Once Upon a Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  “Maybe not. But I’ve been a steady Steadman since birth.”

  “I think there’s a cure for that now. An anti-boredom vaccine or—”

  “Ha, ha. Anyway, it must skip a generation, because Danny’s immune.” Nick sighed and faced his beaker of solution again. “I like having him around, but the kid’s a demolition expert in tennis shoes. So far he destroyed my Bunsen burner, erased my invention journal file—”

  “You, being you, had a backup, of course.”

  “—sure, but that’s not the point. Chloe, in the twenty minutes since his mother dropped him off—”

  “Naomi, Nadine, Nancy, or Nora? I can’t keep them all straight.”

  “—Naomi, and neither can anyone else except my mother.”

  “Nester, right?”

  He grinned at her. “Having fun?”

  “What? It’s cute.” She raised her arms, wobbling a little on her skates as she formed a TV-style frame around her head. “The Steadman family was brought to you today,” she said with Sesame Street-style peppiness, “by the letter ‘N’ and the number seven.”

  “—and since Naomi dropped him off,” Nick continued, returning to the subject of his destruction-happy nephew, “Danny’s done all that, plus almost reformatted my hard drive, made a mud castle with the potting soil for my research, and—”

  “—and, in general, acted like a perfectly normal, seven-year-old kid, right?” Chloe folded her arms, turning her gaze away from the window. “What did you expect when you agreed to spend Saturdays with Danny?”

  Nick shook his head. “Aww, I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong. I love the little guy. With my schedule, spending weekends with my nieces and nephews is about as close as I’ll ever get to having a family of my own.”

  “I dunno about that, Nick.” She turned her back on him and gazed out the window again. “My dad’s theory was leap-year parenting, and I turned out okay.”

  In spite of it, Nick added silently. If he ever did have a family, he’d want to devote more time and care to it than Chloe’s multiply divorced parents had. The way he saw it, a man could either be a good father and husband and provider—or he could be a great achiever and innovator and workman. Trying to be all those things simultaneously wasn’t fair to anyone.

  But the point was, “I’m telling you. I’m lucky as hell not to have kids yet, Chloe. I swear I’d never get anything done.”

  “Yeah. Lucky, lucky you.”

  “Nice sarcasm. What’s gotten into you?”

  She shrugged and trailed her fingertips along the tabletop beside them. “Maybe what’shername’s ticking clock is contagious.”

  He shuddered. “I think there’s a cure for that now.”

  “Har, har,” Chloe snorted, her gaze falling on his filled beaker. “So, what’s this great new invention of yours?”

  Thoughts of nephews and destruction faded.

  “It’s a growth accelerator.” He ran his fingers along the smooth glass beaker. The solution within winked blue and green, an ocean of possibilities. “This is a new version I came up with this morning. I was just about to test it.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Want to watch?”

  Chloe grinned. “That’s not the kind of question a girl like me is asked very often.”

  “That’s because that menagerie you keep next door scares off half your dates.” He picked up the beaker and prepared to pour.

  “Fun-ny. I’d hardly call a dog, a cat, a few fish, a hamster and”—she kiss-kissed at the bird on her shoulder—“Shemp here, a menagerie. I’d need to add at least a representative lizard or turtle to even begin to have that kind of variety.”

  She propped her hands on her hips, pushing her right skate forward and back, adding the imminent threat of wheeled lab destruction to her words.

  “Besides, my so-called menagerie loves me. They don’t snore, leave dirty socks lying around, or bail out on me when the going gets tough.” She gave him a pointed glance. “That’s not something you can say about just any old—oh—oh—oh!”

  Her right skate shot out from under her. Flailing, she clamped her hands on his biceps, making his solution slosh against the sides of the beaker. If he didn’t lose the whole thing between Danny, Chloe, and Chloe’s winged avenger, it would be a miracle.

  Gritting his teeth, Nick raised the beaker out of reach and inadvertently pulled Chloe halfway in the air, too. She shrieked and clutched his middle instead.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing with that?” She eyeballed the solution. “I think you spilled some of your magical Kool-aid on Shemp.”

  The bird in question flapped to the light fixture and resumed his attempts to cast disco-ball mood lighting on them.

  Chloe glanced upward worriedly. “Are you okay, Shemp? Do you feel anything yet?”

  As if the bird planned to answer. Nick frowned and put down the beaker. “I’m at least as good with magical Kool-aid as you are with roller skates,” he pointed out, wrapping his arms around her so he could unclench her fists from the small of his back. It felt as if she was bending his vertebrae into new and interesting shapes.

  Wait a minute…he held her in his arms for a second, testing his reaction. No thoughts of stroking, kissing or anything else remotely erotic popped into his head. All clear. Double-whew! His earlier Chloe-induced fantasy had clearly been an aberration.

  Maybe he’d been working too hard. Eight hours at the office and half as many more at home inventing each night would take its toll on any guy’s libido, wouldn’t it? It only made sense he’d fixate on the nearest woman within squeezing…stroking…kissing…distance. Even if said woman happened to be his best platonic female friend.

  He had to start getting out more.

  Nick set her upright again and picked up his beaker. Chloe shot him a small, inexplicably disappointed glance, then bumped her hip on his lab table and stared at him.

  “Okay. Let’s have a look at what this joy juice of yours can do.”

  Momentarily discombobulated by the dispirited note in her voice, Nick stared back at her. Chloe had always been his most ardent supporter, even more than his family and close-packed clan of relatives. They’d known him all his life. None of them actually believed any of “Nicky’s little inventions” would ever amount to anything. But to Chloe, his pal and confidant, he was Mr. Wizard and The Science Guy and the Absent-Minded Professor, all rolled into one big “you can do it!” package.

  Nick rubbed the side of his nose, temporarily skidding his glasses askew. “What’s the matter, Chloe?” he asked, setting them straight again. He tried to peek at the calendar hanging on the wall behind her without being too obvious about it. “Is it that time of—”

  “Say it and die.”

  Her threat lacked punch, but he shut up anyway. He pulled the potted ivy close again.

  She thumped her hip on the table, setting test tubes tinkling in their holders. A sheaf of Nick’s notes trembled atop the computer monitor and scattered like cottonwood leaves over his chair and floor. Chloe gazed at them with a faintly morose expression and crossed her arms over her chest. Sigh.

  He gently tipped up an ivy leaf and poured solution in the soil inside the plant’s terra cotta pot. Beside him, Chloe’s next sigh trembled past his ear. The ivy’s glossy leaves fluttered.

  He quit pouring. “Spill.”

  “What?” She shouldered next to him and peered up at Shemp. “You did spill some? How much? Is Shemp going to be okay?”

  “Aside from remaining a bird, yes.” Nick pulled over the next test-group plant, being careful not to look at her. “I mean, spill. Whatever’s bugging you.”

  Silence.

  An instant later, she grabbed the beaker. “At this rate, no wonder your experiments take months. You need an assistant or something.” She glanced around his lab, frowning at a stack of pizza delivery boxes in the corner. “You know, somebody to tend to the details of real life for you while you’re off in La-La Land inventing stuff.”

 
Nick folded his arms, looking at her carefully. “Now I know something’s bothering you. You only turn mean when cornered.”

  Chloe’s startled expression caught him unaware. So did the way she chewed her bottom lip, looking…vaguely guilty, if he didn’t miss his guess.

  She thrust her hands in her hair, loosening her bright bandanna by mistake and showing off the paler blond highlights she’d crowed about to him last week. The gesture was a dead giveaway. She’d never have messed up her hair for anything less than sex or a natural disaster.

  Nick had a feeling this fell in the disaster category.

  Chloe had a secret.

  He wanted to know what it was.

  “Well, I…ah…”

  Good move. He gave her ten points for convincing hesitancy. Except Chloe was probably the least hesitant person he knew.

  “Mmmm-hmmm?” he nudged.

  “I—I—” She rolled her eyes, clearly conjuring up a whopper. The question was, a whopper to cover what?

  “Good start,” he coaxed, feeling close.

  Her eyes brightened. “I’m worried about meeting Mr. Griggs at the bank tomorrow, that’s what. That’s it!” Her newly triumphant gaze shifted to him and lost a couple degrees of cockiness. “I mean, sure. That’s it. That’s what’s bugging me.”

  “You’re worried about your loan application.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Umm, sure.”

  “Come on. What kind of a—”

  “That’s it.” Now that the lie was out, she practically oozed relief. With a celebratory flourish worthy of game show hostesses everywhere, she raised the beaker.

  Thoughts of her mysterious secret and whatever rebuttal he’d been about to make flew out of Nick’s head. No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t…

  Gaily, Chloe poured every aquamarine drop of solution in the first ivy pot. “There! Now you can go on and do something fun with your day,” she announced, whisking her palms together.

  In the pot in front of them, the soil sizzled. The sound grew louder—loud enough to attract even Shemp’s birdbrain onto the scene. He swooped on Chloe’s shoulder and cocked his head. She did the same. So did Nick. He’d never heard anything quite like that sizzle.

  An instant later, the lustrous green ivy plant drooped in its pot, looking about as growth-accelerated as a strip of overcooked bacon.

  “Looks as if it’s back to the old drawing board.” Chloe peered sadly at the ivy. “But I know you can do it, Nick. Hey—can I watch?”

  Chapter Three

  Chloe couldn’t believe it had come to this.

  Bleary-eyed and yawning, she stared at the pregnancy test instructions in her hand. She blinked beneath the glaring seven A.M. lighting in her bathroom and read them again. Yup, it really did say she was supposed to pee on a stick. Gross.

  She picked up the package. There, above several lines of fine-print medicalese, blazed the words that had lured her to this particular test. Ninety-nine percent sure. If it took bathroom acrobatics to come up with results like that, she guessed she’d better give it a whirl.

  It took less time than she expected, more dexterity than she hoped, and miles more steadiness than her shaky hands could muster. Her stomach pitched as she set the tester on the vanity and turned her tomato-shaped kitchen timer to the three-minute mark.

  Tick, tick, tick. The first minute passed about as quickly as hot weather in Arizona. Chloe paced across her black-and-white checkerboard-tiled floor, swiping microscopic dirt from the vanity and trying not to look at herself in the mirror.

  Dumb. That’s what she was, for not thinking of this possibility beforehand. When Nick found out…

  He wasn’t going to find out. She couldn’t tell him about this.

  She had to tell him about this, she argued with herself. She hadn’t been with anyone else for more months than she cared to count. Her period was already two weeks late. Despite their fumbling, post-Kahlúa precautions, Nick might be a father in the making. He had a right to know, didn’t he?

  I’m lucky as hell not to have kids yet. I swear I’d never get anything done.

  Oh, yeah. Nick didn’t want kids. He’d told her that before. He wasn’t ready for a family now, at least not until he’d gotten the inventing bug out of his system and gotten established in his career…and turned serious about settling down.

  Ha! As if that would happen anytime soon.

  But part of him already wanted to settle down, Chloe told herself as she straightened the already-neat bathmat and fluffed out the shower curtain. The wistful expression on Nick’s face when he’d looked out the window at Danny yesterday had been proof enough of that.

  With my schedule, spending weekends with my nieces and nephews is about as close as I’ll ever get to having a family of my own.

  Then again, he seemed pretty resigned to waiting for it.

  Shoot.

  And what about the little white lie she’d told him? Nick didn’t even remember their night together. What if he never forgave her for lying to him in the first place?

  What if he didn’t believe her at all? She’d lose her best friend. End of story. Finito.

  Aaack. The whole thing was too muddled to deal with. With a helpless groan, Chloe flipped down the toilet seat and sat on it. Chin in hand, she stared at the pregnancy test. It grew bigger in her imagination, pulsing on the vanity like an atomic experiment from one of Nick’s Godzilla movies.

  She was losing it.

  Get a grip, she commanded herself. Then her front door swooshed open, Nick called to her from the living room, and Chloe nearly jumped out of her skin. The pregnancy test box clunked hollowly to the linoleum, punctuating the sound of the other shoe dropping in her life. Could she face Nick and still not tell him the truth?

  She’d have to.

  If necessary, she could always tell him the truth later. If the test was positive. No point worrying him for no reason, right?

  “Chloe?”

  His voice grew louder, echoing down the hallway. Coming closer. She leaped out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her, just in time to collide with Nick.

  “Ooof!”

  “Hi!” She gave him an overly chipper smile, taking in his rumpled khaki shorts and Cardinals T-shirt with an appreciative glance born of knowing exactly what kind of fine-tuned body he kept beneath them. “You surprised me.”

  “Your front door was open.” He straightened his glasses and gave her a quick once-over. “Oversleep again? Come on, Chloe. You’re never going to convince that old coot Griggs to give you your loan if you can’t even make it to your appointment on time. You know that. You—”

  His gaze stopped on her purple-dotted boxers. “You, you, you’ve been in business long en….” He stopped. “Do you always sleep in those?”

  His eyebrows furrowed beneath his glasses rims. His fingertip raised to his lips, tapping in the way that always showed he was deep in thought about an experiment, or a new invention…or the night he thought they’d never spent together.

  Chloe slapped her hands over her boxers and neon green T-shirt like an old-maid aunt. “These?” She tried to look horrified at being caught undressed. “Just got ‘em yesterday. Big sale down at Bevick’s department store. You know, the one down on Main Street with the, um, wedding dresses in the window and the cute little slingback crocodile shoes with the bows on the toes?”

  Her monologue ran out of breath and she ran out of lies, but that was okay—Nick’s eyes had already glazed over at the mention of shopping. Thank God he never paid attention to everyday details like clothes.

  “I’d better go change,” she muttered and made her escape.

  At her entrance into her bedroom, Moe meowed, then tried slipping through the open door. It gave her an idea. She scooped him up, grazed her chin across his soft furred head, then leaned into the hallway.

  “Moe’s really missed you.” Rapidly, she slipped her armful of orange tabby in Nick’s hands before he could object. “He hates it when yo
u work so much. We can’t wait until your growth-accelerator proposal is done.”

  That ought to hold him for a while. Chloe snicked the door shut again, trying not to hear Nick’s grumbling on the other side. It was beyond her why he didn’t want pets of his own. All of hers obviously loved him.

  Maybe he’d like something simple. Something small. A hamster like Curly, or a goldfish, or…no. The poor thing would probably keel over from neglect the next time Nick’s inventing bug struck. A commitment-phobe like him was strictly the faux pet type. Maybe this Christmas she’d buy him one of those videotapes that made it look as if your television housed a whole aquarium of exotic fish. That was just about Nick’s speed.

  No commitment. No obligations.

  No risk.

  No change in plans.

  Sighing, Chloe made herself quit mentally matchmaking Nick. She had an appointment to get ready for, and it didn’t involve the wild kingdom—not unless Effram Griggs’ toupee counted as a life form of its own. Whipping off her T-shirt, she whirled to fling it in the hamper, then slid open her mirrored closet doors.

  Moe yowled outside. Her bedroom door opened. Nick’s head emerged around the edge of it.

  “Something’s buzzing in your bathroom. Are you cooking up another batch of punk rock hair color, or what?”

  Chloe flung her arms across her naked chest. Nick didn’t even blink. She might as well have waved her arms in the air and tap danced, for as much attention as he paid to her appearance. Keeping her arms tight over her chest, she slowly turned to face him. His expression didn’t change one iota.

  Not even half an iota.

  Her body felt as heated as a toaster glowing red, just before it turned the toast to a slab of coal. That would be her heart if she wasn’t careful. Ruined and crumbly.

  “Fun-ny. It was only that one time I tried those red stripes, and that was years ago. Now I’m sticking with my natural hair color.”

  Nick looked at her expensively streaked layered cut. “Uh-huh. That’s you, nature girl,” he deadpanned. “Do you want me to turn off the timer for you?”