The Santa Suit (Holiday Homecoming #4)

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  Gabe laughed, and a warm, welcoming response rose in her throat. She choked it back, pointing out to her foolish heart that not only was he arrogant, pushy and irritating, he had undoubtedly kissed a dozen women last Christmas Eve and probably didn’t remember half of them. Realizing she was obviously in the forgettable half, she frowned and squared her shoulders. “Let’s go in the other room,” she said firmly. “Then you can say your piece and leave.”

  His eyebrows drew together in a startled frown as he glanced from her to the coffee mug in his hand. “Do I get to finish my coffee before you kick me out?”

  “If you drink fast, you do.” She took a second wary step toward the doorway, acutely aware that he took up too much space in her kitchen and that he didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. But when he did vacate the doorway and walk into the open space of the combined dining and living areas, she abruptly missed the intimacy of the smaller room. Which was annoying.

  Skirting the dining room table, she crossed the room and took a seat on the couch, curling her feet on the cushion and tucking her robe around her legs and toes. She looked up suddenly and caught him watching her…and a ribbon of possibility wound like Christmas tinsel through her consciousness, pretty but insubstantial. With a nod, she indicated that he should sit down. He glanced from the empty place beside her on the sofa and then to the overstuffed chair and ottoman, obviously debating where to sit As if she couldn’t be more unconcerned, Katherine slipped one foot out from under cover and stretched one leg across the sofa, making an elaborate gesture of readjusting the terry robe so that her bare leg was covered, while effectively taking away the option of sitting beside her.

  With a shrug, Gabe settled into the overstuffed chair and sank into the shaped softness until his knees rose nearly level with his chest and his body formed a lazy N in the chair. He looked surprised, and none too comfortable as he met her gaze across the coffee table. “You might have warned me this was a man-eating chair. Or is this how you get rid of all your unwanted guests?”

  “Only the larger ones,” she said, unable to keep the laughter out of her voice. “The twins like to sit there when they watch television, but I have to admit, I’ve never seen them disappear quite so far down into it.”

  “They probably don’t sit still long enough to sink.” Holding the mug high and steady, he tried to wrestle his way up from the depths, but halfway out, he gave up and slowly submerged again. “Now, aren’t you sorry you didn’t ask me to sit beside you? I may be stuck in this chair for the rest of my life, which means you’ll be stuck with me as a fixture in your living room for the rest of yours.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” she said pleasantly. “I’ll hire some movers, and they’ll get you right out of here.”

  “Do you always have an immediate solution to your problems, Katherine?”

  “I don’t deal well with uncertainty,” she said. “And I’m not terribly patient, so why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

  As if he needed to recall the reason, he took another lingering sip of coffee. “I could say I came to return the twins five dollars…”

  “But that wouldn’t be the truth,” she deduced.

  He lifted his shoulder in a wry shrug. “I’m not going to spend it, if that’s what worries you, and I’ll give it back after this contract thing is resolved…which is one of the reasons I wanted to see you this morning.”

  From long practice, Katherine picked up the pivotal word. “What contract?”

  “The Santa contract,” he said with a smile. “That’s what we’re calling it around the office.”

  “I suppose that would be the secret contract the three of you signed with invisible ink.”

  “That would be the one, yes. I thought you and I should discuss the terms.”

  “You want to discuss a contract that doesn’t exist?”

  “It exists. I have a copy in my office.”

  “Let’s not quibble over technicalities. The contract isn’t real, no matter how many copies you have.”

  “It’s real to Andy and Abby,” he pointed out candidly. “They want to find Santa Claus. What’s so wrong with that?”

  “Wrong?” she repeated, as if his mistake were blatantly obvious. “What’s wrong is that there isn’t a Santa Claus to find.”

  “But what if I could prove to you that there is?”

  “You’d be a magician, and even then it would still be a trick, because Santa Claus isn’t real.”

  “Not in your experience.”

  She pursed her lips. “Not in anyone’s experience. He’s fiction, a fairy tale, nonexistent. Period. End of story.”

  “But what if I could prove you’re wrong?”

  “Trust me on this. If you’re determined to work miracles, put your energy into creating world peace. With that, at least, you’d have a fighting chance of success.”

  Humor sparked in his eyes. “What did Santa Claus ever do to you, Katherine?”

  “It’s what I did to him, Gabe.” His name just slipped out, and it hung there between them, an intimacy she hadn’t intended, a note of warmth she hoped he hadn’t noticed. “I grew up and I outgrew fantastical stories about a fat old elf in a red suit with a long white beard.”

  “So you did believe in him…once.”

  “Maybe. I honestly don’t remember.”

  He seemed to see that for the lie it was, because he slumped more comfortably in the chair and looked perfectly satisfied. “Let me guess. One Christmas when you were…oh, not quite eight years old, you asked Santa for something, a doll, maybe, and he didn’t deliver and you never forgave him.”

  “You’ve been watching Frank Capra movies, haven’t you? Or that sappy old Miracle on 34th Street.”

  “I watch it every year. It wouldn’t be Christmas without being able to cheer when the post office delivers all that mail to Kris Kringle, proving he’s the real Santa Claus. I’m a faithful fan.”

  “It figures.”

  “Yes, it does,” he said with that odd quirk of his lips. “I’ll even admit I get a tear in my eye at the end, when they discover Kris’s cane in the corner of their dream house.”

  “And, I suppose, you cry at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, too.”

  “Are you kidding? When the bell rings and Jimmy. Stewart knows Clarence got his wings…” Gabe sighed dramatically. “That scene has me reaching for another hankie every time.” The quirk grew into a sad smile. “I’ll bet you don’t even cry in A Christmas Carol, when Tiny Tim says, ‘God bless us every one!’”

  Her lips tightened, despite her express desire to look amused at his expense. “I’m not a Scrooge. I just don’t get emotionally involved with movies. I rarely even watch them.”

  “So what was it, Katherine? The gift you asked Santa for but never got?”

  She traced a random design on the sofa arm. “A pony.”

  “A pony? Really? Me too. I’ve always felt Dad made some kind of deal with Santa that year, insisting I’d really said puppy, instead of pony. But I got the puppy, and when you’re seven, a puppy’s just as great as a pony, anyway.” He shook his head sympathetically. “I guess you didn’t get either one, huh?”

  “I was being facetious when I said that, Mr. Housley. I assumed you’d know it was a joke.”

  “You shouldn’t joke about Santa Claus, Kate…and don’t bother to tell me that isn’t your name, because until you stop calling me Mr. Housley, I’m calling you whatever I want.”

  Katherine narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you should call me long-distance, Gabe? Or better yet—”

  “Mom?” The interruption was followed by the pat, pat, patter of bunny house slippers slapping the wood floor as Abby walked over and climbed up on the sofa, nestling into Katherine’s side like a sleepy kitten. “Hi, Gabe,” she said, then held up a scraggly, loosely stuffed orange lion. “This is Matilda. She doesn’t talk.”

  “Good morning, Abby,” he said. “Good morning, Matilda.” With a frown, his gaze turned from the bedrag
gled lion to Katherine. “I thought Matilda was the name of your cat?”

  “Lions are cats,” Abby explained with a yawn. “And they don’t shred.”

  “Shed,” Katherine said, tucking her arm around Abby’s warm shoulders. “And real lions probably do shed…and shred, but we like Matilda just the way she is, don’t we, sweetie?”

  Abby let go and the stuffed animal plopped onto Katherine’s lap. “I’d like her better if she was real, Mom, ‘cause then I could brush her and dress her in pretty clothes and listen to her purr.”

  It was an old discussion, and one Katherine had no intention of reopening. “Did you have sweet dreams?”

  “Mmm-hmm. When are we going? I can go tell Andy to wake up, if it’s time.”

  Abby looked expectantly at Gabe and Katherine felt a twinge of possessive alarm. Before he could give her daughter some perfectly ridiculous answer, she jumped in with a confident “We’re not going anywhere until this afternoon.”

  Abby looked up in surprise, her eyes widening with suspicion. “You’re gonna go with us?”

  “Of course. You and Andy can’t go to the museum all by yourselves, now, can you?”

  “Oh.” Abby’s stricken gaze flew to Gabe. “I thought we were gonna go look for Santa Claus.”

  Katherine arched her brows at the half man, half chair across from her. “Now where would you get an idea like that, Abby?” she asked coolly.

  “Gabe said. He said he’d take us to look for the real Santa Claus today, didn’t you, Gabe?”

  “He was teasing, Abby. You know there’s no such thing as a real Santa Claus.”

  Gabe made an effort to sit straighter. “I wasn’t teasing,” he said. “I told them they could help me look for Santa.”

  “See, Mom? He meant it. He said we could help him look, and he meant it. It was a promise.”

  “Well, he shouldn’t have promised any such thing without checking with me.” She glared at the “he” under discussion. “You had no right to offer them any kind of outing without getting my permission first. You’re virtually a stranger.”

  “No, he isn’t, Mom.” Abby stated firmly. “He’s a real detective and me and Andy hired him, and we can go anywhere we want to with him.”

  Katherine blinked, startled by the defiance in her daughter’s usually very reasonable voice. “Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice, Abigail Grace. Remember, I’m the mother and you’re the child.”

  Abby sighed as she retrieved Matilda from Katherine’s lap. “Oh, all right. You can come with us, Mom, but only if you promise you won’t say Santa’s not real anymore. Okay?”

  “You’re in no position to bargain—”

  “Jet Jupiter to the rescue!” From under the table, an action-adventure hero leaped to his feet…and banged his head on the underside of the table. “Owwww-oh!” Andy yelled and began to cry… loudly and in great, gulping sobs.

  “Andy!” Abby jumped to her feet in sympathy…and began jumping up and down on the couch, because the opportunity was there.

  Katherine’s heart jerked with maternal alarm, and she would have jumped up, but couldn’t easily get her feet disentangled from the robe. By the time she managed to put her feet firmly on the floor, Gabe was already kneeling next to her son, roughing his hair with a gentle hand, checking for injury while. distracting him with a soothing, “You’ve got to remember to wear your helmet, Jet And it’s always a good idea to open the hatch of your rocket ship before you eject.”

  It was exactly what Katherine would have done. Well, maybe she would have given him a kiss and a slight scolding for hiding under the table in the first place, but essentially, it would have accomplished the same results. But here was this man, uninvited, taking over her role…and all she could manage to feel, above her pounding heartbeat, was relief. “Are you all right?” she asked, falling back on the standard question of mothers everywhere, regardless of situation.

  Andy rubbed his head, blinked back his tears, and ignored her in favor of Gabe. “I don’t have a helmet,” he said with a sniffle.

  “What do you mean, you don’t have a helmet?” Gabe looked appropriately astonished. “Well, we’ll just fix that right now. Come with me.” Taking Andy’s hand, he led the way to the kitchen.

  Curious, and not a little protective, Katherine followed, pausing only long enough to grab Abby on one of her gymnastic maneuvers, thereby saving the sofa from imminent destruction. She stopped in the kitchen doorway, unwilling to wedge into the small space Gabe again occupied with such presence. She watched as he opened first one cabinet door and then another. “Does he need an ice pack?” she asked, suddenly concerned that Andy’s bump on the head was worse than she’d thought. A concussion, maybe.

  “He needs a helmet.” Gabe pulled out a large saucepan, gauged the measurements in a glance and, with a nod, placed the aluminum pan over Andy’s red curls. “There, now we just need a chin strap…” Reaching up, he removed his tie and, with a few twists and a couple of knots, Andy’s saucepan helmet was secured on his happy little head.

  “Hey, cool.” Andy stroked the chin strap and patted the top of the pan, and then, all smiles, he looked up at Katherine. “How does it look, Mom?”

  “Very handsome,” she said, her smile wrapped in a heartful of love. “Jet Jupiter never looked better.”

  “You look really stupid,” Abby told him. “And you can’t wear a dumb helmet when we go looking for Santa Claus. Can he, Gabe?”

  Gabe held up his thumb and sighted Abby from ear to ear. “I think you could wear something a little less bulky.” He lifted a plastic bowl from the shelf and settled it…with great care and fussing…on her head. “What do you think?” he asked. “There’s one other possibility, but it’s blue.”

  Katherine thought Abby would have nothing to do with wearing a bowl on her head, even if it was a pretend helmet, but she made a couple of adjustments on either side and said, “I like yellow best But what about my chin strap?”

  Gabe frowned, then looked at Katherine. “Give me your sash.”

  “I don’t think so.” She covered the sailor’s knot at her waist defensively.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Mom.” Abby pushed Katherine’ s hand aside and set to work untying the knot. “I just want to borrow it.”

  Katherine felt a flush creep onto her cheeks, but whether it was because the kitchen seemed so cozy all of a sudden or because Gabe had asked her to take off her belt, she couldn’t determine. As if she would blush over anything so silly. Realizing with a start that she was not only blushing, but staring into Gabe’s attractive brown eyes while she did it, she bent her head and tried to speed up her daughter’s fumbling attempt to undo the knot. “Do you want me to do it?” she asked.

  “No, I can.” The tip of Abby’s tongue appeared between her lips as she struggled persistently with the belt.

  Katherine shifted her weight from one bare foot to the other and waited for what seemed like eons before the belt fell from around her waist and was caught in Gabe’s big hand. With a sigh, she clutched the lapels of her robe and whirled out of the kitchen like a storm cloud in search of a lightning rod. She was outwardly serene and unbothered when Abby raced up to her a minute later, all decked out in a yellow plastic bowl secured on her head with a white terry-cloth sash, which wrapped twice over the top of her “helmet” and was tied dashingly under her chin. “Look, Mom. Gabe made me a helmet, too. Now, I’m Barbie Jupiter.”

  “Girls can’t be laser rangers,” Andy informed her, leveling his laser gun at her helmet “You can be a cheerleader.”

  “I don’t wanta be a cheerleader! I can, too, be a laser ranger, can’t I, Mom?”

  “Yes, you may.” Katherine picked up Gabe’s overcoat and offered it to him, along with an expectant look and a step toward the front door. “This .could get nasty,” she said. “You’ll want to leave before there’s any bloodshed.”

  Gabe hesitated, standing next to the dining room table, looking so very comfortable in her home that
she felt a renewed sense of urgency to get him out. “Will you let me take them to Macy’s this afternoon?” he asked.

  “Macy’s?” she repeated, surprised by both the idea and the destination.

  “Macy’s?” Andy stopped laser activity long enough to repeat the magic word. “Are we going to Macy’s?”

  Abby butted Andy’s arm with her helmeted head. “Me and Gabe are going,” she informed him. “You have to stay home with Mom.”

  Katherine ignored them, hoping to postpone the inevitable argument. “I’m sorry,” she said, politely but firmly. “I don’t know you well enough to let you take the twins anywhere.”

  “Then come with us.”

  “And look for Santa Claus?” She shook her head. “That would be a waste of time, now wouldn’t it?”

  “It wouldn’t, Mom!” Andy grabbed her hand in a tight plea. “Just ‘cause you don’t believe doesn’t mean me and Abby can’t Please, Mom? Please, let us go see Santa Claus at Macy’s. Please? Please? Please?”

  “We want to really, really bad, Mom.” Abby added, making a readjustment to her bathrobe belt bow.

  Katherine looked at Gabe, frowning, wondering why he hadn’t let the twins’ interest in detectives die a natural death. Didn’t he know that the object of a child’s curiosity changed at least a hundred times a day? And she didn’t believe for an instant that someone as sensible as she was could hold any interest at all for someone as frivolous as he obviously was. Slipping her finger in between Andy’s hand and hers, she eased the pressure of his death grip. “I have always told you the truth,” she told her son. “I’ve never lied to you,” she turned to Abby. “And when I told you Santa Claus wasn’t real, it was the truth. It still is.”

  “But, Mom, we need to find out for ourselves.”

  Gabe cleared his throat, and she shot him a warning glance, but he only shrugged. He probably knew that she knew Andy had her dead to rights. How many times had she told them to look up the answers to their questions in the encyclopedia? Or stood aside while they discovered for themselves how something was done? Whoever said “Out of the mouths of babes” had probably been seven years old when he said it. Damn, damn, damn. She did not want to go to Macy’s. She made one desperate attempt to salvage her afternoon and her steadfast belief in the value of telling the truth. “Wouldn’t you rather go to the museum? You’re going to be disappointed when you see Santa Claus and realize he’s a fake.”