by Sandra Hill
“I’m in a little bit of trouble,” he admitted. Actually, his superior had left three voice mail messages on his cell phone thus far, which he hadn’t yet returned. “But I’ll be okay. At the moment, they want me more than I want them.”
JD and Stan frowned with confusion, but he didn’t want to get into that career discussion just yet.
Seeing that he wasn’t going to elaborate, JD said, “Back to Reba and how you can get her to talk to you. Before you proceed any farther with your charm assault . . . and don’t tell me any different . . . I know you’ll charm her over, eventually . . . well, I have to ask, are you thinking clearly?”
“Huh? You mean, about Reba?”
“Hell, yes, about Reba. I mean, she was a good friend to all of us when we were growing up in Snowdon. I’d hate to see her hurt by you . . . again.”
“Hey, hey, hey! I was hurt, too . . . when she got married,” he said defensively.
“Reba’s married?” Stan was clearly shocked. “You’re hitting on a married woman?”
“And no one, including George, ever bothered to tell me when she got divorced.”
“Reba’s divorced? No one even told me she got married,” Stan griped. “What am I? The potted plant in this threesome? I thought we were best friends—for life.”
Ignoring Stan, JD stared pointedly at Sam. “Bottom line, buddy, are you trolling for a little action here? Or something more?”
“I wish I knew. I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve been undergoing a severe case of career burnout lately. Good thing my tour with the Blues is just about over. It takes total dedication and concentration to fly those maneuvers, and I’m not sure I have it anymore. I know it sounds crazy, but suddenly I feel as if I’ve been running as fast as I could for the past fourteen years and only lately discovered that, in reality, I’ve only been running in place.”
To his surprise, his two friends didn’t look at him as if he’d gone off the deep end. In fact, they nodded their heads in understanding.
“You asked about Reba, JD. Well, all I can say is when George told me yesterday that Reba was the tour director of this Santa Looney Tunes Brigade and that she wasn’t married, it was as if the blinders had fallen off my eyes. I felt happy and hopeful for the first time in ages.” He shrugged. “What do you suppose that means?”
JD and Stan exchanged a knowing glance with each other, then turned to him. Simultaneously, they informed him, “You’re in love.”
Sam was going to protest, but he wasn’t sure they hadn’t hit the answer right on mark. The question was, What was he going to do about it?
Luckily, he was saved from having to answer that question, even to himself, by Stan. He was speaking to JD, “So, what’s with you and the Amish chick?”
“Where is she anyway? I thought you were afraid she would run away,” Sam added, glad to no longer be the center of conversation.
JD’s face flushed a nice pink color before he murmured, “I handcuffed her to the bed back in our room.”
“Holy shit!” Stan exclaimed.
“I’ve been meaning to give you some advice,” Sam said to JD, his lips twitching with suppressed mirth. Time for JD to get a dose of his own medicine.
JD snorted with disgust.
“Really. You’re screwing an Amish woman? For chrissake, JD, an Amish woman is just one notch below a nun. And handcuffs? Tsk-tsk-tsk! Even for you, that’s kinda perverted.” The whole time he spoke, Sam grinned, wondering if he might borrow the cuffs himself. That would be one way of getting Reba to sit still and listen to him. And after she talked to him, well, who knew what use they could be put to?
“Until tonight, Reba has been wearing that Jolly Ol’ Fat Boy outfit,” JD apprised Stan. Then he turned with seeming innocence to Sam. “Speaking of perversions, loverboy, where does having the hots for Santa Claus fall on the perversion scale?”
“I heard about this on the Internet,” Maudeen, the Cyber Granny, piped in then. To the surprise of all three of them, her purple spiked head was peeping up over the back of JD’s seat. She must be kneeling on her own bench seat, and, apparently, she’d been eavesdropping on their conversation. Surprise, surprise!
“Heard about what?” the three of them inquired at the same time. Which was a mistake . . . a big mistake.
“Sex perversions,” she answered matter-of-factly. “In fact, I accidentally landed on a website yesterday dedicated to sex with dwarves. Can you imagine that?” She shook her head at them. “Nuns, Santas, Amish, dwarves, all the same fetish, I guess.”
“Actually, in the Santooian Mountains, sex with the god of winter, which could be construed to be St. Nicholas, is considered a blessed event.” Speaking now was Dr. Meg, expounding from her anthropologist role.
“Ah, I remember now,” her sister, Dr. Maggie, said, “how icicles in the form of penises were used to decorate trees during their festivals. And they were flavored with herbs that the women sucked on to increase fertility.”
“Where’d you say those mountains were?” It was Morey Goldstein speaking now, a former butcher from Bangor and the self-proclaimed stud muffin of the senior citizen community. He popped his bright red suspenders and winked jauntily at the two sisters. Morey had a collection of two hundred pairs of suspenders. Sam knew because Morey had regaled him for hours today with details about every one of them.
The twins reacted to Morey’s question and his wink with soft giggles.
Now, I’ve seen it all!
“There’s nothing perverted when two people love each other,” the soft-spoken Ethel Ross remarked. She and her husband John were sitting in the next booth across the aisle, holding hands, as usual. If there were ever lifetime lovebirds, it was these two, who’d been married for fifty years. He knew because they’d regaled him for hours today with details about every one of those years.
“That’s right, Samuel. Try anything you can, anything, if you really love Reba,” John advised as he exchanged a look with his wife that clearly said they had personally tried it all themselves.
Oh, swell! I really need that picture in my mind. Two old people getting it on!
“What was that you were saying about landing in Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole?” Stan asked him.
“I’m beginning to think we all landed there,” JD said, “or else Bedlam.”
The seniors began to exit then, waving cheerily to them as they passed by, and calling out, “Merry Christmas” to the diner staff. It wasn’t surprising that the owner of the restaurant had packed up several cartons of nonperishable foodstuff for them to take to the next homeless shelter.
“They seem really nice,” Stan observed when they were all gone.
“Wait ’til they start interfering in your life,” Sam warned.
“Hah! They already have,” JD said. “That bus must have passed by a half dozen towns with sheriff’s offices today, but would Betty Morgan stop? Nosirree. She came up with more damn excuses why she couldn’t veer off her scheduled route than Lucky Charms has marshmallows. There’s no question in my mind that the ladies on this bus have been conspiring to protect Callie.”
“From you?” Sam asked.
“From the law.”
“Oh, that’s right, you already told me she’s an FTA. That means failure-to-appear,” he told Stan, impressed with his own ability to have remembered that bit of bounty hunter lingo.
“Why would the members of the Santa Brigade want to protect a criminal?” Stan wanted to know.
“She’s not really a criminal. At least, I’m not sure she is. She’s a star witness in a federal racketeering case, and she disappeared the day her court testimony was due. But I think the Santa ladies have ulterior motives for harboring Callie. She’s a famous designer, and they’ve enlisted her to help with dressing some old Barbie dolls they received yesterday. If they don’t get them dressed, they can’t give them out tomorrow, or Thursday.”
Stan put his face in his hands, then shook his head like a shaggy dog. “Hold the train . . .
uh, bus . . . here, JD. What does the Amish woman, sheriffs and FTA have to do with each other? Better yet, what dress designer?”
“Callie is the Callie of Callie Brandt Originals.”
“Holy Smoke, JD! She’s as famous as Donna Karan or Vera Wang.”
“Who the hell is Vera Wing?” Sam was addressing Stan. “You know the names of women’s dress designers?”
“It’s Vera Wang, you lunkhead,” Stan laughed. “And who hasn’t heard of Callie Brandt? She designed a bunch of the gowns for the Oscars last year.”
“Well, this just takes the cake! An ex-NFL football player who’s into dress designs!”
“You wanna make something of it?” Stan growled just before poking him in the ribs with an elbow. Between the overhearty shoulder whack and this jab, not to mention Mrs. Smith’s head bang with a clipboard, he was going to be black and blue.
Then he turned his attention back to JD “And you have the Callie Brandt handcuffed to your bed? For the love of Mike, JD, you are in big, big trouble.”
Instead of disagreeing, JD nodded with a self-deprecating grimace.
It was Stan’s turn to play catch-up.
“How you doing, buddy?” JD stared pointedly at the cane propped against the table, near Stan’s knee.
“I’m okay,” Stan answered, but the lack of enthusiasm in his voice belied his assurances. “With continued therapy, this gimp leg should be near perfect. Once I get this shoulder back the way it should be, I won’t suffer so much pain, either. But my football days are over, guys.”
A prolonged silence hit their booth then as each contemplated Stan’s prognosis.
“Dammit, I’m thirty-two years old. I probably would have had to quit in a year or two anyway as these old bones grew creaky. But I always said I’d go out in a blaze of glory, not through the blaze of a distracted driver.” The bitterness in his voice was telling.
“What will you do now?” JD asked.
“Hell if I know.”
“Do you need any cash?” Sam inquired. “I have a little stashed away.”
Stan laughed. “Thanks for the offer, but money is the least of my problems. Truth to tell, I’ve made a ton this past year, but not from football. It seems I have the Midas touch in picking stocks.”
“Like how Midas?” JD wanted to know.
“Like one million profit on Dilly.com, alone. And another mil on some medical stocks. Like I said, I seem to have the knack.”
He and JD just gaped at their friend. Who would have guessed it, when they were raggedy orphans back in Snowdon, that one of them would turn into a regular John Paul Kijewski.
“And the woman with you? Dana? Is she someone special?”
“Nah!” Stan said. “I mean, she’s special, all right, with those great legs of hers.” He smiled to himself as if picturing those very legs. Probably in some interesting positions. “She’s a friend of George’s. He asked me to pick her up along the way.”
When Stan was done talking, a comfortable silence prevailed.
“No matter what our problems might be at the moment,” Sam said suddenly, “you have to admit, we’ve come a long way from Snowdon.”
“Yep,” his two good buddies concurred.
Sam planted his elbow in the middle of the table, a signal for the multiple-handed shake that had been a symbol for their friendship from way back. The other two put their elbows on the table, as well, and all of them clasped hands, one on top of the other. Tears of emotion rimmed all three sets of eyes.
“Friends Forever,” they said.
There was something missing from this picture, though. It was supposed to be a four-handed shake, not just three. Reba had been their best friend, too.
Sam vowed then and there. He was going to get Reba back, come hell or high water . . . or Santa Brigade. As a military man, he knew how to plan assaults. He had weapons. He was Slick. If nothing else, she was now his target. Let her just try to escape his cross-hairs.
Reba didn’t stand a chance.
CHAPTER FIVE
KEVIN
Wednesday morning, two days ’til Christmas Eve
“This is just plain humiliating,” Callie grumbled, sitting across from Kevin at a booth in the coffee shop. The diner was fairly full, mostly with members of the Santa Brigade, but a few other stragglers were also enjoying breakfast. All except for Callie Brandt, apparently.
“Hey,” Kevin said, holding out his arms magnanimously, you’re not in cuffs now!”
She shook her head, wrinkling her cute little nose. “What a saint you’re turning out to be.”
Inside Kevin bristled, but he kept his expression cheerful while he added more cream to his coffee and stirred. “Under the circumstances, I’m doing the best I can. If it weren’t for you bribing the soft-hearted females on that bus, you’d be languishing in a sheriff’s holding pen right now.”
“I didn’t bribe anyone.”
“Lady, we probably passed within blocks of at least twenty sheriff’s offices from New York to here, and somehow Betty kept managing to miss’ every single one. Betty, the only person who could find a needle in a haystack within a minute.” He looked down at her nearly untouched plate of pancakes. “Now eat up. You’re already a little too skinny.”
A small growl escaped her lips, but she dutifully began cutting into the hot stack with a vengeance that sort of worried him. He might have to frisk her again when they were done to make certain she didn’t pocket that knife to use on him later.
Not that frisking her would be much of a chore. Under that mound of clothing she’d been wearing yesterday, he’d still managed to get a good idea where all the curves and hollows were located on this woman’s body. Right where they were supposed to be.
He glanced across at her, as she now chewed furiously, and he had to stifle a grin. After she’d complained about the discomfort of traveling in Amish clothing—which had to be harsh punishment for a sleek and apparently famous fashion designer—he’d gone looking for a spare set of clothing for her. Reba and Betty and Stan’s babe had all been way too tall for her. But Maudeen had been just the right size. So now Ms. hoity-toity fashion goddess was decked out in bright yellow spandex and a garish red, yellow and purple turtleneck sweater. With her wild black hair and apricot skin and pale green eyes, she looked much like a little fashion rainbow.
When he’d returned from borrowing the clothes from Maudeen, Callie had looked at him like he’d just beamed up from Fashion Hell. He’d shrugged. “Maudeen’s a little flashy at times. She likes her outfits to match her hair.”
She’d opened her mouth to protest, but then had pressed it shut and accepted his bounty with only a slight grimace. The fact that she hadn’t complained in the face of Maudeen’s unusual generosity had won her a few points in his book.
To be honest, several things she’d done had won some points he’d rather not be chalking up in her favor. Like the way she’d offered instantly to pitch in and help when Colonel Morgan had barked out that they needed dolls for their next stop, and the only dolls the Brigade could find among the boxes of inventory in the back of the bus were used, whose clothing had looked like they’d been made for Skid Row Barbie.
By the time Callie had finished poking through their scanty inventory of cloth and other miscellaneous items, did some quick stitching and adjustments, the dolls could have been strutting down a runway in Paris.
Kevin, while pretending not to be fascinated and impressed, had been both. And so had the rest of the Brigade, which had oohed and aahed over her handiwork as if she’d just personally painted the Sistine Chapel.
“Why are you grinning at me like that?” Callie asked, then brought her mug to her lips, eyes glowering over the top of it, even through the steam.
“I wasn’t grinning,” he denied, abashed that he probably had been. After all, the adorable way she’d frowned as she’d made tiny stitches in tiny dresses all the while grumbling about the relative breast sizes of the dolls had been really fun to watch.
“You look that goofy all the time, do you?”
Any grin that might have been lingering was surely gone by now. “I have it on good authority,” he retorted, “that I bear an incredible resemblance to Harrison Ford. A way younger version, of course.”
She practically snorted coffee out her nose. “An information clerk at a train station in Schenectady is good authority, is she?”
He waved that away. “She’s not the only one who thinks so,” he said, figuring that wasn’t really a lie, as he was sure some person, somewhere, somehow had also made that observation. Just not to him directly.
Callie grinned her skepticism, which would have really ticked him off if he wasn’t too busy deciding she was one hot tamale when she was amused, even at his expense. How he’d love to reach across the table and shove his hands through that wild black hair, pull her to him and kiss the cynical smile from her lips.
That thought made him clunk his coffee mug onto the Formica and lean way back in his seat. Kissing a fugitive from the law? He didn’t think so. He’d come a long way from his street tough youth, prided himself on his upstanding citizen status these days. He fought for justice within the bounds of the legal system now. He wasn’t about to stoop to getting personally involved with potential felons at this point in his life.
The niggling problem was, he’d called his secretary last night when he’d regretfully left Callie shackled in their room. He’d had Mrs. Boswell repeat the details of Callie’s crime. What she’d run from didn’t seem all that bad. She’d run from a subpoena to testify in a high-profile case. That would be bad if she’d been called to help put the bad guy away. But she hadn’t. She’d been called to testify for the defendant, the weasel Dylan Morris. To his reluctant way of thinking, she was doing the public a service by not helping the thug beat the rap. But the fact was, somehow she’d been involved with the man to begin with, and that was almost unforgivable. Except he didn’t know what that involvement was, and he also didn’t like passing judgment without all the facts. Not to mention, he was curious as hell.
