Holiday Havoc by Terri Reed Read Free Book Online Page B

forward to spending a relaxed evening with her. Hoping to get to know her better. So far he really liked her. Liked her kind and warm-hearted nature when she wasn’t watching him with wariness in her pretty eyes.
    After a dinner of clam chowder, bread and freshgreen salad, Sean, Lauren and Aunt Mary moved to the living room. Sean noticed how much more animated and lively Lauren had become throughout the course of the afternoon. She’d slept for another couple of hours before venturing out of her room again.
    At one point, when he’d come down for a bottle of water, he’d found the two women chatting away about color schemes and accessories for the rooms he was working on. Somewhere Aunt Mary had found a crutch for Lauren to use. And later, when he’d stopped for the day, he’d discovered them bent over a jigsaw puzzle laid out on the game table in the parlor.
    He’d known Lauren would be a good distraction for his aunt and his aunt a good distraction for Lauren. He just hadn’t thought someone as obviously wary as Lauren would bond so soon. Aunt Mary had a way of making people feel welcome.
    He wished Lauren would loosen up with him, as well. Earning her trust was becoming very important to him, though he couldn’t pinpoint why.
    He sat in a wingback chair close to the warmth of the stone gas fireplace, sipping from a large mugful of cocoa. The day’s newspaper lay next to him waiting to be read. Colorful lights danced on the tree near the front window.
    Lauren left the puzzle and, using the crutch, hobbled over to a matching chair next to him, while Mary settled across from them on a small love seat, tucking a blanket around her legs.
    â€œTell us what it was like growing up in Hollywood,” Mary said.
    Sean sat forward. Lauren had opened up that muchto Aunt Mary? Being from Hollywood was more telling than just L.A.
    A pensive smile touched Lauren’s lips. “Did you ever see the early-nineties TV show 90210? ”
    Mary shook her head. “I’ve never been big on television.”
    â€œI’ve seen the reruns and the newer version,” Sean offered, thinking of the young and beautiful teens full of angst, navigating high school in a world of wealth and privilege. A world foreign to him. He’d grown up in a middle-class suburb of Portland, full of soccer moms and working dads. He and his siblings had had their share of teen issues—finding the right crowd, having a limited budget for clothes. Certainly having a car was out of the question especially since they lived two blocks from the high school—but nothing as dramatic as what the TV show portrayed.
    â€œI grew up in that same zip code, but my experience was nothing like the show, even though my father was a movie producer. I lived in a middle class part of town.”
    Sean figured even middle class Hollywood was more affluent than the suburb he’d grown up in. Lauren didn’t appear pretentious at all. Another reason to admire her.
    Mary’s eyes widened with interest. “Ooh, swanky.”
    Lauren’s mouth quirked. “He and my mother met on a movie set. She was an extra with stars in her eyes for fame and glory. She chose being the wife of an up-and-coming movie mogul over pursuing her own career. But when I was three, Dad left her for a younger starlet.” She smiled grimly. “Such a cliché.”
    Sean’s heart ached for the pain he could tell she wastrying to hide. Her father’s desertion of his family had left a wound on her soul. From his experience working with teens, Sean had seen firsthand how devastating an absent father could be on a child. It was always worse when the father remarried and cleaved to his new family, leaving his children to suffer heartbreak.
    Remembering Lauren’s comment about her father being dead, he asked, “When did he die?”
    â€œA few years later in a skiing accident in Colorado. From then on it was just