Shaking that dark thought out of my head, I lug the satchel over to the tree and loosen the rope cinched around the top. I have no clue what kind of toys Travis and the others in the office packed into this thing, but it’s heavy and full. Carefully, I extract the neatly wrapped packages one by one, doing my best not to tear the paper, then I set them around the base of the spindly Charlie Brown tree.
Once the bag has been emptied, I stuff my clutch inside and fold the fabric around it as neatly as possible then look for a place to stash it. Should I stash it? Maybe it would be better if the kids saw it? Make it more magical for them? Then I think of Mr. Claus who will soon be joining me and figure it’s probably unwise to have two bags sitting there. Plus, I want my wallet secure. There will be too many distractions to keep an eye on my valuables.
I spot a row of tall, plastic storage closets lined up against one wall. They’re probably filled with a number of art supplies, but I’m sure no one will notice or mind if I borrow a little space for a couple hours.
Heading over, I open them one by one, surprised to find each one stuffed to the max with papers and paints, crayons and marker boxes, and more. These kids have a better stock than my high school art teacher ever had. I’m marginally jealous.
They even have real clay!
The second to the last cabinet is the jackpot. There is one shelf at the bottom that has an open cranny and I scrunch the bag up as small as I can and bend down to stuff it inside between a spool of twine and a bucket of stained rags.
“Oh...uh...sorry,” I hear a man’s voice say behind me, and the cool breeze on my backside alerts me right away to what he’s seeing.
I jackknife up and whirl around, my hands tugging at the material to cover my butt. “I was just putting my stuff away,” I hurry to explain, and I know by how hot they feel that my cheeks are burning red.
But my embarrassment evaporates the instant I look into the man’s eyes. Even with his face hidden behind the snow-white fake beard and the wire-rimmed glasses, I would know those eyes anywhere.
My blood runs cold at the same time my heart races and an unexpected sense of despair and raw hurt explodes in my gut. Somehow, when I manage to find my voice, it comes out as calm, hard, and unaffected as I would hope for in a harrowing situation like this.
“What are you doing here?” I ask even as I note the bright red Santa suit.
Kyle blinks a few times, as if he’s trying to process what he’s seeing, and the information can’t compute. Typical. He never was the sharpest tool in the box—obviously; otherwise, he never would have screwed up with me.
“I, uh, volunteer here. I mean I work here. I’m mean I work here, but I also volunteer for these holiday things...” He shakes his head as if to clear it, then his brows knit together as if he’s straining to think. “Wait, why are you here? And dressed like that?” he asks, looking me over as if in shock.
Lifting my chin, I say defiantly, “I think that’s obvious, on both counts.” Then, desperately needing to sit down, I march over to the folding chairs and lower myself into the one closest to the tree, crossing my rubbery-feeling legs and staring back at him in open challenge.
The paralyzing shock on his face is worth the self-torture of sticking around.
Chapter Four
Kyle keeps giving me the side eye, and I’m trying my level best to ignore him. Or at least pretend that I am. I’m regretting my decision to stay, because with each passing minute, I can feel myself softening. How, after all these years of hardening myself, maintaining a strong, impenetrable wall, can it be crumbling so fast?
It seems unfair that he looks even better than the day I dumped his ass there on the Phi Beta Whatever’s stone steps in front of his douchy frat brothers. It would have been more helpful and pleasing had that jolly fat gut he’s carrying around been the real deal, but I can tell from the thickness of those arms and the way they pull the fabric of the jacket tight that he’s built solid underneath it all.
And he’s great with kids, too.
Total bullshit. I’m angry just sitting here, knowing he’s probably had a nice life filled with more women than he can count, and I’m just...well, I don’t know what I’m doing. Nearly ten years and a bachelor’s degree later, and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. If I did, I sure wouldn’t be working in an office with a guy like Travis roping me into this gig when all I really want to be doing is sitting at home catching up on my soaps.
“Ho, ho, ho!” Kyle bellows as he lifts another little boy onto his knee and holds him steady. “Have you been a good little boy this year?”
The little boy grins, revealing several missing teeth, and says, “Yes, Santa,” in a bashful way that makes my heart swell. I can’t get over how adorable these kids are. Each one seems more special than the last, and maybe it’s the magic of the holiday, or sitting here beside Kyle and all these old feelings getting drummed up that’s doing it, but I swear I can feel my biological clock ticking.
I miss what was said between them, lost in my own little world, but check back in when I hear Kyle addressing me.
“A present for little Joey, Mrs. Claus?” he asks in a way that tells me he’s said this more than once already. We’ve created a bit of a routine: the kids tell him what they want, he pretends to make a note of it, and then I select a gift from under the tree to tide them over until they open their presents in the morning.
I resist rolling my eyes and turn to the tree beside me, scan the remaining packages, and select one covered in shiny, metallic blue paper with a silver ribbon wrapped around all four sides and tied neatly at the top in a bow.
“Here you are, sweetie,” I say, passing it to Joey’s small but capable hands.
His eyes widen with excitement and he thanks us loudly before jumping down off Kyle’s lap and rushing over to his parents who are waiting at the back of the room with tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces.
I can’t imagine the struggle they’ve been faced with. My heart goes out to them, and I say a silent prayer for Joey to recover from whatever brought him here.
After a few more presents are doled out, we’re down to our remaining kid—a little girl of around seven with a pretty, purple and fuchsia patterned scarf wrapped around her head to disguise that she’s bald underneath. Her skin is pallid, making her freckles stand out, and there are dark circles ringing both golden brown eyes.
Cancer, I think as my stomach drops.
I would expect a kid in her position to be downtrodden with the heavy burden of her illness, but other than the obvious physical indicators, she doesn’t seem sick at all. In fact, the way she bounces up to us and practically jumps into Kyle’s lap scream vitality.
“Hi, Santa! Hi, Mrs. Claus!” she says with all the pep of a cheerleader. I bet she’d make a great one, too.
“Well, hello to you, too,” Kyle says, matching her enthusiasm.
I can’t hide my smile as I watch the two interact like old friends.
“My mom said not to ask for a lot, because you already have so many kids on your list, so all I really want this year is a puppy. I can’t have one right now, of course, because they don’t let puppies in the hospital, which is dumb because puppies make people happy, but I’m getting better, so I can play with him when the doctor says I can go home,” she says rapidly.
“A puppy is a lot of responsibility,” Kyle tells her smartly, and she nods quickly.
“Oh, I know. My uncle had a puppy and he used to let me feed it and even give it a bath sometimes.” Light enters her eyes, and she continues. “It was so cute. I want one just like it!”
Kyle glances at me before looking past the little girl to the couple who I assume to be her parents waiting a few feet away. The father gives a nearly imperceptible nod, and Kyle returns his attention to their daughter.
“Well, I’ll tell you what. If you promise to take really good, extra special care of it, I promise to do my best.”
The girl bounces in his lap
, exuberantly clapping her hands. “Oh yes, yes I will! Thank you, Santa!” Throwing her thin arms around his neck, she squeezes him tightly and then—quite unexpectedly—launches herself at me, giving me the same strong hug.
She’s bounding away before I can process that she’s even left, and as I watch her run into her father’s arms and he lifts her up, I can still feel the tightness of that hug.
It makes me feel warm inside, a ray of happiness and joy that only a child can bring about. I’ve never been the merry type when the holidays roll around, but I feel a bit of it now.
“I love volunteering for these things,” Kyle says, his voice somewhat sad, “but I’ve never gotten used to knowing that some of them won’t make it past their next birthday, let alone waking up on Christmas morning to open their presents.”
Thinking of those little faces I saw in their rooms earlier, those who didn’t make it here to see us, I’m quick to say, “Well, making a difference in their lives for even one day has to count for something. I hope they really did get her that puppy. She’s going to love it.”
Kyle’s expression hardens, and he stands up, picking up his empty satchel and yanking at the drawstrings. Instantly, I’m filled with concern. “That girl is terminal. She’ll be lucky if she makes it to the new year.”
My mouth suddenly feels like a dried-out husk, and I sit, staring at the floor, as he starts the cleanup process. Most of the presents we gave out today didn’t make it out of the room before being torn open. I can still hear the kids’ laughter ringing in my ears. So much joy and pain all mixed together. Inside, I don’t know what to do with the conflicting emotions.
Standing, I walk over to one of the cabinets I spotted a roll of garbage bags in earlier and rip one off. I shake it out as I return to Kyle whose arms are full of balled-up wrapping paper. “Why do you do this every year if it’s so hard on you?”
He doesn’t look at me as he dumps the paper into the trash bag. “It’s a lot harder on those kids and their families than me, don’t you think?”
“You know,” I say, somewhat annoyed with his attitude, no matter how justified it may be, “just because you’re in a mood, it doesn’t mean you can take it out on me. I’m being nice here, which is a lot more than you deserve from me.”
Those dark eyes flip up and the intensity of his stare nearly knocks me back. “Deserve? I treated you like gold and you dumped me in front of everyone at school over nothing.”
“You were with another girl,” I growl, doing my level best to keep my voice and my attitude in check. A hospital full of children didn’t need to play witness to my fucked-up past drama.
“It was a kiss, and one I didn’t invite. I told you that.”
“It was a lot more than that,” I sneer. “Everyone told me that.”
“Haven’t you ever heard that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear?”
“So, I wasn’t supposed to believe my friends over you, who freely admitted to kissing another girl in a drunken stupor? Because I’m just supposed to believe that it didn’t go any further than that when you probably couldn’t remember anything the next morning. Right.” I nod, glaring at him briefly before dropping the bag at his feet. “I don’t know why I insist on torturing myself. I should have left the moment you walked through the door.”
There’s a challenge in Kyle’s eyes when he says, “Then why didn’t you?”
My mouth opens and closes as I grasp for a valid response. Why didn’t I walk away? I told myself it was because I refused to be run off, that seeing him pine after me would be the perfect vengeance...but now I wonder.
Did I stay because I needed to see him as much as I needed him to see me? Did I feel as if I had something to prove to him?
“Like you said, the kids and their families are more important.” Disturbed by my current, ongoing inner monologue and that knowing way Kyle’s looking at me, I step back and tell him, “I’m sure you can finish up here.”
Turning on my heel, I move to leave when I feel his hand bind around my arm, pulling me back. “Where do you think you’re going?” he growls.
Stunned and quickly growing angry, I say, “Home. I don’t want to be around you anymore.”
For one long moment, our eyes dart back and forth between one another, assessing, and then Kyle shocks the shit out of me.
With an intensity in his voice and expression I’ve never seen in real life before, he yanks me to him, my breasts slamming into his chest, and his other hand winds into my hair, holding me in place. His gaze is firmly planted on my gasping mouth when he says, “I’m not letting you run away from me this time.”
In a split second, without any time to decide one way or another, he’s kissing me...and I’m utterly consumed.
It takes a moment or two for me to get ahold of myself. When I do, I’m completely overcome, too many thoughts and emotions swimming through my head to pin down just one. This entire day is a culmination of mixed-up emotions, and I’m overwhelmed by it all to the point I don’t know whether I’m coming or going anymore.
In a flash of clarity, I gasp and shove Kyle away. “What the hell are you doing?”
He releases me, eyes glazed, and I stumble back from his embrace, swiping the back of my hand across my mouth as if I need to get the taste of him off me.
I don’t. My entire body is crying out for more. But I can’t allow him to shove his way back into my life—not after what he put me through. Months, I cried over this man. Months, I spent trying to forget about him. I never did. Years later, and his image still sits in my bedroom, reminding me of the past, of what never could be.
And now, in one impassioned, thoughtless act, I feel as if the fragile façade I’ve created has been irrevocably damaged.
Possibly destroyed.
I’m trembling as I stare accusingly back at him, wanting to spit all manner of nasty insults in order to prove to us both that I don’t want him. That I hate him.
But no words will come forth, leaving me a heaving, breathless mess.
Hurt and confusion and a softness I can’t put a name to enter his eyes, and Kyle steps forward, his hand outstretched. “Sunny—”
I’m shaking my head violently before my name fully passes his lips. “No. No!” A hiccup followed by a sob rips from my throat, horrifying me. My hand flies to my mouth as if to try to prevent the onslaught of emotion, but it’s too late. I back away, frantic to leave. I’m aware of what I must look like: a crazed animal running from slaughter. It all the more reason I need to get out of here.
Holding my hand up in a stop motion stops Kyle in his tracks, but I can’t unsee that abject pain in his eyes. He wants to touch me, to comfort me, but no way will I allow him. Never again.
The exit is a mere few feet away, and I dash toward it, uncaring of the belongings I’ve left behind...or my dignity. I just need to escape, to put this day behind me, to wall it off in the dark recesses of my mind and never, ever revisit it.
I need to reclaim that inner calm I’ve been holding onto with an iron fist since that fateful night.
Because, honestly, Kyle Payne never left my heart. Not for one. Single. Second.
Chapter Five
I can’t stop thinking about yesterday. Kyle has been constantly on my mind like a biblical plague. He’s causing all kinds of mental and emotional damage, and I can’t seem to pull it together.
How did I manage it the first time? I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to figure out how to wall that part of my mind off again, but so far, nothing has been successful.
Worse? My mom recognized my distraction the moment I stepped through the door, and in her own little way, pushed relentlessly until I finally caved and told her everything. Now, she latches onto every opportunity to tell me to explore this path, to consider giving Kyle one last chance.
She’s a lot like Bianca in that she loves love. In her desire to see her children happy, she will stop at nothing to turn over every rock and leaf to ensure that it happens. I never shou
ld have told her about Kyle. Now she’s like a dog with a bone and just will not let it go.
Raising her glass of wine in a toast, Mom addresses the table. “I’m so thankful that everyone could be here today. To be surrounded by family and love, old and new,” she says with a meaningful look down the table toward me, “is a true blessing. Your smiling faces bring me so much joy. To many more happy days to come.”
Everyone lifts their glass, says “hear, hear,” and takes a drink. As dishes are passed around the table and everyone begins eating, the conversation is a dull roar that I gladly avoid. Food is my distraction today, my sole focus. I just want to stuff my face and fill my stomach to bursting, then go home and sleep the rest of the day away.
That’s not something that’s going to happen, though, apparently.
Clearing my dinner plate, I serve myself a slice of pumpkin pie and heap it with cream until only the barest hint of orange peeks through. My stomach is already full, but as they say, there’s always room for dessert. Before I can eat my way into heavenly bliss, I see my mother heading my way.
She pulls out the chair one of my first cousins recently vacated in favor of watching the football game with the rest of the guys in the parlor and sits down beside me. Her elbows on the table, she clasps both hands together and props her chin on her fists, her eyes dancing with what I would call mischief.
“So...”
I raise my eyebrows and stab my fork into the pie. “So...what?”
“Oh, come on,” she says, giving up the rouse. “I need to know. Have you given what I said any more thought?”
“About giving Kyle another chance? No.” Lie. That’s literally all I’ve been thinking about.
“Sunshine,” she says, her tone disapproving, “it’s been years. Surely, you’ve found forgiveness in your heart by now.”
“He cheated on me,” I remind her, upset that she would even suggest such a thing.
“You were just kids,” she reasons, which is appalling to my sensibilities. “People make mistakes. And he said it was just a kiss. A drunken kiss,” she reminds me.
Santa Baby Page 2
