Down Home Carolina Christmas. Pamela Browning

he really mean that about not being as good-looking as Yancey? The admission was a bit of humility that was totally unexpected.

      Luke fished a few coins out of his pocket. He wore snug-fitting jeans, and his thigh muscles rippled under the denim. He stepped up to the Coca-Cola machine and dropped in a series of quarters. Two Cokes slid to the bottom with a clunk, and Luke handed her one.

      “I don’t…” she began, staring down at it.

      “Of course you do,” he said smoothly as he popped the top off his Coke with the opener attached to the machine. After a moment, Carrie opened her bottle, too. She sipped, studying Luke Mason. Somewhat to her amazement, he wasn’t wearing a gold chain necklace like every other male who lived in California, if you were to believe those TV shows where they told you everything you never wanted to know about celebrities.

      “This is the best Coca-Cola I’ve had in ages,” he said consideringly. “It’s hard to find the old-time six-ounce glass bottle anymore. Vending-machine Coke usually comes in cans.”

      This at least was something Carrie knew about. “Granddaddy put that machine in. It’s one of the few left in the state. The price has gone up since the old days, though. I remember when a Coke used to cost a quarter.” She couldn’t have explained her chattiness, couldn’t have said why she was running on about soda pop as if it was the most important topic in the world.

      “I remember those days, too,” he said with a grin.

      Carrie reined in her motor mouth and contemplated how to bring up the topic of his leaving. She didn’t want to say that she was supposed to be cooking a big dinner for her family right now because it would be rude not to invite him once she’d mentioned it.

      “So you’ve been in Yewville for about a week?” she ventured politely when the silence began to grow awkward.

      “Eight days,” he told her. “Getting acclimated and soaking up the atmosphere that produced Yancey Goforth back in the 1950s.”

      “And what’s your impression of our little town?”

      “I like it,” he replied, surprising her. Most strangers found Yewville quaint at best and boring at worst. Yewville didn’t have a movie theater. No store in town had an elevator. Cell phones didn’t always work here, and the water tasted funny.

      “What do you like about it?” Carrie asked with interest, warming to him a tad more.

      “People are friendly. I feel welcome.”

      Well, duh. As her sister, Dixie, might say, who wouldn’t welcome a hunky movie star to a small town where the local National Guard unit had shipped out to the Middle East and the other eligible guys were hopeless losers. But, “Southerners are famous for hospitality,” Carrie said primly.

      “And rightly so.” He paused as a wistfulness passed over his features. “I grew up in a town not much bigger than this in New Hampshire. My parents still live there, but it’s been almost a year since I’ve seen my folks,” he said, and she detected a hint of sadness in his tone.

      “What a shame,” Carrie murmured, truly sorry for him. She couldn’t imagine a life that kept her from being with her family.

      For a moment, a pensiveness flitted across his face, and she sensed that it hid an underground pain. “I don’t have brothers or sisters,” he said, “and my parents don’t like California much. Over the years we’ve lost a good bit of family feeling, even though we talk on the phone a lot. I’d like to fly my folks down here while I’m on location, but I can’t get them to commit to a date.” By the time he wound up his last sentence, he’d already masked the emotions that had surfaced so briefly.

      Abstractedly, confounded at the way Luke Mason had confided in her, she lifted the wide wooden lid off the glass jar on her desk and removed a package of salted peanuts.

      “Want some?” she offered him, figuring that he’d refuse, but he said, “Okay.”

      Wordlessly she slid the package over to Luke. He reached for his pocket, but she shook her head. “No need to pay. It’s on the house.” It was the least she could do, taking into account that he seemed to lead a deprived life. No family, no sense of home, maybe nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon than fill his car’s tires with air.

      She dumped the peanuts in her Coke, which fizzed slightly. The top of the package was the perfect size to fit over the mouth of the bottle.

      “Strange local custom?” Luke asked.

      “Don’t they do this in California? Try it. Go on.”

      He shrugged and smiled. “If you insist,” he said. “Are you supposed to fish the peanuts out or what?”

      Carrie was amused. “Drink the Coke, and the peanuts roll into your mouth when you upend the bottle.” She wondered how some people could be so ignorant, no matter where they were from.

      “Stop grinning like that. I’m here to learn.” He upended the bottle, munched the peanuts and nodded slowly. “Pretty good,” he conceded.

      When she didn’t say anything, he said, “Ms. Smith—”

      “You can call me Carrie,” she interrupted. “Everyone else does.”

      “Carrie, maybe you don’t realize how much money Whip Productions will pay you to use your garage for filming. We’re talking, say, twenty thousand dollars or so.”

      So he was back to that again. Twenty thousand dollars was all well and good, but if her regular customers couldn’t buy gas from her, couldn’t count on her for a fast lube, they might transfer their business to the new Quik-Stop out on the bypass, where they could stock up on milk and bread delivered fresh twice a week from Columbia. And why would she want to go temporarily out of business, leaving her loyal customers to scramble for decent auto care? They deserved better than that.

      “It’s a lot of money, but I still say no,” Carrie said, displaying considerable stubbornness.

      “Here,” Luke said, pulling a business card out of his shirt pocket. “I’m usually not active on the production side of the business, but you can call this number if you change your mind.”

      Carrie glanced curiously at the address.

      “That’s Whip Larson’s headquarters in the old office building at the seed farm,” he said. “He’s the producer of Dangerous, and I’m sure he’d like to hear from you.”

      “I don’t believe I’ll be phoning him, Mr. Mason.”

      Luke shrugged. “If you’re Carrie, then I’m Luke. And I guess it’s up to you whether you take us up on the offer.” He smiled, which made his dimple flash, and drained the rest of his Coke.

      Luke Mason didn’t say he ought to be going now, like any of the people she knew would have done. He didn’t thank her for teaching him the joys of peanuts in Coke, and most important, he didn’t say to have a nice day. He merely favored her with an appreciative up-and-down glance, walked over to the Ferrari and slid gracefully behind the steering wheel. He switched the engine on and revved it a few times to show off, after which he did his best to accelerate from zero to sixty in nine seconds, which in his car was doable.

      As the Ferrari disappeared in a cloud of dust, Carrie shrugged and smiled ruefully to herself. Yankees, she thought. They really don’t understand how to be polite. But Luke Mason, for all his shortcomings, sure had a great car.

      And an unexpectedly captivating personality. Not that this meant anything to Carrie Smith. Not that it ever could.

      Chapter Two

      After leaving Smitty’s, Luke Mason drove straight to the house he was renting, a sprawling white-columned mansion that was too big for him by far. Whip Larson was sauntering moodily around the side yard, hands in the pockets of his slacks and a bored expression on his face as he contemplated the zinnias in the flower bed, which were shriveling