'Twas the Night

by Sandra Hill

  Dana, Stan, Reba, Slick, Callie, and JD watched with interest from a safe spot to the side and out of the wind.

  “He’s blushing,” said Stan with awe. “That guy is actually blushing.”

  “Probably one of her old boyfriends,” Reba said. “Betty’s had more offers of marriage than any woman I’ve ever met.”

  “Bad-Ass Betty?” said Stan and Slick and JD in disbelieving chorus.

  Dana could feel herself stiffening instinctively, even though she knew it wasn’t directed at her.

  “You’re kidding.” Slick watched the wiry little woman herd the Brigade out of the way so Frank could bring his truck up. “That lady’s as tough as they come and—what?”

  Reba poked him in the chest again. “You think just because women are intelligent and strong and capable that they’re not desirable, too? Is that what you think?”

  “No! Hey, did I say that?” Slick protested, backing up a step, hands up, palms out in surrender. “I didn’t say that.”

  “That’s what you meant. I’m not dumb, you know.”

  “Don’t say it,” Callie added, glaring at JD with a dangerously martial light in her eye. “Don’t even think it.”

  “What the hell? What’d I do?” said JD, looking hurt. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You were thinking it. I could tell. And don’t you say anything, either!” she added, turning on Stan.

  Stan was twice her size, but he just stood there, staring down at her and blinking a little like a bewildered sheep.

  Dana didn’t know whether to feel sorry for the three guys or grateful for Reba’s and Callie’s defense of Betty. They didn’t know it, but she felt as if they were defending her, too. She’d never had a lot of boyfriends and she’d never had even one offer of marriage, but she knew what it was like to be considered unfeminine and undesirable. It hurt, that’s how it felt.

  Maybe if she’d been more like Reba and Callie, pretty and confident and utterly sure of herself, it would have been different. But she wasn’t and never had been. Both of them would have known what to do if JD or Slick kissed them as Stan had kissed her, and neither of them would be walking around ten minutes later still dizzy and trembling and elated and scared like she was.

  The arrival of Joe on his backhoe, immediately followed by Red Dog and his plow broke up the group. Reba, with Slick trailing in her wake indignantly trying to explain, went off to make sure all the Brigade members were warmly bundled against the snow. Callie and JD stalked off in the other direction, still arguing.

  “Whew!” said Stan. “Women!”

  “What do you mean, women?” Dana demanded. Reba and Callie’s example made her feel just a little bit bold.

  “See! Now you’re doing it, too! A fellow doesn’t stand a chance when you guys gang up on him.”

  Dana could have cheered when Maxie roared in right then with a car full of kids and the biggest thermos of hot coffee she had ever seen.

  “I’d better go see if I can help,” she said, grateful for the excuse to flee. It was easier and a whole lot safer than staying to argue.

  Stan just stood there watching her walk away without saying a word.

  Slick and JD, she thought sadly, had at least cared enough to chase after Reba and Callie so they could keep on arguing.

  Maxie turned out to be a cheerful redhead who had happily abandoned her little eatery when Betty called.

  “Brought donuts, too,” she said, whipping out a folding table and setting up a coffee bar right there in the middle of the road.

  The Brigade flocked to her like pigeons to a peanut vendor, arguing over who got the Boston cremes and who got the chocolate frosted as they cheerfully fixed cups of steaming coffee for Betty and the men clearing the road.

  Betty was too busy supervising the snow removal to notice.

  “Isn’t she great?” said the colonel, almost bursting with fatherly pride as he watched his daughter shout orders.

  “She’s incredible,” said Dana with sincerity. “More coffee, Colonel?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” The colonel beamed, holding out his cup.

  “We have to talk.”

  Dana jumped at the feel of Stan’s warm breath on her ear. “I can’t. I—”

  “Now!” said Stan, passing the colonel his cup, then grabbing her hand and pulling her away from table.

  One look at his face convinced her to stop arguing and go along, even if her heart was suddenly threatening to pound its way out of her chest.

  They were almost to the bus and safely out of sight of the others when he slipped on the icy road.

  Without thinking, Dana grabbed him, wrapping her free hand around him and bracing her body to prop him up. She was strong and fit, but he was a big man. If he hadn’t let go her other hand so he could grab her shoulder and she could wrap him in a bear hug, they would both have gone tumbling.

  “You all right?” she said, when she was sure he wasn’t going to slip again.

  “Yes, damn it,” he snarled, “I’m all right.”

  She tried to move away from him, but he tightened his hold on her shoulder and dragged her back. This close, the heat of him and the scent of that after shave made her dizzy.

  She didn’t like dizzy.

  “You wouldn’t be slipping if you’d worn more sensible shoes,” she said.

  His shoulders went rigid.

  “I suppose, living in San Diego like you do, there’s not much need for good walking shoes.”

  “I can’t wear anything else.” The words came out sounding strained, as if he’d forced them past throat muscles that were strung too tight.

  Embarrassment flooded her. Given the damage to his hip and leg, she should have thought of that. So much for being mature and confident.

  Evidently mistaking her silence for incomprehension, he added, “I can’t bend too easily these days. Pulling on a pair of socks can take me ten minutes, so loafers . . . ” He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. She knew it did. “I can’t use anything with a sole that grips, either. My left leg drags a bit, and rubber soles catch too easily.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  And then, through her embarrassment, she realized that his arm was still around her shoulder and she was still pressed tight against him.

  “I guess you can stand on your own now, then,” she said, and tried to pull free.

  He wouldn’t let her.

  She looked up, startled, and found him staring down at her with an odd, dangerous little glint in his eyes. There seemed to be a bit of a harder line around his jaw, too, as if he’d made up his mind to something and he was determined to follow through, come hell or high water.

  “Stan?” she said. Her chest felt tight. For lack of air, no doubt, because she was having a hard time breathing . . . again.

  “Dana,” he said, and then he lowered his head, and kissed her . . . again. And this time he really put some heat in it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SAM

  Early Wednesday afternoon, two days ’til Christmas Eve.

  “Who’d have ever thought that a homeless shelter could be so . . . happy?”

  “Happy?” Reba laughed at Sam’s observation.

  God, he loved the way she laughed . . . soft and sexy. He wished she’d do it more often. But she hardly ever did . . . around him.

  What would she do if I leaned forward and planted a big one, right on her laughing mouth?

  Hit me over the head with her Santa sack, he answered with a laugh of his own.

  And—my, oh, my—after getting a brief glimpse yesterday of Reba’s new and improved shape—not that her old one hadn’t been pleasing to him—he would really, really like to check out the changes some more. Up close. Sans Santa suit. Hell, sans underwear, too.

  “Why are you grinning?”

  “Am I grinning?”

  She shook her head at him. “I’m not sure I’d go so far as to describe this place as happy,” Reba went on, even as she unconsciously hitched up he
r Santa belly, which kept slipping under the wide belt. His, on the other hand, stayed in place because he’d had the foresight to employ a little of modern man’s miracle tool . . . duct tape. It was amazing what they carried on that freakin’ bus.

  He and Reba, both dressed in St. Nick attire, were leaning against the wall, sipping at paper cups of coffee. They were taking a break from the Santa Brigade’s entertainment program at the Good Samaritan Refuge in Littleton, New Hampshire. In the short silence between them, he soaked in the whole raucous scene before them. Strings of blinking lights and holly decorated practically every wall of the huge assembly room. There were artificial trees placed in each of the four corners, and an enormous fresh-cut fir tree—at least twenty feet tall—in the center. All bore homemade ornaments and strings of popcorn and holly berries. Christmas music played in the background. Refreshment tables practically sagged with the amount of donated food and sweet treats.

  “Oh, yeah, this is happy,” he said, as much to Reba as to himself. “Believe me, I’ve seen more than a few charity shelters in my younger days, and most of them reeked with sadness, bigtime. As I recall, they reeked, period. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the odors . . . canned soup, sour milk, stale booze, and . . . despair.”

  Actually, his experiences had been more with flophouses . . . places he and his mother landed in occasionally when the drugs ran out and they were, literally, down and out. In sharp contrast, there was an air of hope here at Sammy’s, as Good Samaritan was called, thanks to the tireless efforts of its director, Jane Justiss, and her troop of volunteers.

  His early childhood had always been a taboo subject even with the best of friends. Reba looked as if she’d like to grill him about the background he’d revealed with that careless comment about younger days. Instead, she said, “They try hard to achieve that effect. So, maybe you’re right. And, if only a few people come away a little happier . . . well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” A pensive expression crossed her face before she put a hand on his forearm. “It never occurred to me, when Emma commandeered you into helping out, that homeless shelters might bring back bad memories. You don’t have to do this, Sam.”

  “Yeah, I do. You can say lots of things about me, but I always pull my own weight.”

  “Well, it’s appreciated. No one expected so many people to show up. We need all the help we can get.”

  He nodded, gazing about at the large number of people who swarmed around the converted lumber mill . . . at least a hundred, not including the workers and the Santa Brigade. Not all of them were residents of the facility. Some were poor families who had their own homes, but were in need of Christmas gifts for their children. An alarming number were individuals wanting a hot meal and a dash of holiday cheer.

  Suddenly, he thought of something. “The Brigade is going to run out of its stash of gifts even quicker than anticipated, isn’t it?”

  Reba nodded, nibbling her bottom lip with worry. Geez, he hated it when she did that. He wanted to be the one nibbling her bottom lip. “And we still have three more shelter stops to make, tonight and tomorrow, before heading home to Snowdon.”

  “If transportation weren’t a problem, I could call some of my buddies in the Blues. There are only six Blue Angels in any one squadron, but eighty back-up personnel. And lots of formers. They’d gather whatever you need in no time, but I doubt whether they could fly in anything with weather conditions as they are.”

  “I know. The same is true of our Brigade angels, those people and businesses who can always be relied on in a pinch. Maudeen’s in one of the back rooms on her computer right now, seeing what she can drum up.” She shrugged. “It’ll work out. It always does.”

  “Like how Callie is whipping out designer fashions for those Skid Row Barbies.”

  Reba tsk-ed at his calling the dolls by the nickname that JD had coined when first spying the dolls in tattered attire in a refuse box in the back of the bus, but she had to agree. They both glanced across the room where a Callie/Santa was doing just that with scraps of material and yarn she’d found about the bus—a far cry from her high-fashion designer business. Callie had enlisted some of the homeless shelter women to help her. In fact, with all she was teaching them, some of the women were talking about making the custom Barbie outfits after Christmas, as a year-round, moneymaking enterprise.

  Dana, also a Santa, sat a short distance away, showing another group of women how to do needlepoint. Sam didn’t know much about sewing crafts, but she appeared to be as skilled as Callie, in her own way, although it was just a hobby for her. While Dana stitched, she told Indian folk tales to some of the young people, interspersing her stories with actual anecdotes of things that had happened to her in the woods as a forest ranger. As an avid environmentalist, she gave great credence to the practices of Native Americans who had cherished the land, just as she did. Dana had a calming voice and a soothing demeanor, not to mention a sensational figure. He could see why Stan was attracted to her.

  Meanwhile, JD, also in Santa costume, was sticking close to Callie—his prisoner, so to speak. The big bad bounty hunter— biting his tongue with concentration—was sitting on the floor at her feet, rolling skeins of red yarn into a ball the size of a basketball. JD had just completed his talent program . . . a wildly popular card trick event that had had kids alternately slack-jawed with incredulity, then rolling on the floor with laughter.

  “Between Callie and Dana, we’re going to have a nice supply of dolls and embroidered pillows for the remaining shelters. But we need so much more to fill our inventory. Christmas candy. Items of clothing, especially socks and gloves. Baby items. Toys for boys.” She grinned at him. “More Chia pets.”

  Sam groaned. At one time—probably in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep and was watching a really educational program, like an infomercial—he would have sworn there had to be a special place in hell for the manufacturer of those ludicrous plant containers. But the shelter residents seemed to love them. Go figure!

  “It’s your turn, Mr. Merrick,” a cheery voice said.

  He and Reba turned to see Jane motioning him to come toward the center of the room where a group of kids, and adults, too, were gathering to hear his part of the entertainment program.

  “Oh, swell!” he muttered under his breath.

  “You’ll do fine, Sam,” Reba encouraged with a squeeze of his arm. Hey, had her hand been there all the time? And he hadn’t taken advantage of it? He must be slipping.

  “I don’t suppose you want to give me a bit of motivation?”

  “What? You want me to come with you?”

  “Well, that’s not quite what I had in mind.” He pulled a straggly bit of mistletoe out of his pocket and held it over her head. “Merry Christmas, honey.”

  “Saaaammmm,” she chided, but she didn’t seem mad, or overly annoyed, which he took for a green light.

  He leaned forward and pressed his lips lightly against hers, Santa beard against Santa beard. She tasted of coffee and Christmas and everything wonderful that Sam had missed all these years, without even realizing what a hole there was in his life. Perhaps being burnt by the flame wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  It was a fleeting kiss, barely a whisper of a caress, but both of them stared at each other, unable to break eye contact. Reba was equally affected by the kiss, he could see that.

  What would it be like to make love if just a kiss ignites a flame between us?

  We’d probably set each other afire, that’s what.

  Holy smoke! Doesn’t that pose some interesting possibilities? I can’t wait.

  “Dawdling again, Mr. Merrick?”

  He and Reba jumped apart, although they hadn’t been all that close. It was Emma Smith, of course, with clipboard in hand. And—Lordy, Lordy—she was one big Santa . . . the frowningest one he’d ever seen. If anyone could whip a team of reindeer together, or a Santa Brigade, it was this woman.

  “I’m on my way, Mrs. Smith.”

  He grab
bed Reba’s hand, taking her up on her offer to accompany him. He couldn’t believe he was going to entertain a bunch of kids. They passed Stan on the way, encircled by a group of young boys who were obviously entranced by his instructions on the correct way to hold a football and pass the bomb for a sure touchdown. Stan was a gifted teacher, that was clear, though he might not be aware of the talent. Sam, on the other hand, had no such delusions about his gifts. He could fly jets, yeah, and he’d been told he could charm the hair off a hog. Those were the only things he had going for him.

  Instinctively, he squeezed Reba’s hand, seeking reassurance. “Ouch,” she said.

  He loosened his grip, but still held on. No way was he letting her go.

  “Maybe I should go over and help Morey and Bob set up for their dance program.”

  “Uh-uh!”

  She arched an eyebrow at him.

  “If I’m going to make a fool of myself,” he said. “I want company.”

  Reba had no right to be so proud of Sam, but she was.

  She’d sensed his nervousness about participating in a solo Santa Brigade event, but he had no need to worry. His natural charisma came through, no matter what he did . . . always making eye contact with the people he addressed . . . always making them feel, each and every one, as if they were important to him. He’d said yesterday that he wasn’t sure what to do with his future, career-wise. Well, she for one believed that he had unlimited opportunities if he channeled that charm.

  Sam was perched on a high stool with bunches of young people scattered on the floor around him in a wide half-circle. Stan’s demonstration had ended, and he and his group had ambled over, too. J.D. was there, as well, apparently chastised by Callie for having made such a big yarn ball. There were also some parents in the audience, shelter volunteers, and a few young women, attracted by the good-looking man and not necessarily the talk.

  He’d removed his Santa outfit, contending his program would have more authenticity that way. He was right. But did he have to look so drop-dead gorgeous in a uniform?