Return to Christmas

by Anne Stuart

  Rosa blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Madison sighed. “Why don’t I tell her I don’t need her help, and then you and I can do it?”

  Rosa’s half-smile was answer enough. “I wish. The only way to deal with Bette is to stay beneath her notice. Now that she’s decided you’re a threat to what she wants, we’re stuck. The discard room is currently locked through the weekend for inventory, supposedly—there’s no way we can find you something to wear, much less shoes. She can make life so difficult for everyone that we might as well do what she wants.”

  “She can’t...” Madison stopped. She’d been about to announce that Irene couldn’t do anything to her, but that wasn’t the problem. Irene had been trying to get rid of Rosa on one pretext or another ever since Johnny brought her on board, and this would give her the perfect excuse. “She can’t be that bad,” she finished lamely. “And my classic beauty will shine through any attempts to sabotage me.” Her voice was wry.

  “That’s probably true,” Rosa said.

  “I was kidding!” Madison said hastily.

  “You don’t think you’re beautiful?” Rosa stared at her in surprise. “You’re a little too thin, of course, but you’re still a looker. I would kill for your hair.” She sighed.

  “It’s brown,” Madison said glumly.

  “It’s gorgeous. And you have the prettiest eyes...”

  “Brown again.”

  “And a great mouth...”

  “It’s too big.”

  “And you have this mysterious air about you, like you know something that no one else knows, and half the time you think it’s really funny.”

  That was enough to jolt Madison out of her arguments. “I have no secrets.”

  “Everybody has a few. You just have this really neat way about you, almost otherworldly.”

  Madison stifled her instinctive groan. How much had she been giving away? “I’m as real as you are, Rosa.”

  “Of course you are,” Rosa said.

  But was she? Was Rosa someone who’d lived seventy years ago, or was she some manifestation of Madison’s subconscious, along with this entire bizarre world? Was she a phantom who’d dissolve forever when Madison finally woke up? The thought was oddly painful.

  It was past time to change the subject. “I suppose we’ll just have to see what Irene comes up with,” she said in as serene a voice as she could manage. “In the meantime, do you have any idea when we’re going to be graced with Johnny...Johnny’s appearance?” She’d been about to call him Johnny Asshole again, but she figured she had to pull back. If Rosa had already figured there was something not quite right about her, then others were bound to as well, and her instincts told her that would be a Very Bad Thing.

  “Not for the rest of the day. He said we were to keep on with the stars, then drape window twenty-three in that silk. He’s installing something in the south windows and that’ll keep him busy for the rest of the day.”

  “Good,” Madison said, ignoring her unexpected pang. After his cruel words, he should have been the last thing she wanted to see, but common sense had little to do with her feelings about Johnny Larsen. “Then we won’t have to deal with him for hours.”

  “Uh huh,” said Rosa.

  It wasn’t hours, it was days. There was no sign of Johnny each night, when everyone had gone home and only the night watchmen roamed the place, and Christmas Eve drew closer and closer. Madison had had to duck a couple of times—for some reason the nasty one called Benny had taken to showing up on the eighth floor on a regular basis, and Madison had learned to drop out of sight in a nanosecond.

  But he knew she was there, she realized with a sinking sensation. She’d seen the small group of men moving in her direction when she was heading toward the escalators, five minutes before closing time, and she’d had a good look at Benny. He was a short man, with arms like elephant legs, a thick neck, and an expression of such cruelty it had rattled her before she’d managed to slip into the crowds, circling around so she wouldn’t be moving in the wrong direction, ducking behind one of the covered countertops at the last minute.

  He’d seen her. For some reason, he’d been staring straight at her, his eyes narrowed into cold, dark slits, and it was startling enough to freeze her in place for one long, unfortunate moment. Long enough for him to look his fill.

  She was being paranoid, she told herself. While the store was open, she had a verifiable reason to be there—she was an employee, just as he was, but that didn’t comfort her. He still looked at her like she was a jewel thief, and from then on, he always seemed to be lurking just out of sight.

  It was possible Benny and his cohorts knew that Johnny was no longer in residence, and for the first time they could roam his territory. Benny looked and sounded like a sadistic bastard, but even he might be intimidated by Johnny Larsen’s height and cool stare. Hadn’t Rosa told her that Johnny had once broken the arm of someone who’d been harassing her? Not that she condoned violence, but when she thought of the unending line of men she’d had to deal with, she couldn’t stop thinking, where had he been when she needed him? Dead for decades, most likely.

  He could have terrified all of them. Everyone except her, she reminded herself. So the man had a nasty bite to him—it was nothing new, and there had never been the slightest hint that he found her anything less than a royal pain in the butt. Apparently, he’d finally had enough of her, because by Thursday he still hadn’t shown his admittedly gorgeous face for days.

  Rosa had somehow mysteriously received all the orders about their work, keeping them busy. And food kept appearing in the small break room—a thermos of coffee and pastries would wake her in the morning, food still warm from the cafeteria left on the radiator at night after the building was shut down. Rosa dragged her to the employees’ cafeteria each day, figuratively standing over her to make sure she ate properly, and Madison suspected that was all thanks to Johnny. He might not want her around, but he didn’t want her starving to death either.

  She didn’t miss him, not a bit, not after that first day. It was easier without him around—no one to annoy her, distract her, confuse her. He’d kissed her exactly twice, come close to it three other times, not that she was counting, and it was the last thing she needed in this complicated, make-believe world. She couldn’t imagine why he was tempted, but there’d been no doubt that tempted he was, even if he’d pulled back at the last minute. That might be part of the reason he was now the Invisible Man. That, and the fact that he hated her.

  Madison wasn’t even going to consider how she felt abandoned, left to Benny’s tender mercies. She was perfectly capable of avoiding trouble—she could get her own coffee and dinner, and she kept telling herself she’d refuse his silent offerings, but then she’d smell the coffee and she couldn’t resist. She had a sadly weak character, she told herself as she munched on the crumb cakes that were a Macy’s specialty. When it came to alcohol and recreational drugs, she could take them or leave them, but she’d sell herself on the streets for coffee. She was gradually getting used to the percolated sludge offered nowadays; if she ever had the slightest temptation to stop fighting and make her life with what had been handed her, she thought of Caffè Verona and Sumatran beans and knew she had to get back. Coffee was better than men, any day.

  Not that men had anything to do with why she wouldn’t leave. She wanted to get away from the hidebound men of this era with their male patriarch issues and boring sex. At least, she assumed it would be boring, and had a sudden, intense vision of Johnny, that tall, lean body, warm, naked skin against her, his mouth...his mouth...

  She jerked out of her sudden reverie as the clear chimes warning of the store’s imminent closing rang in her ears. She was on the seventh floor, having delivered a box of extraneous lights to the fabric department, when the crush of humanity began moving toward the escalators. She turned and came face to face with the man called Benny.

  Seeing him close up didn’t improve things. He was her height a
nd immensely powerful-looking, all thick muscle and cruelty as he stared at her with an unnerving intensity that hit her in the stomach like a fist.

  “Excuse me,” she murmured politely, trying to move past him, but his fist shot out and caught her forearm in a tight, painful grip.

  “I seen you,” he said in a low voice. “You can’t fool me. I seen you around here, and you ain’t playing by the rules.” There was an almost playful taunt to his raspy voice, one that made her stomach tighten.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said, hoping she sounded frosty, not desperate, as she tugged at his hold. “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

  He shook his bullet-shaped head slowly. “No, I ain’t. You need to come with me...”

  She could have carried it off, kept a firm smile on her face and answered his questions. She could even head for the door—if this old building wanted to keep her prisoner then it would have to interfere, and she was more than capable of convincing the guard she was no one and nothing. But something made her panic, and her body took over, fight or flight. She did both.

  She stomped on his instep before she realized what she was doing, and her heavy leather shoes were more than effective. Letting out a sharp hiss of pain, he loosened his grip for just a moment, and she yanked herself away, ready to run into the crowds.

  But he’d delayed her long enough that those crowds were thinning, and she was far too easy to see. She raced toward the elevator, then, at the last minute, ducked and moved around the corner to the escalator. She would have clattered down it as fast as possible, but the moving stairs were full of shoppers, all talking to each other in shrill voices.

  She was almost at the bottom when she felt those angry eyes once more, and she looked up to see Benny at the top of the escalator, moving slowly, inexorably downward in her direction, pushing women out of the way as he went. When she reached the bottom she slid past one woman laden with shopping bags and skittered down the next flight.

  But the next floor was built differently. The descending escalator was at the other end of the unit, which meant she’d be out in the thinning aisles for a dangerous amount of time. It was the children’s floor, complete with a huge toy department and Santa’s Village, and, at the last moment, she made a dash for it, pressing against one of the massive columns that supported the building, closing her eyes and praying.

  She heard him push past the straggling shoppers, the muttered responses to his rudeness, and then he was heading down the next escalator, leaving her there.

  Chapter 13

  Madison breathed a sigh of tentative relief, turning to look around her. She was at the edge of Santa’s Village, the long, roped lines that usually snaked through the place empty except for a couple of harried-looking mothers at the front, being corralled by a sour-looking elf. For a moment, the elf in A Christmas Story came to mind, and she almost felt dizzy with the temporal ramifications of that one. An old movie that was far in the future depicting times even earlier than these current ones, which were way in the past as well, and God, her head was going to explode.

  One woman headed past her, a giggling child beside her as they raced toward the escalator, and then she heard an ominous noise from the floor beneath. She didn’t have to look to know that Benny hadn’t given up, that he was coming back for her.

  She moved quickly into Santa’s hallowed space, only to have Grumpy the Elf glare at her. “Santa’s tired,” the girl snapped, “and you don’t have a kid. No one sits on Santa’s lap without a kid.”

  “I work here, “ she shot back, dodging her and her jingling green felt clothing. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Ho, ho, ho.” The big man rose from his seat, handing his final visitor, a laughing little girl of four or five, back to her mother. He glanced over at them from behind his wired-rimmed glasses and extravagant white eyebrows, as the elf followed her, trying to stop her escape.

  The man was a giant, and she couldn’t remember whether she’d seen him in regular clothes or not. She knew their number one Santa was down with the flu, his back-up had been fired for being drunk on the job, and the third, unfortunately, disliked children and had been loud and clear about it in the cafeteria. Whoever they’d gotten to take his place clearly had a better touch with them—the little girl hadn’t wanted to let go, and the boy she’d seen looked only marginally happier than his beaming, middle-aged mother.

  “What’s going on, Peevy?” Santa said in that thick, jolly voice, and Madison had to resist her sudden amusement. Peevy was a perfect name for the elf.

  “Store’s closing and she’s refusing to leave,” Peevy whined. “Says she works here.”

  “You go on ahead,” Santa rumbled from deep in his large belly. “I’ll look after her. You want to talk to Santa, little girl?”

  Peevy had disappeared before Santa had finished speaking, and Madison looked at him warily. She needed to hide—she knew in her heart that Benny was coming after her, and it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  “Sorry, Santa,” she said. “As Peevy said I’m too grown up for your lap, and you probably want to go home...er...back to the North Pole too.” Everyone at the store had strict orders to treat whoever was serving as Santa as the real thing, even if he was your best friend, and Madison was game. Her cynicism had always come to a halt in the face of a cheerful old man in a red suit.

  “Already here. Ho ho ho.” He nodded toward the small box-like structure behind him, the words North Pole spelled out with wooden candy canes. She’d helped touch up the paint on those candy canes, without ever realizing where they were going.

  “I need to...” She heard footsteps—heavy, running—and panic rushed through her. Santa was looking over her shoulder, but beneath all the facial hair and glasses, she couldn’t read his expression.

  He moved fast for a fat old man. One moment they were separated by a good distance; in the next, he’d grabbed her, dragged her past the throne-like chair and shoved her into the tiny box, following her in and pulling the door shut.

  She held her breath, sweat forming at her temples. She’d had the bizarre idea that once she went through that small door, she’d end up in a cavernous toy workshop on the other side, but of course it was nothing but a coffin-sized box, barely big enough for her. With Santa’s massive belly squooshed against her, his size looming over her, the long, silky white beard tickling her face, she felt as comfortable as a sardine in an overpacked tin.

  “I...” she started say, pushing at him.

  “Hush!” He barely breathed the word, catching her flailing hands in one red velvet glove. And then she heard him.

  “You’re here, I know you are,” Benny crooned from much too close for her piece of mind. “My guys were watching, and you didn’t come down the escalators or the elevators. You’re hiding out here, and it won’t do you no good.”

  A shiver ran down her spine, and Santa must have felt it, for his other gloved hand gently stroked her face, pulling her closer so that her forehead rested on his shoulder. The stomach was in the way, and she wanted to jab her elbow into it, but she resisted the impulse. She tried to relax, to lean against his convex body, taking a slow breath, to calm her racing heart. The shoulder of Santa’s suit wasn’t padded, she could feel bone and muscle beneath the rich velvet, and she could smell mothballs and candy canes. Of course that was what Santa should smell like.

  They could hear Benny moving around, shoving things, knocking displays to the floor. The maintenance workers were going to be pissed tomorrow morning, she thought, trying to regulate her breath. She had never had a problem with claustrophobia before, but in that tiny space, with Santa the Sasquatch looming over her, she had to struggle a bit, and that fear began to return, even though Benny and the two men who had joined him seemed to be moving farther and farther away.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be a right jolly old elf?” Her voice was no more than a whisper of sound, and his response was a laugh from his bowl full of jelly. “You’re awfully big
for a chimney. You’re too big for this house.”

  He didn’t say anything, he simply shrugged his massive frame, pushing her deeper into the tiny space. The sounds of destruction moved farther away, and she wondered if she dared run for it. And if she needed to take Santa with her. She didn’t put it past Benny to try to beat the crap out of Santa himself in his quest for trespassers.

  “I need to get out of here,” she said, starting to move, but the red velvet gloves held her tight. She looked up into his eyes past the wire-rimmed glasses and bushy eyebrows. “I don’t want to get you into trouble. That man seems to have a particular interest in me, but he might let some of his animosity spill over on you, and Macy’s needs a good Santa. Hell, everyone needs a good Santa.”

  “I’m here,” he rumbled. “You’re safe.”

  She was feeling a little light-headed. “If I were younger, I could sit on your lap and you’d tell me what a sweet little girl I am, and you’d ask me what I want for Christmas and then you’d promise to get it for me, even if my mother was shaking her head and saying no.”

  “What do you want for Christmas, sweet little girl? I’ll do my best.”

  She thought about it, surrounded by the soft velvet, and soft stomach, the strong arms in that tiny, tiny space. She knew the answer. She wanted to go home. But when she opened her mouth, different words came out. “You,” she whispered.

  Johnny froze at the soft sound of her voice. It had been so quiet, he couldn’t swear he’d heard her correctly, and yet deep inside he knew he had. He hadn’t put much faith in the possibility that she wouldn’t eventually recognize him beneath the padding and the wig—she was much too smart, but he’d hoped that the foul-tempered bastard doing a stint as Santa would be too much for her to comprehend. He was always underestimating her.