Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa

by Karin Tabke

  Ricco grinned. “Let’s make a deal. For as long as you’re here in Evergreen, we can be—” She watched his face redden as he struggled to say the word, “an item” or some semblance of the concept, but he couldn’t say the words.

  Kim smiled, suddenly wanting to hold him to her breast and soothe his hurts as a mother would a child. “Have you ever been half of an item, a couple, a pair?”

  He jerked his head up and down. “Once or twice.”

  “And how did it feel?”

  “Smothering.”

  Kim frowned and stepped away. She began to twirl her hair, and for a long time she tried to think of a response. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea for her to stay longer. Admittedly, though she tried to convince herself that staying was for the sake of the buyout, she knew that wasn’t completely true. At the rate things were happening in Evergreen, it would be like taking a sucker from a two-year-old. No, it was because she wanted to be with Ricco, and if she was really honest with herself, it went beyond that. She liked the uncomplicated lifestyle of the people in Evergreen. There was, for her anyway, absolutely no performance pressure.

  Her gaze rose to Ricco’s. Gone was his boyish grin; in its stead was the face of a man very serious about committing, or, in their case, not committing. She inhaled a deep breath and let it out. “Smothering is not a good verb when it comes to relationships. No matter how casual.” She continued to twirl her hair, then said, “Look, I’m not the kind of girl who can have sex with a guy one day, and watch him hit on another woman the next and not have feelings about it. I’d liked to think I was that uncaring, but I have my limits. And since you appear to have commitment issues on just about every level, let’s not waste our time.” And though she meant every word of it, the room was suddenly colder at her admission and what would follow in its wake.

  “I’m not a damn dog, Kim!” Ricco said. “You act like I hump anything that turns her ass my way.”

  “Well, excuse me for noticing how every bitch in this town is in heat over you!”

  It was Ricco’s turn to pace. “So what?”

  “So what? So, it’s annoying to have your man be groped and drooled over at every turn.” Heat flooded her cheeks. That was it. No more conversation. She strode to the door, opened it, and said, “Just take your bag and leave me alone for the rest of the time I’m here.”

  He stood for a long time, staring down at her. He moved beside her and bent to pick up his bag. As he did so, his gaze traversed her face, and try as she might, she could not read him. His face was completely passive. Of course it was—she’d just called him “her” man. Bad Kim. She was no doubt playing out a scenario he was all too familiar with. Unfortunately, it was one she was all too familiar with as well. History, it seemed, was destined in her case to repeat itself. Relentlessly.

  When he walked out of her room and slowly shut the door behind him, a swell of emotions she wasn’t prepared for encompassed her heart. She took a big deep breath and told herself it was just sex. It was the lust phase. It was hormones and pheromones, and she was at that time in her life where she was sexually peaking. That was all it was. Like anything that felt good, you wanted to rinse and repeat. She’d get over it soon enough. Besides, she had work to do, and being free of any form of sexual haze made it that much easier.

  She nodded and walked toward the window. She stood back and watched Ricco’s tall form stride down the sidewalk. A lump formed in her throat. She’d promised herself many years ago that she would not get sucked in by a guy who was out of her league. Once again she’d failed, but at least now she had a man to fall back on. Someone who respected her and her brain, who was steady, solid, and lived for the same things she did—power and wealth. Kim smiled, but it took an effort. Right now all the power and wealth in the world could not make the queasy feeling in her stomach go away.

  But in time, it would. And knowing that, she moved away from the window and hurried from the room down to Leticia and the girls. She had loan docs to find, and what better way to do it than under the pretense of helping clean out a waterlogged office?

  • • •

  IT WAS A MESS BUT NOT UNFIXABLE. “MAMA,” JASMINE said, “I can come back after school and help. But I can’t go to the council meeting if you call it at eleven. Can you schedule it for after three?”

  Leticia picked up a stack of gooey, sodden papers and nodded. “I’ll shoot for four, that way we can help Ez out with her photo shoot and then get down to business. It will also give everyone else time to make arrangements.” She looked up at Kim and smiled a slow, sad smile. “I must apologize again for my son’s deplorable behavior. I don’t know what has gotten into that boy. He was raised with better manners than that.”

  Kim smiled in return, feeling as sad. “I don’t let it bother me. I know he’s under a lot of pressure right now, and I think he’s feeling a little claustrophobic.”

  Leticia’s smile brightened, as if the excuses made up for his behavior and somehow also let her off the hook. “You’re right. But he usually doesn’t get antsy until after his second week here. By New Year’s Day you can’t tie him down.”

  Jasmine picked up a soaked box of copy paper and tossed it out of the broken window, onto the charred deck. “He’s like his father that way.”

  “Jasmine!” Leticia hissed.

  Jasmine looked at her mother and shrugged as she picked up another soggy box. “It’s the truth. Stop glossing over the fact your little papi is his father’s son. Only difference is, Ricco doesn’t leave a wife and kids behind to the wolves of society every time he gets an itch.”

  “Jasmine!”

  The second oldest daughter dropped the box in her hands. When it hit the sodden floor it came apart at the seams. She turned to fully face her mother. “No, Mama, I’m tired of pretending. Papa screwed all of us, you most especially. So is it any wonder his son should mimic the behavior? I don’t think less of my brother. I love him. For crying out loud, stupid me, I married a man like my father!” Her dark eyes were fierce, but Leticia’s flashed as hotly. Still, Jasmine continued, “So let’s not sugarcoat what is our reality, Mother.”

  “How dare you be so disrespectful!”

  “Sorry you find the truth so hard to swallow. You gave up your life pining away for a good-for-nothing drunk, and when a good man like Cal came around, a man who would treat you with the dignity you deserve, you blow him off, then take back the man who deserted us repeatedly. What kind of lesson did that teach? And you wonder why his son, who took up the slack at six years old, doesn’t want a thing to do with him?”

  Leticia stepped closer to her daughter, her face a murderous shade of red. “No, Mommy,” Jasmine said, standing her ground. “Hear me out. Because of my father, my brother can’t even commit to a damn house-plant!”

  Leticia’s face suddenly lost all gravity. In the space of the time it took for Jasmine to unload the truth, her face had sagged as if she’d been one hundred years old instead of fifty something. Her big hazel eyes, so much like her son’s, glistened with unshed tears. Kimberly felt the overwhelming urge to put her arms around the woman who had sacrificed so much in the name of her children but in so doing had taught them the wrong lesson.

  Jasmine stood rigid, unmoving, a steel rod. “I’m sorry for upsetting you, Mommy, but not for what I said. I love you and will defend you to my last breath, but it’s time for you to once in your life live for yourself and give Ricco some room. Stop bombarding him with requests to come home and to do this and to do that. We all need to. We’ve allowed him to lug us around as if he were the father. He’s not. He’s my baby brother and your son. It’s time we stood up for ourselves and took responsibility for our lives.”

  Kim swallowed hard as many of the puzzle pieces that were the man Ricco Maza fell into place. And once again a little piece of her heart thawed for the proud man.

  Leticia looked from her daughter to Kim. She swiped the tears from her eyes and bowed her head. “My apologies for dragging our skeleto
ns out of the closet.”

  Kim smiled, reached out to the woman’s shoulder, and lightly touched it. “I feel honored.”

  Jasmine snorted. “Girl, you are crazy! Watch! Now that the lid has been blown off, the fireworks will begin in earnest. You’d better take cover.”

  Kim continued to smile. “I’ve never had anyone in my family stand up for me for good or bad reasons. I was a simple means to an end. I think it’s great you can hash out your feelings this way. Hell, it’s amazing to see feelings like this.”

  Leticia slipped an arm around Kim’s waist and drew her near. She repeated the gesture with Jasmine. She kissed her daughter’s cheeks. “I love you, precia. And I am so sorry for letting you down.”

  Jasmine’s dark eyes watered, and she nodded. “Mommy, you did what you did out of love. There is no forgiveness for that. But I realized that I am in charge of my choices, not you. I need to grow up a little myself.”

  Leticia kissed her again, then turned to Kim, hugging her close and placing a kiss on her forehead. “Your mama must be blind. You are a precious daughter.”

  Kim smiled and ignored the hot sting of moisture in her eyes.

  Leticia laughed and released both girls. She stepped back. “Okay, okay, no more time for emotions. Jasmine, go to your students. Kimberly, I appreciate any help you can give me here, but I must go muster the council for a meeting. We have a town to save!”

  And as simply as that, the two Maza women disappeared, leaving Kimberly feeling oddly disconnected. For a long moment she stood in the water-soaked room and looked around, not knowing where to begin. When she thought of her ulterior motives for helping out, that baby pang of guilt grew some. Now it was big and ugly, clawing at her insides. She stood unmoving for a long time before she turned to the file cabinets and pushed warm fuzzy images of the Maza family from her brain.

  When, after pulling several soggy files from the cabinet under Leti’s desk, she hit the mother lode, all thoughts of family, love, and heartwarming dinners evaporated.

  Marcus Rand Consortium. A private group out of Lodi, of all places. She never would have guessed. Just as she’d scribbled the information down, a soft cough from the doorway startled her.

  She gasped and dropped the pen in her hand. Then she shot to her feet.

  “Did you find what you were looking for, young lady?” Enrique Maza asked from the doorway. Gone was the frail voice, gone was the woe-is-me look; in their place was the angled look of a fox. A very wily fox.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I did.”

  “Care to share?” he said, walking into the room. It occurred to Kim that he was walking quite easily without the aid of his cane, and though his face was beginning to bruise around what was obviously a broken nose, she could easily read the face of a grifter. Ricco had been right all along. And for that she was so very sorry. She had hoped that somehow father and son would mend the broken fences between them.

  “You’re not dying.”

  “In one form or another we all are, are we not? But me? Now? Of cancer?” He grinned, flashing her the killer smile his son had perfected. “No, not today or any other day. Like you, I am here under false pretenses.”

  Kimberly gasped. “I’m not here under—”

  He put his hand up and shooshed her. “Don’t even try to sheist a master.”

  He moved in closer and looked around the room in disgust. “Did you happen to find my wife’s safe while you were stealing her personal information?” He grabbed the paper she had written the lender’s information on. “Marcus Rand Consortium? Who are they and how are they connected to my wife?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He smiled again, and the look was anything but warm and friendly. “Is this the group who holds this town by the financial hairs?”

  Kim kept her breath, as well as her urge to give the man another broken nose, under control. “I’m not sure,” she lied.

  “But you have ways to find out.” It was not a question.

  She nodded. “I do.”

  Enrique moved deeper into the room. “What benefit would one have with this information?”

  She shrugged and played along, deciding that while he was looking to pump her, she would in turn pump him. The more information one had on an adversary, the better prepared one was for the inevitable conflict, and Enrique Maza was most definitely a conflict in the making. The primal mama bear every woman possessed when it came to those she loved began to quickly take form as a category five hurricane in her heart. If she could spare Ricco and his family from this man, she would do everything in her power to see it done.

  “Not that it’s any of your business”—she snatched the paper from his hand and smiled when his eyes narrowed—“if there is a way with my experience to help Evergreen out of its jam, I will do what I can.”

  “Liar.”

  Kim folded the paper and slid it into her back jean pocket. “No, not like you.”

  He laughed softly, the sound low and throaty; it gave her the willies. “With one phone call I can let this consortium know that Evergreen is tied down and naked, waiting to be raped.”

  “No you won’t!”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because you won’t make a dime off of it, and that’s what drives you.”

  He smiled then, showing his perfectly straight, villainous looking teeth. “How much are you willing to pay me not to make the call?”

  Kim threw her head back and laughed. “I don’t know what you’re smoking, old man, but you need to quit.” She moved in closer and said, “Keep making your demands and I’ll let your family in on what a skunk you are.”

  “I’ll deny it. And my wife will stand by me. Give me a hundred grand and I’m gone. Forever.”

  Kim shook her head. “I have no loyalty to anyone here, so go get screwed.”

  He grinned and turned to the mess. In a quick role reversal, he grabbed his cane and acted the poor dying father. “Here, my dear, allow me to help you. My wife will appreciate my efforts.”

  Kim folded her arms across her chest and scowled at the man. “Why don’t you do something noble for once in your miserable life and crawl back into the hole you crawled out of and leave these people alone.”

  He coughed, feigning the sickly elder to a tee. “So tell me, Miss Michaels, what are your intentions toward my son?”

  She shot him a glare and turned to get to work on the sodden mess. “You’re mistaken. I have none.”

  “Who’s the liar now?”

  Kim fixed him with a stare, then started stacking soaked files on the desk. “Maybe you need to mind your own business.”

  “My son is like me, you know? He will never stay in one place with one woman for long. It’s part of his DNA. Like his dark eyes, he can’t help it.”

  Kim ignored the man and continued to clean out the file cabinet. Enrique Senior was wrong!

  Ricco’s eyes might be brown like his father’s; but there was enough of his mother’s green to make the difference.

  Kim stood and slammed down the stack of squishy files. “You’re wrong about Ricco. He might have your DNA, but he is ten times the man you could ever hope to be. Don’t drag him down to your subterranean level.”

  “You do the same thing my son does, and I continue to do.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.” Kim shook her head at the old man, disgust filling her so thoroughly she could barely look at him. She completely understood how Ricco felt. Enrique was the scum of the earth and would never change. As she strode past him, she stiffened at his parting shot: “You run away when the pressure gets too much. You’re a coward!”

  She resisted the urge to turn and tell the man she didn’t run from pressure, she thrived on it! And to prove it to herself, as soon as she stepped out of Leti’s house, she took her cell phone out of her pocket and punched Nick’s speed-dial number.

  Sixteen

  “GOLD.”

  Kim scowled. So they were back to that, were th
ey? “It’s Kimberly Michaels.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then act like it!”

  “Jesus Christ, Kimberly, what the hell is going on up there? From the minute you landed in Reno you’ve been acting like a hormonal teenager.”

  Kim paced the sidewalk, wanting to tell him that maybe she’d like a little emotion from her almost fiancé. Yanno, a “Hey babe, how are you?” Or “I can’t wait to see you.” Or at the very least, acknowledge her importance by not saying his last name when he answered the phone!

  “Maybe, Nicholas, I’m having a bit of a midlife crisis up here. Did it ever occur to you that I might be a little bit more than a giant money generator? That I might just have a few feelings?”

  “Okay,” he slowly said.

  “Forget it. Look, this town is on the fringe of self-imploding. Tourists are leaving in droves, and the townsfolk are sick of worrying about money. Later today there is an open town hall meeting. The council is going to discuss a course of action to save freakin’ Christmas!”

  “Sounds to me like Christmas is going to be a thing of the past for them.”

  “Yeah, no shit. Give them a few more days of this crime wave and they’ll be paying us to take their property off their hands.”

  “How do you explain what’s happening? I thought crime was nil there.”

  Kim took a deep breath and slowed her headlong descent into running away from Evergreen and the people in it. “I wanted to talk to you about that, Nick. It seems too coincidental, this so-called crime wave.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “I’m implying that if there is any behind-the-scenes nudging going on, it had better stop before someone gets hurt.”

  “I’m getting a little offended here, Kimberly.”

  “Good. Let’s keep everything honest and win the old-fashioned way, by outmaneuvering our opponent.”