Kasey Michaels - High Heels and Holidays

Sterling looked as comfortable as a balloon in a room full of pin cushions. There was nowhere to go where he wouldn't end up in trouble. "Um, he hasn't read them at all?"

"Not at all," Maggie repeated, fitting the cylinder into the holder. "But he knows about them."

"Yes. Precisely. Not me, of course. I came later. The finishing touch, as it were, that made the rest of it possible. Well, I should go feed Henry."

"Oh, stay a while, please," Maggie told him quietly, and Sterling, who had been eyeing the door, slouched against the back of the couch. "I want to hear all of it. Now."

"But there's really nothing to say, Maggie. You know Saint Just lived inside your head until he decided to come out."

"No, I don't know that, Sterling. It's what I've been told, but I don't know it. As a matter of fact, I try very hard not to think about it."

"You really shouldn't, if it makes your head hurt, or any of that. I hadn't lived there quite so long—in your head, that is—and Saint Just was already firmly in residence when I got there. I once asked him how long he'd been with you, and he said he'd been there since the beginning."

Now here was something she hadn't heard before. "From the first day I began writing? Is that what you mean? What he means? That he's been the glimmer of an idea in my head for as long as I've been writing?"

"No, from the beginning, Maggie. I think, now that I consider the thing, he mentioned the word ... um ... puberty."

"Oh, God," Maggie said, staggering over to her desk chair and collapsing into it. He'd been with her that long? She'd been measuring men against him ever since she'd first looked at Jimmy Gilchrist and decided maybe boys weren't all dopes? Except they'd all turned out to be dopes, hadn't they? Dopes, or duds. All these years, she'd never found one, not a single one, who could measure up to, live up to ... to the imaginary man living in her head? Maggie blinked, trying not to faint. "He's been with me that long?"

Sterling was on firmer ground here, it seemed. "Oh, yes. Evolving, you understand. And then, at last, you named him, which he appreciated very much by the way, for it's just the name he would have chosen for himself."

"Just the name, huh? The Viscount Saint Just," Maggie heard herself say over the ringing in her ears. "All along? All these years? I'd been ... building him?"

"Your perfect hero, yes. I am just delighted that you chose to make me believable as well, or else I shouldn't be here, should I, and where would Henry be without me?"

"Hungry," Maggie muttered, waving Sterling toward the door. She needed to be alone. She needed to think about this. "Wait! There was something else, wasn't there? Oh, right, I remember. Alex was here this morning, you showed up the moment he left, and now you're concerned as to when he'll be back, because you want to be gone. I'm being babysat, Sterling, aren't I?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand the term," Sterling said, now backpedaling toward the door. "Truly, I don't."

"Oh, yes, truly you do," Maggie said, already calling up her search engine on the computer. "But never mind. I'll figure out the why of it on my own."

Sterling escaped, and Maggie typed a few words into the search engine, and then clicked on one of the articles that appeared. Christmas trees were introduced to England from Germany around 1841. Maggie's books, those written as Alicia Tate Evans and those written as Cleo Dooley, all dealt with the Regency, 1811-1820. She'd written about a Christmas tree in one of her Alicia Tate Evans books, and nobody had caught it. Not her, not the copy editor. None of her half dozen fans of those older books. Nobody.

"Well, now, that's embarrassing," Maggie said, cupping her chin in her hand as she called up her Solitaire program. There was no sense getting involved in anything else, not with Alex bound to show up for babysitting duty any moment.

Where could she take them? Some place that had the potential to drive him crazy would be nice, some place that would bore him out of his mind up until the moment she melted into a crowd and watched as he went nuts looking for her ... which would serve him right for growing in her mind.

"Since puberty? Jeez ..."

Saint Just's meeting with Steve Wendell had been, at the very least, interesting. At the very most, it had been unsettling, not that he had been about to inform the good lieutenant of that particular reaction to hearing the NYPD's conclusion as to the details of the passing of one Francis Oakes.

Even hearing what he'd heard, Saint Just had been reluctant to share his own knowledge with the man, as it would seem to serve no clear-cut point. What Steve had given him was another small piece of a puzzle that, unfortunately, now had only two or three pieces, not even enough to make all four corners, let alone a reasonable border he could then fill in as his investigation proceeded.

Which, to Saint Just, along with the firmly held conviction that he was more than capable of both protecting Maggie and solving any case with which he might be presented, was enough to tuck away any thought of mentioning the package that had been delivered in Maggie's absence.

After all, if he, the Viscount Saint Just, could not as yet prove whether or not there had been a crime committed, what hope did the New York City Police Department have? Less than none, Saint Just had decided.

So he'd thanked Steve for the information and then asked him about his evening with the unknown Christine, and then gently chided the man when he'd told him they'd had a "great" night. They'd gone to Brooklyn. On the subway. To go bowling.

There'd never been any hope for the man if Steve had been serious in his pursuit of Maggie Kelly. None. Saint Just knew he could picture Maggie in Brooklyn. He could even picture her bowling. He could not, however, picture Maggie Kelly voluntarily on a subway at night, traveling to Brooklyn to bowl, even if her date did carry a pistol.

"Christine has her own ball and shoes," Steve had told Saint Just, obviously pleased to impart what had to be a part of the woman's attraction.

"As do you, I'm sure," Saint Just had responded smoothly. "A match fashioned in heaven, Wendell, you lucky devil." He'd then reminded Steve that Maggie was not to see him or even hear from him for at least another few days—part of that "letting her down slowly" idea he'd planted in the man's head—and the two men had parted ways.

Whether Steve Wendell had believed everything Saint Just told him, swallowed it all whole, or whether he was playing the simpleton again remained to be seen. It was difficult to know with the lieutenant.

Then again, the man had used the never to be repeated opportunity of a first date and first impression to take the woman of his choice—e-gad—bowling.

"I have an idea," Maggie said now, interrupting Saint Just's reverie as he sat at her computer, catching up on a few of the news blogs he enjoyed. "Let's go bowling."

He swiveled slowly on the chair and lifted his quizzing glass to his eye as he looked at her. "Surely you jest," he said, seeing the unholy gleam in her eyes. "Ah, heaven be praised, you do." He let the quizzing glass drop to the end of its black grosgrain ribbon. "I must say, for a moment there, Maggie, you had me worried about you. Wearing shoes worn by hundreds before you? I think not. Perhaps if we were to equip ourselves with all of the necessary paraphernalia, but surely not until then. Whatever possessed you that you even mentioned such an unpalatable idea?"

Maggie shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not sure I even like bowling, to tell you the truth. I think Steve mentioned it when he called a while ago. He went bowling last night with some of his buddies from the station."