Merry Christmas, Baby
Автор
Teri Wilson
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Chapter One
Oh, here it comes.
Candy’s eyes grew misty and her heart gave a little squeeze as the couple directly in her line of vision gazed at one another though a lacy veil of snow flurries.
The perfect Christmas kiss.
It didn’t matter how many times Candy had witnessed such moments—and she’d witnessed plenty of them, so many that she’d lost count—she got weepy every single time. Her boss, Gabe, liked to call her a hopeless romantic. Maybe he was right. Or maybe she was too softhearted for her own good. Either way, nothing made her swoon quite like a winter wonderland Christmas kiss.
Candy felt herself smile from the inside out. Visions of mistletoe danced in her head as the man lowered his gaze and the woman rose up on tiptoe, their lips just a whisper apart. Christmas lights glittered behind the happy couple, bathing them in the warm glow of holiday magic.
It was all so lovely. So tender. So perfect. Candy heard someone let out a dreamy sigh, and then realized it was her. The man cupped the woman’s face in his hands, and their breath mingled together in a delicate, frosty puff of air. Candy didn’t dare move. Even the snow flurries seemed to be holding their breath in anticipation.
And then, just as the woman’s mittened hands balled into giddy fists and the man’s lips brushed against hers, the wail of a baby pierced the tremulous silence...
Everything—the kiss, the magic, even the snowflakes—came to an abrupt halt. Someone beside Candy let out a groan. The man and woman both turned toward her and glared.
“Cut!” Gabe bellowed.
Candy jumped at the sound of his voice. At sixty-four, Gabe had directed more than fifty made-for-television movies over the course of his career, but he wasn’t normally a bellower. Then again, Candy—Gabe’s favorite assistant director—didn’t usually turn up for work with an infant strapped to her chest in a BabyBjörn.
“Sorry.” Candy winced and began doing the bouncy little dance that baby Faith seemed to love. “That was totally my fault.”
“Yes, I’m aware.” Gabe cast a pointed glance at the back of Faith’s downy head.
Candy rested a protective hand on the baby’s tiny back and bounced with renewed vigor. “I got caught up in the moment and stopped bouncing. It won’t happen again.”
“Candy.” Gabe pinched the bridge of his nose the way he always did when something on set went horribly wrong. Candy had seen him do it dozens, if not hundreds, of times before. She just wasn’t accustomed to being the troublesome something in question. “This isn’t working.”
Candy nodded. “I know, but the nanny that the service sent over this morning was terrible. She had a definite serial killer vibe. I couldn’t leave Faith with her.”
“That’s what you said about the nanny they sent over yesterday.” Gabe sighed. “And the day before that.”
Candy’s face went warm. “Right, but...”
“Maybe you’ve worked on one too many stalker movies,” Brian, the second assistant director, said with a smirk.
Impossible. Candy didn’t work on stalker films. She was all about Christmas movies, 365 days a year. Candy adored Christmas. She always had.
It was her parents’ fault, really. Honestly, no one had any business naming a child Candy Cane, other than Santa Claus himself.
Santa wasn’t real, though. Candy knew this. She might be a little Christmas-obsessed, but she wasn’t delusional. The baby currently kicking her little feet in glee, oblivious to her recent film set faux pas, however, was real. And she’d managed to turn Candy’s life completely upside down in less than a week.
“Let’s take five,” Gabe said, bellowing yet again.
Then he cast a meaningful look at Brian. Brian removed his headset, placed it gently on top of one of the video monitors in “video village,” the area on set where the production team always gathered, and quietly walked away.
Weird. Brian’s mannerisms were usually more of the bull-in-a-china-shop variety. But it was getting late. The shoot was already running over an hour behind. He was probably just tired.
Candy took a deep breath. One more scene and then we wrap.
She nodded to herself as the stand-ins took the places of the lead actress and actor and the stars headed toward their respective trailers. She could do this, baby and all. Once they nailed the Christmas kiss, she’d have an entire week before postproduction started.
A week was enough time to adjust to the fact that she had a baby now, wasn’t it?
Faith squirmed in her BabyBjörn, and Candy’s heart squeezed tight. The poor little thing was just as lost as Candy was, wasn’t she?
Candy pressed a tender kiss to the top of the baby’s head. We’re in this together, kid. Just you and me. They’d figure things out. They had to. Candy didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
That’s not technically true, though, is it? a voice in the back of Candy’s head whispered. Her stomach squirmed and she pushed it away.
“Candy, we need to talk,” Gabe said. He wasn’t bellowing anymore. In fact, his tone had gone quiet. Too quiet, if the way the rest of the production scattered like mice was any indication.
“Okay.” Candy nodded, continuing to bounce as Faith gurgled in delight.
“A film set is no place for a baby,” Gabe said.
Again, Candy knew this. They hardly even used live infants onscreen, opting for dolls instead. Once, a doll’s foot had fallen off and no one noticed until the movie aired on Christmas Eve. But Candy figured now wasn’t the time to remind Gabe of that embarrassing mistake.
“I know.” Candy swallowed. “Look, you know I’m just as surprised by this as you are.”
Before last week, Candy hadn’t even been aware of her second cousin on her father’s side and now here she was, raising said cousin’s baby.
“My condolences to your family,” Gabe said. He couldn’t seem to look Candy in the eyes anymore. “But...”
“But what? You’re not about to fire me, are you?” Candy laughed.
Gabe was as much a father figure as he was an actual boss. They celebrated Thanksgiving together and most other major holidays, too, since they were typically shooting on location ten months out of the year. Gabe loved dad jokes, and he wore fanny packs nonironically. He made movies about finding the true meaning of Christmas, with montages of snowball fights and gingerbread house decorating.
Gabe would never fire Candy. Ever.
“Yes, I’m firing you,” he said.
Candy shook her head. “No.”
Gabe nodded. “Yes.”
Faith kicked her little legs again, and this time, one of her dainty baby feet made contact with Gabe’s fanny pack.
Candy took a small backward step and lowered her voice in case anyone on set could overhear the most humiliating conversation of her entire career. “Gabe, please. This doesn’t even make sense. We’re wrapping tonight.”
He arched one of his furry, overgrown eyebrows. “We should have wrapped hours ago.”
“I know, but...”
“But like I said, this just isn’t working.” He waved a hand toward Exhibit A, Faith. Then his features softened, but not his resolve. “I’ve asked Brian to step in as first AD for postproduction.”
Ouch. Candy’s pride took a serious hit. She’d trained Brian, for goodness’ sake.
“Okay. Right. Well, that’s not ideal, but maybe you’re right.” Candy nodded, as if trying to talk herself into accepting this humbling news with a modicum of dignity.
There was no need to panic. So she’d miss a week of editing, sound mixing and color correction. She could live with that, even though the thought of Brian putting together the opening and closing credits instead of her was enough to make her sick to her stomach. The man had horrendous taste in fonts.
Truthfully, Candy could use an extra week to get her new life as a parent in order. In fourteen days’ time, she needed to be in northern Ontario to shoot another Christmas film. Which meant she needed to find child care arrangements in a foreign country. It also meant she needed to get a passport for Faith.
Did infants even need passports?
Ugh, she knew nothing about babies. Until six days ago, she’d never even changed a diaper. But she’d figured it out, hadn’t she? She could figure out how to be a stellar assistant director and a mom at the same time, too.
“I’m glad you understand. You’re doing a good thing, Candy. A noble thing. And I support you wholeheartedly, you know that. A few months off will do wonders,” Gabe said.
“Months?” Candy froze. She didn’t have a springy little bounce left in her. Faith immediately started fussing. “What are you talking about? We’ve got another picture on deck in just two weeks, remember? We’re shooting a Christmas movie during the actual Christmas holidays, for a change. In northern Canada, with real snow.”
Candy had worked her butt off securing that location. It was perfect. There was only one place in the entire Northern Hemisphere that would have been better.
“I’m taking you off the next one, too.” Gabe gave her a gentle smile—so gentle that Candy wanted to cry. Or maybe the tears pricking her eyes were simply the natural result of watching her career go up in smoke.
This was the twenty-first century. Weren’t women supposed to be able to have it all? That’s what all the magazines said. Although, truth be told, Candy had never wanted to have it all. She wasn’t greedy. She hadn’t planned this. She would have been completely satisfied with an Emmy Award instead of a baby. But now that she had the latter, it didn’t seem fair that she should have to forgo the former.
“It’s just a break, kid, not forever,” Gabe said as Faith’s fussing turned into full-on cries. “Maybe not for months, but at least until after the holidays.”
Candy started bouncing again, but this time she wasn’t sure if she was simply trying to comfort the baby or the both of them. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime? Where am I supposed to go...?”
The final two words lodged in her throat. She couldn’t seem to make herself say them.
For Christmas. Where was she supposed to go for Christmas?
Gabe knew good and well that Candy’s parents had passed away years ago. Once upon a time, she’d had a perfect Christmas kiss—a real one, with real snow and real mistletoe and real fairy lights that had fallen around her like stardust. Just days later, her entire world had fallen apart, and no other Christmas had been the same. Not even the perfect, pretend holidays she’d spent a lifetime creating.
“Candy, I love you like a daughter. Don’t you think it’s time you had a real holiday instead of this?” Gabe waved his big arms, encompassing the enormous cameras, the maze of electrical cables and a plethora of holiday props. Cardboard gingerbread houses decorated with glue to look like frosting. Flocked, artificial evergreen trees dotted with crystals and plastic pine cones. Acrylic icicles dripping from the park bench where the stand-ins stood waiting for the real stars to come back to their marks. “Don’t you think you owe that to Faith?”
Faith.
Candy’s throat squeezed closed. As usual, Gabe was right. She had a daughter now—a tiny baby who’d just experienced the worst possible twist of fate that life had to offer a small child. It was too late for Candy to go back and fix her own imperfect life, but she could still give Faith the one thing that had slipped through Candy’s fingers years ago.
A real family Christmas.
She lifted her chin and met Gabe’s gaze. “You promise you’ll take me back after the New Year?”
Gabe tilted his head. “If that’s still what you want, then yes. I promise. Now take that baby and get out of here.”
“Trust me, it’s what I want. Don’t you dare offer the job to Brian without talking to me first.” She couldn’t believe she even had to say those words, but after being fired on the last day of shooting, Candy wasn’t sure what to think about anything anymore—save for one thing.
If she wanted to give Faith a real Christmas, she knew exactly where to go.
Dr. Dan Manning shrugged out of his white coat and smoothed down his novelty tie. This one was a brown silk with a red fuzzball nose, googly eyes and comically huge antlers protruding from either side, mere inches below his Windsor knot. A necktie homage to Santa’s most famous reindeer.
As the sole pediatrician in Lovestruck, Vermont, Dan was rather famous for his novelty ties. They were great icebreakers with the kids, especially the ones who came to his office with an injury or sick with the flu. It was amazing what a pair of plastic eyeballs and a strip of fabric could do. Since he’d opened his practice five years ago, Dan’s tie collection had grown by leaps and bounds. The master closet in his duplex in Lovestruck’s quaint historic district was practically overflowing with them.
As much as Dan appreciated a comical tie, he wasn’t such a fan of the Rudolph monstrosity currently dangling from his neck. In all honesty, he loathed it. But Rudolph had been a Christmas gift last year from his nurse, Frances. And Frances, like everyone else in Lovestruck, expected him to be all decked out in Christmas cheer this time of year. Not wearing it would have been a crime, so Dan did his best to ignore his inner Grinch voice and wore the blasted thing.
He loosened his Windsor knot ever so slightly.
“Not so fast,” Frances said as she breezed into his office on her Christmas crocs. They were a garish green with white fur trim and looked like something Buddy the Elf would wear. Because of course they did. “You might want to put that coat back on. We have a last-minute walk-in.”
“An emergency?” Dan reached for his coat.
Frances didn’t seem ultra-alarmed, so it must not be too serious. Then again, it took a lot to ruffle Frances’s feathers.
“You could say that. Diane Foster’s two-year-old stuck a popcorn kernel up his nose.” Frances’s gaze darted briefly to the red Rudolph nose on Dan’s tie and she looked away.
Dan sighed. “Let me guess—the popcorn kernel is somehow Christmas-related.”
“They were stringing popcorn garland for their Christmas tree. It’s not a crime, you know.” Frances jammed a hand on her hip. “Honestly, sometimes I worry about you. You can be downright Scroogey.”
Guilty as charged. “It’s just a little much, don’t you think? This place is like Hallmark on steroids in December. Last night I saw a live camel walking down Main Street.”
Frances shrugged one shoulder. “Of course you did. The living nativity scene started last night.”
“A live camel, Frances.” That just wasn’t normal. Or safe. It was below freezing outside. Camels were desert animals. Could they handle that sort of extreme weather?
Never mind. Dan was a pediatrician, not a veterinarian. Although, this was Lovestruck. About six months ago, the fire chief had asked him if it was possible to prescribe Valium to a cat named Fancy who was apparently terrorizing the entire LFD. Anything was possible around here.
“Fine. If you’re so kamilaphobic, stay home tonight and skip the living nativity play, but you’ve still got Diane Foster’s toddler to worry about.” Frances shoved a nasal aspirator at him, which, miraculously, hadn’t been adorned with antlers or a tiny felt Santa hat.
Dan arched a brow. “Kamilaphobic?”
“Fear of camels.” Frances shot him a smug grin. “It was one of the words in the crossword puzzle in the Bee a few days ago.”
“Nice.” Dan nodded. “But for the record, I’m not afraid of camels.”
“Oh, that’s right. It’s just Christmas cheer that scares you. I stand corrected.” Frances shifted her weight from one hideous elf croc to the other.
“Not afraid of that, either,” he said, heading toward the door, nasal aspirator in hand. A popcorn kernel-ectomy was beginning to seem much more pleasant than this conversation.
“Whatever you say,” Frances said, falling in line behind him. “You know, if you’d actually get out and about this time of year, you’d see it’s really not so bad. You might even like it.”
Not a chance. “Frances, remember when we talked about personal boundaries during your performance review last month?”
Dan hated to pull the boss card. He really did—but not as much as he hated December in his chocolate box of a hometown.
“Point taken,” Frances muttered. “But one more thing, boss?”
Dan paused at the closed door to the exam room where his tiny patient was waiting for him to remedy the unfortunate garland situation. “Dare I ask?”
“Your new tenant stopped by earlier to pick up her key.” Frances’s face lit up like a (Dan hated to admit) Christmas tree. “Did you know she came all the way from California?”
Dan was, in fact, privy to this information. Lovestruck was as quaint and wholesome as a small town could be, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew better than to give the key to the other half of the duplex to just anyone.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Dan said.
Ms. Candace Cane was a resident of Los Angeles, with one child, and she’d paid her entire month’s rent up front, along with the customary security deposit.
Wait a minute. He felt himself frown. His tenant’s name was Candace Cane...as in Candy Cane? How on earth had he let that slip past him?
“She’s a new mom.” Frances shrugged. “Well, sort of. She just became the guardian for her orphaned cousin. Isn’t that just the saddest thing you’ve ever heard? Anyhoo, she must be a special person.”
Dan had known about the baby, but not the specifics. But Frances knew, because of course she did.
“She’s in show business.” Frances’s eyes danced. “She makes those Christmas movies for television that everyone loves so much.”
His gut churned. She could not be serious.
“Not everyone,” he countered. The Rudolph tie felt stifling all of a sudden, like he was being strangled by Santa’s entire stable of reindeer. “And how do you know so much personal information about my tenant, anyway?”
“Boundaries. Right.” Frances pulled a face. “Sorry, boss. Go ahead and give me the talk again.”
Dan sighed. Why bother? Frances was a busybody and that wasn’t going to change. Luckily, she was also a fantastic nurse—the best Dan had ever seen.
Besides, he had bigger problems to deal with at the moment than Frances’s boundary issues. Perhaps even bigger than a popcorn kernel lodged where it wasn’t supposed to be.
This time of year was always a struggle for Dan. He just wanted to keep his head down and get through the holiday season, and now he apparently would have to do that while sharing the duplex with a woman who’d just walked straight off the set of a Christmas movie and was named after a peppermint stick.
His head throbbed as he reached for the doorknob to the exam room. One of the googly eyes on his tie rolled back and forth, as if it were trying to wink at him.
Joy to the world.
