by Jule McBride
“Why did you do this?” But he knew why. Last night, after the promotion, Paxton had insisted they all have dinner, and her father’s matchmaking tactics had clearly infuriated Cyn.
She was sweet as sugar during their meal at The Russian Tea Room, of course. But as soon as Paxton was out of sight, her smile had vanished and she’d closed up like a clam. Santa wondered, as he had the previous night, what exactly had caused the rift between Paxton and his wife. Who knows? he thought now. Women are impossible.
He headed back down the hall to get his coats. As he shrugged into a gray suit jacket, he suddenly chuckled. “Some things never change,” he said. He knew exactly where she was.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU THINK, honey?”
Amanda was perched on a raised platform in her cotton undershirt and underpants. She shrugged. “Is she gonna come with my stuff?”
Cyn turned one way, then another, sucking in her stomach. “The lady from children’s will bring your things in just a minute,” she murmured, deciding that the emerald dress clung like a second skin. Too obvious. “Maybe I should try the red again.”
A woman rapped on the door to the spacious dressing room, then nudged inside, her arms piled high with clothes. “Sorry for the delay, but we’ve brought up everything you liked from downstairs.” She laid the clothes on a chair, while Cyn stripped back down to her slip.
“Did you like the red one better?”
Amanda pawed through her own pile. “I like black.”
“It was better?” Cyn asked thoughtfully. She’d awakened this morning, deciding that she wanted to look smashing for The Nutcracker. After all, Amanda was going, which meant Santa was going. As she preened, Cyn told herself she just didn’t want him upstaging her in one of his dashing suits.
“The black is for Mr. Santa,” Amanda said, as if reading her mind. She marched up to her mother and craned her neck upward.
“Who said it was for Santa?” Cyn asked wryly, staring down. She realized Amanda had put on a sweatshirt backward and chuckled. “Here, honey, raise your arms.” She turned it around, thinking the top was positively adorable. It was green, with Rudolph appliqúed on the back. A puffy Santa Claus adorned the front. When the string that hung from his cap was pulled, his eyes blinked.
Amanda stared in the mirror for less than a second. “Goody,” she said. “We’ll buy it.” She tossed it onto her pile and found the matching leggings.
“We can?” Cyn laughed. “The next thing I know, you’ll be asking for a gold card.” She flashed Amanda a grin. “Please do me a favor though, and don’t ask before you’re at least five.”
Amanda plopped down on the platform and wriggled into the pants, with a concentrated expression. “You’re so very definitely my daughter,” Cyn said wryly. She could swear that Amanda had been dressing herself before she could even walk. Suddenly she felt a twinge of loss. If anything ever happened to Amanda, she couldn’t bear it. A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed. She forced herself to tug on the red dress again.
Staring at it, she realized she should have listened to Amanda. The black dress was the one, hands down. She stepped out of the red, reaching for it. The sleeveless velvet sheath could be worn with opera-length gloves. It would have Santa’s eyes popping out of his head.
“Mommy?”
Cyn glanced down and had to fight not to laugh. Amanda had donned a black velvet dress, too. The scoop neck came down to her navel. It seemed to point out that her baby was years away from having breasts. Cyn felt relieved, somehow.
“I gotta get a dress for Santa,” she nearly wailed.
“Well, we’re going to concentrate strictly on you now, honey,” Cyn said soothingly. “Shopping takes practice.”
“We practice lots,” Amanda said glumly. “I wanna be a knockout.”
A knockout? Did they use terms like that on Sesame Street? “Sure, honey,” Cyn managed to say.
* * *
HE FOLLOWED their trail from Barney’s to Macy’s to Bloomingdale’s, back to Barney’s, and then to Bergdorf Goodman. He found them in Saks. By that time, he was so steamed, he didn’t let the sales personnel stop him. He rapped once on the door, then flung it open, thinking, Hell, Cyn, I’ve seen you stark naked before.
Amanda screamed.
Santa gulped. Cyn was fully clothed, and Amanda was scared to death. She scurried toward a corner, clutching a green wad of velvet against her undershirt.
She whirled around. “You gotta say who it is!” Amanda’s mouth gaped and her green eyes were wide.
What he’d taken for modesty, apparently wasn’t. A furious Amanda flung down the dress and put her hands on her hips. He guessed it was all right to be in her underclothes in front of a man, just so long as she was acquainted with him.
“Sorry, Amanda,” he managed to say. He glanced at Cyn, who was clearly enjoying his discomfort.
“Try the blue one, honey,” she said to Amanda.
“He can’t see it,” she whined in protest.
Santa felt like an idiot. “I’ll wait outside.”
“I don’t care!” Amanda stomped her foot. “It’s ugly.”
“Sweetheart, anything’d turn pretty if you put it on,” he said soothingly. That helped. She smiled just enough that her dimples started to show.
“Santa, why don’t you wait outside,” Cyn said, sounding tired. “We need to get this over with.”
Her tone put him on edge. “I have been charging all over Manhattan,” he said softly. “Do you know how many women’s clothing stores there are in this town?” He shot her one long, penetrating look, then glanced pointedly over the shopping bags in the dressing room. “But of course you do.”
“Well, why didn’t you just stay home?” she returned saucily.
He didn’t want to argue with her in front of Amanda, but he wasn’t going to let her get away with a stunt like this, either. She couldn’t play silly games, not when she might be endangering Amanda. “Whatever’s between us is between us.” His voice was soft yet carried a warning. “But you don’t jeopardize the safety of yourself—” he glanced quickly at Amanda “—or others because of that.” She looked so guilty he almost wanted to retract the words.
“We were just shopping,” she said defensively.
“Shopping,” he echoed, trying not to sound as disgusted as he felt.
She folded her hands primly in her lap. “Well, we had to finish Christmas shopping.”
His eyes trailed from one shopping bag to another. He fixed his gaze on hers again. “Everything you’ve bought is for yourself,” he chided.
Her blush told him it was the truth. Suddenly her lovely green eyes narrowed. “How did you know where to find us, anyway?”
The same way I know you take cream in your coffee. I know you inside out, lady. “Just a lucky guess,” he drawled, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Mommy’s sorry, Mr. Santa Claus,” Amanda said tearfully.
When he looked down, the little girl—so very probably his little girl—looked like her whole world was about to collapse.
“Mommy was bad and she won’t do it again,” she vowed. She looked as if she were making a life-and-death oath.
Cyn looked at Amanda for a long time, then at him again. “I really am sorry,” she said, sounding genuinely contrite.
He nodded. “I’ll be outside.”
“Santa Claus?”
He turned at the door. “Yes, Amanda,” he said, more sternly than he’d intended.
“We got somethin’ not for us, ‘cause Mommy let me. You got a present you can’t have till Christmas. Okay?” Her eyes begged him to say that everything was all right between them.
His heart skipped a beat. This kid was bringing him to his knees. “Thank you, Amanda,” he said softly.
Outside, he took a seat in an armchair facing the dressing room. The man next to him was asleep and snoring. My sentiments, exactly. That women could shop for an entire day would never cease to amaze him.
It was a good thing he was patient, he thought. After all, waiting was his job. It was good that he could hide his feelings, too. Otherwise, he would have given Cyn a tongue-lashing that neither she nor Amanda would be likely to forget. But he could wait—through all the hours of shopping, and until he heard the truth about Amanda from Cyn’s own lips.
Another full minute passed before he realized his heart was pounding. He blew out a long, relieved sigh. They’re safe, he finally thought. My girls are safe. This time he didn’t even consider that neither might belong to him.
* * *
MORE WAITING. Santa glanced at his watch, then stared at the football game again. His team was winning. Was he really missing the play-offs because of a ballet? Between shopping and The Nutcracker, he was sure he’d fall asleep like that poor fellow in Saks. Not that he’d ever been to a ballet before, of course.
“Ta-da,” Cyn called out.
When Santa turned around, he forgot footballs even existed. Cyn’s thick blond hair was pulled into a French twist. Springy silken tendrils framed her face and wound around the dangling clusters of her pearl earrings. Her wide, full lips were glossed a kissable, glistening pink.
But it was the dress that caused an almost uncomfortable tightening in his groin. The black strapless velvet sheath was long enough to look classically elegant, but short enough that no man—least of all, him—could ignore those sexy, perfectly shaped legs. Black gloves stretched all the way up her arms, and a single strand of gleaming pearls looped all the way down, past her waist.
It was almost impossible to imagine that this was the same woman who’d left him for dead just four years ago. But he remembered, all right. She moved behind an armchair and rested her palms on the back of it. Even though he wanted to tell her she looked lovely, he found himself gruffly saying, “Aren’t you going to freeze?”
Her face fell, but she recovered quickly enough to shoot him a false smile. “Since when is my body temperature any of your concern?”
As of right now. “As a bodyguard,” he said, rising lithely from the sofa, “bodies always concern me.” He strode across the room and stood in front of the chair.
“Ah—” She tossed her head, showing off the long, smooth touchable column of her throat. “But temperatures are another matter.”
“Perhaps, but whatever perfume you’re wearing is sure making mine rise.” He decided that it had been easier to remember the past and why he should avoid Cyn when he was on the other side of the room. Why had he moved?
When she leaned her elbows on the chair back, he was half-sure she was intentionally accentuating her cleavage for his benefit. “It should,” she said. She reached out coyly and grasped his tie between her gloved thumb and fingers. “It’s called Flame.”
What had come over the woman? She was driving him crazy. His every muscle and sinew tensed with need. He wanted her. Getting close would be the easiest way to find out about Amanda, too. And yet he knew it was a mistake. If they made love, she’d realize who he was. Unfortunately, he liked to play with fire. Besides which, it was she, not he, who was going to get burned. If she really thought he cared about his client ethics in this particular case, she had another thing coming.
Ever since he’d arrived, they’d circled each other as warily as caged tigers. Judging from her behavior of the moment, she’d decided to pursue him again. He was fairly sure she was no match for him when it came to boldness. His gaze dropped to her breasts. After a moment he blinked and looked into her eyes.
“Since I’m going to be so chilly—” Her voice was lazy, and she lightly tugged his tie. “I’d ask you to keep me warm...” She rolled her head around her shoulders, as if she were desperately in need of a massage. “But...”
He leaned forward, placed his hands on either armrest and brought his lips within inches of hers. She dropped his tie as if it had just caught fire, and he nearly smiled. “But?” he prodded softly.
“But—” She wriggled her elbows on the back of the chair, as if getting comfortable. “I have a coat.”
“I doubt it’s as warm as I could be,” he said, wishing his own voice wasn’t starting to sound so husky.
“But it’s fur,” she countered.
“Not very politically correct,” he remarked dryly, even though an image of Cyn in nothing but fur flashed through his mind.
“I’ve had it nearly ten years,” she returned guiltily. “And it is warm.”
“Like I said—” He leaned an inch closer. “So am I.”
She leaned away from him in a barely perceptible movement. The wafting scent of her perfume was so overwhelmingly feminine that he didn’t exhale for an instant. It made him think of how mysterious women really were—of top drawers crammed with lace and hidden compartments that contained love letters and cloth diaries full of secrets.
He had no idea how long they merely gazed at each other. “I dare you to come around this chair,” he finally said.
She blinked. “What in the world for?” she trilled. She’d been going for casually flirtatious. She sounded breathless.
“You know what for.”
Faint pinkish color stained her wintry pale cheeks. “Can’t you just escort Amanda and myself like a normal person?” she asked.
He chuckled and raised an eyebrow. “I take it a normal person is a man who isn’t attracted to you?”
She smiled, obviously feeling as attracted to him as he was to her. “Well, yes.”
He was about to say that normalcy was highly overrated, when he heard steps bounding down the hallway. He glanced toward the door.
Cyn leaned over the chair and whispered, “Tell Amanda she looks like a knockout.”
“A knockout?” he managed to ask. Cyn’s minty-smelling breath lingered by his ears.
“Yes,” she hissed, just as Amanda appeared.
She stood uncertainly in the doorway. She was wearing a blue velvet dress, with a full skirt and wide sash. A tiny matching pocketbook hung from her white-gloved hands, which were clasped nervously in front of her. Two small blue bows held her wavy curls back on either side. It was on the tip of Santa’s tongue to tell her she looked cute as hell. Instead, he crossed the room and knelt in front of her. “Wow,” he said, “you’re—er—a knockout, Amanda.”
He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t to have her glare at him suspiciously. “Mommy told you to say it.”
He mustered his best dumfounded expression. “Well, she didn’t. Was she supposed to?”
“I’m a knockout,” Amanda said proudly, not bothering to answer him.
Once their coats were on and they were headed out the door, Santa caught Cyn’s hand and guided her arm through his. “And so are you,” he whispered.
She smiled up at him. “I knew you’d come around.”
* * *
“CAN YOU HOLD the pocketbook, Mr. Santa Claus?” Amanda asked as the houselights dimmed. She snuggled down in the seat between her mother and Santa.
“Sure, honey,” he said gruffly.
Cyn fought back a chuckle as she watched Amanda’s teeny blue bag vanish beneath one of Santa’s hands. He set it so gingerly on his knee that it could have been a kitten. Clearly, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Cyn nestled back in her own seat, ready to watch the show. If I can keep my eyes off Santa.
Even when she wasn’t looking, she was conscious of every inch of him. It was almost as if she’d known him before. And tonight, entering the theater on his arm, she’d felt more like a woman than she had in a long time. He was so controlled and strong and handsome in his charcoal suit, starched shirt and silver silk tie that she’d felt smaller and infinitely more delicate.
She trained her gaze on the stage longer than she’d thought she could. After all, she was still waiting for her own nutcracker, wasn’t she? With a sigh, Cyn imagined she was Clara. She received the nutcracker from her uncle and was astounded when he became a handsome prince. Cyn’s heart thudded with fear as the rats, with their long noses
and tails and colorful costumes, leaped across the stage.
And yet, as the first act became the second and third, she found she wasn’t thinking of herself, but of Amanda. As she watched Clara’s transformation, from a naive girl to a young woman, Cyn hoped that her daughter’s initiation would be more gentle than her own. Damn Jake Jackson.
She glanced at Santa, and her lips parted. The man seemed as engrossed in the ballet as he had been in the play-offs. Were his thoughts anything like her own? Did he feel faint twinges of sadness as he watched Clara’s first glimpse of love? Did he wish he could be that young, just one more time? In some sweet, soft part of Santa, did he wonder if he could ever become her prince?
Cyn’s eyes narrowed. For the first time, she wondered if he’d ever been married. Had he ever been madly in love? What had his life been like before they’d met, just a few short days ago?
Santa turned and looked at Cyn, as if he’d felt her gaze. She glanced down at the top of Amanda’s head quickly. Less than a second passed before she raised her eyes again. He was staring back steadily.
After a long moment, she smiled and turned her attention to the stage.
But she could still feel those eyes.
Their caress was so strong and bold and real, it was as if his hands were actually touching her.
* * *
“IN YOU GO, SWEETHEART,” Santa said.
Cyn removed her gloves, shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets and leaned in the doorway. She watched as Santa attempted to slide Amanda between the sheets. Her daughter had slept while she and Santa slipped her into her nightclothes, but now Amanda seemed unwilling to relinquish him.
Her small pudgy arms were flung around his neck and her legs remained wrapped around the waist of his camel coat. Santa pried her loose ever so gently, clearly trying not to awaken her. Then he seated himself beside her on the canopied bed and tucked her in. He remained there, simply watching her, as if he’d forgotten Cyn entirely.
