Gina Wilkins - All I Want For Christmas

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.”

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.”

“No way, Stan. Trust me.”

“Mmm.” Stan grinned, apparently unconvinced. “You playing tomorrow?” he asked as his son tugged impatiently at his hand.

“Yeah, probably. You?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Daddy. Train,” the little boy insisted.

Stan sighed. “Gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See ya’, Stan.” Max watched the trio move away, then shook his head sympathetically. Poor guy.

He headed again for the escalators. His winding path took him past the gingerbread house in the center of the mall, where a long line of ankle-biters waited to sit on Santa’s plump lap. Now there was a nightmare of a temporary job, Max thought with a shudder. He wondered how many times a day Santa’s lap got soaked by leaky toddlers.

As if he’d heard Max’s thoughts, the white-bearded, red-suited man glanced his way. Their gazes held for a moment. The older man smiled and nodded, almost as if they’d met before.

Max returned the nod and told himself the guy was just doing his job, spreading Christmas cheer among the shoppers to make them more inclined to spend their money. He moved on, though he had the odd sensation that he was being watched as he shuffled onto the escalator between an elderly woman and three giggling teenage girls.

RYAN WAS TAKING a lunch break in the mall food court on the ground floor. She sat alone at one end of a long table, a fast-food salad in front of her.

She would have worked straight through the day, but business had slowed a bit during the past hour and Lynn had insisted she take a break. Lynn was sometimes fussier than an old mother hen, but now that Ryan was sitting down, she was glad she’d let her assistant talk her into the respite.

She took a long, appreciative sip of her iced tea, then opened a packet of low-fat ranch dressing and squeezed some onto her salad. She had just stabbed her plastic fork into a crisp chunk of lettuce when someone slid into the seat directly across the table from her.

She glanced up and was glad she hadn’t yet started to eat. She was quite sure she would have choked.

“Mind if I join you?” Max Monroe asked, smiling across the table at her as he unwrapped a bacon double cheeseburger.

It annoyed her that she remembered his name. It irritated her that he had found her now, when there was little she could do to avoid him. And most of all, it made her absolutely furious that the sight of his unruly, gold-streaked hair and ridiculously crooked grin made her go all breathless and quivery like some awestruck adolescent.