by Liz Talley
“Hope your grandfather took her for a constitutional.”
“What?” Brennan wore the same expression as when his grandfather had handed the dog off to him.
This time Mary Paige laughed. “I’m joking. She shouldn’t christen you.”
“She better not,” he grumbled, looking more like a disenfranchised court jester than a jolly elf.
One of the other elves handed Brennan a bag of candy and a bag of Christmas-colored plastic beads. “This is for the folks who will be lined up to watch Santa’s arrival.”
Brennan opened the bags and set them between the two of them, not even disturbing the dog curled in his lap. Pretty telling that he was considerate of the pup. Maybe Brennan wasn’t such a Scrooge after all. Could be he was totally redeemable.
“Okay, let’s start throwing this crap. Sooner we get this done the faster I can take this absurd hat off and give this beast to my grandfather.”
Or maybe not.
“Cheer up,” she said, “it’s Christmas.”
Brennan hurled a strand of beads out the window toward a group of revelers. “Bah—”
“Humbug,” she finished for him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BRENNAN OBLIGED THE waving throngs gathered along the route of the streetcar by throwing the baubles and pasting a smile on his face.
What he really wanted to do was drop the bags to the floor, shove Izzy away, pull Mary Paige onto his lap and kiss the living daylights out of her.
What was coming over him? Was he getting seasonal fever? She was as much as his type as hair ribbons or pink cupcakes. Brennan ate kittens like her for breakfast.
“Oh, look at that darling little girl,” she said, waving like a lunatic and making him want to both roll his eyes and kiss her. “Isn’t she cute?”
He looked at the kid in question, noting her perfect little blond curls and furred parka. His imagination took off—he envisioned Mary Paige with a blond toddler on her hip and a goofy smile on her face. She looked so happy. Natural. Just right.
“Brennan?” She elbowed him.
“Huh?”
“You okay?”
He nodded but realized she couldn’t see him because her focus was on the crowds lining the street. It was mini–Mardi Gras out there. “Yeah, sure. Just a long day.”
“Have you always done this?”
“What? Ridden on the streetcar for the lighting?”
She nodded, still smiling and waving like the spirit his grandfather had envisioned. And the onlookers waved back like trained seals, their smiles equally happy.
What was he missing that he couldn’t abandon himself and be like those people? Wouldn’t life be easier if he could yank some joy from it? But he didn’t know how. He was who he was.
“Yeah, like, did you do this with your family when you were young? Your grandfather said this has been a tradition for over thirty years, so I’m assuming it was something you did as a child.”
His mind went back to the boy who sat upon his mother’s lap, laughing and tossing trinkets all along St. Charles Avenue. That boy had loved riding the streetcar with Santa Claus, sneaking glances at the jolly fat man, worried that perhaps pulling his sister’s hair had earned him a lump of coal. He could remember the smell of his mother’s perfume—something French and expensive—and his father’s booming laugh as he directed Brennan’s sister, Brielle, to clear the window with her throws. Brielle had giggled and teased Brennan the way older sisters did. It had been wonderful to be a six-year-old Brennan, a boy loved, worshipped, safe in a world that never should have shattered.
“I rode when I was small.”
Mary Paige must have heard something in his voice because she turned toward him. “So you stopped when you grew up?”
“Something like that.” He didn’t want to talk about his childhood. About Brielle. About love and loss and things coming unraveled.
About the real reason Christmas made him nuts.
“Must be good memories,” she said, patting him on his thigh, waking Izzy from where she dozed. Izzy looked up with sleepy eyes and a yawn.
“Let her sit in your lap so the kids can see her,” he said, shuffling over the dog to Mary Paige. He didn’t want to think about what the heat of Mary Paige’s hand had conjured within him. Not only a physical want, but also a spiritual desire he couldn’t name. Izzy seemed reluctant to move, and for one brief second he thought about letting her stay. Something about a dog curled in his lap seemed…satisfying. He probably needed a drink or something.
“Come here, girl,” Mary Paige said, fixing the silly elf hat atop the dog’s head and holding her up to the window. The people immediately responded with bigger smiles and laughs. Izzy was, indeed, a hit.
It made Mary Paige laugh.
Which made his heart do weird loopy things.
Shit.
He needed to get off this well-used streetcar with its childhood memories, with the warm laughter and Christmas carols.
But still the car rocked down the historic street spreading Christmas cheer like a rash. It had its mission of bringing Christmas joy, Brennan’s desires be damned.
“Did your parents ride with you?”
Mary Paige’s question was like an arrow to his chest. His parents. He tried not to think of them. Of the days they’d spent together, happy and oblivious to what would befall them. Lucinda Magee Henry and Malcolm Henry, III, New Orleans’s golden couple. Everyone had called his father Trent and he’d been the life of the party. King of Brennan’s world. Prince to the Henry fortune. And for a few years, Duke of the Diamond, pitching his way through the minors before returning to New Orleans as a cherished son, sitting beside football great Archie Manning’s boys and the Connicks on committees, feted, honored, loved. His mother had lovingly looked on. Until that day.
The day Brielle died.
“Yes, actually they did participate.” He hoped his voice conveyed the fact he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so nosy.” She gave an apologetic smile and shrug. “I’m from a small town.”
As if that explained it. Perhaps it did. They tended to know everyone’s business in small towns, didn’t they?
“My parents are deceased. Plane wreck over twenty-five years ago, so it’s been a while since anyone asked me about them.” Twenty-five years, eleven months, ten days to be exact.
Brennan locked down the memories and emotions, and instead pulled more candy and beads from the bag and handed them to her.
Okay, closed discussion.
“I’m sorry.” Her words were simple yet seemed heartfelt.
They neared Lee Circle and would soon reach the downtown core. Everyone came out to celebrate the lighting of the huge tree that sat where Poydras and Canal Streets joined, and where the anchor store of Henry Department Stores sat. New Orleans loved a party. Anything to tear them away from the mundane and give them reason to forget their cares.
It was the theme of Mardi Gras, after all.
“Ho, ho, ho!” Santa called from his perch at the front of the streetcar. The Christmas music seemed to grow louder and even Izzy tossed out a bark…mostly when she saw other dogs on leashes.
The cacophony was enough to make Brennan hop from the moving streetcar.
But he didn’t.
Because he’d given his grandfather his word. And he really wanted to be CEO. Lately, his grandfather’s requirements for the job seemed to include service and goodwill, as if those qualities were markers for a good leader. So Brennan would wear the damn elf hat and look like a fool in front of the entire city.
Finally, they stopped before the dais, where local dignitaries and his grandfather sat. The crowd let loose a cheer as Santa stood at the open doors of the streetcar.
“Ho, ho, ho!” the elderly man bellowed, spreading his arms wide.
Two elves slipped beneath the arms of Santa and rolled out a red carpet that extended all the way to the platform. It looked impressive and Brennan
wondered what minion of MBH Industries had traipsed out to the tracks and measured the distance between it and the platform.
Large speakers crackled with a tinny version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” as the man himself laid his black boot on the red carpet.
“Come on, Izzy. Time to go see your daddy,” Mary Paige said in that falsetto voice people used when they talked to pets. It should have annoyed the hell out of Brennan, but it didn’t. Somehow his brain had interpreted it as kind of cute.
“Let’s get this over with.” He sighed and stood.
“Like taking a spoonful of cough syrup,” she said. “We’ll survive.”
“With each other’s help?”
“Of course, I’m the Spirit of Christmas.”
He snorted, but he followed her off the streetcar and into the chaos.
* * *
MARY PAIGE PLASTERED A SMILE on her face as she stepped from the car with Izzy. The idea of climbing up onto that huge platform with the mayor, a few city council members, the archbishop and a crazy billionaire turned the butterflies in her stomach into fat, strong crows slamming their wings against her rib cage.
I will not throw up.
I will not pass out.
I will not embarrass myself by freaking out.
The affirmations didn’t do much to help her as she walked toward the smiling politicians. She was too preoccupied, feeling both ashamed at wearing her white Reeboks and relieved that she didn’t have to navigate the steps in those cheerful red heels.
Didn’t really matter that she wore tennis shoes, did it?
Of course it did.
She looked like a bumpkin.
That Creighton chick who’d probably done the horizontal mambo with Brennan wouldn’t have been caught dead in Reeboks.
“Oh, that’s the cutest dog!” Someone crowed as Izzy trotted like a queen at Mary Paige’s side. At least the dog distracted people from her fashion crimes—elf hat, swing coat and tennis shoes.
Izzy and Brennan made her look good.
That was, if Brennan followed.
Oh, and the flambeau!
She turned to see Brennan balancing the traditional torch carried to light the uptown Mardi Gras parades in both hands. He nodded and smiled at the crowds, who good-naturedly tossed coins in his path the way they did during Mardi Gras. A few elves followed behind collecting the coins, which would be donated to charities like Malcolm’s Kids.
She waited for Brennan and could nearly feel people’s curiosity. They had to be wondering who the chick with the weenie dog was. Why was she part of the festivity? And why was she wearing gym shoes with her flared gray skirt?
“I forgot about the torch,” she whispered when Brennan got close enough. “And I forgot about my shoes.”
He grinned at her footwear. “I think they make you interesting.”
“You’re lying.”
“Of course I am, but it makes you feel better, doesn’t it?”
“Kinda,” she muttered.
They reached the steps and climbed onto the platform.
Whew.
Mr. Henry stood and gestured that she take the seat next to him as Brennan placed the torch in the holder sitting next to the giant tree rumored to have been purchased from the same farm where the presidential tree was harvested. Brennan sat next to her, giving her a comforting pat for good measure. Izzy hopped into Mr. Henry’s lap.
Then the mayor rose.
As far as ceremonies went, it was typical. Blah, blah, blah from mayor, beautiful holiday songs from choir, blah, blah, blah and a prayer from archbishop. Then finally Malcolm Henry, Jr. approached the lectern. He welcomed the throngs with genuine kindness and then turned to her. “Mary Paige, will you please stand, my dear?”
With trembling knees, she rose, pressing her lips together before offering a tremulous smile.
“I would like to introduce you all to a remarkable young woman, a woman who embodies everything I respect in a human being, a woman who is Henry Department Stores’ Spirit of Christmas.”
There was a expectant hum among the crowd.
“You may ask how she embodies this spirit we wanted to focus on this year, so I will tell you—by exhibiting pure kindness to the ‘least of these.’” He proceeded to share the tale of their meeting, of icy sleet, warm coffee and really ugly Christmas socks.
“And here are the very socks that sweet young lady placed on my frozen feet.” Mr. Henry lifted his leg and tugged up his trousers to show everyone the hideous silver-balled socks.
There was laughter and a spattering of applause.
Mr. Henry smiled and dropped his leg. “Do you know what that cup of coffee and pair of socks meant to an old frozen bum?”
He gave a dramatic pause.
“It meant life.”
Mary Paige wiggled as a poignant silence descended upon the spectators. Mr. Henry was making her sound like some kind of saint. She wasn’t. She was just a normal human being doing what normal human beings did.
“So this Christmas, MBH Industries wants to do something a little different. We want Christmas to not only be a time to make merry and get shiny-wrapped presents. We want it to be a time to show love to your fellow man in small, yet significant ways. It’s your turn to be an angel, just like Mary Paige. It’s your turn to offer kindness and hope to strangers all over our city.”
He gave a big grin. “That generosity earned Mary Paige Gentry a check for two million dollars.”
A collective gasp went up in the crowd, followed by the buzz of chatter.
He really had their attention now.
“All over the city, I have elves watching, waiting to catch people showing others they care.”
The buzz got louder.
“Your kindness may get you one hundred dollars, a Henry’s gift card or tickets to a movie. It may get you a pair of diamond earrings or a free dinner at Commander’s Palace. Or it may net you a new friend, a sense of goodwill and a few points with the Big Man upstairs.”
Excitement stirred. Mary Paige hadn’t realized the extent of the campaign.
“This is no gimmick, folks. This is a sincere attempt to show everyone what I have learned over the past six months. People deserve compassion and dignity. Everyone, even a homeless man, deserves kindness, deserves something to warm him on a cold, heartless night. This year Henry’s wants to celebrate the true Spirit of Christmas. The eternal gift bestowed by our heavenly Father. The gift of love.”
The applause was deafening, and many of the people were looking at her.
She felt the heat at her cheeks and smiled.
“I give you Mary Paige Gentry and the future of MBH Industries, my grandson, Brennan Henry. Together they will light the tree…and perhaps something more within you all.”
More applause.
Brennan took her elbow and moved her toward the torch.
“Steady hand. I don’t really want to go to the emergency room,” he whispered. He waved and looked quite merry for a Scrooge. She moved with him because he had a good grip on her elbow.
As Brennan lifted the torch, the choir softly sang “O Christmas Tree.” He extended the handle of the torch toward her and she grasped it, her hand landing on top of his. Together they moved the flambeau toward the box that would trip a switch to light the huge Christmas tree.
Mary Paige had lived in New Orleans for a few years and had never been to this ceremony, so she wasn’t quite sure how it worked. Strings of LED lights covered the branches and she knew the flickering flames on the end of the torch had nothing to do with the actual lighting—it was only symbolic.
As the torch touched the switch the flames went out and the tree came alive with thousands of twinkling white lights.
Applause broke out as the choir launched into “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and elves frolicked on the stage, juggling red and green balls, doing cartwheels and pirouettes as Santa waved to children. The mayor shook Mr. Henry’s hand, as did the other dignitaries.
She stood there stupidly, still holding the torch as Brennan smiled and waved like a true son of the city.
The crowd joined in the singing and Mary Paige felt awash in the holiday spirit.
What a wonderful event.
Her reservations about participating in the whole affair melted as Brennan started to sing. She managed to belt out a few choruses herself. Brennan tugged the flambeau from her fingers to place it in the metal stand.
The last strands of music faded as she noticed the crowd’s attention turn to her.
Why?
She felt movement behind her and turned around. A silly elf held a long stick extended above her head. Mistletoe hung from a string. Directly over her.
“Kiss her, Brennan!” someone called.
Mary Paige shook her head and waved the comment off.
“Yeah, kiss her!” More voices, more laughter.
She glanced at Brennan in a panic. He laughed and waved off the remarks.
“Kiss her!” People began chanting the directive. Clapping started. All were merry. All were bright.
All were insane.
Her cheeks were afire with embarrassment. Couldn’t they see she was not the type of girl who got kissed by the Brennan Henrys of the world? She was nothing elegant, beautiful or—
She felt his arms wind around her waist, cradle her, tilt her back.
“Oh,” she said as Brennan loomed above her.
Her gaze found his and there was amusement in the gray depths…and maybe something more. Satisfaction?
Maybe.
But she didn’t have time to think anymore about it.
Because at that moment, Brennan kissed her. And it wasn’t a peck. It was full-blown, wide-open and absolutely wonderful.
She grabbed hold of him so she wouldn’t fall and kissed him back.
The crowd went nuts.
Her heart exploded.
And in that moment, everything changed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“WHOA, WAIT A sec,” Mitzi Cascio, her neighbor and friend, called from across the street as Mary Paige climbed the steps to her duplex, her mind still wrapping itself around the fact she’d kissed Brennan Henry.
