Red Hot Santa

by Cherry Adair

  Meghan forced a smile and tried to recall how to speak . . . aloud. Not a simple task given that the man was looking at her with the most intense green eyes she’d ever seen. He wasn’t just looking. His gaze roamed freely from her head to the tips of the hyacinth pink toenails peeking out from her Jimmy Choo patent slides. The fact that he’d scanned her like a document wasn’t the worst part—nope. It was his lack of reaction. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zippo.

  Her vanity was seriously wounded, but she managed to keep the smile from slipping completely off her face.

  Her spine stiffened as she extended her hand and summoned every measure of aloofness in her being. “I’m Meghan Beckham. And you are?”

  He didn’t take her hand. Instead he nodded a cursory acknowledgment, then brushed past her as if she were invisible.

  “He’s hot as sh—” Meghan shut the door to her office before Terri could finish her comment.

  Mr. No Name–No Interest was inspecting her office.

  Right! her little voice screamed. My office!

  She stepped forward and was all set to tell him to leave when Barrett rose and said, “Meghan, meet Jack Palmer.”

  His back was to her as he looked out the picture window behind her desk. “First thing we do is relocate her. Is there another office available?”

  She was fuming. “Actually, in polite society, the first thing we do is introduce ourselves.”

  His broad shoulders strained the soft cotton fabric of his snug black polo shirt. So he had a great body. So what? He had the manners of a toad. “But feel free to speak about me instead of to me.”

  He moved quickly and with a stealthy quiet that belied his size. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, he was standing in front of her. Well, not standing so much as towering, and not in front so much as over her. Meghan didn’t like that. She didn’t like the intimidation this man radiated. Or his chiseled features. Or the deep lines etched around his mouth and eyes. She didn’t like that he smelled faintly of soap and coffee. Mostly, she didn’t like that she noticed all those things. Or that noticing them made her tingle all over.

  “I’m not really concerned about polite society, Miss Beckham. That’s not what you’re paying me for.”

  She nearly choked on that one. “I didn’t hire you, so—”

  Barrett placed a hand on her forearm, silencing her before Meghan could think of a good way to tell Palmer a) that she wasn’t paying him and b)where he could find the very fastest way to hell.

  Jack stared down into eyes as volatile as a thundercloud. It took a substantial amount of willpower to maintain his bland expression. Meghan Beckham was not at all what he’d expected.

  When he’d learned from Roz that his next assignment was a single woman who ran a department store in Florida, Land of Retirees, he’d pictured an older woman in a tailored suit with blue hair and one of those big broach thingies pinned on her shoulder. Not this. Definitely not her.

  His pulse increased just being close to her. The only thing blue about Meghan was her eyes. Well, not blue, exactly, more like blue flecked with brilliant silvery specks. The effect was stunning, as was her face. If she had a flaw, he sure couldn’t see it. Not in her high cheekbones, delicate jawline, or that mouth that practically begged to be kissed.

  “I don’t know what you’ve been told, Mr. Palmer.”

  Man, she made his name sound like a vile curse.

  “But I have no need of your . . . services.”

  She scooted around him—which was just fine, because it gave him another opportunity to check out her tanned, toned legs—and went to her desk. She went to the checkbook and tore the next one out of the book, scribbled on it hurriedly, then held it between her fingertips and arched one perfectly shaped brow. “Your services are not needed. But thank you, this should cover your inconveniences for the day. Have my assistant validate your parking receipt on your way out.”

  “I hear differently,” he replied easily, shifting so that he was half-leaning against her credenza. “Two dead Santas can’t be a good thing for you or your business.”

  “The police department is investigating. I’m sure they’ll do their civic duty and find whoever is responsible,” she informed him.

  “With time, probably,” he agreed, absently raking his fingers through his hair. “Maybe faster if they had your cooperation.”

  Her cheeks colored slightly, offset completely by the almost arrogant tilt to her chin. “I am cooperating.”

  He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You were told the best course of action would be for you to close the store, right?”

  “Not best for me,” she promised him, tossing her long, blond hair off her shoulders. “Not best for the thirty-five employees at Beckham’s—some of whom have been with us for nearly half a century. And definitely not the best thing for our customers just three weeks shy of Christmas.”

  “I passed a lot of overpriced stores on my way here. I’m sure your customers could find four-hundred-dollar blouses in any number of them.”

  The smile she offered didn’t reach her eyes. “They could,” she readily agreed. “But why would they when ours are thirty percent off?”

  “I spoke with Cerventes, the detective assigned to the case. They have no leads and nothing tying the victims together. Nothing but you and your store.” She faltered for a second but recovered nicely. While she did look like a decent breeze could blow her the couple of blocks into the ocean, he sensed a distinct strength about her.

  “Not me, Mr. Palmer. The common denominator is Santa.” She waved the check as if it was a red flag to his bull and turned to the mute older man sitting in the chair wearing a bright smile. “This was obviously a mistake. So in fairness, I’m paying for your time, Mr. Palmer. I’m swamped, so we’re done here.”

  Jack didn’t move a muscle. “That isn’t how this works.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I get paid when the job is done.”

  “It is done, Mr. Palmer. It won’t get any doner.” She put the check on top of the files on her desk. “I’m too busy to waste any more time on this. If you’re unwilling to accept this check, send a bill here to the store and I’ll see that you’re appropriately compensated.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. He really wanted to laugh at her. Did she actually think that dismissive, big-deal-executive tone would work on him?

  “Be reasonable, Meghan,” he heard Barrett plead. “Jack here is the best. He’ll keep an eye on you until the cops find out who’s killing your Santas and why.”

  “Because there’s a Christmas-hating lunatic on the loose?” she suggested.

  “It’s not about Christmas,” Jack offered reasonably.

  She sighed her irritation. “You’ve been here all of—” She paused to check the pricey watch decorating her slender wrist. “—ten minutes and you’ve already solved the case?”

  “Something like that.” He pushed off the furniture, hearing it squeak a bit in the process. As he approached her desk, he noted challenge brimming in those pretty eyes. “While I was at the police station, I had a look at the files.”

  She had a cute little mole on her right cheek. Distracting little sucker, too.

  “Santa Number One was most likely poisoned. That usually means a woman perpetrator.”

  She shrugged. “I could have gotten that bit of insight from Court TV.”

  December in Florida meant lots of bare skin. Jack liked that about the state. Miss Meghan Beckham’s arms, as well as her pretty legs, were bare. Another distraction. Obviously, Miss Beckham avoided the sun. No leathery, beach-baked skin for her. Nope. “But Santa Number Two was stabbed; that’s pretty much a guy thing.”

  “Are you insinuating there are two Christmas-hating lunatics running around Palm Beach?”

  “Depends.”

  He could almost hear a flurry of questions racing through her mind. Eventually, she settled on the obvious. “On what?”

  Chapter Two

 
“IT DEPENDS ON YOU, MISS BECKHAM. MORE SPECIFICALLY, on whether or not you buy the illogical concept that there could be two killers who just happened to target your store inside a week.”

  Okay, so any reply would make her look like a fool. Meghan opted to remain quiet. It wasn’t that she wasn’t scared—who wouldn’t be in the aftermath of two murders in such close proximity? It was admitting that she was scared. And having Jack—disturbing, intriguing Jack—around twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for the foreseeable forever was terrifying. It would mean she’d lose those precious moments she reserved to grieve for her brother. She’d lose what little time she had to draw on her reserve of strength to face the next day as the sole heir to the Beckham legend. It would mean depending on someone. Something she had never done with anyone but Michael. She wasn’t at all sure she was ready or even able to take that kind of risk again.

  At Jack’s request, over Meghan’s strong objection, and as if choreographed, Casey Trent-Beckham appeared. Meghan greeted her brother’s widow with a hug, then watched as Casey whisked her father out of the office. Meghan was fairly certain that the old guy had prearranged his departure. Barrett was thorough like that—left nothing to chance. And what better ruse than Casey? Everyone knew that Casey could barely stand to set foot in the store since Michael’s death, in spite of the fact that she had practically grown up as a Beckham before marrying one.

  Meghan watched as Jack sauntered over and fell comfortably into the chair vacated by Barrett—that manipulative coward. She’d speak to the cowardly one later, but for now, her attention was totally and completely on the man flipping through the small notepad he’d pulled from the back pocket of his slacks.

  It wasn’t fair that the first man in, well, forever, to pique her libido’s interest had to be this man. This guy wasn’t even a possibility. He was everything she didn’t want in a lover. He was arrogant, stoic, controlling—too bad, because he was downright toe-curling. Not, she pointed out to herself sternly, that she was considering him as a lover.

  Meghan reminded herself that she wasn’t interviewing for a lover. Or a husband. Or, even, God help her this temptation, a sperm donor. Unfortunately, and annoyingly, like most women on the ugly side of thirty, she was hearing the faint tick-tock of her biological clock. A spouse would be nice, children were in her probability column, but at this juncture, she’d probably have to settle for the fantasy of sex on a regular basis and keep all that other stuff on the back burner.

  It had been a while since her last meaningful interpersonal relationship imploded. Just a few months back, she’d been thinking she was ready to try again, but until half an hour ago there’d been no one who floated her boat. Meghan reminded herself of her brother’s favorite cliché: “Careful what you wish for.”

  “I’ll need some additional information in order to set a schedule for you to follow.”

  Sighing loudly, she sat down behind the protection of her large desk, lacing her fingers and resting her forearms on the smooth surface of her desk. “You aren’t going to go away, are you?”

  “No.”

  Damn Santa killers and damn Barrett. “My schedule is chaotic at this point. In fact, my hours can be grueling.”

  He cocked his head and she saw a twitch of amusement at the corners of his mouth. “Really?”

  “Yes. You look like you’re in decent shape, but it is a hectic pace.”

  “Put your mind at ease, Miss Beckham. In my former life I occasionally had to run alongside cars, so I think I can handle whatever you’ve got going on.”

  She cocked her head. “Did you, indeed?”

  “Former Secret Service.” All business—her business—he gave her a cool look. “This isn’t about me, so can we continue?”

  Sure, ’cause I want to spill my guts to a stranger. “I try to arrive by six and I rarely leave before ten.”

  He scribbled something, then lifted his chin so those brilliant green eyes met hers. “Step one is to vary your routine.”

  She smiled stiffly while gritting her teeth so hard her jaw started to hurt.

  “Step two is relocation.”

  “I’m sorry, but that isn’t possible.”

  “None of this is open for discussion, Miss Beckham.”

  “I beg to differ.” She hated that she could almost imagine herself begging for a few other things as well. Did he have to be so damned attractive?

  “Beg all you want. These are the rules.”

  “What makes you think your rules have any meaning around here, Mr. Palmer? Maybe you missed the sign out front. This is Beckham’s, and as the Beckham, Barrett’s meddling aside, I generally have the final word on things.” At one time it would’ve been her brother Michael sitting behind this giant desk. He and their grandfather before him had left enormous shoes for Meghan to fill. But Michael had died in the car accident six months ago, the accident that had done nothing more than give her an already fading scar on her knee and a slowly healing hole in her heart.

  “Have a lot of experience with murder, do you?”

  Point in his favor. “No. But I am hopeful the police will apprehend—”

  “Hope all you want. Hope is good. But in my experience, you won’t have a lot of luck hoping away someone hell-bent on killing you.”

  “Killing Santa,” she corrected, as a shiver of real and tangible fear slipped the length of her spine. “This is Palm Beach, Mr. Palmer. We don’t have serial killers and, more specifically, I don’t have enemies like the kind you’re describing. Hell, I barely have time for friends. It doesn’t make any sense that someone would want to kill me.”

  His brow furrowed into deep, distinct lines. “When was the last time you spoke to Detective Cerventes?”

  She felt a small pang of guilt. “I talked to him for a few minutes the day Santa Number Two was killed. Since then we’ve been playing phone tag and—”

  “You didn’t think he might have something important to tell you?”

  “No. I assumed he was simply calling with a courtesy update.”

  She watched as he blew a breath in the direction of his forehead. “Jeez, lady, we’ll back up. Now step one is getting you up to speed.”

  She bristled slightly at the open annoyance in his tone. “You’ve told me everything you learned from the police, so let’s go right back to negotiating step two. I can’t vary my arrival time, but I’m willing to discuss my departure times.”

  He laughed. Not a toss-your-head-back belly laugh, more like a short chuckle that managed to aggravate her to the edge of reason.

  “Discuss? Negotiate?” he mockingly repeated as if they were new words she’d invented on the spot. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Sure I do.” She met and held his gaze. “I’m sensing that due to the nature of your work you’re probably a control freak who either doesn’t respect women or just doesn’t like working for them—too soon to tell. I get that you’re used to people jumping when you bark orders. I get that you were under the delusion that you could walk in here and I’d be so blinded by your looks that I’d tow the line no questions asked. I get—”

  “Blinded by my looks?” he asked with a far too self-satisfied grin. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the kind of woman to admit something like that.”

  “Get over yourself, Mr. Palmer. I’m sure you’ve got mirrors at your place. You know you’re attractive and I’m fairly sure you use that to full advantage when the need arises. Don’t try to be coy; it doesn’t suit you at all.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he agreed quickly.

  Too quickly, the little voice in her head warned.

  “We aren’t negotiating or debating here, Meghan. It’s my job to keep you from getting killed and I’m very good at my job as long as the client understands the . . . parameters of the situation.”

  “Believe me, I understand that someone has killed two seasonal employees in my store.” When did I become ‘Meghan’? And why does it sound so good when he says it? “Not the kind
of pre-Christmas publicity I wanted, to say nothing of the poor families who are dealing with their grief at a time when the rest of the world is festive and celebrating all around them.”

  Jack heard the words as well as the conviction behind them. He filed away the revelation that compassion slipped into empathy somewhere along the line. Death was personal to this woman. Was it her father? Mother? A lover, maybe? He reined in those thoughts, dropping his gaze and rubbing the back of his neck, hoping all of his actions camouflaged the fact that he was mildly disturbed thinking about her with a lover. “Due respect, Meghan, you’re not seeing the big picture.”

  When he glanced up, he saw a kaleidoscope of raw emotion swirl in those silvery blue eyes of hers that knotted his gut. To her credit, she regrouped almost immediately, slipping back into seasoned-executive mode. “And I can tell by your tone that you’re dying to tell me something you think has slipped my grasp.”

  Leaning forward in his seat, he flipped the pad closed. “I don’t have a tone. Look.” He paused to rake one hand through his hair again. “Let’s start over, okay?”

  She shrugged or nodded—didn’t matter. What counted was that she didn’t tell him to leave again, so he assumed that was his cue to continue. “The killer wasn’t after the Santas. He or she is working their way to you.”

  Scoffing, she shook her head. “Not possible. There isn’t a person on the planet who dislikes me enough to kill me.”

  “I’m pretty certain there is. If not, he or she would kill Santas all over the island and not just here at Beckham’s.”

  “I don’t have enemies, Mr. Palmer. If someone really wanted to kill me, why waste time on innocent men in Santa suits? I’m not convinced.”

  “After I spoke with him, Detective Cerventes isn’t completely convinced either. He told me he’d been trying to talk to you. Said you brushed him off for meetings or whatever. I guess Barrett figured you’d have a harder time brushing me off.”

  Meghan rubbed her face, soaking in all the information. She was playing the past few days in her head in fast forward. She was dodging people—anyone, everyone—except vendors, customers, and all things Beckham’s. Her sole focus had been on posting a killer Christmas season but she’d never meant that literally. Fifty percent of the store’s annual revenues came between Thanksgiving and Christmas. With the deals pending for the expansion, she needed the cash flow. It had been her focus—apparently a blinding one.