Return to Christmas

by Anne Stuart

  Chapter 5

  Madison was tempted to run when Rosa pulled her out onto the main floor for a brief moment, but before she could take her chance, Rosa had already opened a door behind an abandoned sales counter and dragged her through. She closed it, and Madison realized they were standing in one of Macy’s famous windows, the outside screened from sight by a canvas curtain letting in only filtered sunlight.

  “’Bout time,” Johnny Larsen grumbled from the corner, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Rosa said saucily, handing him the red plaid thermos of coffee she’d brought from the dining room, then unburdened herself of two white-bread sandwiches and an apple. “I was showing Mollie around, answering some of her questions.”

  He glanced at Madison, his blue eyes arctic. And Rosa had said “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.” If that look conveyed any kind of warmth, then she hated to see what cold dislike would look like.

  “Did she answer any of yours?” he said, opening the tall thermos and pouring coffee into the metal cup.

  Johnny Larsen might terrify half of Macy’s male employees, but Rosa was more than a match for him. “Give it a rest, Johnny,” she said. “You wanna tell me all your secrets?”

  “No need. They’re boring.”

  Madison was getting a little tired of being discussed as if she wasn’t there. “So are mine.”

  He glanced at her. “So you admit you have them?”

  “Everybody does.” She didn’t look away. Probably a proper 1940s female was supposed to lower her gaze in submission to the mighty male of the species, but there was a limit to her willingness to conform, even temporarily. For a long moment, they stared at each other, and there was something there, something she couldn’t begin to define. It was darkness, and it was warmth, safety and danger, and the longer they looked at each other, the deeper she felt herself slipping into those cool, unreadable eyes.

  “Not me.” Rosa broke the moment, and Madison tore her glance away, unsettled. She didn’t need this. She was trapped in chaos—an alternative reality, a nightmare, a time-travel extravaganza. If she really were a time-traveler, why couldn’t she have gone somewhere interesting, like Regency England where she could hobnob with Jane Austen, or feudal Japan and hot samurais, or any place more exciting than working in a department store?

  Though she did love Macy’s. It was probably all the fault of Maureen O’Hara. From her earliest years, she and her mother would settle down by the TV with a giant bowl of popcorn and a bag of oranges and they would watch Christmas movies, including Miracle on 34th Street. It was no wonder this place felt eerily normal. She’d lived here before in two-hour increments, every holiday season.

  And really, if she had to visit an old Christmas movie, this was a lot better than Dickensian London. At least she wasn’t going to starve to death on the streets.

  Johnny drained his coffee and surged to his feet. “Let’s get to work. Miles to go before we sleep.”

  That was enough to surprise Mollie. “Frost has already written that?”

  Again the Colbert-esque eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean? Everyone knows ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.’”

  “It’s a great poem,” Madison said weakly. Changing the subject seemed a good idea. “What are we going to doing in here?”

  “Turning it into a Winter Wonderland, of course,” he said curtly.

  “Give her a break, big man,” Rosa said. “In fact, you’ve already told me the theory of this one—we can handle it. Why don’t you go away and be Scrooge somewhere else?”

  He looked at them both. His gaze didn’t linger on Madison a second longer than it did on Rosa, and there was no expression on his face. So why did she suddenly feel warm? Hot?

  “Not a chance,” he said finally. “Get moving.”

  It was physical work, divided between the three of them, which surprised her—she half expected him to sit back down and direct them, but he worked just as hard in the enclosed space as they set mesh against the three walls and covered it in some white, glittery substance that was probably asbestos, Madison thought grimly. Instead of leaving a flat finish, though, Johnny went behind Rosa and Madison, plucking at the stuff so that it seemed to be feathers floating. He was the only one tall enough to string up the ephemeral fairy puppets that moved through the space, their iridescent colors shimmering, and by the time he set up the small fan and the revolving light fixture, all Madison could do was stand back, breathless.

  It was beautiful, and oddly heartbreaking. It was a magic place of woodland fairies in a world with harsh angles lurking. The shimmering creatures drew you in, but in the distance, danger was waiting, and she couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  Rosa was equally rapt. Johnny, not so much. “It’ll do,” he said with a shrug.

  “It’ll do?” Madison echoed, too enchanted to be cynical. “It’s magical!”

  His look reminded her there was no such thing as magic. “We’ll need to check it from the outside, but we can’t until most people are in bed. In the meantime, I’m moving on to window forty-one. You girls can take a break.”

  She ground her teeth at the word girls but wisely decided to keep her mouth shut. She wanted to offer to help. He’d gone to art school in Rhode Island, and she’d gone to Pratt herself, only to end up using her talents to sell things as so many art students did, including the tall man who was busy ignoring her. She could just imagine his reaction if she did.

  Besides, she was on the ground floor, with customers milling through the store and doors that had to be open. She could leave this window enclosure and walk straight back into 2020, never seeing Johnny Larsen again.

  Not that it mattered. He had no use for her, and she certainly wasn’t interested in some caveman throwback to earlier times. Except, come to think of it, he was in his own time—she was the one who’d been thrown back.

  ““Later,” she said brightly, reaching for the door panel.

  “Huh?” Rosa said. Johnny just looked at her.

  Damn, she did like his eyes. That bright, icy blue did things to her insides. When she got back to her computer, please God, she could track him down. Maybe he had a son. Or no, a grandson, God help her. Someone who looked kind of like him but with modern sensibilities. She might even track him down, find out what happened to him, but the sudden thought of an elderly John Hansen was distressing. It didn’t matter if he was a grinch, though she suspected the colorful green character had yet to see the light of day. She still wanted Johnny young and alive and vital. She still wanted him to be eternal, living in this odd Brigadoon of a place.

  The store was packed as she made her way through the crowds—apparently people started shopping early even back then. Rosa was by her side, a thoughtful expression on her face as they threaded their way through the crowds.

  “Where are you headed?” she asked as Madison dodged between one fur-bedecked matron and a young mother with a baby pram.

  “I thought I’d get some fresh air,” she said ingenuously. “Want to join me?”

  Rosa shook her head, as Madison had known she would. “It’s too cold. You can get pneumonia if you want to,” she said as she dissolved back into the crowds.

  “’Bye, Rosa,” Madison whispered, trying to ignore the strange reluctance inside her. “Don’t let him be too big a pain.” But there was no longer any sign of her.

  Slowly, carefully Madison moved through the milling customers, heading toward one of the revolving doors on the side—Thirty-Fourth Street and Sixth Avenue, facing toward Gimbels, only to find a sign was tied to the motionless doors. “Out of order.”

  Obviously, she wasn’t going to let that get in her way. Moving toward the front, she focused on the doors there, hidden behind the mass of shoppers. She couldn’t even remember which door she’d come in—that might make a difference in her escape. God, what if one door let her out in some awful time like the Depression? Or worse—prehistoric New York? She had no intentio
n of being eaten by a dinosaur.

  She was being ridiculous, she reminded herself as she ducked her head and kept moving. For one thing, dinosaurs weren’t alive when humans were. For another, they hadn’t found any fossils in New York, though she could always check at the Museum of Natural History.

  This whole thing was ridiculous. These things simply didn’t happen, except maybe in Hallmark movies.

  She felt that familiar, clawing panic set in, and she clamped down on it once more. She was not going to lose it. She’d already decided that as long as she was in this bizarre reality, her only choice was to treat it as normal, and even if escape was presumably just a few yards away, past all these people, she couldn’t afford to freak out. She’d do it on the cold, New York City sidewalk, get in a taxi, and take herself straight to Bellevue.

  “Oops, sorry.” She bumped into a skinny man in a tweed suit, and he glared at her. Backing away, she came up against an older woman in a fur coat.

  “I beg your pardon,” the matron said in icy tones, and Madison retreated farther into the crowd. She needed to stay calm; escape was just beyond the next clump of people.

  Except that it wasn’t. The more she struggled against the crowd, the less progress she made. The onslaught of shoppers was solid and endless, and no matter how she bobbed and weaved, she couldn’t seem to get any closer.

  Suddenly she froze, and someone plowed into her, almost knocking her over. The girl threw her an angry glance before shoving past, intent on some bargain, but Madison couldn’t bring herself to care. She was frozen to the spot as the truth finally began to penetrate.

  She wasn’t going to get to the door, any more than she could have opened any of them last night. She glanced down at her hands that were now balled into fists. She could still see the bruises she’d gotten from beating against the glass. If she tried it tonight, those doors still wouldn’t open; if she kept struggling against the crowds, she’d never reach the front of the store. She was trapped.

  Was this hell? Had her own personal Twilight Zone decided that since she liked to shop a bit too much she’d be doomed to spend eternity trapped inside the world’s greatest store in the busiest season of the year? Or was it her addiction to old movies that had decided her fate? WTF had happened to her?

  It started in the back of her throat, the tight, panicked feeling. She’d felt the same way when Philip Ronson had put his slimy hands on her, just yesterday. She coughed, trying to dislodge it, but it simply expanded, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She had to get out of there before she exploded. She had to run, but she was surrounded, trapped, there was no escape, and she could feel her scream bubbling up inside her as tears burned in her eyes. She never cried in public—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d allowed it to happen. She was frozen to the spot, a shaking, gasping mess, on the verge of total implosion when she suddenly felt strong arms around her, and she was turned and pulled against a warm, hard chest.

  She pressed her face against Johnny’s Oxford blue shirt, breathed in his scent, put her arms around his waist, and held on to the one solid thing she believed in.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Larsen?” It was a smooth voice from behind her, one she’d never heard, but Johnny’s arms simply tightened.

  “No problem at all, Mr. Ratchett,” he said coolly.

  “Then why are you embracing an employee in the middle of the store?”

  “She’s had some bad news. I’m taking her out of here.”

  “See that you do.” There was a pause, and she could feel eyes on her back, calculating, and she wanted to shiver, but even more, she wanted to hold onto Johnny. “Have her come see me when she’s calmed down.”

  “I’m taking care of it. She’s not your responsibility.”

  “Everything on these floors is my responsibility.”

  Johnny muttered “shit” beneath his breath. “Not my staff,” he said out loud. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Miss Mollie needs to get out of these crowds.”

  She wanted to rub her face against his chest. There was something so big, so warm, so solid, that he seemed to be the only real thing in this world of craziness, and she wanted to dissolve into him, away from the noise and the crowds.

  Before Ratchett could respond, Johnny had managed to turn her so that she was still mostly pressed against him, shepherding her through the crowds, and she closed her eyes, letting him.

  “Just a few minutes longer,” he said, his voice rumbling in her ear. “Just hold on.” He guided her into an elevator, and she tightened her hold on him as they were borne upward.

  You’ll be fine, she told herself. No need to panic. But her muscles were rigid, her breathing caught in her throat, and she just needed...

  “I’m here,” he said in her ear, stroking her back. She heard the door open, he pushed her through, and suddenly they were alone in a dim, silent place.

  He released her, just the slightest bit, turning her so that he could look down at her, and she tried to focus, but she was shaking so hard she thought she might shake apart. She closed her eyes, trying to breathe normally, but it was a lost cause, and to her absolute shock, Johnny Larsen scooped her up in his arms, actually carried her, pushing through the double doors into the dimly-lit floor where he’d been working earlier.

  She thought he’d release her then, but he didn’t. He simply managed to slide down onto the floor, with her still tucked in his arms, against his chest, and he leaned back, never loosening his hold on her. “Go ahead,” he said quietly. “You can scream now.”

  She wanted to. Needed to. But now that she had permission, the scream had died in her throat, choking her. He pulled her legs across his lap, making himself comfortable, and took her free hand and placed it on his strong shoulder. She heard a rough little laugh. “At least cry, for Christ’s sake.”

  That she could do. The sob broke, a great noisy one that she tried to gulp back, but Johnny simply murmured, “That’s better. Again.”

  The dam burst, and she was lost. She cried, she sobbed, she blubbered. Her nose ran, and he handed her a white linen handkerchief. She choked, she hiccupped, and then she cried some more, all the while he stroked her back, her face, and murmured soft, comforting words that didn’t make sense and didn’t need to. Her fear was slowly ebbing away, replaced with complete exhaustion and the inescapable belief that she’d never felt so safe in her entire life.

  It was too much, to go from complete panic to utter calm, and she still shook, trying to contain all the things that were trying to tear her skin apart. He was stroking her face now, his long fingers brushing the tears away with exquisite care, and she let that tenuous calm slide through her. Her sobs and hiccups slowed, then began to die away, until she was able to take one deep, shaky breath and let go, sinking into him.

  “Feeling better?” he murmured in her ear.

  She nodded, managing to slam her head against his chin with the gesture, and she gasped in horror, trying to sit up.

  But Johnny Larsen only gave a rusty laugh and pulled her back again. “Stay put,” he said. “You need some time to pull yourself together before you face anyone else.”

  She wanted to protest, but let it go as his hands continued to work their magic. Another leftover shudder swept through her, and she tried to sit up.

  “Are we going to have a wrestling match here on the floor?” he said, his voice laconic. “I’m not letting go of you until I think you’ve calmed down enough, and all the struggling won’t do you any good. Close your eyes and breathe.”

  “I am breathing,” she said flatly as another lingering sob fought for control. “And you’re a bully.”

  “You just figure that out? You should have asked Rosa. She’ll tell you I’m the world’s biggest pain in the butt.”

  What had Rosa said about him? He’s a good man. “Yup, that’s what she said all right.”

  “Sure she did. I’m not nearly as good a man as she thinks I am, and not as bad as you’ve decided. Did you get any sleep last n
ight? Anything to eat besides doughnuts and coffee? Because you’re a mess, sister.”

  Sister was a marginal improvement over “girl.” She took another shaky breath. “No, yes, but not much, and there is no doubt whatsoever that I’m a hot mess.”

  If her instinctive phrase surprised him, he said nothing. “So shut up and stop fighting me. When you’re calmer, you can tell me what the hell is going on.” As an afterthought he added, “Beg pardon.” And then he laughed, and the soft rumble beneath her head was incredibly soothing. “I forgot, you have a mouth on you. So what the hell is going on?”

  If she pushed him, he was going to push right back, and she had no intention of saying a word. Johnny hadn’t believed her when she tried to tell him the truth, not that she could blame him, and if she persisted, he would probably use it as an excuse to have her hauled off, which would land her in Bellevue, where she had every intention of ending up, but there was a world of difference between 1947 and 2020.

  If she went now, she’d end in a straitjacket with enough electroshock therapy flowing through her to light up a small city, and as far as she knew no one had even heard the term “patient’s rights” in the previous century. No, she didn’t dare take the chance.

  Which meant she was on her own, which she’d always known, but sitting draped across Johnny Larsen’s lap, held in his strong arms, she didn’t feel alone. She let out a sigh that only wobbled slightly. She just needed to keep her mouth shut and take what help she could get, which right then consisted of Johnny’s uncharacteristic tenderness. She could sink into his body, his warmth, just dissolve into him and let go.

  The last bit of tension left her body, and she realized she’d been strung tighter than a...whatever...since she’d walked through those revolving doors. She’d been so desperate to keep her panic in check that Johnny was right—she’d barely been breathing.