The Santa Accident

by Gemma Brocato

  Thirteen

  “No! You can’t quit.” Roberta stomped around her office, shaking a half-hearted fist at Ivy.

  She’d radioed for security while they were still in front of the toy store and two maintenance workers relieved them of donut delivery duty. Roberta had escorted Ivy back to the relative peace of the management office, poured her a giant cup of coffee and proceeded to tell Ivy all the reasons she shouldn’t quit.

  She’d been trying to talk Ivy out of the decision for the past forty minutes. Twenty minutes ago, Ivy had gotten a cryptic text from Cole, begging off their date on Saturday. Just a fast “Change of plans,” the message had read. “Tomorrow won’t work after all.” That was all. No explanation, or promise of an explanation in the future. No suggestion to reschedule.

  So in addition to Ivy’s body being trampled, her self-confidence took a shot too. But it wasn’t enough to make her change her mind. She’d never considered her job dangerous, but after today, she knew she couldn’t keep working in this environment.

  As soon as Roberta turned from belligerent to pleading, Ivy had stopped listening. Her heart had finally slowed from racehorse pace to almost normal. “Well, since it is a free country, if I want to quit, I can. I’m not an indentured servant, something I might point out you seem to forget. You can’t force me to stay.” Ivy stood and peeled off the ugly sweater. She neatly folded the top and handed it to Roberta. “Consider this my two week notice.”

  A sensation of lightness and floating stole over her as she pulled a shred of dignity around her and waltzed out the door. She had absolutely no idea what she’d end up doing. Would she enter into a business arrangement with Cole, or strike out on her own? She had enough savings that she could live without income for six months, possibly eight if she was extra frugal. Maybe she’d move back home to Kansas and start up a sunflower farm. A smile stretched the corners of her mouth as she considered possibilities that didn’t involve working ridiculously long hours and running a gauntlet of pushy shoppers.

  She spent the rest of the morning hiding in her workroom, playing classic rock and roll, and organizing the crowded space. When Roberta came in search of her, Ivy asked her to leave or help locate Rudy. The idea of rounding up a snake was enough to make the worried marketing director scamper out of the space.

  Pete, the mall manager, came by right before noon, carrying a plate of pizza they’d ordered in for the staff. “You wanted to talk to me earlier. Is it about what you and Roberta discussed?” he fished for an answer.

  “Actually, it wasn’t. That was an unexpected complication from my near-death experience while delivering donuts.”

  “About that, I’m sorry. The toy store manager promised me he’d hire additional security for his store.” Ah, so Pete had known about the impending shipment of a toy worth trampling other humans for. “His guys never showed up and we didn’t have any officers to spare. It’s a busy day at the mall, as you know. I think we are going to break our old traffic counts.”

  “Good for you,” Ivy remarked drily.

  She no longer cared. She’d be sure the displays looked as good as possible before she left. But the mall and the number of shoppers crossing the threshold were no longer her concern. She drew a calm breath and breathed out residual fright. This would be the last time in her life she’d be caught in a mall on Black Friday.

  “Listen, we don’t want to lose you. You have a gift with displays and staging. What will it take to get you to stay?”

  She huffed out a snort at Pete’s question. “I’m not staying, but you could make a difference by sending Daryl to sexual harassment training.” She spilled the whole sordid story while Pete paced in agitation across the cluttered space.

  “I had no idea.” He leaned against the chicken wire cage, a disgusted grimace on his face.

  Ivy rolled her eyes. “You must not read your emails, then. No surprise since the last message I sent about his discretions went unanswered.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it. Just say you’ll stay.”

  Ivy saw sincerity and honesty in his expression. She sighed and then crushed his hopes. “I’ll stay through the season but only if I can work at night, when there are fewer shoppers around. And I am leaving. I’m won’t change my mind.” Even if she missed her opportunity to work, and maybe play, with Cole, she couldn’t…wouldn’t, stay.

  Pete’s shoulders slumped in defeat as he left her alone. She could only hope he was going off in search of Daryl to read him the riot act.

  She finished cleaning up her space and nibbled some of the pizza Pete had left. Around one, when she knew the crowd would have thinned to an unthreatening level, she hoisted the case containing supplies to make minor fixes to the display and left the space.

  Her first stop was the Santa display. Maybe Cole had been coerced into playing elf again today.

  At the busy, colorful set, to her surprise she found an actor who wasn’t Chris playing Santa, and a young woman staffing the photo operation. A line of twenty children stretched back from the gate, some waiting patiently, some hopping from one foot to the other, all waiting for their chance to whisper their Christmas wishes to the jolly old elf in the fake beard and wig.

  Puzzled, Ivy approached the young girl making change for the mother in front of her. Ivy lifted her chin toward Santa’s throne. “I thought the other Santa and Lavinia would be here.” The day after Thanksgiving was one of Santa’s biggest days.

  “Change of plans. Lavinia called me at the ass-crack of dawn and asked if I could come in early.” There was that phrase again. Change of plans.

  Had something happened to affect the entire family? She hadn’t heard another peep out of Cole. He didn’t respond to her text back, and she didn’t want to send a second, third, or fourth one, and make a pest of herself.

  Ivy worked quietly on the set, careful to avoid the area in front of the throne, so as not to disrupt the picture taking operation. When she finished, she found a nearby bench and sat down, grateful for a chance to rest. She pulled out her phone and checked for messages again.

  Still nothing.

  She snapped closed the latch on her toolbox, and made her way back to the storeroom. After stashing the kit in a locking cabinet, she twisted the key shut and pocketed it. No one was going to take her supplies. She’d have to remember to give Roberta the key before she left. That kit was like gold.

  She left early, knowing it wouldn’t matter. Even though her scheduled shift wasn’t over, what could they do? Fire her? She snort-laughed over that idea.

  An exhilarating sensation swept over her as she exited the mall. She pulled a huge lungful of air in, then released it in a rush, knowing her days as a mall design specialist were numbered. Her evening plans consisted of parking her butt on the couch and watching mindless TV until she was too tired to see straight.

  Or wonder why Cole had called off their date.

  Fourteen

  After she’d left the mall yesterday afternoon, she’d driven by the neighborhood where she knew Cole lived. Snow crunched under her tires as she cruised the street, fighting the feeling of being kind of stalkerish. But she hadn’t been able to locate his address, and didn’t see his truck in any of the shoveled drives.

  So she’d picked up tacos from one of her favorite food trucks, and a bottle of wine from the liquor store, where the clerk greeted her by name. When he’d wished her a Merry Christmas, she’d grumbled a couple nonsense syllables back at him. On the drive home, Christmas tunes were playing nonstop on the car radio. It didn’t take her long to snap off the noise, opting for lovely silence. At home, she’d flipped the TV on and watched a Bruce Willis film where he saved a bunch of workers from a deadly disruption in their Christmas party. She loved Bruce, so even though the movie had a Christmas theme, she didn’t change the channel.

  She didn’t hear from Cole at all. About nine, she’d texted him good night, then stared at her phone waiting for a reply that never came.

  Her sleep was fitful
that night, and when the alarm went off, she rolled over and pounded her fist on it. Then remembered that she’d quit her job, which meant she didn’t have to report to the mall for anything. A quick check of her phone for a message from Cole was disappointing. She laid the phone under her pillow and rolled to her stomach and fell back to sleep for two more hours.

  She was still in her PJs when Roberta called and begged her to come in to staff the giftwrap booth for a couple hours. Reluctantly, she agreed and dressed in yoga pants and dug up an old sweatshirt with a Santa face emblazoned on it. She wasn’t sure why she’d felt the need to wear this shirt, but the likeness to Chris made her smile.

  Her back was aching by the time she returned home, this time with a sub sandwich from the deli in the mall. After she gobbled her meal and washed it down with a Diet Coke, Ivy wandered through her tiny apartment, feeling a bit at sea and a little abandoned. She plopped down on the sofa, despising the silence in her house, so she hopped back up and turned a circle, trying to decide what to do. She was in a funky mood, one she didn’t recognize.

  Over the years, she’d received Christmas themed gifts from family and friends, and now, she unearthed a Christmas quilt from the back of her linen closet. She also dug out a heating pad for her aching back. Standing and bending over the giftwrap counters for what turned into six hours, not two, had resulted in a stiff and aching spine.

  And so, on the Saturday night when she and Cole were supposed to be on a date, she found herself on the sofa, wearing a Christmas sweatshirt, under a Christmas quilt, sipping a glass of red wine and watching, of all things, a holiday movie. She shook her head. What was next? Singing Christmas carols by the fire? Thank God her apartment didn’t have a fireplace.

  Since being rear-ended by Santa, or rather by Chris, she’d begun to change. Maybe delivering her resignation to Roberta had escalated the shift in her attitude. Her budding new relationship with Cole could be responsible as well. But she still hadn’t heard from the man since a hurried phone call on Thursday night.

  That worried her, but the rest of the world felt right. A strange kind of peace had settled on her, and she was content. She grabbed her idea book from the coffee table, flipped to a blank page and scrawled Ivy’s Business Plan in block letters.

  She lost herself in writing down ideas for what she wanted to do next, but doodled Cole’s name in the margin as she considered different scenarios.

  After the second holiday movie was over, and another had begun playing, there was a knock on her door.

  A peek through the peephole revealed Cole, as if her meandering mind had conjured him.

  Throwing open the door, she stood with one hand on it. “What are you doing here?”

  Cole looked hollow-eyed and haunted. “I just snuck away. Some shit went down Thursday.”

  Ivy’s heart leapt into her throat. “Oh my God. Are you okay?”

  His head barely dipped but it was still a nod. “Can I come in?”

  She hastily stepped backward. As he passed by, she stroked her hand down his arm. He paused, then gathered her close, his nose pressed to the crown of her head and breathing deeply. She pushed the door shut, then wrapped her arms around him. Whatever was bothering him had him stiff in her embrace, until finally, he relaxed against her.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Her words were muted against his broad chest.

  “In a minute. Right now, I need this more.”

  So they stood, with the canned laugh track of the Christmas rom-com movie in the background, and held each other.

  Ivy felt tension draining away, not only from her form but from his as they stood, swaying a bit, as though dancing in place.

  Cole tightened his grip around her waist and released a huge breath. “This just feels right.”

  She leaned back in his arms and smiled at him. “Let’s sit and you can tell me all about it.”

  He let her lead him to the sofa and push him down. Her fingers were soft as silk on his jaw when she stroked them tenderly along.

  “Do you want a glass of wine?” She gestured toward the bottle and single glass on the table in front of him.

  “Sure.”

  He stared dejectedly at the TV while listening to her moving in the small kitchen behind the sofa. He reached for the remote and turned the annoyance off. “I hope you don’t mind.” He tossed the remote to the table and dislodged a stack of papers. He picked a book up off the floor and glanced at the writing.

  Ivy returned to the sofa, poured him a glass of wine then set the bottle aside. She tried to grab the book from his hands. “Oh, you don’t want to look at that.”

  He yanked the book away from her grasping hand then curled a protective arm around the spiral bound volume. “Yeah, I think I do.”

  He’d have to have been blind not to see his name encircled by an intricately drawn wreath in the margin of Ivy’s Business Plans. A sliver of warmth cracked open a heart frozen by Holly’s reappearance on Thanksgiving. “I like this.”

  “The plan?” she asked as she snuggled under the bright red and green quilt. “I don’t know why. It’s just ramblings. Nothing concrete.”

  He pointed to his name. “No, this part. It looks like I’ll be included in your future plans.”

  Pretty pink flashed into her cheeks and she ducked her head. “It’s just doodling. My mind wandered a bit while I was trying to think about what I’ll be doing two weeks from now.”

  He arched a brow. “Wait, what are you saying?”

  “I…I quit my job.” Her fingers plucked nervously at a thread on the satin ribbon bordering the quilt. “Something happened yesterday morning, and I was fed up. It was enough and I just quit.”

  “Really?” His voice was pitched higher than normal. “Tell me what happened to make this miracle come true.”

  She sighed. “I got caught in a stampede for a toy for the second time in my life. What is wrong with adults that they’ll trample other humans in the quest for a stupid hunk of plastic?”

  He tipped her chin up and studied her face for evidence of injuries, relieved to find nothing but her soft, unblemished skin. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t get hurt, but it made me realize that working super long hours to transform a commercial space to something magical is as crazy as people trampling each other. I was propagating the behavior without even thinking about it.”

  “Holidays used to be so much simpler. I’m glad you quit.” He shifted his hand from her jaw to her neck, tunneling his fingers into the hair on her nape. He pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to her lush lips. “Does this mean you’ll consider joining me as a business partner?”

  She smiled. “I was thinking about moving back to Kansas and opening a sunflower farm.”

  He sat back, and sucked a breath in. “You’re leaving?” That was the last thing he wanted. He wanted her to stay more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

  Even, white teeth peeked out from her grinning lips. “Do you think I’d make a good sunflower farmer?”

  “Nope. You’d be complete crap at it. But you’d be an amazing designer and stager. So you should stay in town and work with me.”

  “Will you tell me what happened to make you disappear for two days?”

  Cole scrubbed a hand over his face, praying the action would wipe away the lingering dread in his gut. “Chris grounded me.”

  She laughed, then sobered when she glanced at his all-too-serious expression. “Oh, you’re not kidding.”

  “Wish I was. Took away my phone and keys as well.” He sighed. “My mom was released from prison. She showed up like a bad penny on Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh, Cole! What happened?”

  “It seems Holly finally learned the finer points of good behavior. Or maybe the prison was just too crowded. They released her Thursday. She had nowhere else to go but Chris’s.” He still smarted a bit that Chris had welcomed the woman so warmly, and insisted that Cole give her a chance. But during his enforced restriction yest
erday and today, Cole had finally arrived at a place where he could co-exist with her. At least in small doses. “Anyway, Chris practically locked us in a room together until we came to an understanding. Holly is going to be in my life one way or another. You’ll get a chance to meet her. She’ll be working for Chris at the photo operation.”

  “Really? Should I look forward to that?” She took his hand, pressed a warming kiss to his palm, and lifted questioning eyes to his face.

  He curled his fingers around hers. “I’ll let you decide. We managed to reach a détente and I’m not going to be the one to break this fragile relationship. Holly will manage that by herself.”

  “Maybe she’s changed. People do, you know.”

  He kissed her knuckles and then laughed. “I haven’t. I still snuck out the window in my old room at Chris’s house like a naughty teenager. Had to hail a cab the old-fashioned way instead of calling an Uber for pick up. Otherwise, I would have walked here. I needed to see you.”

  Ivy snuggled closer to him under the quilt and rested her hand on his chest, toying with the buttons on his shirt. “I needed to see you too.”

  She lifted her face to his and he didn’t hesitate for even a heartbeat. He captured her mouth with his and kissed her until his soul was full.

  Fifteen

  Something clicked deep within Ivy, something so right she nearly floated in delight. She wrapped her arms around Cole’s shoulders and let her own body weight pull her backward to the sofa cushions, dragging him with her. He was solid and heavy, but comforting. Her heart unfurled with welcome.

  She squirmed into the corner of the couch as he stretched out next to her and deepened the kiss. His hand caressed her chin, skimmed down her throat, blazing a path of molten heat with the light touch. She tunneled her fingers through the coarse blond hair on the back of his head and sighed into his mouth.

  Cole flexed his hips against her thighs and let his hand wander lower, first tracing her breast with his knuckles, and then rotating his hand until he cupped the sensitive flesh with his palm. Her nipple hardened into a taut peak of nerves, sending a cascade of sensation and longing through her core. Her body turned to liquid need with each touch, each kiss.