly every month or so? Hers was still the same color he’d always loved.

Her blue eyes still mesmerized and tongue-tied him. She didn’t have on too much makeup like those rock stars and television people wore. She still looked like Riley, she’d just grown into herself more.

And a minute with her had brought back a lifetime of painful memories.

Now they’d have to go to her concert, where he’d have to listen to her sing all the songs she’d written about him.

Live. Where he couldn’t turn her off and walk away.

Great. Just freakin’ great.

He took the shortcut through the drugstore’s back door, knowing Missy and Bob wouldn’t mind. They were all busy ogling Riley and nobody locked anything up around here anyway. Zoey’s hand in his, he cut through the side streets and walked up the concrete steps of his parents’ house.

They had decided not to pay homage to Riley Jensen, mainly because his dad’s knee was giving him trouble today and his mom said she had some pies she wanted to bake. Ethan figured the real reason was they thought it would hurt him if they went to see her.

He pushed open the front door. The living room, looking so much like it had when he was a kid, was empty. “Mom? Dad?”

“Back here,” his mom called from the kitchen.

Zoey let go of his hand, her gloves and hat flying as she ran down the hallway. Ethan picked them up, shed his coat, hung it up and put Zoey’s gloves and hat on the table near the front door. Where they belonged. By the time he made it into the kitchen, Zoey was sitting at the table with a cup of hot chocolate in her hand and a wide grin on her cherry-tinged face.

“And then Riley gave us tickets to her concert, didn’t she, Daddy?”

Ethan knew Zoey would give his parents a rapid-fire summary of her meeting with Riley.

“She sure did.”

Ethan’s mother raised a brow. “Is that right? Well, isn’t that nice?”

“It sure is,” Zoey said. “And we get to go behind the stage and see her dressing room and hang out there the whole show. Don’t we, Daddy?”

“Uh huh.”

He got a sympathetic look from his dad on that one.

“Hey, muffin, how about you come down in the basement with me and help me work on Grandma’s dryer? You can hand me the tools.”

“Okay, Papa.” Zoey scooted off the stool and followed Ethan’s dad down into the basement, leaving him alone with his mom, who poured herself a cup of coffee and took a seat at the kitchen table.

“Why in the world would you take Zoey to meet Riley?”

He shrugged. “She wanted to go.”

“And you obviously haven’t learned to say no to that child yet.”

“I say no on some things.” Like when she wanted to dart out in the middle of the street into oncoming traffic or play with razor blades.

“Spoiling her isn’t going to bring her mother back, Ethan. She needs boundaries. She needs to know that you care enough about her to give her limits.”

“She’s not exactly a brat, Mom. She’s a great kid.”

“That she is. But giving her everything in the world still isn’t going to bring Amanda back from the dead. And speaking of that, does Riley know?”

“About Amanda? No. We barely spoke a word to each other before the mayor dragged her away.”

His mother hmphed, then rose and put her cup in the sink so she could resume stirring whatever smelled really good in the pot on the stove. “Not surprising that Shims would want to get his face in front of the camera. Better him than you and Zoey, anyway. Are you going to take her to the concert?”

“I guess. Zoey does love her music.”

His mother stirred. And stirred mentally, too. Ethan could tell because she went quiet like she always did when she was thinking.

“What?”

She half turned. “Huh?”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m wondering what all this means.”

“What what means?”

“Riley coming back to town.”

His mother always had a point. Ethan just had no idea what it was yet. “She’s here to film some stuff about a biography. She’ll be gone soon.”

“Uh huh. Everything happens for a reason, Ethan.”

“Her being here means nothing, Mom.” He rose and rinsed his cup. “I gotta get to work. I’ll be by to pick up Zoey later.”

“Okay. Be careful.”

“Always.”

He dashed downstairs to say goodbye to Zoey and his dad, then climbed into his truck and drove to his office, the pride puffing up his chest the minute he saw the Kent Construction sign on the brick building. The building housing the office wasn’t huge, but it was theirs. The real work was done on the job site. His oldest brother, Wyatt, was already at work studying blueprints.

“Morning,” he said to his brother.

“If you say so.”

“Rough night?”

He got a grunt in response, but since Wyatt had chosen the extra large cup for his coffee this morning, Ethan assumed he’d been down at Stokey’s bar the night before, no doubt continuing his quest to forget he’d ever been married.

From the looks of his brother, that still wasn’t going well.

He’d always loved working with his brothers, even though sometimes they were a giant pain in the ass. But they’d rallied around him after Amanda died, just like they’d all rallied around Wyatt after his divorce.

Not that Wyatt wanted any rallying. He just wanted to be left alone and had thrown himself into the business during the day and making a great attempt at partying his ass off at night, which Ethan supposed was a way to shut out the pain. Ethan hadn’t had the luxury of that. He had Zoey to deal with. With no kids, Wyatt could handle his pain however he wanted. And he handled it with work, work and more work. And then play, play and more play, which Ethan knew was just a smokescreen.

Wyatt wasn’t really having any fun.

Frankly, Ethan thought it might be a good idea if Wyatt actually had a conversation with Cassandra. They’d divorced two years ago and gone their separate ways. She lived on the north side of the lake now and as far as Ethan knew they hadn’t spoken a word to each other since the lawyers haggled out the settlement.

Closure was a good thing, or so he’d heard. Ethan had even tried talking to Wyatt about it. Wyatt had told him where to stick that suggestion.

Then again, now that Riley was back in town, Ethan finally realized that whole closure thing? Probably not a good idea after all.

“Where’s Brody?” Ethan asked.

“On a job site.” Wyatt didn’t bother lifting his head from the prints. That would require engaging someone in face-to-face conversation.

“Which one?” Ethan took off his coat and pulled the permits he needed to take to a site today.

“The MacKenzie one. Foreman pitching a fit about a couple of the hands, so Brody went to unruffle some feathers.”

“Okay. Tori coming in today?”

“Any minute now.”

Ethan had just booted the system up. “I need to look at the books.”

“You got a death wish, man? You know how she gets if someone messes with the system. You want to be on the receiving end of one of her tirades?”

“Good point.” Ethan kicked the chair away from the laptop and went for the printout instead. The last thing he wanted was to get on Tori’s bad side. She might be no more than twenty or whatever, but she had a head for numbers and a temper that made good on the old Irish and redhead adage. The only one who ever went toe to toe with her was Brody, mainly because he liked to rile her up. Ethan and Wyatt tiptoed around her.

Just as he got the paperwork out Tori walked in, always a tornado in the making, both arms loaded down with bags, popping her gum, her wild red hair spilling down her back.

Tori could have worked for the FBI. She could tell in a half a second when something on her desk had been disturbed. Her green eyes flashed in Ethan’s direction.

“You touch my laptop?”

“Do I look like I fear death?”

She snickered. “How about you, Wyatt?”

“Not on your life, sweet pea.”

“Where’s your idiot brother?”

“Job site.”

“Good.” She cracked her knuckles and sat down at the desk.

Never a dull moment at the office.

“Heard Riley’s back in town,” Tori said.

Word spread fast around here. Ethan looked up to see Wyatt’s distinct lack of interest as he buried his face in his work.

“Yeah.”

“You see her yet?”

“Zoey and I ran into her this morning.”

That got his brother’s attention. And a frown. “Don’t even go there, Ethan.”

“I’m not going anywhere with her. Except to her concert.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes. Tori grinned and said, “That’s interesting.”