Return to Christmas

by Anne Stuart

  It made no sense—they’d said everything they needed to say to each other, and he’d stepped out of her makeshift life once more, thank goodness. To him, she would have simply ceased to exist.

  And yet, there was the coffee, more precious than if he’d left diamonds on the battered table. She was growing used to the black sludge—hell, she was in love with it. If Sumatran beans and Caffè Verona were gone from her life, this wickedly dark elixir was a more than acceptable substitute.

  There were times when she almost thought she saw him, from a distance, disappearing around a corner, but in a place this big, this crowded, there was no way to be sure. And he’d more than kept her busy.

  In a few days, it would be the month of White Sales, which turned out to be linens and sheets, not gifts for supremacists, and she, Rosa, and the newly drafted Nancy were awash in literally miles of white fabric, draping it in the back windows, twisting it into shapes that were supposed to look vaguely female but reminded her of Casper and the Ghostly Trio, something she hadn’t thought of in decades. Johnny had left an example, and she was beautiful—supple, flowing, the white fabric draped perfectly into folds and creases that emphasized a madonna-like femininity. Trust a man of the 1940s to see women as either whores or madonnas. Maybe he’d decided that once she gave it up, she was no longer worth having. Which suited her just fine. They’d both scratched an itch that had been simmering beneath the surface—could itches simmer, she wondered, momentarily distracted, the twisted white material still in her hands. Anyway, they were done, and over, and she could concentrate on more important things, like getting the hell out of Dodge.

  Except it didn’t feel over. The itch was still there, and it had grown to something stronger than an ache, with a body-deep longing that made her want to curl up and weep, if she hadn’t given up tears as well as Johnny Larsen. She thought of him at the most inconvenient times—when she was talking to Rosa, when she was on her second cup of coffee, when she was lying on the sofa where she’d been stretched out beneath him, or the floor, where she’d ridden him, or the... Stop it!

  “Something wrong?” Rosa looked up from her own creation. “You’re usually good at these things.” Rosa was having better luck with the fabric, and if her creation didn’t have quite the liquid grace Johnny’s did, it was still an elegant white form of a female.

  Nancy was the real surprise—her clumsiness in the beauty salon, from which she’d been summarily dismissed—didn’t translate to her work with Rosa. Between the two of them, they were almost an equal to Johnny’s effortless art, with Mollie feeling like a clumsy toddler in her attempts to keep up, and she dropped the twisted fabric in her lap.

  “Wrong?” she echoed. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just got distracted. Where’s Johnny?” Hell and damnation! She had been determined not to ask that question, but it popped out anyway.

  “Oh, he’s off for a few days,” Rosa said airily, but her eyes were knowing. “He hurt his hand and he’s giving it a rest.”

  Not here, she thought, but controlled her tongue. “How did he hurt his hand?” she said, for lack of another response.

  Nancy grinned. “I heard Benny Morelli’s face ran into it. Everyone was talking about it in the cafeteria—apparently there was this huge fight, and someone said something about a woman...” Her voice trailed off as realization struck her, and she coughed. “Anyway, we all know to keep out of Benny’s way—even I learned that my first day here. It seems like Mr. Larsen decided to change that.”

  A sick feeling cramped Mollie’s stomach. She’d seen Benny in the last few days, but only from a distance. The last thing she wanted to do was run into him when there was no one around to stop him, and Johnny was missing in action. Now she knew why.

  “Is he okay?”

  “Johnny?” Rosa said. “Of course, he is. Do you think a little pipsqueak like Benny could do much damage?”

  “No, I meant Benny. How badly did he hurt him?” She had no doubt that Johnny was capable of a completely thunderous rage. He’d seen the bruises on her arm and known where they’d come from, but he hadn’t known the half of Benny’s threats, or the man really would be dead.

  “Not enough,” Rosa said flatly. “I hate that man. Johnny warned him off when I first started working here, but he’s always looking at me from his nasty little eyes. He gives me the creeps.”

  “Me, too,” Nancy said with a shudder.

  “Me, three,” Mollie said, remembering the feel of her foot connecting with Benny’s privates.

  “At least he won’t come around you anymore,” Rosa added, and for a moment Mollie thought she meant Johnny, and her heart sank. “Next time, Johnny might not be so nice, and while Benny’s a coward and a bully, I don’t want Johnny to be forced to kill him. He’s been through enough already.”

  Her response was automatic. “Johnny? Nice? Are we talking about the same man?”

  Rosa shrugged. “Benny only spent one night in the hospital. Could have been a lot worse.”

  It should have sickened her. Physical violence had never been a part of her life, even in the less sheltered world of twenty-first century New York, and the thought of Johnny pummeling that evil little man so hard that he’d hurt his hand should have been horrifying.

  It turned her on. Instantly, literally, graphically, like some atavistic part of her springing to life. He was the hunter, the soldier, protecting his woman with his fists. Damned if the little woman didn’t respond with the immediate need to take off her clothes and lie down for him.

  Ha! When had she ever needed rescuing? She’d rescued herself all her life, rescued herself from grabby hands and leering innuendo. She’d done so by running away, but some battles were lost before they were begun. She’d even managed to rescue herself on the snowy terrace of Irene Davis’s home. She could handle herself just fine, and she didn’t need a goddamned man to sweep in and save her!

  But he hadn’t. He’d merely kicked the butt of the man who hurt her, not looking for thanks or reward or even acknowledgment. She knew he’d be pissed that Rosa had told her. Damned man.

  “Where is he?” she said in a steady voice. She’d been an idiot. This had gone on long enough—they needed to come to an understanding, they couldn’t keep ignoring what had happened between them, what it meant.

  Rosa shrugged. “I think he’s been staying at a hotel down in the Bowery. He has some friends down there. I know he was here this morning—he usually checks in before everyone gets here.”

  And he brings me coffee, Mollie thought wistfully, her last defense beginning to melt. He was everything that was wrong for her, and she didn’t care. He’d beaten the crap out of a man who’d hurt her, and she was through fighting it. Things couldn’t get worse, stuck in this no-man’s land of the upcoming 1950s and vacuuming in pearls and heels. If she had to stay here, then at least she could have the man she wanted. She who never wanted anyone or anything. She could have Johnny, she just knew it, no matter what he said or did, because he seemed to want her with the same soul-scorching need that she wanted him. It was worth the risk.

  She rose from her seat on the workshop floor, and the other two stared up at her. “Any idea where I might find him?” She kept her voice deliberately casual.

  Rosa raised an eyebrow. Damn, she had to learn how to do that, Mollie thought. “Down in the Bowery, I expect. I don’t think he stays long when he’s here. Trying to avoid Bette Davis.”

  Nancy snorted, having been indoctrinated into Rosa’s mocking name for their joint nemesis, Irene. Mollie had been avoiding the woman as well, and for some reason, Irene hadn’t pushed it. Johnny would never have put a hand on her, but he probably guessed she was behind Benny’s threats, and he could put the fear of God into someone with just a look.

  He didn’t scare her no matter how much he glowered. He could grumble all he liked—she knew it was mostly show. He would grumble at her when she found him. He would grumble at her when she pushed him into bed, when she told him she loved him. Because s
he did love him, the prickly bastard. She wasn’t getting out of this century, and she was through fighting. Johnny was what she wanted, what she needed, and she had to stop dicking around and get him.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, heading across the sprawling workshop to the double doors.

  “It’s almost five,” Rosa called after her. “Nancy’s leaving, and I’ll be right behind her.

  Mollie wasn’t about to explain. She was on a mission. Everything else could wait. “Be safe,” she said automatically, and Rose gave her a funny look.

  The crowds had thinned out a bit since Christmas. Unlike her own time, the week between Christmas and the New Year was slow, with none of the sales kicking in until January, though there had been a respectable run on the returns desk. Most employees were enjoying the well-deserved slack time, and no one seemed to notice as she started at the top floor, wandering through the china and silver displays. He was here in the building, she knew it. But it was one gargantuan building, and it could take her days to find him. It didn’t matter. She’d finally accepted it—she wasn’t going anywhere. And that, astonishingly enough, was just fine with her.

  Johnny was playing poker with the delivery drivers, surrounded by a haze of cigarette smoke. He was winning—he usually did—and he always wondered where his luck came from. It hadn’t necessarily filtered into any other part of his life.

  He did come back from France in one piece, at least physically. He figured most things wrong with his life were his own damned fault—other men got over the stuff they’d seen, the stuff they’d done. They came back and returned to their old life and never thought about it again.

  He wasn’t that kind of man. What he’d been through had changed him in a fundamental way. There was no going back, not to a cookie-cutter house in Levittown, and a proper wife. He’d grown used to strong women, and he preferred them that way. Mollie was a powerhouse despite her mysterious background.

  And damn, she was pretty. He couldn’t believe that every man in the place wasn’t falling all over her, even with his efforts to keep her out of harm’s way, but most men weren’t instantly besotted as he’d been, and her pull on him had only gained in power over the weeks. Ignoring her hadn’t helped, insulting her, avoiding her, screwing her, hadn’t put a dent in the power she had over him. In fact, screwing her had been the worst possible thing he could have done, but he was trying hard not to think about that. He could just imagine what the delivery guys would say if they noticed he was sporting a woody, which he seemed to be doing half the time.

  Someone had to be looking for her, someone loved her, worried about her, were probably going crazy wondering where she was, while she moved blithely on in her little fantasy world.

  But they didn’t worry about her as much as he did. To his everlasting regret, they didn’t love her as much as he did. How he’d managed to stay heart-whole for his twenty-nine years and then fall for a crazy woman was beyond his understanding, but that’s what he’d done. And all she wanted to do was get away from him.

  Not that he blamed her. He could be a right bastard, and had been to her. Hardly anyone’s idea of love’s young dream. But he could be better, he would be better. If he could only have her.

  Joe Murphy, one of the drivers, spoke up. “Hey, Johnny, did you hear Benny’s back?”

  “Is he?” Johnny didn’t bother to raise his eyes from his cards.

  “You might want to keep out of his way. He’s awful mad.”

  One of the other men guffawed. “I think he’d want to keep out of Johnny’s way.”

  Johnny did look up then. “I don’t think he’s going to be causing anyone any more trouble.” He knew his reputation among these men. They knew what he’d done to Benny, what he’d done to that clerk last year, and they approved.

  But Joe persisted. “I dunno. I don’t think he’s quite right in the head. I’d watch my back if I were you.”

  Johnny leaned back in his chair. They were on the first floor of the huge garage that held, serviced and loaded the fleet of delivery trucks. The air smelled faintly of diesel along with the cigarette smoke, and for some reason he thought about the mountains. “Maybe I’d better go have another talk with him.”

  “You don’t need to worry, Johnny,” another man said. “The man’s a bully and a coward. He’s not going to go anywhere near you again. He’ll have to find someone smaller to beat up on.”

  Johnny dropped his cards on the table. He was an idiot—he’d never thought about the logical aftermath of teaching Benny a long-overdue lesson. He pushed back from the table, and the other men cursed.

  “You folding, Johnny?” Joe grumbled.

  Johnny had a full house, and the pot had been generous. If he’d figured right, the best any of the others had was a pair of threes. “Yep,” he said, and took off at a dead run.

  Mollie had actually gotten used to the vast emptiness of the building after the store was deserted. She didn’t expect to find Johnny up among the fancy linens or the shoes or the fur coats, but she had to check, and being thorough took time. Of course, if he was actually there and trying to avoid her, it would be child’s play, but she couldn’t worry about that. He was still in the building—she knew that as surely as she knew her own name.

  That stopped her. Did she even know her own name? She wasn’t really Mollie, she was Madison, and yet that slim, black-clad sophisticate seemed to have disappeared into the mists of the future, leaving Mollie behind.

  That woman didn’t even feel real anymore. There was only Mollie, who loved Johnny, and she needed to find him and tell him.

  By the time she reached the fourth floor she was losing hope. She’d spent so much of her time in their little world that it was easy to forget just how freaking huge the store was.

  Her determination faded as she looked at the rabbit warren of displays around her, the mile-high ceilings dwarfing everything, and she was ready to call it quits, to slink back to the break room and pray that he’d come and find her, when she heard a muffled scream of pain and terror coming from somewhere deep in the vast space of Finer Haberdashery. She froze, trying to pinpoint that sound. A scream shouldn’t be recognizable, but she knew who it was. Someone had Rosa, someone was hurting Rosa, and she had to stop them.

  The employee cafeteria and locker room were several football fields away from her, but she was willing to risk everything that the sound had come from there, and she started running through the men’s clothing department. She had no earthly idea what she was going to do, but she had to do something, and as she passed a display of high-end umbrellas she grabbed one, barely pausing before she burst through the unlocked cafeteria doors.

  The room was empty, but she could hear muffled sobbing in the distance, and she kept going, moving on into the locker room that served half of the male salesclerks.

  For a moment, she could see nothing—the lights were off, and the tall rows of lockers cast dark shadows around everything. But then Rosa sobbed again, and she saw them.

  She was lying on the floor, her skirt pushed up, and Benny was on top of her, his pants half down as he was trying to shove her legs apart, all the while he grunted a litany of filthy words that had never sounded so vile before. Rosa’s face was covered with blood, but she was beating at him with her small fists, kicking, fighting, and Benny reared up, pulling back his fist to give her a blow across the face.

  Mollie didn’t stop to think, to react, she was simply there, beating at him with the sturdy umbrella made for Wall Street lawyers, as effective a club as she could have found short of an axe, and she wasn’t sure if Macy’s carried axes. If she’d found one, she would have used that too.

  With a roar of rage and frustration, Benny rolled off Rosa, springing up and turning on her. Rosa tried to sit up, but Benny was already advancing on Mollie, and she jabbed the umbrella at him to keep him at bay.

  He grabbed the end of it and yanked it out of her hand almost effortlessly, tossing it to the side as he bore down on her. “Filthy
slut,” he hissed. “You’re the cause of all this. Couldn’t take a warning, could you? Didn’t know what’s best for you? It was all over once you kicked me—Benny Morelli don’t forgive and forget, and you’re gonna die screaming, and then I’m gonna finish with your little friend, and it’s gonna look like your crazy-ass lover boy did it. Everyone knows he’s nutso from the war—no one will be surprised, and Ratchett will cover for me. I’ll take down all three of you and love doing it.” Foam flecked his mouth as he came closer, and then she was up against a wall, no place to retreat to, and he was coming at her, and he was too close. This time a kick wouldn’t stop him.

  He reached for her, and she closed her eyes, knowing there was no escape, knowing she could only fight as Rosa had, knowing she’d lose, when there was a sudden sound. Rosa had managed to pull herself to her feet, grab the umbrella and beat him over the head with it, screaming at him.

  He backhanded her with one fist and she went sprawling, then lay still on the hard floor, and Benny turned back, focusing on his new prey. Talking wouldn’t help, fighting wouldn’t help, but she had every intention of doing so anyway. She was going to die, and she hadn’t told Johnny she loved him. He wouldn’t believe her; he thought she was lying about everything, but at least she needed to tell him, and now it was too late. Benny grabbed her, his hands digging into her arms, slamming her back against the wall, vicious, brutal, and she didn’t want to die...

  There was a roar of such fury she thought she was back in the Marvel Universe, and Benny went flying, Johnny on top of him, and Mollie watched, stunned, as the fight unfolded, vicious and cruel, thrilling. Johnny’s fists battered Benny’s face, turning it into bloody pulp, the nose flattened, the eyes obscured, and still he hit him, straddling his body as Benny tried to fight back before letting his arms drop to his side.