All I Want for Christmas

by Gina Wilkins

  As though sensing that someone was watching him, the man suddenly looked up. His gaze met Pip’s. He smiled.

  Kelsey’s fingers tightened around Pip’s hand. Pip squeezed absently, staring at the man’s smile. Like his nose, it was a little crooked. But again Pip approved.

  This, he thought, looked like a guy a kid wouldn’t mind having for a dad.

  The man tossed the ball into the air again, catching it neatly. “Looks like a good one, doesn’t it?”

  Pip nodded politely in response to the friendly question. “Yes, sir. That looks like a great ball.”

  “Glad to know you agree. I think I’ll buy it.”

  Pip watched as the man made his way across the store to the unfriendly salesclerk.

  “Well?” Kelsey whispered.

  “Yeah,” Pip murmured. “Maybe.”

  When the man left the sporting-goods store they were right on his heels, trying their best to blend into the shopping crowd so he wouldn’t notice them. He went into a nearby ice-cream parlor, and Pip dug into his pocket for the ten-dollar bill.

  “Want an ice-cream cone?” he asked Kelsey, who nodded eagerly.

  A bubbly blond waitress and a more somber-looking older woman stood behind the counter. The man the children had been following headed straight for the blonde.

  Pip placed his order with the other woman, watching the man out of the corner of his eye, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  The man was leaning on the counter, smiling that crooked smile at the blonde, who seemed to find it as appealing as Pip had.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked, sounding to Pip a bit breathless.

  “What do you recommend?” the man asked, leaning closer.

  “How about a hot-fudge brownie supreme?” she suggested, batting her long eyelashes.

  Pip thought she looked kind of goofy hanging all over the guy like that. Personally, he preferred the dark-haired woman in the doll shop to this one. He didn’t think he’d care for a mom who giggled and twirled her hair.

  The man flirted with the waitress a few more minutes before making his selection. Pip and Kelsey already had their ice-cream cones and were sitting at a tiny round table, eating and watching.

  “Here you go,” the waitress said, sliding a towering concoction of fudge, ice cream and whipping cream across the counter to the man. “What’s your name, anyway?” she asked a bit too casually.

  “Max. What’s yours?”

  “Brittany. Do you play football?” she asked, nodding toward the ball he held under one arm.

  “Some of my buddies get together and play most Sunday afternoons at City Park. Come by some time,” he said. “We can always use another player.”

  Brittany giggled. “I don’t much like to play, but maybe I’ll be a cheerleader.”

  Pip groaned.

  Max only nodded. “See you around, Brittany.”

  He carried his ice cream to a small table not far from the one Pip and Kelsey had chosen. He caught Pip’s eyes, paused a moment as though in surprised recognition, then smiled and turned his attention to his ice cream.

  Max, Pip thought reflectively. Nice name.

  He wondered how Max felt about video games and Batman.

  Pip and Kelsey finished their cones before Max had half finished his own treat. Still trying to be inconspicuous, they went out into the mall and pretended to look into shop windows until he finally emerged.

  They watched as he roamed aimlessly around the mall, tossing the football from hand to hand and stopping occasionally to peer into a window. Both Pip and Kelsey were excited when Max walked past the doll shop, stopped, looked back over his shoulder and then went inside.

  “He’s in there with her! ” Kelsey squealed. “Come on, Pip, let’s go watch.”

  Pip bit his lower lip, torn between caution and curiosity. Curiosity won out.

  “Okay,” he said. “But stay quiet and don’t call attention to us, you hear?”

  “Okay, Pip,” Kelsey said absently, her little sneakers already moving toward Beautiful Babies.

  2

  MAX MONROE FELT more than a bit out of place in the doll shop. He tucked the new football more snugly beneath his arm and wandered through the crowded aisles, eyeing the rows of smiling plastic faces and wondering how a person went about selecting one. Should he just grab the first doll that caught his eye? Were certain dolls more appropriate than others for a girl of a certain age? How was a guy sup-posed to know these things?

  He looked around for help.

  A dark-haired, dark-eyed woman was already headed his way, wearing a plastic name tag with a doll’s face painted on it identifying her as a store employee. She smiled, and Max promptly forgot why he’d come in.

  Nice smile, he thought. Nice face. Great body. A particularly nice left hand. No rings.

  “May I help you find something?” she asked, and her voice was more musical than the Christmas carols that filled the air.

  He gave her his best helpless-male smile. “I could certainly use some assistance,” he assured her. Especially from you, he added silently.

  “Are you looking for a gift?”

  “A Christmas present for my niece.” He checked the woman’s name tag as he spoke. Ryan Clark. The word owner was printed in small letters beneath her name.

  “How old is your niece?” Ryan Clark asked him.

  Max had to think a minute. “Five? Six, maybe.”

  “You aren’t sure?”

  With a rueful shrug, he shook his head. “My sister and her family live in Hawaii. I don’t get to see them often, I’m afraid. But I’m pretty sure Jenny is five.”

  “I see. Well, maybe a baby doll would be most appropriate. Little girls of all ages love something they can cuddle.”

  Max liked the sound of that. He took a step closer. “Yeah. Something to cuddle sounds good to me.”

  Ryan Clark shot him a suspicious look and took a step backward.

  “For my niece, of course,” he added hastily.

  Oops. Wrong approach with this one. The blonde at the ice-cream parlor would have responded with a blush and a giggle. Max actually preferred the stern reproval in Ryan Clark’s dark eyes. He always enjoyed a challenge.

  “Of course,” she said, her voice now a bit chilly.

  “Ryan, could you give me a hand here for a minute?” a harried-looking redhead called out from the sales counter, which was surrounded by impatient shoppers.

  Ryan waved an acknowledgment. “Perhaps you’d like to look around a bit,” she suggested to Max. “The baby dolls are in that section. I’ll check back with you in a few minutes.”

  “Sure, take your time,” he said magnanimously. “I’m in no hurry.”

  He watched her full skirt sway around her very nice legs as she walked away. “No hurry at all,” he murmured.

  Without much interest, he roamed the shop, stopping occasionally to study one doll or another. Frankly, they all looked pretty much alike to him.

  He glanced at a few price tags and grew even more puzzled. Why were some of them ten bucks and others several hundred dollars? Who the hell could tell the difference?

  A dark-haired doll in a blue-and-white dress caught his eye, and he chuckled. Funny. The doll reminded him a bit of Ryan Clark.

  He bent to pick the doll up and found himself face-to-face with a little girl with white blond curls and enormous blue eyes. She was studying him so intently that he felt compelled to say something.

  “I’m buying a gift for my niece,” he said. “She’s about your age. Do you think she would like this doll?”

  “No,” the child answered positively, shaking her head. She pointed toward a round-faced baby doll dressed in frothy lace. “That one’s much better,” she said earnestly. “You should buy that one.”

  Amused, Max replaced the dark-haired doll and picked up the other one. “This one, huh?” he asked, noting that the prices were comparable.

  The tot nodded. “That’s a much better one
for your niece.”

  “Then I’d better buy it, hadn’t I?”

  He grinned at the look of relief that crossed the child’s face when she glanced at the dark-haired doll. The little girl returned his smile with a particularly sweet one of her own and then disappeared into the crowds around her. Max assumed she’d returned to her mother’s side. He’d bet the kid would be urging her mom to hurry and buy the dark-haired doll for her before some other inconsiderate shopper snapped it up.

  Kids, Max thought with an indulgent shake of his head. They were cute, but weird. He would never figure them out.

  All in all, it was a good thing he’d long since decided he would never have any of his own.

  “HE’S GORGEOUS,” Lynn Patterson whispered as she and Ryan both finished ringing up their sales. “What does he want?”

  Ryan followed her assistant’s gaze to the tall, blond man in the green sweater, who was studying a display of clown dolls. “He said he wants a gift for his niece.”

  “Niece? Not daughter?”

  “Something tells me this guy doesn’t have any kids,” Ryan said wryly, remembering how blank he’d been when she’d asked his niece’s age.

  “Then he’s probably single. What are you waiting for, Ryan? Get over there and offer assistance to the man. Personal assistance.”

  “Lynn,” Ryan groaned.

  “C’mon, look at him. He’s amazing. That hair. Those eyes. Those shoulders. He looks like…like—”

  “Like a heartbreaker,” Ryan said flatly.

  “Well, yeah,” Lynn admitted. “But what a way to go.”

  Ryan’s attention had already wandered. “Lynn, do you see those two kids over there? The boy and girl?”

  “Hmm. Cute, aren’t they?”

  “They’ve been hanging around in here for quite a while. I don’t think they’re with anyone. Help me keep an eye on them, okay?”

  Lynn frowned. “You think they’d try to steal something? At their age?”

  Ryan sighed. “Unfortunately, it’s a possibility. They’re starting younger these days.”

  Her gaze wandered back to the children. They really were cute kids. The boy hovered protectively over his little sister, watching her so carefully. And the girl was an adorable moppet, curly haired, big eyed, pink cheeked. Their clothes were faded and worn, and there was something about them that made Ryan feel a bit sad.

  She couldn’t define it. But there was something…

  “I’ve decided to get this one.”

  The blond heartbreaker leaned against the counter, a lace-clad baby doll clutched in one hand and the football she’d noticed earlier in the other. He was giving her that sexy, crooked smile again—the one that made her insides quiver even though she told herself it was ridiculous to react that way.

  Lynn, she noted wryly, had suddenly—and deliberately, Ryan was sure—disappeared.

  Keeping her expression as polite as possible, she reached for the doll in the man’s hand. “This is a nice selection. I’m sure your niece will love it.”

  “I hope so. I had some assistance from an expert,” he said with a grin, nodding over his shoulder.

  Following his gesture, she saw the little blond girl and her brother. Ryan smiled, then turned to the cash register. “Will this be all?”

  “For now,” he murmured, making the words sound as though they had another meaning.

  She didn’t even blink; she simply rang up the purchase and gave him the total. He handed her a gold credit card.

  “My name’s Max Monroe,” he said unnecessarily. “I have some more shopping to do and then I thought I’d grab an early dinner in the Mexican restaurant downstairs. Will you join me?”

  “Thank you, but no. I have to work,” she explained. She wasn’t exactly surprised by the invitation, but she still felt a bit flustered by it.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “You’ll have time to eat, won’t you?”

  She shook her head. “It’s one of the busiest shopping days of the season. I won’t be able to take off any time this evening.”

  “Then how about a late dinner? After your shop closes, I mean.”

  “Thank you again, but no.”

  “Some other time, maybe?”

  She gave him a vague smile. “If you’ll excuse me,” she murmured, nodding to the two women who’d just come up behind him, their arms loaded with dolls and accessories. “I have to tend to my other customers now.”

  Max didn’t look particularly disappointed—not that she’d expected him to. She was sure he could find any number of women in the mall who’d dearly love to “grab an early dinner” with him. She just didn’t happen to be one of them.

  He gave her a jaunty salute, tucked the bag holding the doll under his arm with the football and sauntered out of the shop.

  Ryan was aware of several long, appreciative sighs from customers in her shop who’d watched him leave. She was also well aware of the frown of disapproval she was getting from her assistant. She suspected that Lynn had overheard the invitation, and Ryan’s refusal. She knew she’d be hearing about it later.

  But for now, she had a shop to run.

  “OH, MAN,” Pip groaned outside the doll shop. “He crashed and burned.”

  “What does that mean?” Kelsey asked innocently.

  “Never mind.” He sighed. Things had looked so promising for a minute there.

  “There he goes,” Kelsey whispered, pointing toward the glass elevator in the center of the mall. “Our dad’s getting away.”

  Pip looked at his Batman digital watch and frowned. “We have to be going, too.”

  “But, Pip—”

  “It’s getting late, Kels. You don’t want to get caught, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, let’s go then. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  That cheered her some. “Can we see our mom again tomorrow? And my doll?”

  “Sure.”

  “And Santa?”

  “Again?”

  “Yes. There’s something else I want to tell him.”

  Pip sighed heavily. Caring for a little girl was such a responsibility, he thought somberly. “We’ll see. Okay?”

  “Okay, Pip.” She slipped her hand into his.

  Together they headed for the same elevator the man named Max had used only minutes before.

  ON SATURDAY the mall was as crowded as it had been the previous day. It took Max nearly twenty minutes to find a parking space when he arrived early that afternoon. Not that he particularly minded cruising the parking lot watching the shoppers; it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do.

  He should probably be working, but he wasn’t in the mood today. To the dismay of his agent and editors, who considered him the worst case of wasted potential they’d ever known, he was all too rarely in the mood to work.

  Max was bored—certainly not an unfamiliar condition for him. Problem was, there’d been few challenges lately in his self-indulgent, hedonistic, freedom-above-all-else life-style. And he thrived on challenges. Which was the reason he’d headed back to the mall today.

  A brisk wind was blowing, reminding him that winter was definitely at hand. He tucked his leather driving gloves into a pocket of his bomber jacket and pulled the collar higher around his neck. His thick, dark gold hair blew slightly in the wind. He stepped beneath the mall awning and ran a hand through the heavy strands, letting them fall haphazardly into place.

  A heavyset woman with a bad complexion and a sweet smile stood beside a collection box patiently ringing a handbell, her nose red from the wind. Her chubby hands were pink with cold and callused from years of abuse. Max dug in his jeans pocket, pulled out a ten-dollar bill and slipped it into the collection box.

  “Bless you, sir. And Merry Christmas to ya,” the woman said brightly.

  “Cool day, isn’t it?” he asked her.

  Still smiling, she nodded. “It certainly is. Your donation will help buy blankets and warm food for those that don’t have ’em.�
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  On impulse, Max pulled out his leather gloves and pressed them into the woman’s free hand. “Wear these,” he urged. “You don’t want your hand to freeze to that bell handle,” he added lightly.

  She blinked in surprise. “But—”

  “Merry Christmas,” he said as he walked away, feeling uncomfortable with his gesture.

  “Thank you, sir. God bless you,” she called after him, already tugging the soft gloves over her rough hands.

  Max blended into the crowd of people pushing their way through the mall entrance. He’d have to pick up a new pair of gloves, he thought. He hadn’t really liked the way the others fit, anyway.

  The same Christmas carols he’d heard yesterday poured from overhead speakers, blending with the jabber of constantly moving shoppers. The enticing aroma of fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies drifted from a Mrs. Field’s shop, blending with the scents of cinnamon and evergreen and peppermint from Christmas displays.

  A frowning, forty-something woman bumped Max’s arm and dropped her packages. He helped her retrieve them, flirted with her for a moment, then moved away, leaving her smiling.

  “Hey, Max. How’s it goin’?”

  The call made Max look around. He nodded when he spotted an acquaintance walking his way. “Hi, Stan. Doing some shopping?”

  A stocky African-American of about Max’s age, Stan carried a chubby baby in a backpack and held the hand of a little boy who might have been three or four.

  “The wife dragged me down here,” Stan admitted with a grimace. “She’s in J.C. Penney’s now. I told her I’d take the kids to ride the Christmas train while she shopped. Standing in a line full of whining kids beats the hell out of watching her choose a flannel nightgown for her sister.”

  Max laughed. “I feel for you, pal.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing staying single, buddy.”

  “Whatever it is, I’m getting along just fine without it,” Max quipped.

  “You just wait. Someday I’m going to find you in the mall with a wife and a half-dozen kids, and then I’m going to be the one laughing my butt off.”