by A. C. Arthur
Holiday Hearts
The Donovans
By A.C. Arthur
an Artistry Publishing Book
Holiday Hearts, Copyright © 2011 by A.C. Arthur. All rights reserved.
First Edition: 2011
www.acarthur.net
ONE
“Watch out for sheets of black ice on the streets tonight, especially on side roads and parking lots if you’re driving on this wintry evening,” warned the DJ on WJLB-FM from the radio sitting on the corner of Keysa’s desk.
She heard the DJ’s familiar voice of course, but wasn’t paying close attention. It was ambient background noise just like the furniture in her office—there, but not really memorable. It was a quarter after seven, and Keysa Donovan’s focus was on the promotional plan for Joy Noel’s new book that was being released in just five months.
Artistry Publishing, which was Joy’s publisher, was one of Maser Marketing’s biggest clients. Every month they released between four and twelve books. Three executives worked on the Artistry account alone, and Keysa was one of them.
Spread out across her desk was the marketing plan for the mystery novel and analysis of the genre. She had everything from buyer statistics to monthly sales fluctuations and product placement. It was her job to make sure the book was packaged, promoted and distributed in those markets that would make Artistry as much money as possible. Usually it was a job she thoroughly enjoyed, but not tonight.
Three days before Christmas and she was struggling to concentrate. It was that time of year. She knew what it was because it happened every year since she was seven years old. Everyone else was in a festive mood, singing Christmas carols, eagerly awaiting Santa and all the toys, spending every penny they have on gifts for people who probably won’t appreciate them. Yet her world seemed like it was falling apart. It happened repeatedly, year after year, over and over again.
One would think that after twenty years the wound would have healed, the memories would be long gone and that she would have moved on by now. Not.
Her father, Bernard Donovan, lived in Seattle where she’d been born. After the divorce, he’d kept the house, the cars and the dog.
Mary Lee Donovan, her mother, kept Keysa. With her child in tow, Mary moved as far away from Bernard as she could get—to Detroit.
The divorce proceedings began in August, the summer Keysa was six and ended in a tidy settlement and final divorce papers delivered to Keysa’s mother in their new Macomb County apartment on Christmas Eve the following year. Her mother cried for seven days straight. Keysa had wiped her tears, wrapped and unwrapped her own Christmas gifts, ate cereal at every meal, stood on the dining room chair to do the dishes and swore she’d never fall in love, get married or celebrate Christmas ever again.
Over the years, she’d stuck to that rule as best she could. The next year, her mother had tried to make the holidays festive for her only child. Problem was Christmas had already been ruined for Keysa. Sure, she smiled and acted as if she enjoyed the holidays and made her mother believe she had given her the best Christmas presents in the world, but deep down Keysa just wanted it all to be over.
Her father never made an appearance at Christmastime. In fact, Keysa didn’t see much of her father for the first six years after the divorce. She remembered hearing her mother arguing on the phone once and assumed she was arguing with her father again. There was always such drama between her parents that Keysa figured it was easier to avoid seeing her father and just stay with her mother. That is until she was thirteen, and Bernard Donovan came by the schoolyard one day to pick her up. That had been the beginning of a cool weekend and Keysa had mistakenly thought her dismal life had suddenly taken a turn for the better. But before her father left that Sunday he told her he was remarrying and that Keysa would soon have a new baby brother or sister.
Keysa became angry and didn’t see her father or his new family for another five years. It probably seemed petty and more than a little selfish, but to Keysa it was what it was. Her parents had started this war, and she was just an innocent bystander. So her only choice was to pick her armor and defend herself the best way she knew how.
Eventually she got her college degree, moved out of her mother’s apartment and began to make a life for herself. Her father’s involvement in her life grew little by little. And once she learned that the divorce had been her mother’s idea because she’d assumed the Donovan family despised her because she was not rich, Keysa’s feelings had begun to change. Now, at age twenty-eight Keysa spoke to her father at least once a month. She’d even met his wife Jocelyn and their daughter—her half-sister Brynne—in Seattle a couple of times. Knowing that her mother would never approve of her visits with her father, Keysa, kept them a secret. She also strived to keep her mother’s bitterness out of her life. Unfortunately, none of this changed Keysa’s feelings about Christmas.
With a sigh Keysa realized that every year the same feelings came flooding back—the memories, the sadness, the crying. It was pitiful, yet she still couldn’t forget.
The DJ had finished his weather advisory and a song was now playing. She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard the name of the song, but after a few notes of the intro she balled up her fists and groaned.
It was “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole. The song always made her melancholy. She was just about to turn the radio off when a voice startled her.
“Don’t like that song, eh?”
Nearly jumping out of her chair, Keysa pressed a hand to her chest to calm her palpitating heart. She jerked her head in the direction of the voice. “Excuse me?” she stammered.
“I said you don’t like that song. I see you’re getting ready to turn off the radio.”
After blinking a time or two Keysa recognized the gray uniform, white name tag and broom in the elderly man’s hand. He was the janitor, but she didn’t have a clue as to why he was cleaning her office now.
“No. I wasn’t going to turn it off. I don’t like the quiet so I was just going to change the station.”
With his grisly gray beard, mustache and dark eyes, the janitor looked up at her. He kept moving, sweeping the hardwood floor in her office as if it were the dirtiest he’d ever seen. “So like I said, you don’t like the song.”
“Uhm, no. I guess I don’t.” Now, for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to change the station. She pulled her hand back, rifled through the papers on her desk and tried to pull herself together. It was after hours, which was why the janitor was there. As usual, she was the one who was out of place.
“I think it’s a great song. And nobody sings it like Nat,” the janitor said, pushing the chairs in front of her desk out of the way so he could sweep underneath them.
“If you like that type of music,” she mumbled, not in the mood to talk period, and certainly not to talk about this song.
“Puts you in the holiday spirit,” the janitor continued. “Makes you think of fireplaces, good food, loved ones. Real special song I’d say.”
“Hmph,” was all Keysa could manage.
“You should give it a good listen sometime,” he said humming through the next few lines of the song.
“No thank you.”
“Don’t like Christmas music?”
“No,” she answered briskly.
“Don’t like Christmas?”
Keysa slammed her hands down on the desk. “As a matter of fact I don’t. And I don’t like being disturbed while I’m working. Do you think you could come back and finish cleaning my office a little later?”
The janitor stopped, leaned an arm on his broom and simply stared at her. He wore his charcoal gray work cap pulled down low over his forehead so that his dark eyes were barely visible. From the sides of his
cap, tuffs of the same grayish white hair covering his face stuck out. His face looked old but his thin wiry frame seemed fit. He was staring at her and she was staring back at him, her gaze dropping to the middle left side of his chest where his name tag read, Jasper.
“Look, Jasper,” she began her tone considerably more civil than it had been just a few seconds before. “I’m up against a deadline and I’d like to get out of here before midnight. I’m just trying to get my work done, not trying to be rude or anything.”
Jasper shook his head. “No. I don’t think you’re trying to be rude. I don’t think that at all.”
She sighed. “Thank you.” Mary had raised her to be respectful, no matter who it was.
“I do think you’re working yourself too hard, blaming yourself for something that maybe wasn’t even your fault,” he said, and then turned away from her. He kept sweeping the little pile of dust and dirt toward the door.
“What did you just say?” she asked.
He looked over his shoulder. “Oh nothing, nothing at all, Ms. Donovan. I’ll be getting out of your way now,” he said. He paused, tilted his head a bit and seemed to be lost in another world.
Keysa figured he was listening to the radio again. The sound of Nat King Cole’s voice was nearing the end of the song as Jasper sang the last line in a deep, rich baritone that almost matched the singer’s note for note. At the end of the song, the janitor touched the visor of his cap and nodded to her with a smile.
Keysa didn’t return the smile but felt a slight stirring in her chest. With a shake of her head she dismissed the weird exchange and resigned herself to get back to work.
TWO
It was getting late. He should just leave and go home, he thought. After all, he had caught up on his work and most of the staff in his department were either already off on vacation for the holidays or gone for the day. There was no reason for Ian to still be in the office.
Correction, there was one reason.
Keysa Donovan.
She was still here. Ian knew because the bank of elevators was right across from his office. If he kept his door open he could see everyone that got on the elevator on the tenth floor.
He’d seen Keysa earlier today at one of the many holiday parties catered by one of their clients as thanks for their hard work throughout the year. She’d looked great, but then, that was nothing
new.
Keysa was a good looking woman with her coppery skin tone, cocoa brown eyes and chocolate brown hair. Her small frame might give the impression that she was meek and mild. But her fierce determination and quick wit could make you think twice. Smiling to himself, Ian remembered that it was one of the first things that had attracted him to her.
It had been two years ago at the office picnic, which had to be held indoors because of a summer thunderstorm, that he first saw Keysa. She had her arms filled with bowls and plates that she’d scooped off the picnic table in an attempt to save them from the downpour that began without warning.
She wore sneakers and jean shorts, a white tank top and a sun-visor with the company logo on it. Stumbling through the door she was holding a conversation with another employee and trying to balance the items in her hands. Ian, being a gentleman, had quickly gone to her aid. Mistake numero uno!
“I can handle it,” she’d snapped, the minute he appeared trying to take one of the larger bowls.
With a smile he nodded. “I know. I just don’t want any of the execs getting on my case for not offering to help a lady.”
She’d frowned, but it had been such a pretty frown, and grudgingly she had allowed him to take the bowl. However, she completely ignored him as they walked over to the makeshift picnic table in the center of the room that one of the women from accounting was hurriedly putting a wrinkled white tablecloth over.
At the time, Ian had been on the tenth floor for just about two weeks. His first stop at Maser Marketing had been on the twelfth floor with the team assigned to handle media clients. Because of his stellar performance, he’d been moved shortly thereafter to the Keysa’s department where he oversaw assistant executives and project managers for Maser’s publishing clients, which included Artistry Publishing, Keysa Donovan’s account.
She was an exceptional worker—that he already knew. The fact that she was pretty was also a given. Her biting personality, well, up until this point, he hadn’t up been on the receiving end of that, but Ian was sure he could handle it.
At the company picnic, he’d tried to sit next to her and strike up a conversation. But he got the distinct impression that he’d been way too self-assured where she was concerned. His conversation fell flat the moment she gave him a tight smile, stood and walked away. A glutton for punishment, Ian had made it a point to visit her office on a weekly basis and to drop by the lounge during the times he knew she’d be eating her afternoon snack. Lunch in the lounge on their floor was like a smorgasbord every day of the week. Ian had no idea where all the food came from, but there was always something that kept the employees constantly trekking down the long hallway to snack. He was one of them. And once he figured out that Keysa didn’t eat lunch in the employee lounge, but usually emerged from her office around two in the afternoon, he began to time his visits to the lounge accordingly.
It had been six months since their last encounter, but when Ian saw Keysa at the next office function, he’d decided to try his hand once more. He was nothing if not a tenacious man.
“Wow, I wonder who came up with this genius idea,” he’d said looking at the large fruit display in the center of the lunch table.
“I’m more interested in meeting the people who actually stand around cutting melons into little daisy shapes and dipping oranges in chocolate for a living,” Keysa said.
She’d laughed and the sound had wrapped around him as securely as cellophane. His entire body had warmed as he’d looked over at her. She was smiling, her pert mouth still coated with whatever color lip gloss she’d been wearing earlier in the day. Her hair was curly, framing her delicate features. Her nails were painted a peachy color that he noticed when she reached out to grab one of the chocolate-covered strawberries in the basket and pulled the skewer free.
His gaze followed the strawberry as some libidinous part of his brain anxiously hoped she’d put it to her lips and take a bite. His body heated at the simple thought of watching the sweet juice trickle down her lips and onto her chin, where he, being the gentleman that he was, would promptly lick it up.
“Aren’t you going to try some?”
Her question interrupted the fantasy of his little X-rated daydream. He had to clear his throat and take a step back from the table to inconspicuously adjust his growing arousal.
“Ah, no. Not really in the mood for fruit,” he finally managed to say noting she’d put hers on a paper plate and was surveying the basket deciding what else to select.
“The pineapple looks sweet,” he said actually thinking of her glossed lips.
“Hmmm, it does,” she agreed.
That was when she did the unthinkable. She pulled a piece of pineapple from the basket and extended it to him. “Taste it and see.”
Ian swallowed, praying for mercy.
The blouse she’d worn had a V-neck and gapped ever so slightly as she leaned over the table. He could continue to just stand there dumbfounded, ogling her generous cleavage, or he could take a chance, lean forward and taste the damn pineapple.
He opted for the latter because watching her cleavage was proving to be more discomforting than he could bear. His lips brushed over her fingers—on purpose, of course—and he chewed the bite, savoring it as he watched her watching him.
“So is it sweet?”
“Yes, indeed,” he replied licking his lips.
She pulled back from the table tilting her head as she continued to watch him. “I don’t like pineapple,” she said finally.
Ian almost choked.
Picking up a napkin she wiped her hands and retrieved her plate
with the lone strawberry. She turned like she was going to leave the room when Ian went around the table, touched a hand to her elbow to stop her.
“Have dinner with me?” He hadn’t meant to blurt it out that way but something told him he needed to seize the moment with Keysa.
“No,” was her quick reply.
“Please?”
“Why?”
“Because I like you and I want to get to know you better.”
“You already know me,” she said skeptically looking over his shoulder.
“I know your work. But I want to know you personally.”
She shook her head.
He touched a fingertip to her chin, lifting slightly and stopping her movement. “Say yes.”
She hesitated.
Once again he acted with boldness. Leaning forward slowly, his eyes focused on hers. He touched his lips lightly to hers—once, twice.
“Okay,” she said hurriedly and pulled out of his embrace.
He’d emailed her a day and time. She’d replied with an “okay.” That had been their first date.
Five more had followed in the next three months.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.
Each time he’d asked her out, she’d said “no,” emphatically, until finally—because his pride insisted—he’d stopped asking.
Now, tonight, sitting in his office alone, he wondered why he’d given up. Why he hadn’t fought harder for her, for the feelings he had inside for her?
“Nice evening.”
Ian spun around in his chair until he faced the door and saw the person whose voice he’d just heard.
“Yeah, guess so,” he replied attempting to be polite.
“Evening like this I used to have me a nice lady friend, take her out to dinner. Candlelight, women like candlelight.”
Ian had to smile. The old janitor was leaning against his doorframe, broom in hand but obviously not interested in doing any work at the moment. He was looking off, over Ian’s shoulder towards the window, almost as if he was actually remembering a candlelight dinner with his lady friend.
