He didn’t mean to laugh. But it was funny-the joke on him-that he’d been dreaming of the seventeen-year-old princess who ruled his body and then been rudely awakened by this grown-up, hassled-looking woman who gazed at him like he was a frog instead of a god.
Then the joke really was on him, because she glanced down at the kiddie squad. “Hey, everybody, remember how I couldn’t promise we’d have Santa to read you stories tomorrow? Because Santa was probably planning on riding the uh, big surf?”
Disgruntled nods all around.
“I was wrong. I’m certain our AWOL Santa will be here!”
The motley crew cheered. Bailey grinned at their enthusiasm.
Then she looked over at him. Her forefinger aimed at his chest.
U
Her hand curved into a circle.
O
Her thumb jutted backward, her lips formed the word.
Me.
Too late, Finn remembered he hadn’t wanted to know what exactly she meant by that.
Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas
Facts & Fun Calendar
December 8
In medieval England, people attended church at Christmas wearing Halloween-type masks and costumes. They’d sing rowdy songs and even roll dice on the altar.
Chapter 8
“You’re supposed to be nice to Santa,” Finn hissed, the words twitching the silvery beard and mustache strapped to his head beneath the plush red-and-white hat.
“Only if Santa has something in his bag I want,” Bailey retorted in a hushed voice, shoving a storybook into his hand. She looked down at the dozen or so little ones who were cross-legged on the floor in the front room of The Perfect Christmas for story hour. Their moms were either hovering at the edge of their semicircle or-better yet-edging away to look over merchandise and check price tags. “Now stop yapping and get ready to read.”
“I only asked for a glass of water.”
“No time,” she said, for his ears only. “The kiddies are here and we said we’d start at eleven on the dot. This is a business, Finn, and I don’t have time to hold your hand.”
She wished back the comment the minute she said it. It was all business at The Perfect Christmas, no matter that she’d dragged her old flame-a man whose hand she used to love to hold and also a man whom she’d had to admit to herself she was once again out-of-control attracted to-into playing Santa. But that had been a business decision too!
He’d been standing there yesterday afternoon, just as she’d finished an exhaustive hour doing the Pied Piper thing for a passel of sugar-buzzed, Christmas-crazed, two-legged little rats. The idea of having to read Christmas stories to a similar group the next day had made her want to run, screaming, for the Hollywood Hills.
With the surf up and her sales dude Byron heading beachside, she’d desperately needed a Santa more than she needed distance from Finn. Plus, he owed her, and he seemed to accept that fact.
Now if only his piratical take on St. Nick wouldn’t scare the kiddies or do any lasting psychological damage. It looked as if Sesame Street and those weird Wiggles (the store stocked both their Christmas CDs) had actually taught the kids to accept differences, however. Only one munchkin at Finn’s feet had made note of his patch-and then only to ask if he’d been poked in the eye by an antler. Finn had murmured something under his breath about a Red Ryder BB gun, and one of the younger mothers laughed. She was still there, cozying up to the kiddie circle.
Bailey checked the clock. “Go,” she said.
He glanced up at her.
A sharp pang pierced her, somewhere between her stomach and her throat. A bullet had wounded Finn, she thought, and not for the first time. It had taken one of his eyes.
He could have died.
Somehow she was suddenly holding his hand after all.
Frowning, he squeezed her fingers. “Bailey…”
She whipped her hand away. Business! “The book,” she said. “Start reading.”
With a little shrug, he turned away from her and opened the storybook in his hands.
With a lot of relief, she moved away from him and toward the cash register on the other side of the room. For several minutes her hands occupied themselves with organizing the pen cup and tidying the checks in the drawer even as her ears took in Finn’s low voice. She stole a look at him. It was kind of cute, really, to see the baddest boy she knew dressed up like the nicest man in the world, telling children a story.
Made you think about him as a dad some day-
No. It did not make Bailey think of him as a dad. No damn way. God, the sentimental glop The Perfect Christmas sold by way of merchandise and atmosphere was trying to wear off on her.
Turning her back on the storytime tableau, she thought about her real office, where people dressed in suits the colors of stone and dirt and ash. Her real work, where the kind of business conducted was just right for a hard-hearted, hard-headed realist like herself.
A place where people bled money, not red.
She found her gaze on Finn again, and she wrenched it away as the front door opened. Through it came the general-no, Captain Reed, the president of the chamber of commerce. With him was a woman with the battleship bustline and helmet hair of her elementary school principal. Bailey narrowed her eyes. It was her elementary school principal.
Both newcomers paused to watch Santa and his little buddies for several minutes, then made their way over to Bailey at the register.
The captain beamed. “I knew you would take care of things,” he said. Then he gestured to his buxom companion. “Do you remember Peggy Mohn?”
“Of course I do.” She nodded. “Principal Mohn.”
The older woman shot out her hand and squeezed Bailey’s fingers like she used to squeeze the upper arms of little kids who couldn’t stand still in the lunch line. “Bailey. Good to see you back home. I’ve left education and I’m now in medical equipment sales.”
Education was better off for the defection, Bailey thought, but she pitied the bedpans.
“Peggy’s also the VP of the chamber,” the captain added. “She’s an idea person, I’ll tell you. It was she who coordinated all these Christmas events among the local businesses.”
“Oh…nice.” Though thanks to the old battle-ax Bailey was within spitting distance of the first male she’d ever shared spit with-and whom she wanted to share spit with again.
“It’s been a great success,” Peggy put in. “Though I had a few bad moments when I heard The Perfect Christmas wouldn’t stand by its obligations.”
Her disapproving tone set Bailey’s neck hairs on fire. Not only had the old biddy tried to squelch every childish joy at Crown Elementary-she’d had the swings removed and there’d been a no-running rule on the playground-but Bailey didn’t like her intimations about shirking responsibility. While she might assert that her mother would have to wake up soon and smell the single-woman java, it wasn’t up to Peggy Mohn to stand in judgment. The older woman didn’t understand the hell her mother had gone through during her divorce from Bailey’s father. She did. The memory of the misery and the tears could still scratch like fingernails against the chalkboard of her mind.
Bailey’s voice sounded stiff. “Look…”