ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS
© 2006 Catherine Mulvany
(unedited copy) 

Be careful what you wish for...

Chapter One

December 1996

 Hailey Miller threaded her way through the crowded main hall of Crescentville High School even though she knew the detour would make her late for P.E. What was a tardy slip when compared to a possible face-to-face with Kennedy MacCormack?

Halfway along the corridor she spotted him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. Blonde cheerleader Trisha Anderson had her bouncy D-cups pressed up against his chest.

Hailey frowned, irritated with Trisha for being there and with her barely-graduated-out-of-a-double-A self for experiencing an undeniable twinge of boob envy.

Okay, dilemma time. Should she approach Kennedy as planned or just fade into the crowd unnoticed?

Trisha giggled at something Kennedy whispered in her ear, then batted her mascara-caked lashes. “You are totally bad.”

Not to mention totally gorgeous, totally buff, and totally sexy. If this were a fairy tale, Trisha would be the witch who’d placed Prince Kennedy under a spell that only she, Hailey, the one true princess, could break. “I wish,” Hailey muttered under her breath.

Kennedy glanced up just then and smiled at her.

Her knees went weak. Her heart stuttered.

“Hailey,” he said in that husky baritone that made everything that came out of his mouth sound like the prelude to seduction. “Just who I was looking for.”

And in that perfect moment of crystalline clarity, the prince recognized the one true princess.

“You were?” Hailey was proud of herself for not a) tripping over her own feet, b) dropping her backpack, or c) sounding as pathetically needy as she felt.

“You were?” A slight frown marred Trisha’s flawless brow. She laid a proprietary hand on Kennedy’s arm.

“Yeah.” Kennedy smiled at Hailey, his chocolate brown eyes as sweetly seductive as the M&Ms to which Hailey was so hopelessly addicted. “You promised to loan me your physics notes so I could cram for the test this afternoon, remember?”

Trisha’s snicker fell halfway between relief and mockery.

When the prince, a victim of the evil witch’s most powerful incantation, failed to recognize the princess, the old hag cackled in glee.

Hailey buried her nose in her backpack, searching for the notebook.

“Hurry,” Trisha said. “The bell’s going to ring.”

“It’s in here somewhere.” Hailey caught a flash of movement in her peripheral vision seconds before a massive impact sent her airborne. She landed butt first on the hall tiles with the entire contents of her backpack—including two stray tampons, a partially eaten bag of M&Ms, and a beat-up composition book—raining down around her.

Truck Lawrence, apparent author of the disaster, scowled at her. “Geez, watch where you’re going, Miller.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere. You ran into me,” Hailey pointed out.

“Whatever.” He lumbered off down the hall, muttering “must be that time of the month” just loud enough for Hailey and everyone else in the vicinity to hear. Laughter, ranging from furtive snorts to loud guffaws, rippled along the hallway.

Hailey snatched up the tampons, her cheeks on fire. Shoot me. Shoot me now.

Kennedy leaned over, and she thought for a split-second he was going to help her to her feet or maybe just apologize for Truck’s insensitivity, but all he did was extricate her physics notebook from the mess with a quick “thanks” before heading off to class, one arm slung around Trisha’s shoulders.

A self-satisfied smile tilted the corners of Trisha’s mouth as she glanced back at Hailey. Positioned as she’d been, Trisha would have had a clear view of Truck bearing down on Hailey, and yet she’d uttered not a word of warning.

Witch, Hailey thought. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry. Darn it, she was fifteen years old. Too old for tears.

The run-in with the troll had proved an unexpected setback. The evil hag and her minions had won this battle, but the princess vowed to keep fighting. She’d not rest until the spell was broken and the prince was free to follow his heart.

#

Hailey stepped off the school bus into knee-deep slush, courtesy of the snowplow her bus had followed all the way up the hill from the Crescentville, Oregon city limits. Should have worn her boots. Better yet, she should have stayed home in the first place and saved herself a lot of grief.

Of course, she could have waited until basketball practice was over and hitched a ride home with Kennedy, but after the fiasco in the hall this morning, she’d figured that wasn’t a good idea. He and Trisha probably had plans anyway—doing whatever it was popular kids did after school on the last day before Christmas break. Christmas shopping at the mall in Bend maybe. Or making out in the backseat of Kennedy’s Mustang. She scowled at the snow-covered landscape.

The bus pulled away, the rear tires splattering her with a mixture of wet sand and gray slush. She said a word her mom probably didn’t realize was in her vocabulary. Unfortunately, profanity didn’t help. She was still cold and wet and facing a mile-and-a-half hike, most of it uphill, to Devil’s Elbow, the ranch on the eastern slope of the Cascades where she and her mom had been living since her mom hired on as the MacCormacks’ housekeeper six years ago.

Heaving a weary sigh, Hailey readjusted her earmuffs and tightened the straps on her backpack, then attempted to clear the slush from her glasses with the thumb of her mitten. All that did was smear the lenses, though. Giving it up as a lost cause, she stuffed her glasses in the pocket of her jacket.

Well, great. Not only did she have a miserable hike ahead of her, now she couldn’t see two feet in front of her nose. Hailey started across the road toward the rustic log archway that marked the ranch’s entrance, then quickly backtracked when a black pickup came flying around the hairpin curve just below her bus stop.

To her surprise, the truck clanked to a stop beside her, the tire chains flipping up yet more slush to soak her jeans. The passenger-side window slid down. “Want a lift?”

She squinted myopically toward the open window, trying to bring the speaker’s face into focus. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn the voice was Kennedy’s. But Kennedy was a blond. This guy had dark hair.

When she didn’t respond, the driver, a broad-shouldered, dark-haired blur, leaned across the passenger. “Make up your mind, kiddo. We don’t have all day. Got to get this boy up to the house before he starves to death. Hasn’t had squat to eat all day except airplane food.”

“Mac?” John “Mac” MacCormack was Kennedy’s father, but the “boy” he was referring to wasn’t Kennedy, which by process of elimination left Kennedy’s non-identical twin, the one who hadn’t been kicked out of prep school last September. She leaned a little closer. “Thomas, is that you?”

“Hell, yes, it’s him,” Mac said, sounding impatient.

“She can’t see,” Thomas told him. “She’s not wearing her glasses.”

“Where are your specs, kiddo? You didn’t break ’em, did you? Your mom won’t be happy if you broke ’em.”

Thomas opened the door. “Pass me your backpack, Hailey. Then I’ll give you a hand up.”

She tossed him the backpack. “I didn’t break my glasses,” she told Mac. “I took them off, couldn’t see through the slush blur.”

Thomas grabbed her hand, hauled her into the pickup cab, then slid over to make room for her on the broad leather bench seat. The residual warmth from his body penetrated her clothing, but she couldn’t stop shivering. Without a word, he kicked the heater up a notch. 

As Mac bumped across the first cattle guard and headed up the hill, she peeled off her soggy mittens, dug her glasses from her jacket pocket, and dried them on the tail of her shirt. “That’s better,” she said as her surroundings came into focus.

Mac was wearing his new Stetson and his good suede, fleece-lined jacket, but otherwise looked pretty much the same as normal, his long legs encased in Wranglers, his feet in cowboy boots. He tugged at the corner of his mustache and winked a greeting. “How’d you get so wet?”

“Bus attack,” she said.

Thomas gave her the superior little half-smile that always made her want to smack him. Apparently prep school agreed with him a little better than it had Kennedy. He looked happy and healthy. Very healthy. Lean but muscular. She could almost swear his broad MacCormack shoulders were an inch or two wider than they’d been when he’d flown east in September.

“Where are your glasses?” she asked.

“Got contacts,” he said.

She smiled and nodded, trying hard not to feel envious. She’d been saving for contacts since eighth grade, but every time she got close to her goal, something happened to deplete her savings—like last summer when the radiator on her mom’s car sprang a leak. Hailey had willingly offered the two hundred dollars her mom had needed for a replacement, and her mom was paying her back, naturally, but at twenty bucks a month, it would be a while before Hailey made that appointment with the optometrist.

She studied Thomas. “Contacts suit you,” she said, which they did. She’d never noticed before what striking eyes he had, a steely gray color shot with blue flecks. In fact, she’d never really noticed how good-looking he was. Not Brad Pitt gorgeous like Kennedy, of course. Thomas’s jaw was squarer, his cheekbones more prominent. Ruggedly handsome, he had thick dark eyebrows, a straight nose, and a surprisingly sensuous mouth—surprising since unlike Kennedy, Thomas was big on discipline and serious academic pursuits. Come to that, so was she, though with her it was more by necessity than because she was wired that way.

She sighed and fixed her gaze on the dash.

“How’s school going?” Thomas asked.

“Fine.” She shot a furtive sideways glance in his direction. There was no possible way he could know about her pratfall this morning, was there?

“The kid’s got a perfect 4.0.” Mac tapped the horn to spook the quail marching up the lane in single file, their topknots bobbing comically. The birds scattered, and Hailey found herself wondering if there was such a thing as an imperfect 4.0. Like maybe if you cheated on a test or hired someone to write your papers or did unmentionable things to the western civ teacher as a certain cheerleader was rumored to have done. Which reminded her of Trisha. Had she and Kennedy...? Whoa! Was that what popular kids did after school?

“You decided yet where you’re going to college?” Thomas sounded more like Ms. Levy, CHS guidance counselor, than a seventeen-year-old who still wore a retainer at night.

“I’m only a sophomore,” she reminded him. “What’s the hurry?”

“Just making conversation,” he said mildly. “You warm enough?”

She nodded, and he turned down the heater.

That was the thing about Thomas. On the surface, he was all big-brother solicitous, but that was just a cover for his true agenda—driving her insane. Asking stupid guidance counselor questions, for crying out loud, when he knew perfectly well her higher education options would be dictated by which schools offered the biggest scholarships. And that list wasn’t likely to include Vassar or even Berkley. Rub my face in it, why don’t you?

She cast around for some way to annoy him. No use asking about his grades—perfect—or his free throw average—also perfect. But there was one secret he’d let slip last time he’d been home, one secret Mac didn’t know about. “You still doing the Dungeons and Dragons thing?” she asked, all wide-eyed innocence.

“What?” Mac’s heavy dark eyebrows snapped together in a scowl. “What Dungeons and Dragons thing?”

Thomas gave her a “thanks a bunch” look, followed by an evil “I’ll get even” smile. “It’s a role-playing game,” he told his dad.

“I know what the hell it is,” Mac said testily. “You think just because I live in the sticks, I’m not up to speed? Bunch of adolescent misfits go on elaborate make-believe quests. It’s all about hiding from reality.”

“Actually,” Thomas said, “in my case, it’s all about sex.”

Mac swerved to miss a jackrabbit that darted across the lane in front of them. His square jaw set at a stubborn angle. A muscle jumped in his cheek. He was silent for a ten count, then, “Sex?” he said in a strangled voice like either he was about to burst out laughing or break down in tears. Maybe both at once.

Hailey allowed herself a smug little smile.

“See, there’s this townie, Lucinda Meriwether,” Thomas told his dad, “and she’s really into the game.”

“Dresses in black from head to toe, I bet,” Hailey suggested helpfully.

Thomas shot her a quelling look, and her smug smile blossomed into a mocking grin.

“Don’t tell me she’s one of those Goth geeks.” Mac swore under his breath as he dodged another suicidal bunny.

“Deal,” Thomas said. “I won’t tell you she’s one of those Goth geeks.”

“I’m guessing she is, though,” Hailey said in the interest of full disclosure.

“Son of a bitch.” Mac thumped the steering wheel for emphasis. “I’m shelling out big bucks so you can go to some highfalutin prep school all the way to hell and gone in Connecticut and you waste time dating a damned—”

“Hanging with,” Thomas interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

“Not ‘dating.’ Hanging with. Lucinda considers dating an archaic ritual in which women are manipulated into prostituting themselves in exchange for dinner and a movie.”

“Bullshit,” Mac said.

Thomas grinned. “Yeah. But she’s got the cutest way of curling her lip when she says it—all contemptuous and sexy as hell.”

“Hey!” Hailey protested. “In case it slipped your mind, there’s a lady in the truck, and I so do not want to hear this.”

“Sexy as hell, huh?” Mac said.

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not listening.” Hailey stuck her fingers in her ears.

“That’s my boy.”

The minute Mac turned away, Thomas gave her a victorious smirk. Score one for his team.

“Screw you,” she mouthed. Unfortunately, Mac turned back around just then. Equally unfortunate was the fact he was an excellent lip reader.

“Watch your mouth, kiddo. You grow up to talk like a mule skinner and sure as hell your mom’ll blame me.”

#

Kennedy hadn’t shown up for Thomas’s welcome home dinner. He’d called at 6:15 to say he’d been invited to a friend’s house. A friend of the female persuasion, Thomas guessed, judging by the crestfallen expression that fell like a shadow across Hailey’s face when she heard the news. Still hung up on Kennedy obviously. Probably even more so now that they were going to the same school.

She’d disappeared after dinner, and he’d thought she’d gone to bed until he headed upstairs himself sometime after 10:00—1:00 in the morning Connecticut time—and found her perched on the top step, still dressed in the same faded jeans and dusty rose shirt she’d worn to school. Scribbling madly in a battered black-and-white composition book, she didn’t even notice him.

“Hey.” He couldn’t help smiling. She looked so sweet, so serious. “Thought you were in bed.”

“Nope.”

“Homework?” he said. “Haven’t you heard? It’s Christmas break.”

She didn’t even glance up. “Go away.”

“The light’s better downstairs,” he said, a second or two before he realized that although the light might be better elsewhere, the view of the front door was optimal from her current perch. Kennedy wasn’t home yet.

“The light’s okay. Besides, it’s quieter here.” One flyaway strand of silky brown hair had escaped Hailey’s ponytail. She shoved it out of her face, then gave him a pointed look. “Or at least it was.”

“Is that a hint?”

“Go away, Thomas.”

“Hey, you’re not the boss of me.” He sat down beside her, trying to get a peek at what she’d been writing. Diary? he wondered. Love letter? Christmas list?

She snapped the book shut and turned to him with a glare. “Mind your own business, why don’t you?”

Her glasses had slid down to the end of her nose. He nudged them up with the tip of one finger.

A strange expression rippled across her face, gone before he could put a name to it. “What do you want, Thomas?”

You, he thought, surprising himself. Okay, yeah, he’d always liked Hailey. More than liked really, but…moss green with sprinkles of cinnamon. That’s what color her eyes were. Moss green with long, thick lashes several shades darker than her chestnut brown hair.

“Earth to Thomas,” Hailey said, and he realized he’d been staring.

He cleared his throat, feeling foolish. “Want? Me? I don’t know. Adventure, I guess.” He thought of all the places he’d never been, all the things he’d never seen. “How about you?”

She scowled at him for a moment in silence. “You always do that, darn it.”

He shot her a curious sideways glance. “Do what?”

“Go serious on me. I mean, I was all ready to rip into you for interrupting my creative flow, and now I can’t because you’ve effectively short-circuited my oh-so-righteous indignation.”

“Are you speaking English? Because I’m not sure I follow.”

“You never follow,” she said glumly. “You lead.”

“Okay, now I know I’m lost. Maybe it’s just jet lag, but...”

“You’re destined for greatness, Thomas MacCormack. Adventure.” She heaved a sigh. “Adventure sounds great in the abstract, but I suspect the reality would scare me spitless. I’m not brave like you. What I truly want...” She sighed again. “...is romance.” She passed him her composition book. “See for yourself.”

Thomas wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Certainly not what he found written neatly in Hailey’s perfect penmanship. He read one page, then another and another, not stopping until she poked him sharply with her elbow. “Well?” she said, sounding impatient and maybe a little scared.

He met her gaze. Her glasses had slipped down her nose again. He pushed them back into place, then handed the composition book to her. “Have you shown this to anyone else?”

“You’re joking, right? Let people know I spend all my spare time writing fairy tales? Oh, yeah, that’s gonna happen. I’d be the laughingstock of Crescentville High.”

“But it’s good stuff, Hailey. Really good. If you ask me, you’re the one destined for greatness.”

Her hazel-green eyes widened. She stared at him.

Had he slipped up? Had she realized he had feelings for her? Not big brother feelings. More like I-want-to-jump-your-bones feelings. That’s why I was so gung-ho to go to school clear across the country, he thought. Because as long as he was in Connecticut, he couldn’t do anything he’d regret.

Now maybe if Hailey had been a different sort of girl, a girl like say...Lucinda, they could have hooked up. No harm, no foul. But Hailey was definitely a happily-ever-after girl, and if there was one thing Thomas knew for sure, it was that MacCormacks didn’t get happily-ever-afters. Not with the curse hanging over their heads.

Still, oh God, she was so sweet, so tempting, so innocently sexy with that long silky hair, that pouty pink mouth, and that graceful body. Without weighing the consequences, he leaned a little closer.

The front door banged open and Hailey jumped to her feet like a startled fawn. Her composition book flew out of her hands and went tumbling down the staircase to land in the entry at Kennedy’s feet. “What have we here?” He bent to retrieve the book. “Lose something, Hail?”

“Give it back!” Hailey raced down the steps, snatched it from him, then ran toward the back of the house.

“What’s her problem?” Kennedy shook his head and a thick lock of blond hair fell across his forehead. He brushed it out of his face and grinned at Thomas. “Hey, bro. I see they finally released you from the prison that is Crichton Academy.”

“Yeah.” Thomas descended the stairs slowly, not sure whether he was more relieved or disappointed by his brother’s interruption.

“Sorry I wasn’t here to welcome you home. I trust Hailey made up for my absence, though.”

Meaning what? Surely Kennedy hadn’t figured out how Thomas felt about her. Hell, Thomas had barely figured out how he felt about her.

Kennedy’s laughing gaze met his. “That girl’s something, isn’t she?”

Thomas’s gut tightened painfully.

His brother’s grin widened. “Gotta wonder what secrets she’s keeping.”

“Secrets? Hailey?”

“She won’t let anyone read that precious composition book of hers. Not even her mom. Guards it with her life.”

“Really?” The knot in Thomas’s midsection relaxed.

Kennedy waggled his eyebrows and gave his brother a knowing smile. “My theory is, she’s into porn.”

“And my theory is, you’re an asshole.”

“The hell you say.” Still smiling, Kennedy popped him a good one.

Thomas repaid him with interest, and before long they were rolling around on the floor, throwing insults along with punches. Half pissed but enjoying every minute of it.

“Hey! Show a little respect!” Their dad glowered at them from the entrance to the living room. “Riggs is trying to decide whether or not to pull the trigger.” In the background Thomas could hear the Lethal Weapon score.

“You’ve seen that movie a dozen times,” Kennedy said. “You know he’s not going to kill himself.”

“It’s a holiday tradition,” their dad insisted.

Some people made gingerbread houses. Some went caroling. Mac MacCormack watched Lethal Weapon, his favorite Christmas movie.         

#

Hailey poked her head into the kitchen. Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker played softly in the background. Her mom, looking like a teenager in jeans and a T-shirt, her fine, ash brown hair pulled back in a clip, stood at the stove stirring something in a big stainless-steel pot. “What are you making? Do you need any help?”

Her mom glanced up with a smile, her hazel eyes dancing. “Caramels as a surprise for Mac. And no, I’ve got it covered, but I wouldn’t mind a little company. What have you been up to?”

“I was writing until Thomas interrupted me. Then Kennedy came barging in the front door and—”

“He does live here,” her mother pointed out. She glanced at the clock on the stove. “Kennedy just now got home? Where’s he been all this time?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Then why are you scowling?”

“Because I have a pretty good idea.” The prince kissed the comely maiden, unaware that she was really the evil witch in disguise.

“Cheerleader?” her mom said, which was a little unsettling since she’d never mentioned Trisha to her mom. She was pretty sure Kennedy hadn’t, either.

“How’d you guess?”

“Boys like Kennedy always go for the cheerleaders.”

Which definitely placed Hailey out of the running. She tried—and failed—to imagine herself jumping up and down and shaking her pom-poms.

“Blonde?” her mom said.

“Very. And blessed with big bazooms.” She cast a furtive glance down at her own meager chest.

Her mom must have noticed because the corners of her mouth twitched in a combination of sympathy and amusement. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I was a late bloomer, too.”

Like she hadn’t heard that before.  And yeah, Hailey knew she probably hadn’t hit the pinnacle of sexual allure, but still... “I just wish Kennedy would look at me the way he looks at Trisha.”

“Trisha. That would be the cheerleader.”

Hailey nodded glumly.

“Don’t worry,” her mom said. “Kennedy appreciates you. If it weren’t for your help, he’d be failing physics.”

“Big whoop,” she said. “Appreciating my brain is not the same as appreciating my girlfriend potential.”

Her mom removed the pan from the heat, detached the candy thermometer, stirred in two cups of pecans, then dumped the mixture into a greased pan to cool. “Want to lick the spoon?”

“Sure.” Hailey took the caramel-coated spoon and skinned off a little of the candy with her teeth.

“Be careful. It’s hot,” her mom cautioned as if she were five instead of fifteen.

Hailey tested the caramel with the tip of her tongue. Hot. Very hot. So hot she had to suppress an “ouch.” Well worth the pain, though. Her mom made the world’s best caramel.

“You said you were writing earlier. How’s it going?” Her mom glanced pointedly at the battle-scarred composition book.

Hailey shrugged and took another bite of the no-longer-hot-enough-to-blister-her-tongue candy. “Thomas thought it was good.”

Her mother’s eyes widened. “You showed it to Thomas?”

Hailey shrugged again. “He’s a writer, too.” Plus editor of his school paper. True, he didn’t write fiction, but words were words.

“And Thomas thought your story was good?”

“‘Really good.’ That’s a direct quote.”

“Hmm.” Her mom nodded, then smiled. “Well then.”

Hailey raised her eyebrows. “Well then what?”

Her mom suddenly became very busy at the sink. “Oh, nothing,” she said.

Parent speak for “definitely something but don’t bother to ask what because I’m not going to tell you.” Hailey sighed. "Grown-ups.”

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