Return to Christmas

by Anne Stuart

  Don’t get off the couch, don’t get off the couch, he silently prayed. If she came any closer, he might not be able to keep his hands off her. “Then what’s keeping you here, Miss Madison?” He put deliberate emphasis on her name.

  He expected her to snap back—she was a born fighter, and he liked that. Instead, a brief, vulnerable expression flitted across her face, gone as soon as it had appeared. She opened her mouth to say something, then clearly thought better of it. “Oh, I’d miss your charming company and your manly charms. I’m absolutely a-quiver whenever I’m around you.”

  “There’s no need to be sarcastic,” he snapped. “Look, let’s face it. Society has rules, and there are good reasons for them. You put men and women together, alone, and you run into all sorts of trouble.”

  She laughed, though there was a bitter edge to it and his temper rose. “Oh, I forgot, men are so weak they can’t be trusted alone around women or their animal lusts take over. You afraid you’re gonna rape me, Larsen?”

  “No,” he said flatly.

  She made an exasperated sound. “Then what are you so afraid of? That I’m going to rape you?”

  “Rape’s not a joke.”

  “No, it’s not,” she snapped. “But you are.”

  Enough was enough. He took a step toward her, then managed to stop himself, taking a steadying breath to calm his temper. She managed to rile him more than any human being since he’d returned from overseas. Even Ratchett didn’t piss him off that much. He didn’t like it, didn’t like the way she got to him, the way she made him feel, all anger and lust and protectiveness and irritation.

  He took another breath. “Truce,” he said finally. “You’re not going anywhere at the moment, and neither am I. Clearly, we rub each other the wrong way, and we should avoid each other.”

  He didn’t like the momentary panic that shadowed her eyes before she put on her brave face again. “You disappeared yesterday, and that didn’t seem to improve things between us. And I’d say our problem is that we rub each other the right way.”

  If she regretted those words, she didn’t show it, staring at him defiantly, and he considered denying it, lying to her. He didn’t lie, not for anyone, not for anything. People could either take the truth or lump it. His voice was steady when he spoke. “I don’t seduce innocents.”

  He was totally unprepared for her reaction. Throwing herself back on the battered sofa, she let out a shout of genuine laughter, as if she’d heard the best joke in the world. She still had a grin on her face when she looked at him. “You think I’m still a virgin?” She made it sound as if the very idea was ridiculous. “I’d be insulted if you weren’t such an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud. I haven’t been a virgin since I turned seventeen. Your noble sacrifice is worthless.”

  It was his turn to be shocked. No wonder she was troubled. Most women didn’t have sex outside of marriage, and certainly not at such a tender age, unless she’d been in a horrible situation. Which went with his certainty that she was much more of an emotional mess than she appeared to be.

  She pushed herself off the sofa, a sassy grin on her face. “Cat got your tongue, big boy?” she murmured.

  He needed to be clear about a number of things. “Did you marry young?”

  “I’ve never been married.” Now why did he feel relief at that flat announcement. “I wasn’t raped and I wasn’t a prostitute. And I wasn’t in love. I had sex with lots of men simply because I felt like it. I even had sex with a woman just to see if I liked it.”

  His face felt like it was made of stone. She wasn’t lying—he had an instinct about that, but there was something going on with her. He responded with the first thing he could think of. “And did you? Like having sex with another woman?”

  “Not particularly. I’m afraid sleeping with a woman didn’t turn out to be my thing, and men are too much of a pain in the ass. For the time being, I’m happy with my vibrator.”

  He’d gotten over his initial reaction, relaxing against the doorjamb. “You’re trying very hard to shock me. It’s not working.”

  She raised an eyebrow. Hers were more natural than most of the women he knew, and he liked them that way. Everything about her was more natural than most of the people he knew. “Why not? You looked pretty taken aback.”

  “I spent eighteen months working undercover in Paris. After that, there was very little left that could surprise me. Though where you could find a vibrator stumps me. I thought you had to go to a sex shop or get one through the mail, and since you have no home and no address, that part seems unlikely.”

  “Macy’s sells them. Up in household appliances, supposedly for losing weight. Why a dildo-shaped vibrator would help you lose weight is beyond me, but apparently male salesclerks believe it.” Her attitude was cool, almost daring.

  But after the first surprise he was taking things as they came. “Next you’ll be telling me about orgies and having sex with animals.”

  “Nope, sorry. Not animals, and no orgies. Yet,” she added, and he knew she was trying to irritate him. He wasn’t bothered, at least not in the way she wanted him to be. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  He shrugged. “Actually I do. You’re a one-man woman.”

  That wiped the grin off her face. “Hardly. I do happen to prefer one man at a time, but not one for my entire life.” She shuddered extravagantly.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, unconvinced.

  “How many women have you slept with?” She was pushing him, still trying to bug him, but he was past it now.

  “It was war,” he said flatly.

  “And that means it doesn’t count?” A sudden thought seemed to strike her. “Were you married? Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Would it have mattered if you were?”

  “No.” He pushed away from the wall. “Think we could stop talking about the fucking war?”

  She looked startled. She’d used that word, doubtless trying to shock him, though it always sounded oddly natural. When most women tried to swear, it always sounded like there were invisible quotes around the dirty words.

  Before she could say anything, he moved toward the door. “It’s just after seven. Rosa will be here in another hour, and everyone else will be drifting in. If you want something to eat, it’ll have to be now.” He frowned at her expression. “You were able to feed yourself yesterday, weren’t you?”

  “Of course,” she said stiffly, a complete lie. “I’m far from helpless.”

  He resisted the temptation to scoff. She was the weirdest combination of fragile and...fierce was the only word he could come up with, but he needed some distance between them. “Come on, then. Bertha’s in the break room by now—we can get her to whip us up some eggs and bacon. You really don’t have the sense God gave little green apples, do you?”

  “I can feed myself. I just wasn’t hungry,” she said defensively. “I am now. Fighting with you gives me an appetite.”

  It gave him an appetite, but it wasn’t for food. “Come on,” he said again. “If I’m going to deal with you, I’m going to need more coffee.” He almost held out his arm, but sanity roared back, and he slammed it against his side. Touching her was the dumbest thing he could do, and he’d done too many dumb things since she’d walked into his life.

  She tugged at her wrinkled dress, pushed back her loose hair in an attempt to look presentable. He liked her the way she was, all full-blown and blowsy and luscious. He wanted to see her like that, stretched out on a bed, wearing nothing but that crazy hair of hers. Christ, he wanted her.

  And he had to get rid of her. “Coffee,” he said again, then walked out of the room, knowing she’d follow.

  Chapter 10

  Madison sat cross-legged in the huge store window, brown paper separating her from the outside, as she fashioned complicated little stars out of wire. Beside her, Rosa was carefully painting the completed structures with a wash of white and gold, followed by a crystalline glitter. It was a huge amount of wo
rk for a side window, and Johnny had been crazy to have them do it. They were also beautiful. Lit properly, they would create a fairyland, and she had no doubt he’d know how to light them. He seemed to know how to do everything well, the annoying jerk.

  Including kiss. She was as tightly strung as her wire creations, all because he’d kissed her again. The moment he’d put his mouth on hers, she’d allowed her brain to fly straight out the window, and in five more minutes, God knew what would have happened. She should be grateful that he’d had enough sense to run like a scared...uh, to call a halt to a Very Bad Idea.

  Though if this were a dream, why should it matter? Stop that, she told herself. Things were already too complicated. Besides, she had no doubt that he was absolutely lousy in bed. Weren’t mid-twentieth century men all about the missionary position? Not that she minded missionary—it could be fine—but the men of this era were provincial, traditional, unimaginative.

  No, maybe she was thinking of the 1950s. Her image of that decade was all about status quo and fitting in. Johnny was a different breed, a man who’d seen the worst of war and the worst of humanity, someone who wasn’t looking for safety and forgetfulness. It made him even more dangerous.

  Still, he’d be lousy in bed. Not that that would be such a change—in her experience sex had little to do with the rapturous extremes of romance novels. She could get off with foreplay if she kept her mind focused on something else, and lengthy thrusting was all right, though it tended to go on a bit too long. She hadn’t been lying—she really did do a lot better with her vibrator, though she couldn’t imagine what contemporary ones looked like.

  So, no, she’d dodged a bullet, and she was just fine, thankyouverymuch, even if her insides kept flipping around and squeezing inappropriately.

  “What’s wrong with you today, Mollie?” Rosa asked, glancing up from her painting. “You have ants in your pants? You keep squirming.”

  She heard the low laugh from the far side of the window, where Johnny was working out his plan on a pad of yellow paper, and she resisted the temptation to growl. Instead, she smiled at Rosa. “Just restless, I suppose. I need to get the hell out of here.”

  The quiet “amen” from the other side didn’t help her temper, but Rosa was immediately at the ready. “Why don’t you go for a walk? You haven’t been taking breaks, and I know Johnny wouldn’t mind, would you?” She tossed the question to their boss.

  “Johnny wouldn’t mind,” he said.

  Madison’s frustration was growing. “I...I can’t.” Explaining again would get her nowhere, except maybe the psych ward at Bellevue.

  Instead of pummeling her with questions, Rosa looked concerned. “I have a cousin with the same problem. She won’t leave the house, no matter how great a time we have planned. One of her brothers dragged her out one time and she got so crazy and hysterical they were afraid she was gonna have a heart attack.” Her eyes narrowed as they ran over Madison. “Is that it?”

  Agoraphobia was as good an excuse as any. She hadn’t tried the truth on Rosa, but she doubted it would go any better than it had with Johnny. “Something like that,” she said, bracing herself for Johnny’s ridicule.

  But he said nothing, which surprised her. She would have thought he’d dismiss any kind of psychological weakness. Then again, he was a veteran who lived in a department store—he was hardly the picture of mental health.

  “Well, at least sit back for a few minutes and relax,” Rosa ordered sternly. “Have a cigarette and enjoy the day?”

  “No smoking in the display windows,” Johnny growled.

  Of course he grumped at her. “I don’t smoke.”

  “Maybe you should start. It’ll calm you down, give you something to do with your hands.”

  Madison picked up another length of wire and started twisting, briefly imagining it around his neck. “My hands are already full.” She didn’t bother explaining that cigarettes would only jazz her up and eventually kill her.

  At this point, she’d given up the idea of trying to tell the truth. She was only interested in passing—in keeping her head down so no one would look too closely. She’d considered all the alternatives—she could try to out herself, look for the most senior person at Macy’s she could find, see if medics from Bellevue or the police could actually get her out of there. Maybe this was real, some freakish phenomenon. Maybe there were people all over the city who’d gone back in time. Maybe there always had been.

  At this point, she wasn’t ready to risk it. If they actually managed to extract her from this colossal wonderland, she could end up in much worse trouble, in an old-fashioned hospital or on the streets, and at least here she felt safe. This situation, for want of a better word, sounded completely outlandish even to her own ears, and there was no handy bit of information she could pull out in order to convince everyone she was telling the truth about where she had come from. She had absolutely no idea what had been happening in the world in 1947, but it couldn’t have been anything terribly interesting.

  Come to think about it, the most senior member of Macy’s staff seemed to be that nasty-looking Ratchett the Floorwalker, the man with the roving hands and bullying nature. When forced to think about him, she always thought of his full title, like a Knight of the Garter, whatever the hell that was. Whatever the fuck that was, she corrected herself. She used language as a tool, a defense, a carefully utilized club to keep creeps like Philip Ronson at bay. There was no reason she should change her ways, particularly in her own head, and she liked seeing Johnny’s frown when she dropped an F-bomb.

  No, turning to that man would be signing a ticket for Bellevue, and that was the only thing that scared her more than being trapped in this world. She had a pretty good idea what kind of treatment was afforded crazy people back then, and she didn’t need to be lit up with shock treatments or locked in an ice bath to keep her passive. No, her best bet was to keep her mouth shut, and sooner or later reality would begin to right itself.

  Maybe she was a fool. Scratch that...fuck that...of course she was a fool. But really, the most logical explanation for her fall through time was a psychotic break. She was probably a totally delusional woman sitting alone in her apartment, starving to death. She was hungry enough to know that part was marginally true. She’d never been particularly interested in food—she’d trained herself to reward herself with other things. No one liked a fat girl, no one wanted a stout advertising executive.

  She should have watched Mad Men. She’d tried it once and gotten so pissed off that she threw a book at the television. Fortunately it had bounced off the screen with no damage, but the remote control wasn’t close by, and she’d lunged off the sofa to turn it off. The world was challenging enough—she didn’t need that kind of annoyance in her life. But it had probably taken place just about five years later than the time she was stuck in, and she could have picked up a lot of useful information. Maybe she should...

  “How long are you going to sit there doing absolutely nothing?” Johnny broke through her reverie with a sharp voice. “Rosa’s been politely waiting for you to get busy while you’re thinking of Prince Charming. Just give me the prince’s address and I’ll bring him to you, and you can go and live happily ever after, just like you were supposed to.”

  She glared at him, her fingers moving with deft speed. “If you start calling me princess, I’ll put arsenic in your coffee. Though that would be an insult to coffee, even the sludge you serve around here.”

  “Much too boring a nickname,” Johnny said. “Head Case might be a good one. Or Pinocchio.”

  “You think I’m lying? How about the Prisoner of Zenda?” she snapped. “Or...or...”. She wracked her brain for something appropriate, but everything that popped into her mind came from the new century. “Or something like that,” she ended lamely.

  “I won’t call you princess. Though Princess Mollie has a certain ring to it.”

  She made a dismissive noise. “I’m not too crazy about Mollie either.” Which was
a lie. Mollie had a certain relaxed charm to it, unlike the overly-hip Madison, and she was growing used to it.

  Rosa had been studiously ignoring their byplay, but she poked up her head at this one. “You don’t like your name? Join the club. I used to wish my name was Allison. It was such a pretty name, and Allisons have pale skin and long blond hair. Or maybe June.” She sighed soulfully. “What did you want your name to be?”

  “Madison,” she growled, throwing a small glare in Johnny’s direction.

  “Madison?” Rosa echoed, her forehead wrinkled. “That’s a funny name—why would you be named after a street?” She set down the star she was working on. “Come to think of it, I like it. Want me to call you Madison?”

  “Yes,” she said, at the very same moment Johnny said “No.”

  Rosa’s eyes widened. “What’s your problem, Johnny? You’ve been like a bear with a sore paw all morning.”

  “Frustration,” he growled, and Madison made a choking sound. “The front window isn’t coming together the way I want it to.”

  Rosa shook her head. “With you, it’s always work, Johnny. What’s wrong with the ones that are up already? They look just fine to me.”

  “How long have you known me, Rosa? When has ‘just fine’ ever been enough?” He didn’t even bother to glance at Madison, despite the subtext. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she’d think he was trying to pretend she didn’t exist. To hell with that.

  “What’s wrong with the windows?” She couldn’t quite hide the irritated edge in her voice.

  He concentrated on the wire figure in his hands, not looking up. “The northeast windows are fine. It’s the southeast corner one that’s a pain in the patootie.”

  Madison managed to keep from laughing at the absurd phrase. She should be getting used to it by now. Johnny shot a glare at her, as if suspecting her reaction, and she quickly composed her expression. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked again. “I thought it was very pretty.” The southeast corner window was one of the most prominent, and at the moment it held a jolly Santa mannequin, a fat Christmas tree and bunches of fake snow. Generic, but pleasant, with various toys and gifts scattered in the white dust that the powers-that-be wanted to push.