All He Wants for Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  “One year,” Jason went on, “my sister Janelle wanted something special for her birthday. I didn’t have all the supplies I needed, and I didn’t have any money, so I did what I always did. I strolled into a local store, helped myself to a five-finger discount like the junior hooligan I was—”

  “And Mr. Moosby caught you?” Danielle guessed.

  Jason nodded. “I thought I was done for. He was scary! At least to a guilty fifteen-year-old, he was. But that crazy old man saw things differently than anyone else did. By then, I’d been in a lot of trouble. Fights, skipping school, a couple of busts for shoplifting. This time, I knew, there wouldn’t just be a slap on the wrist. If old man Moosby turned me in—”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “He didn’t.” A faint smile crossed Jason’s face. “Not only that, but he looked at the beginnings of the toy I was making for Janelle—because I’d brought it along to match the parts—and he liked it. He said it was ingenious. I’ll never forget that. Ingenious. Nobody had ever talked about me that way before.”

  Danielle glanced at the More More Moosby’s! exclusive race car he’d been handling earlier. “I bet it was ingenious.”

  Jason shrugged. “Maybe it had the potential to be. To Mr. Moosby, I had potential, too.” He frowned as he gazed out the toy store’s gaily decorated picture windows. “He told me I could work off the price of what I’d stolen by sweeping and mopping and stocking toys. After I had, I just kept working for him.”

  “You liked it,” Danielle surmised. “You were good at it.”

  Given his inherent charisma, she could easily imagine it.

  “I was good at helping customers. Good at knowing what they needed. Good at knowing what they’d buy, even if they didn’t need it.” He gave her an almost embarrassed grin. “It didn’t hurt that I was a cocky little punk. I was willing to charm people into buying, if I had to. The original Moosby’s store flourished. Then it became two stores, then six, then a dozen.”

  Danielle touched his hand. “A legend was born!”

  “That’s what the corporate bullshit machine says. Yeah.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s true! You’re good at what you do.”

  Jason shook his head. “I owe it all to Mr. Moosby.” He glanced at that cartoon image again. “The board turned him into a clownish caricature of himself—and all because some corporate ‘experts’ advised them to. My friend deserved better than that.”

  “I’m not too fond of corporate advisers myself,” Danielle couldn’t help saying in a commiserating tone. “Sometimes they don’t know what they’re talking about. Sometimes things sound good in theory but don’t work at all in practice.”

  Like inventory management schemes. Maybe, it occurred to her, Jason wouldn’t object to her against-the-rules inventory routine. Maybe he would even applaud it, if he knew about it.

  But for right now, she couldn’t risk telling him.

  “Hey.” She nudged him. “Can you hook me up with the big guy?” She nodded at Mr. Moosby’s image. “I’d like to meet him too.”

  With new contemplativeness, Jason gazed at her. He nodded. “You know, I might do that. I think Mr. Moosby might like to meet you, too.”

  “It would be almost like meeting the parents,” Danielle joked. “You know, like people do when they start getting serious. Me, meeting your mentor. Him, giving us his blessing—”

  She realized what she was saying and hastily broke off.

  Meeting the parents? Getting serious? Ugh.

  Wasn’t she supposed to be trying not to encourage Jason to get carried away with their relationship? Wasn’t she supposed to be keeping things Christmassy and casual between them?

  Focus, she commanded herself. Be smart.

  But it had never been more difficult to remain equable as it was just then. Because, not surprisingly, Jason seemed wholly on board with the idea of taking things to the next level between them. Worse, Danielle really . . . loved that about him.

  “Or not,” she amended before he could reply. “I mean, what am I, pushy, much?” She gave a forced laugh. “Next I’ll be inviting myself along to your beach Christmas in Antigua.”

  “You could come. Everyone would love you.”

  “. . . and my rowdy kids, not so much, I’ll bet.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Jennifer has two kids—”

  But the last thing Danielle needed was to start thinking of herself as part of a big, boisterous, loving extended family.

  No matter how much she loved that idea, too.

  “—and I’ve got sixteen kids waiting for me to help out with a toy demo, right this minute,” Danielle interrupted with an apologetic gesture. “Sorry. Do you want to help?”

  Hard work. That ought to be enough to make a notorious playboy back off, she figured. It was a perfect strategy.

  Except . . . “Sure.” Jason rolled up his sleeves. “I’m on it.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Danielle discovered that Jason was as good at leading a toy demo as he was at everything else.

  And she was as good at falling for him as she’d ever been. If this kept up, she’d never be able to rein herself in.

  Worse, she’d completely forget why she wanted to at all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At first, Jason couldn’t quit thinking about Chip—and his obnoxious demand that Jason dish out a steady supply of photos and videos for Moosby’s PR use. It shouldn’t have surprised him that his chairman of the board wanted to take advantage of his chemistry with Danielle, though. After all, Chip was notoriously obsessed with increasing profits—and apparently, the sleigh ride footage of him, Danielle, and her kids had kicked off a major sales spike. That meant that Chip (and even Jason’s board ally, Charley) couldn’t quit talking about The Kismet Effect.

  That’s what the “social media monkeys” had deemed it: the Kismet Effect. Using it, they’d boosted the holiday allure of the small resort town to a whole new level. According to Chip, the whole world was smitten with the “fairy-tale story” of Jason and Danielle falling for each other. Because of those sleigh-ride images of him, Danielle, Karlie, Zach, and Aiden, everyone believed in the story that the Moosby’s marketing gurus had concocted—a story that involved Jason and his new “family” doing Christmassy things while looking wholesome and adorable.

  They were calling it a “new media” approach. Jason called it exploitative, misleading, and a few choice expletives, too.

  He’d tried again to have that footage recalled. Chip had stubbornly refused. He’d said it was “out there already.” In the end, Jason had been forced to relent. Thanks to his experience with Bethany, he knew how impossible it was to roll back anything on the Internet. All he could do was move forward.

  And try to keep Danielle from learning about the footage, of course. Jason hadn’t wanted to hide it from her. Not exactly. But he hadn’t wanted to open her Web browser and put her face in front of that damning footage, either. So he’d settled on a middle ground of just . . . forgetting about it as best he could.

  Two and a half weeks later, his strategy had worked.

  By her own admission, Danielle was too busy to keep up with celebrity gossip—especially celebrity gossip that was broadcast via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or any one of the (apparently) hundreds of “dream date” boards that users had made on Pinterest. So, because of Danielle’s overall indifference to social media and without much effort on his part, Jason managed to forget all about Chip and his push for more pictures.

  Instead, Jason did Christmassy things with Danielle and the kids. Not to generate photo ops, but just to do them. Together with Danielle, Aiden, Karlie, and Zach, Jason viewed the famous holiday lights show in Kismet’s Glenrosen neighborhood. He took part in holiday shopping at the boutiques downtown. He ate more whoopie pies. He sipped eggnog, did more ice-skating, and helped Danielle wrap Christmas gifts with paper and ribbons and bows.

  It was all really . . . nice. It was almost as nice as
the extra-special Christmases Jason had imagined enjoying as a child—except now, as an adult, he had the bonus of sharing those special moments with a woman whose sex appeal, enthusiasm, and small-town openness made her irresistible to him. For Danielle, every moment they shared seemed exciting. Every cup of eggnog or turn around the ice-skating rink seemed filled with fun.

  “For a woman who claims to be ‘over’ the whole Kismet Christmas thing,” he teased her partway through those weeks together, “you sure seem to like all this schmaltzy holiday stuff.”

  “Nah. I’m doing it all for you,” she’d claimed, doing an impromptu hip-swiveling boogie as she handed him another sparkly ornament while decorating the family Christmas tree. “I’m doing it so you can have the fully loaded holiday experience.”

  “Well, I love the fully loaded holiday experience.” He’d accepted that ornament and hung it on the tree, then paused to admire all the crooked, crazily painted handmade ornaments the kids had created over the years. “I’m not the one who claimed to be immune to all of it, though. I think it’s great.”

  “Typical temp talk,” Karlie had grumbled nearby.

  But Danielle hadn’t heard her daughter’s sarcastic comment, and Jason had learned to overlook those remarks. He still hadn’t won over Karlie completely, he knew, but he had made a few inroads by intervening with Danielle on her daughter’s behalf.

  Evidently, Danielle didn’t like Karlie’s Fashion Makeover EXTREME! video game. She’d banned Karlie from playing it except at her Dad’s house. But when Jason had expressed an interest in trying it, Danielle had relented. He’d quickly learned why Danielle had objected to it, given its blatant objectification, lack of interesting playable characters, and emphasis on beauty competition. But Karlie loved that game from the first heart-shaped pink pixel to the last, so Jason played it with her.

  “Ha ha!” Karlie boasted every time. “Pwned you again. When are you going to learn you can’t beat me at this, temp?”

  Jason always pretended chagrin. “I guess I just can’t get the hang of doing a good digital pedicure. Congrats, townie.”

  Over time, as they played, Karlie seemed bugged by the game’s limitations, too. But she stuck to her guns and insisted she loved it. “If only my mom would let me play it with my friends instead of with her stupid new boyfriend,” she’d groaned while putting away the game console after their last matchup. “I’m the only one who hasn’t reached the Ultimate Diva level!”

  “Ultimate Diva level is dumb,” Zach had told her, not looking up from his handheld game. “But that’s a girl game for you. Everybody knows girl games suck. They’re not real games.”

  The ensuing squabble had almost toppled the newly decorated Christmas tree, chipped Zach’s tooth, and made Aiden spill all the goldfish food he’d been clutching when the fight broke out.

  “Hey!” the six-year-old had protested indignantly. “You almost made me spill all of the food for Rudolph.”

  Knowing what was coming, Jason had hurried over to help Aiden. The kid loved feeding his fish. If Jason and Danielle weren’t vigilant, he eagerly sprinkled in more and more and more fish food, just for the fun of watching Rudolph gobble it.

  “Hey, buddy. Let me help you with that.”

  “Okay.” With a shrug, Aiden handed over the fish food. He waited with his palm outstretched while Jason measured out a tiny pinch. On his tiptoes, the boy levered over the fishbowl. He sprinkled in the food. Then he squatted with his face to the glass to watch Rudolph chow down. “Do you think my mom will let me get Dasher and Dancer and Donner and Cupid and, um, Nemo and, er, Justin yet?” Aiden asked. “You know, the other goldfish? So I can have all of Santa’s reindeer in the bowl by Christmas?”

  Jason had grinned, resisting an urge to explain that Nemo and Justin weren’t reindeer names. “Pretty soon. Maybe.”

  He’d learned by then why Danielle had been dead set against Crystal getting Aiden a new goldfish for Christmas. Danielle had already known about her son’s Fish Hit Man reputation. She’d also known about Aiden’s tender soul and subsequent heartbreak after the accidental fish manslaughter inevitably occurred.

  Pretty much, Danielle knew everything about her kids.

  By the time Jason had stepped barefoot on his umpteenth stray Lego brick—just as Zach had happened by, gleefully toting around (just) the beeping motor from the 972-piece robotics set that Crystal had bought him (and Mark had failed to help assemble, and Danielle had strenuously objected to buying based on Zach’s history with complicated sets that were beyond his age level), Jason had had to admit the truth. To her face.

  “You know everything about your kids,” he’d told Danielle. “If I ever try to contradict you, feel free to punch me.”

  “I think my kids would really benefit from living in L.A.”

  “Not necessarily,” he’d argued automatically. “There’s crowding, crime, smog, and traffic. There’s no snow. There’s—”

  The punch in the arm he’d received shouldn’t have surprised him. Even now, more than a week after that incident, Jason knew that Danielle would have insisted she was right about moving.

  She was starting to weaken, though. When the five of them went downtown to see the unveiling of the thirty-foot-tall official Christmas tree in the Kismet town square, Danielle admitted that “a Hollywood tree” probably wouldn’t be as nice. When they went to their neighborhood cookie-and-candy exchange, toting plastic containers of iced-and-sprinkled sugar cookies and homemade peppermint bark, Danielle remarked that she “might miss” her friends’ annual parties. When they went sledding at the edge of town, and Jason and Danielle tumbled out of their shared sled halfway down, laughing all the way as they face-planted in the snow, she speculated that beach sand “wouldn’t be the same.” Every time, Karlie, Zach, and Aiden agreed with her.

  The closer Danielle came to conceding that she might want to stay in Kismet after all, the more Jason wanted to stay too. Not that that was possible. He was a CEO. He had important responsibilities. People relied on him for their livelihoods.

  To his disappointment, Danielle agreed with him about that.

  “I bet no one else but you could keep Moosby’s going so well,” she said as they wound a red-and-green garland made of construction paper loops around her family’s Christmas tree. “If you weren’t the CEO of Moosby’s, the toy stores would crumble.”

  Not really, Jason hadn’t wanted to say. Because he knew damn well his most important contributions to the company had already come with the first expansions and gone with the final More More Moosby’s! toy exclusives. His skills had been in bringing people onboard, generating enthusiasm, and curating a unique selection in their toy stores. None of those things were strictly necessary anymore. He didn’t want to be cartoonified.

  Or, “You must really love being in charge of everything,” she said as they cut out paper snowflakes with the kids, then hung them—Karlie’s featuring plenty of glued-on glitter—in her cozy little house’s windows. “You can do whatever you want.”

  Jason hadn’t had the heart to tell Danielle that, in most instances, the board had the final say. As combined majority shareholders, they had the right to steer the ship—even if he thought they were steering it straight into the rocks.

  Or, “Without you, Moosby’s wouldn’t even be what it is today.” Leadingly, Danielle had gestured at the fix Jason had been performing on one of Zach’s old toys. “You’re so creative.”

  But Jason had only scoffed. “Selling original toys isn’t as lucrative as getting paid to display someone else’s toys.” That was what Moosby’s had begun doing a few years ago as part of their ongoing partnerships with mega toy makers. “Selling shelf space is where it’s at these days. We provide the tried-and-true, come-in-and-browse-awhile ambiance. Other companies provide the merch. We take on zero inventory. Zero risk.”

  Danielle had looked alarmed. “Do you think Moosby’s will quit stocking unique toys altogether? Our customers love them!”

&
nbsp; “Do they?” Jason had asked as he’d tightened a miniature screw. “Or do they have ‘nonpaying nostalgia’ for those toys?”

  Because that’s what the board and their consultants had decided. They’d assembled focus groups, studied market research, conducted comparatives, and concluded that their More More Moosby’s! line of original toys was better treated an in-store “decorative element” than as bona fide profitable merchandise.

  That particular decision still rankled Jason.

  “Well . . .” In the midst of hanging Christmas stockings on her TV’s entertainment center, her modernized stand-in for a traditional fireplace mantel, Danielle had paused. “I have to admit, most people who pick up the More More Moosby’s! exclusives are adults, not kids. The kids make a beeline for video games. Plus, Moosby’s exclusives are sort of on the expensive side . . .”

  That was because they were made in the USA, Jason knew, without cheap overseas labor, in quantities too small to generate the usual aggregate economies of scale. In fact, it had been years since Moosby’s had produced new exclusive toys. As far as Jason knew, the factory that made them had shut down.

  “But they could be updated,” Danielle went on. “I’ll bet someone extra talented could take a fresh look at them.”

  “It’s possible,” Jason agreed, “that someone already is.”

  Then he’d joined Danielle at the entertainment center, taken a fond look at the familiar names stitched onto the stockings she’d been hanging, and kissed her—even as all the kids squealed, ran around, and made hilarious kissy-face sounds.

  Predictably, Danielle forgot all about business after that. Just the way Jason wanted her to. Because he didn’t want to think about work. He didn’t even want to think about Christmas.

  More and more, the approach of Christmas meant one thing: the end of his stay in Kismet and the beginning of his planned beach Christmas in Antigua with his family.

  When he’d made those plans, he hadn’t expected to be in love. But that’s what had happened. Jason was sure of it.