Cara Colter Read online

  “Kirstie” Lulu had said. “You’re twenty-three. You shouldn’t look forty!”

  Naturally, now she wondered if she looked forty today! That, she told herself, was what a man did.

  All of a sudden, a woman who had not been on a serious date in four years on purpose was worried about her cardigan and her hair color and was thinking, wistfully, of the donation of twenty-four shades of lipstick sitting, unopened, on her desk.

  All of a sudden a woman who was pragmatic to a fault was thinking if Cinderella can do it, so can I.

  “I can’t help it if your vision of Santa is limited,” she said, trying valiantly not to show how flustered her own treacherous thoughts were making her. “Around here, I am Santa. Or at least the spirit of Santa. I make sure the kids in this neighborhood get Christmas gifts.”

  “Even the most liberal of them must be shocked to find out you’re Santa,” he said.

  He did not seem moved by her altruism. If anything, a cynical line deepened around his mouth. It annoyed Kirsten to realize that she wanted him, a complete stranger, to be impressed with her activities and accomplishments, probably because she knew her appearance had failed to impress him in any way.

  “Well, they don’t find out. That’s why it’s the Secret Santa Society. We elect one of the volunteers to play Santa. The election is the highlight of our volunteer party.” Now she was giving him all kinds of dull information he couldn’t possibly want, and she was aware she felt aggravated and defensive.

  Why? Because of the cynical downturn of his mouth? Because he was looking at her like she was a Goody Twoshoes?

  Because she could have had her hair streaked and hadn’t?

  It was time, obviously, to end this encounter.

  “So, unless you’re going to sue me because I have no elf positions available, I have a lot of work to do.”

  When was the last time she’d been this rattled by a guy?

  That was easy. Her one and only serious relationship, her first year of college. James Moriarty. He’d pretended he liked her—no, was smitten with her—for a heady six weeks or so. He had really wanted help cheating on his math exam.

  And then there was Kent, her brother-in-law—ex-brotherin-law—pretending to be Mr. Boy-Next-Door, the perfect husband. But when the whole family had most needed him to be strong, what had he been doing? Playing footsie—and much more—with his secretary.

  She shivered. And that was why she was sworn off fairy tales. Men, in all their thousands of guises, were never what they wanted you to think they were. Especially fickle would-be ones like this one: big, athletic, sure of himself, drop-dead gorgeous.

  Though this man in front of her did seem to be without pretense, something so real lurking in the depths of those astonishing cold, hot eyes that it threatened her heart’s armor. She tried to put her finger on it. Lost? No, not quite, though the very thought added an intriguing layer to the man who stood there dripping confidence and melting snow.

  Predictably, he ignored her dismissal, “Even I’m not hardhearted enough to sue the Secret Santa Society.”

  Confirming what she already could see in the cast of his face. He was world-weary in some way. Cynical.

  Not the jovial grandfatherly type who usually stopped by to volunteer.

  “So, no available elf position,” she said. She fully intended for it to sound like a breezy dismissal, but even she could hear the renegade regret in her voice as if she truly would like to give him a position even though a man like him would never really volunteer at an organization like this, and even though she had decided she didn’t like him. Or at least didn’t like what he was doing to her. Then she blushed.

  It came without the warning heat in her chest first, no time to ward it off with visual images of fresh fillets. When she blushed, her whole face went crimson, from jawline to forehead, like a red Christmas light blinking to life.

  And then he did smile, finally, just a tease of one, a slight curl of lip, as if smiling might hurt him. The smile didn’t have a hope of touching what was in those eyes.

  “I can do other things,” he said. “Besides be an elf.”

  “Like what?” she gasped. Ridiculous to ask. He had said it reluctantly and she had already decided she wanted him out of here. He was the kind of man who could hurt a woman—especially one like her—very badly. He could do it without half trying, and he could do it without looking back.

  The smile was gone completely. He regarded her thoughtfully for a long moment. The moment stretched.

  She realized, wildly, that she had left herself wide-open. Of course there were other things he could do and do well. The shape of his lips, for instance, suggested he would be an amazing kisser. All kinds of men would have jumped on the opportunity to let her know that, and all the other skills that she was missing out on, too.

  But this man did not take the opportunity, thankfully, to flirt with her, even though he looked like a man who would be very comfortable flirting with women. Gorgeous women, who streaked their hair and managed to get some lipstick on every day, and wore hip-hugging tight jeans instead of frumpy brown skirts.

  Kirsten’s flirting days, if they could be called that, were far, far behind her. And somehow, maybe because of that secret his eyes were trying to tell her, she suspected his were, too.

  She thought he was not going to answer at all, And then he said, gruffly, reluctantly, “I guess that depends. Is there anything else you need done?”

  Her thoughts were renegade. What woman could be in a room with a man like this and not think of all the things a woman alone would like done?

  That little knot rubbed out of the tender place where her shoulder joined her neck, for starters.

  She was stunned at herself.

  Four years. Virtually a nun. Wanting it that way. The breakup of her sister Becky’s marriage—a love Kirsten had unabashedly idolized—had broken something in Kirsten, too. Becky and Kent had begun dating just after the James fiasco, and just as Kirsten’s own parents were ending their twenty-year union. Still a teenager, impressionable, hopeful, naive, Kirsten had transferred her need to believe in love—in forever—to Becky and Kent. Instead, in the end, they had reinforced her deepest fear: things that seemed strong could be so, so heartbreakingly fragile.

  “Is that why you’re here?” she said, not trying to hide her incredulity. “To volunteer?”

  He hesitated, nodded. Sort of nodded, the slightest inclination of his head. “I’m a carpenter by trade. Anything you need built?”

  She sighed. Even if she took his offer more practically, there was so much she needed done. Sixteen tricycles to begin with. Of course he wasn’t really here to help her, though there was nothing she could use right now like a strong, healthy man to unload trucks, to put heavy items up on high shelves. And a carpenter? Every year they built a sleigh to deliver gifts. It was built on top of the rickety flat-deck trailer in the warehouse. Every year she was amazed someone didn’t get hurt, and that it didn’t rattle apart.

  But to invite a temptation like him into her space? This was her world. It was where everything was in her control—and she wasn’t surrendering that for a better sleigh!

  Besides, she found it hard to believe he’d come here to volunteer. He just wasn’t the type. No, he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere, and decided to amuse himself at her expense for a few moments.

  In a fairy-tale world, he would be the answer to unassembled trikes and a safe sleigh for Santa. In a fairy-tale world he would be the answer to everything including the fact that sometimes in the night she awoke and felt almost weak with loneliness.

  But she had learned the brutally hard way there were no fairy tales, and a woman was wise to be totally independent, to rely only on herself.

  She folded her arms firmly over her chest.

  What was it, lingering just beneath that ice in his eyes, that made her think something else was there? Something that you could trust with your secret burdens?

  Something that
would break your heart in two more likely, she warned herself.

  As if her heart wasn’t already broken in two. Hers. Her sister’s. Her brother-in-law’s. Her nephew’s. A world that had seemed so strong, a vow that had seemed unbreakable, gone in one second.

  She turned back toward her office, remembering the relative safety of all her pressures, not wanting to dwell on things broken, a category this man seemed like he might fit in. She had no time for an encounter like this one, nor was she brave enough to find out exactly what his offhanded offer might mean.

  “I have to find an elf,” she said, dismissing him, yet again. “And fifty kids’ winter jackets would be nice. That’s what I need done.”

  There. That should be enough to scare him off.

  Then again, he did not have the look of a man easily scared. Silence. She glanced back at him. He had not moved, there was a little puddle on the floor where the snow was melting off of him. He was wearing a black leather jacket, worn, and not warm enough for today, and jeans with a hole clear through the knee, not a day to be showing bare skin, either.

  Rather than making him look poor, the old jacket and the worn jeans had a certain cachet.

  She realized she was looking at a man who didn’t care—not about what he looked like, not about the cold, maybe not about anything at all.

  He was exactly the kind of man her mother had always warned her about. But then that was one of the illusions she’d had to leave behind. That her mother knew best.

  Her mother, who couldn’t glue her own marriage back together, her mother who had approved of Kent for Becky…Kirsten shook her head, looked away from him, troubled, looked back in time to see him nod, once, curtly. He turned and disappeared back out the door, leaving another frosty wave in his wake.

  She was aware of craning her neck to see where he went, but the snow was still coming down hard, and he disappeared into it with a phantomlike quality, as if maybe he had never been in the first place.

  She frowned. She wasn’t quite sure what had happened there.

  “Strange encounter of the weird kind,” she said, shrugging it off and moving back to her office. She looked at her calendar. Thirty-nine days!

  Way, way too much to be done, and not nearly enough time left to do it. She had not one second to spare on thinking about green eyes like those ones. What was in them? Loneliness . No. Aloneness .

  Closer. The aloneness of a man who had seen hell, she decided. To feel sympathy for him, to be drawn toward the mystery in those eyes would be the most dangerous thing of all.

  Not one second, she chided herself. The door opened again, and she whirled back, disgusted that she wanted it to be him.

  But it wasn’t. It was Mr. Temple, the neighborhood postman, only these days he wasn’t just delivering her mail.

  “Those Johansson kids are poor. They don’t expect nothin’, they don’t even hope. Imagine those poor little mites not hopin’ for anything. I told them to just pretend it could happen.”

  “And?” she said.

  He passed her a note, a glisten in his eyes, her most enthusiastic researcher, neighborhood spy and conspirator.

  It had the boys’ address on it, she recognized it as a particularly dilapidated apartment on Fifth Street. Hans wanted a bike. Lars wanted a basketball.

  “Got it,” she said, and for a moment she felt the weight of these new wishes that had been entrusted to her. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t enough money or time. Every year it seemed she would run out of both, and every year miracles happened. A few more phone calls, a few more letters, a few more radio shows. Besides, it was always a relief to get requests that could be fulfilled. She had a file—the Impossible Dreams File—of ones that could not.

  “I’ve got something else for you, Kirstie.” He held it out with pleasure.

  She couldn’t believe it. “Where on earth did you get this?” she asked, taking the catalog reverently from him.

  “I’d tell you,” he kidded, “but then I’d have to kill you.”

  It was the Little in Love Special Christmas Catalog. Only those who had reached the tier of Serious Collector of the precious figurines received it, and Kirsten was fairly sure she would never be one of those. Currently she ranked on Tier One, a Little Fan. On the tiny salary she was paid here, she could manage only one new figurine a year. Including gifts, and the odd find at a secondhand store, Kirsten now owned twelve of the hundreds of figurines that were available.

  Little in Love was a collection of hand-painted porcelain bisque figurines that artist Lou Little had created in the 1950s. All the figurines were of a young couple, Harriet and Smedley, and depicted delightful scenes of their love. Little had captured something that captured hearts: innocence, wonder, delight in each other, and he never seemed to run out of material.

  Trying not to appear too eager or too rude, Kirsten scurried back to her office and shut the door. She opened the catalog with tender fingers and gasped.

  In an astonishing departure from tradition, the new Christmas collectibles were called A Little History and showed Harriet and Smedley in different times in history: here he was a World War I flying ace, leaning out of his plane to kiss Harriet goodbye, here he was as a pioneer building a Little house, Harriet looking on.

  Then she saw it. A Knight in Shining Armor. She thought it was the most beautiful Little piece she had ever seen with Smedley, visor up, astride a magnificent white horse, leaning down to kiss Harriet’s hand.

  She looked at the price, winced and mentally filed the piece—everything in this catalog—in her own impossible dreams file. Reluctantly, she put the catalog away. She would take it home with her and pore over the pictures later.

  Really, the catalog should have been more than enough to sweep that other encounter right from her mind. So she was amazed, and annoyed, that it had not. Her mind kept wandering from the bookkeeping tasks. Not that engrossing, but as the Secret Santa Society’s founder and only paid employee, one of her biggest responsibilities. Rather than Smedley on horseback proving a distraction to her afternoon, it was eyes as coolly green as pond ice that she kept thinking of.

  “And that is why you don’t even deserve to be a Serious Collector,” she reprimanded herself firmly.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WHEN Michael Brewster headed back out the door of The Secret Santa Society it was snowing harder. The office was on the mean end of Washington, most of the storefronts boarded up, shadows in the doorways. He noticed a man huddled in the doorway next to her building. Waiting for an opportunity to slip through that door and help himself?

  She had paper taped over her own windows, probably to keep kids from peeking in at all her top-secret activities, but from a security point of view it would have been better if she left the windows unblocked.

  Michael gave the man a look that sent him scuttling.

  It was not the kind of neighborhood where a woman should be working alone—especially not with every available space in the made-over store stuffed with, well, stuff. Teddy bears, MP3 players, trikes, dolls in cellophane wrappers, including those embarrassing two that had fallen into his hands.

  She was the kind of woman who made a guy feel protective. Maybe it was because her clothes had been baggy, that she had seemed tiny and fragile. Still, even with the lumpiness of the dress, she hadn’t been able to totally disguise slender curves, a lovely femininity that might make her very vulnerable at this desperate end of Washington. And it wasn’t as if she would have the physical strength to protect herself. Her wrists had been so tiny he had actually wanted to circle them between his thumb and pointer finger to see if they were as impossibly small as they looked.

  And those eyes! Intensely gray, huge, fringed with the most astonishing display of natural lash he had ever seen. Her eyes had saved her from plainness.

  Something about her reluctantly intrigued him—maybe the fact that she so underplayed her every asset.

  What was she thinking, being alone with all that stuff in this nei
ghborhood? Was she impossibly brave or simply stupid? Still, you had to give it to someone who was shopping around for an elf. There were probably special angels who looked after people like that.

  He frowned at the thought, renegade and unwanted. He, of all people, knew there were no special angels, not for anyone. So he had obeyed Mr. Theodore. He’d come to this address thinking he was going to find someone in worse shape than him.