probably an unfair hiring practice, punishable under the equal opportunities act.”
“Actually, I think it’s impersonating an elf that is punishable by something.” For some horrible reason the word spanking came to mind and for a minute she had to close her eyes and picture freshly filleted perch. When she opened them, she said, more weakly than she intended, “Forced ingestion of Christmas cake, egg nog and Christmas carols!”
Still no smile, but just a hint of something in those mysterious eyes, the tiniest spark of sunlight flashing across green ice.
“Now who is impersonating whom?” he asked. “I heard you claim on the phone you were Santa. An obvious lie. Santa would never think of cake, egg nog and carols as a punishment. Plus, no white beard, no belly like jelly.”
She was the one who smiled then, reluctantly delighted by this spontaneous, dangerous exchange with a most mysterious stranger on a dull, gray afternoon. She smiled until the exact moment she became aware, and acutely so, that he was inspecting her!
She realized she looked about as far from the heroine of a happily ever after kind of story as anyone could look. The warehouse section of the building, behind her office, could get cold and very dusty. She was wearing a faded brown skirt, warm tights, sensible shoes, a cardigan worn at the elbows. Her hair suddenly seemed horrible, and she wished she would have let Lulu, one of the volunteers, streak the mousy-brown to blond last week when the woman had practically begged her to let her do it.
“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