'Twas the Night

by Sandra Hill

  She smiled behind her hand. Far from scaring her, these stories were making her fall just a little more and more for the man. How could she not love a guy who would risk the wrath of an entire town to dispense justice?

  “You’re done,” Maudeen said to him. “Now get moving so I can check my email.”

  Callie’s view of Kevin had been blocked by Morey, so she didn’t know what Maudeen meant by done, and considering Maudeen’s own preferences in hair-dos, Callie was just a little worried.

  She shouldn’t have been. His hair was still that gorgeous and silky teak brown, and Maudeen had only cut it enough that it now just brushed his collar. Callie’s breath stuck in her throat at the sight of him. He was gorgeous and he was sexy as sin and he was sweet and he didn’t want her dumping him.

  How could she not love a guy like that?

  He came and sat across the aisle from her. “Have you made up your mind yet?”

  “I’m still thinking about it,” she lied. Not that she wanted to torture him or anything, but she couldn’t have him thinking she was too eager. Not to mention, she didn’t really want to make any declarations in front of a crowd, no matter how adorable this particular crowd was.

  “You know what I’m thinking about?” he said, his voice pitched low for her ears only. And maybe Mrs. Smith’s Miracle Ear.

  “What?” she couldn’t help but ask. Especially when his eyes got all smoky like that.

  “Last night. And the night before. And this morning.”

  Callie felt a blush rise up her throat to her cheeks. For as long as she lived, she’d never forget their time together at that lodge. It had been magical. She didn’t have tons of experience, but she didn’t think there was a man alive as sexy and giving and . . . creative. There was no way in hell she was dumping the guy.

  “Listen up, people,” Maudeen called out. All activity ceased, as everyone turned to Maudeen.

  As soon as she got everyone’s attention, she said, “I just got an email from Jill Broughton at the Snowdon Good Hope Shelter. Apparently they’ve had a huge influx of folks, due to the weather and such. She’s got about thirty new kids who weren’t there when we visited on the way out of town. She wants to know if we possibly have enough toys to stop in again.”

  “We have plenty,” Callie said.

  “Thanks to you,” Morey graciously added.

  “Oh, no. Thanks to all of us,” she said, shaking her head. “We did it together.”

  “We did, didn’t we?” Meg and Maggie said simultaneously, amidst a sea of nodding heads. “We make a great team.”

  They sure did, and in that moment Callie knew that she’d be joining the Santa Brigade every year for the rest of her life. If they’d have her. The work was important and meant so much to so many people.

  “Betty, when do we hit Snowdon?”

  “Twenty minutes,” Betty said, “if we don’t have to call in any more plows.”

  Maudeen checked her watch. “Another hour to hand out the gifts and put on the short version of the show, and that gives us less than a half hour to get to George’s wedding. That’s cutting it awfully close.”

  “That leaves no time to change out of our Santa suits and into our wedding duds,” Morey said.

  “That’s true,” Maudeen said, frowning. “And you wouldn’t believe the gorgeous pink sequin and feather number I bought for it.” She glanced over at Callie. “Sorry, it’s not one of yours, unfortunately.”

  “Thank the Lord and pass the rhinestones, huh, babe?” Kevin mumbled.

  Callie stifled laughter and managed to just smile and shrug. “So let’s take a vote,” Maudeen continued. “Do we visit the shelter, or get dolled up for George’s wedding?”

  Everyone talked at once, and Maudeen held up a hand. “Vote of hands. Dolled up?”

  Not a single hand went up.

  “Hit the shelter?”

  All hands zoomed up, except strangely, Kevin’s. Callie shot him a quizzical look, and then he, oh-so-reluctantly, it seemed, lifted his hand to make it unanimous. That seemed so out of character, Callie was truly puzzled. Kevin was one of the most enthusiastic performers on the shelter circuit, and always seemed to get excited as they approached another stop.

  But she didn’t have time to question him, because Maudeen announced, “The shelter it is! Santa suits everyone!” And chaos, as always, erupted.

  As everyone filed off the bus in front of the Good Hope Shelter—actually a converted brownstone—Callie glanced back at Kevin, who was dawdling with his Santa belt, and occasionally glancing out the window, only to quickly look away.

  She backed up from the steps of the bus and walked to him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he grumbled.

  “Like hell. What is it? Are you mad because we aren’t going to have time to change for the wedding?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Then what?”

  He cocked his head toward the shelter and swallowed. “I’ve been here before.”

  “Yeah, so? This is your hometown.”

  He sat down heavily. “No, I mean I’ve been here before. Not as a volunteer.”

  It took her a moment to understand. When she did, her heart cracked a little. “Oh.” She sat down, too. “I see. When you were younger?”

  “Yeah. When I was ten. My old man brought me here for a meal. We ate, then he went to the bathroom and never came back.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ll never forget what it felt like to realize he’d dumped me, like garbage.”

  Dumped him. Callie’s heart shattered even more. When we get back there, we’re still going to see each other. You can’t dump me.

  No wonder he was afraid she’d abandon him. She’d fix that in a minute, but first she felt an overwhelming need to fix the hurt from so long ago.

  “You know what I think?” she said softly, her hand on his padded shoulder.

  His Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat a couple of times before he croaked out, “What?”

  “If you are an example of what good can come from a place like this, then every single stop we’ve made in the last few days is worth it, a million times over.”

  He finally looked at her. “That’s nice of you to say.”

  “I’m not trying to be nice, you turkey. Think about it, JD. You, Stan, Sam, even Dana, were products of a system that is so often flawed, kids like you fall through the cracks. But you didn’t. None of you did. You succeeded and became successful, moderately well-adjusted adults.”

  That produced a ghost of a smile. “That’s debatable.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “If nothing else, you should be bounding into that shelter, letting every kid in there know you’ve been here, done that, and look at you now. Give them hope. They desperately need the hope of knowing this isn’t necessarily the end, but a good place to start.”

  He stared at her for an endless minute. “Have I told you I love you?” he asked, his voice a little gravelly.

  Callie’s knees practically buckled on her. “No, but I sort of got a little inkling of it with the no dumping’ rule you tried to establish.”

  “I love you.”

  She stroked his hair, her heart so full it was almost painful in the most glorious way. “I love you, too.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m pretty darn sure,” she said dryly.

  He stood up. Does that mean—”

  “Yes. I’m not dumping you.”

  “Never,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

  “Never,” she promised, and knew, without a doubt, that she meant it. This man was hers. Forever.

  “I’d kiss you mindless right now,” he said, caressing her cheek, “but I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.”

  “I’ll take a rain check for later tonight. For now, let’s go hand out some toys.”

  “And hope,” he said softly.

  “And hope.”

>   CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  STAN

  Christmas Eve

  The kids in the Snowdon shelter were great—bright, eager, excited—yet as Stan watched them pester JD for more magic tricks and hit up Slick for more tales about the Blue Angels, he was conscious of a pain deep in his gut. The kids, the people in the shelters, were getting to him. They were getting to them all.

  Slick Merrick might be walking around in a happy, lustful daze, but from a couple comments he’d made, Stan could tell he hadn’t forgotten the boy from the shelter on Wednesday—what was his name? Richie?—or the boy’s mother. Callie had been muttering imprecations on the clothes most of the kids wore, clothes which were often scraggly, ill-fitting hand-me-downs. JD had almost come to blows with the colonel over a discussion of the shelter residents’ rights to decent legal representation and advice. If it hadn’t been for Reba stepping in—firmly on JD’s side, of course—they might have had their first real quarrel of the trip.

  And Dana . . .

  Stan smiled, just thinking of her. Kids flocked to her like bees to honey.

  Hell, he went for her like a bee to honey, a trout to a fly, a . . . a lusty male to a fantasy come true. The past two nights had been heaven, the hours they spent together during the day pure bliss.

  He’d deliberately put all thought of tomorrow away, refusing even to consider what would happen once George’s wedding was over and they all went back to their lives. Well, all but Reba and Slick, of course. They still hadn’t decided exactly what came next, except it was clear that whatever it was, it would be the two of them facing it together. And then there was JD and Callie. They hadn’t officially announced it yet, but any fool could see they’d end up tying the knot, too. But Dana had her work while he—

  What did he have? A house that wasn’t a home, investments that made him enough money so he wouldn’t have to work another day in his life if he didn’t want to, and not much of anything else. Certainly nothing that mattered. And sure as hell nothing that made a difference to anybody.

  A week ago, he’d been thinking about going into investment management or something. He hadn’t been real excited about it, but he’d figured if he couldn’t have football, there wasn’t much else he was good at, so why not? But now, just the thought of it chilled his blood.

  A week ago, he’d been wishing he’d taken that blonde—or had she been a brunette? Bonnie or Betty or something—down to Cancun. Now, just the thought of a mindless liaison with a woman whose face he couldn’t remember was enough to make him shudder.

  He didn’t even want to go back to San Diego.

  Sure, he had friends there, but not one of them was as crazy as Maudeen or as smooth as Morey or as ready to mind someone else’s business as the twins, Maggie and Meg. Good drinking and carousing buddies. Good men, every one. But he’d been trying to imagine them on the Brigade’s bus, scrubbing old Barbie dolls and having to watch their language because of Emma Smith, and he just couldn’t picture it.

  Yet for some crazy reason he could see himself there. Not just now, but next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.

  Hell, he could even imagine himself on the bus when he was ninety, and that scared the very devil out of him!

  But only so long as Dana was there beside him. He didn’t even try to picture himself without her.

  And that scared him even more because Dana wasn’t a great fling to be forgotten. Dana was a forever kind of woman, while he had always been a short-term kind of guy. She was cocoa in front of the fire and Christmas trees with old ornaments and big red ribbon bows and—

  And he couldn’t think of anything he wanted more.

  Thinking of her, Stan shifted on the stool where he sat. The motion made the two crumpled bows in his pocket rustle. His wishing ribbon, and hers. He’d retrieved them both yesterday morning while everyone was rushing out to see if Slick and Reba had survived their wild ride down the mountain.

  He still hadn’t found the courage to untie her bow and find out what she’d written, but he was pretty sure he knew, anyway, and he was pretty sure she was going to get her wish. All of it, and more.

  But there’d been other bows on that tree, other wishes. Some of the wishers, like Slick and Reba and Callie and JD, were probably going to get what they’d wished for, too. Some—he grinned at the thought—like Morey and Maudeen and Dr. Maggie, probably already had. But what about the Parkers? What about Tyler and Taylor’s wishes written in black marker with all the faith and hope that six-year-old hearts could hold?

  And what about the kids in the shelter here, who didn’t have any wishing ribbons at all? What about little Richie and his mother, who was fighting her inner demons with everything that was in her? What about Mrs. Eisenstock, whose family had ended here in a town she didn’t know in a shelter full of strangers on the very holiday when one most wanted a home and a place to belong to?

  When she’d unwrapped the wall hanging that Dana had cleaned and repaired with such care, the poor woman had burst into tears, then run to hang it on the wall of the crowded cubicle their family shared, desperate to add a little color to a life that was painted in grim shades of gray right now.

  What about all the rest of them?

  He’d never forgotten what it was like to be on the outside looking in, but for a long, long while he’d conveniently ignored the memories. Besides, he’d always had Slick and JD and George to help him over the hard parts.

  He scanned the room, looking for his friends, and spotted Emma Smith, presiding over the punch bowl. Not far away, Betty was on the phone, dredging up the last bit of help to get them from the shelter to the church while Maudeen, who’d dyed her hair holly green in honor of the day, was clattering away on her computer. Probably figuring out where to deliver the last of the Brigade’s toys and presents before Christmas morning dawned.

  As if sensing his gaze, Emma looked up and caught his eye. For a moment he had a flash of panic, just like what he’d felt years ago when he’d blown a test because he hadn’t studied. But this time she didn’t frown, she smiled, then winked, as if the two of them shared a secret. Stan was still staring, open-mouthed, when a couple of kids clamoring for more punch dragged her attention back to her job.

  Come to think of it, maybe he’d had Emma Smith on his side, too. It hadn’t seemed like it at the time, but her constant demands that the three of them shape up, work harder, and do more had really just been another way of saying that she knew they were capable of a lot more than even they had imagined.

  There’d been others like her through the years, now he thought of it. The head administrator and the counselors at the home, teachers and coaches and, yes, even some of the cops who’d regularly hauled their butts up for getting into trouble. The three of them had had more supporters than they’d ever realized.

  And always, always there’d been George, who’d stood by them through thick and thin, and kept scrapbooks of their achievements, and been proud . . . and told them so.

  It came to him right then in a blinding flash, just as it used to when he’d been at a crucial point in a difficult game and he’d known, somehow, exactly what he had to do next. He knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life and he was pretty sure he knew exactly how to get started doing it.

  Stan grinned and glanced across the room to where Dana sat with half a dozen little kids grouped around her, enthralled. She was the heart of it, the key that would make it all worth while, the dream he’d written on his wishing ribbon that was more than he’d dared imagine.

  With his gaze glued to his golden Madonna, Stan dug out his cell phone and punched in a number he’d already learned by heart.

  “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Betty stood beside the open door of the bus, urging her flock of red-suited Santas across the snowy parking lot and up the steps. “Come on! We gotta get to the church. No time to waste. George isn’t going to wait for us forever. Gotta go, gotta go!”

  She was almost dancing with impatience as, one by
one, the Brigade members made their way onto the bus. “What’re you planning to do, Morey? Take root here in the parking lot? Move it!”

  Morey grinned and blew her a kiss, then bounded up the steps, spry as any fifty-year-old. Two ladies in the shelter had almost come to blows over which one got to dance with him. He’d resolved the problem by dancing with both of them, turn and turn about, until they’d worn circles in the shelter’s floor. His face was still as red as his suit from the exercise, but he’d brushed off Reba’s concern with an airy wave.

  “Couldn’t disappoint the ladies!” he’d informed her, then winked at Maudeen, which had made that doughty lady turn crimson, too.

  From her seat by a window at the front of the bus, Dana watched as Stan slowly made his way across the snowy ground. He had his cane, but he wasn’t paying attention to the ground—his cell phone had been glued to his ear for the past half hour, at least.

  She’d tried to eavesdrop, had even resorted to an overt attempt at seduction to find out what could possibly hold his attention like that, but he’d deliberately turned away and lowered his voice . . . and kept on talking.

  “Come on, Kijewski!” Betty called. “You move any slower, you’ll freeze to the ground and we won’t get you unstuck ’til spring.” Stan punched off the phone and stuck it in his pocket, then stumped across the lot.

  Watching him, Dana found her heart speeding up and her breath catching. Her body ached just at the sight of him, reminding her of all the secret, passionate pleasures they’d shared in the past two days . . . and nights.

  Before they’d left Moose Lodge, she’d gone back to retrieve her wishing ribbon. To her disappointment, it had disappeared, no doubt swept up in the confusion or kicked under a chair, forgotten.

  Not that it mattered, she’d assured herself. She’d gotten part of her wish, at least. She was just being greedy and unreasonable to wish that she’d been granted more.

  Still, she couldn’t help hoping. That was what love did to you, she supposed, made you think anything was possible.

  She watched as Stan negotiated the stairs on the bus with Betty hot on his heels. Just the sight of him was enough to start that hungry ache deep insider of her. The ache that only he would ever be able to ease.