Down Home Carolina Christmas. Pamela Browning

you know?”

      Whip nodded morosely. Luke unlocked the door and led the way through the cavernous and murky interior of the house, which was furnished in fragile antiques and dusty velvet draperies. Needless to say, the decor wasn’t much to Luke’s taste. Back in California, he lived in Malibu, where he enjoyed a wide-angle view of the ocean. He felt closed in here, confined.

      They stopped at the bar off the living room, cadged a couple of beers from the refrigerator and made themselves as comfortable as they could on the wrought-iron benches that occupied the walled brick terrace. Fish in the koi pond swam to the edge, eyeing them curiously and no doubt anticipating a handout. Luke had been feeding them bread crusts every evening.

      “So, Whip, are we still going to start filming after Labor Day and finish before Christmas?” Luke asked.

      “I hope so, as long as your costar behaves herself.”

      “Tiffany will be okay,” Luke said, though he was far from sure of that. He’d worked with Tiffany Zill before and knew her to be emotionally frail, though she was a decent actress when she had a good director. At the moment, he wasn’t interested in discussing his female lead. He’d rather think about Carrie Smith’s wide blue eyes, the slim line of her throat, the high curve of her breasts shifting beneath that thin summery cotton bodice.

      “We’ve still got a few problems to iron out on this job,” Whip said, propping his feet up on a nearby chair. “I worry about it.”

      “Fill me in,” Luke said. With a good bit of his own money tied up in the movie, he was interested in all aspects of production.

      “I’m still bummed out that we can’t build sets in the old roller-bearing factory,” Whip said. “I’m planning to ride over first thing in the morning to check on an old garage in Mullins. It has the requisite battered gas pumps and tires with no tread stacked out back.” He pulled a photo out of his shirt pocket and passed it to Luke. “Check this out.”

      Luke studied the picture, which showed a garage a lot like Smitty’s, though he was willing to bet it wouldn’t have a proprietor as comely as Carrie. “Where the hell is Mullins?” he asked, passing the picture back.

      “Halfway to the coast,” Whip said. “About an hour away from Yewville.”

      “There’s a local garage that might do,” Luke said carefully. “I met the owner today.”

      “You mean that place downtown? Smitty’s?”

      “That’s the one.”

      “It’s still a working garage. This place in Mullins is old. Abandoned. We could get it for practically nothing.”

      “Since when did money matter?”

      “Since Fleur Padgett decided to hire a whole bunch of locals for the racetrack scenes. She says it will make the movie more authentic.” Fleur was the casting director for Dangerous and known for her excesses.

      “Yancey Goforth used to hang out at Smitty’s. I met the owner today, and she—”

      “She?” Whip said, narrowing his eyes. “Smitty is a she?”

      “Her name is Carolina Rose Smith.” Speaking her name called to mind those shapely legs, the soothing cadence of her softly accented voice. She was a charmer, that Carrie Smith.

      “I’ve already committed to vetting the Mullins place,” Whip said.

      Luke shifted uncomfortably and decided on another tack. “I could really get into those garage scenes if we film in a place Yancey Goforth probably visited many times. You know what I mean, dig down deeper into his character.” Luke wasn’t sure if this was true or not, but it was a decent argument, and besides, he suddenly realized, he wanted to see Carrie again. He thought about the deft movement of her long narrow hands as she’d poured peanuts into her Coke and the lilt in her voice when she’d asked him what he thought of her hometown. She’d pronounced Coca-Cola Co-Cola. A lot of people did that around here, but from her, the colloquial abbreviation seemed perfect.

      “Would you like to go with me to Mullins?” Whip asked hopefully. “I’d appreciate your input.”

      “No, Whip. I’m going to do some hanging out with the locals this week, try to absorb Yancey’s background, get a handle on how he thought, lived, loved.”

      “I can respect that. I understand as well as you do that Dangerous is your big break. You’re ideal for the role of Yancey Goforth, and everyone else is just fluff.”

      “Fluff?”

      “What I’m saying is that a lot depends on you.”

      “We’re working with a great script, a fine cast, a fantastic director.” Luke had found the script himself, pitched it to Whip and lobbied for Tiffany as his costar. He heartily approved of the director, whose successes at the box office were legend in the business. “And don’t forget that Southern is in,” he added.

      Whip nodded in agreement. “‘Southern’ is stupendous, packs in the audiences. And it doesn’t hurt that Tiff has the best unfake boobs in Hollywood.”

      “Let’s not get hung up on sex appeal,” Luke said sharply. “Tiffany can act.”

      “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m just saying—well, you know what I’m saying.”

      Luke certainly did. He had been listening to Whip’s overblown views for months, and a little of that went a long way. At the moment, Luke found it much more enjoyable to think about Carrie Smith and how glad he was that he’d kept the conversation perking along today until she dropped her prickly facade.

      Whip appeared ready to launch into another oration, which Luke didn’t want to hear. “Ready for another beer?” he asked as he stood up to head for the house, which seemed like the perfect place to marshal his thoughts into a more orderly procession.

      “And some chips if you have them,” Whip called after him.

      Rummaging for snacks in the ample pantry, Luke wondered what Carolina Rose Smith did on Sunday afternoons. And with whom. And if there was the slightest chance that he might be able to insert himself, if ever so briefly, into her life.

      A FEW DAYS AFTER Luke showed up at Smitty’s, Carrie and her younger sister, Dixie Lee, were digging into banana splits at the Eat Right Café as they discussed the most important events in their lives, which they did several times a month. From outside came the racket of hammers and saws as the movie people went about their work of transforming simple Yewville into a Hollywood movie set.

      “I’m telling you, Carrie, you should sell the home place and move into the Livingston Apartments. We have a swimming pool and everything.” Dixie took a huge bite of banana and chocolate sauce, rolling it around on her tongue appreciatively.

      “‘Everything’ includes people slamming doors at all hours and stumbling over garbage cans in the hall. I’ll stay put, thanks.”

      “I can’t understand why you’re so attached to that big house,” Dixie said. “When Mert left, you had a chance to get out. I don’t know why you didn’t.” Mert was Carrie’s former boyfriend. He was a mobile-home installer.

      “The home place is precisely why I downgraded Mert to a long-distance relationship. You can’t seriously believe I’d have been better off in a double-wide with him, not to mention that it was located way upstate in Spartanburg,” Carrie said.

      “Mert misses you. Everyone says so.”

      “Well, I don’t miss him. Plus, I love the home place.”

      Dixie shrugged at the preposterousness of this assertion. “It’s not like we grew up in that house, and it’s a hundred years old. You’ll have to do something about that sagging porch one of these days, and you said yourself the roof is on borrowed time. The place is a maintenance nightmare.”

      “Our father was reared on