Hayley Gardner - A Baby In His Stocking

For a few seconds, she let herself be wrapped up in the warmth of the love she was feeling for her baby-to-be. Boy or girl, it would have a life in her small hometown filled with the tranquillity, love and laughter that she’d always wanted for her children—a perfect life, just like her own.

Perfect in every way except one, she thought, tears misting her eyes. Her baby’s father wouldn’t want it.

“Don’t be sad,” a child’s voice said brightly from the doorway. “It’s Christmastime!”

Straightening at the sight of a sandy-haired girl about four years old, Shea hurriedly dabbed at the corners of her eyes. In Denton’s department store, family was tops and kids usually had free rein, so a child loose in the office wing didn’t surprise her at all. In fact, at this point, the diversion was welcome.

“I’m okay, really,” Shea said, smiling warmly at the child’s concern. “Who might you be?”

“Santa’s helper,” the girl said.

“I’m glad to meet you.” Shea was. The girl’s reply and the beaming smile on her heart-shaped face positively charmed Shea. “I could use some help from Santa right about now.”

“I’ll tell him,” the child promised, nodding solemnly. “But he’ll need to know your name.”

“It’s Shea Burroughs.” Widening her smile a little, Shea added, “Could you also please let him know I’ve been a very good girl all year?”

The little sweetheart giggled. Still smiling, Shea bent over to get a candy cane out of her desk drawer. But when she looked up, the treat in hand, the girl was gone. Shea rose and went to check the hallway, but the tyke, one of the very few in the small town of Quiet Brook whom she did not know, was scurrying down the hall toward the escalators.

Santa’s helper. Smiling at the thought of the day when her own little baby would come up with adorable answers like that one, Shea returned to her desk, sank into her chair and dropped the candy cane back into the drawer.

Frowning, she began writing a list of what the baby would need, but she wasn’t really seeing the words. She would have to tell Jared about the baby, and she wasn’t looking forward to it. In a little over a week, she’d be getting a divorce from the man who had turned from the husband of her dreams into someone cool and distant she no longer knew—a change that had started when she’d made the mistake of wanting a baby too soon.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t told him before they were married that she wanted children. She had. She’d also told him she dreamed of raising her babies in her own hometown, where they would have traditions and values and a grandpa—her dad—who would love them just as her granddad had loved her. Jared had just nodded and said in a couple of years they might be ready. She’d said she would wait.

But last December, when her dad admitted to having heart problems, Shea had remembered the way her own granddad had died unexpectedly right in front of her. She’d known then there was no time to waste in starting the perfect life she’d planned. So on Christmas Day she’d asked Jared for a baby.

He’d said no, he wasn’t ready yet, and that had been the beginning of the end. The more she’d tried to persuade him, the more distant he’d become. Finally, he’d admitted he wasn’t the paternal type and doubted that he would ever be. It was in April, when she told him she wanted to get away by herself for a while to think things over, that he’d announced he was letting her go so she could find someone else who could make her happy with the life and children she wanted so badly.

They’d remained apart until three months ago, when, on their first wedding anniversary in late September, she’d wanted to at least try a reconciliation. Drawn by need, they’d gotten only as far as the bedroom. The morning after, when she tried to talk to him about children, he’d told her nothing had changed. He was still letting her go. She could fall in love with someone else and have the perfect, fairy-tale life she’d always dreamed of. So she’d filed for divorce.

He might be letting her go, she thought, but he was crazy if he thought she would ever fall in love again. She had picked the perfect man for herself the first time, dang it, and having it end between them had just hurt too much. Especially now. The love she had felt had finally given her the child she always wanted, but not the man. With a sigh, she stared down at her list and continued writing.

A slight sound at the door made her look up, expecting to see her little Santa’s helper, or her father, or one of the clerks downstairs. The person she didn’t expect to see was Jared.

Shea stared at him, trying to gather her wits. He lived an hour away in Topeka—so what in the world was he doing here?

Shea looked shocked, Jared thought as he stared at her wordlessly. He’d been sent up to her office with a message, but for the life of him, he couldn’t find his voice. The second he’d seen her again, his throat had gone dry and tight. He was dying of thirst and she was water, only he couldn’t partake anymore. He’d given up that right to let her find the happiness she yearned for.

“How have you been, Shea?” he asked. He knew her father had gone into semiretirement and allowed her to take over the management of the store she loved so much after she’d returned to Quiet Brook last April. “Still running the place?”

“For now.” Shea could see that Jared was watching her every movement, but she had no idea what thoughts lay behind those dark blue eyes. She never had, she realized suddenly. From the second Jared, a former Quiet Brook cop, had stopped a thief from stealing the store’s receipts and hurting her dad, she’d fallen in love with him, but she’d never really known the man.

She’d been living the fantasy she’d always dreamed of.

“What can I do for you, Jared?” she asked, wanting him gone so she could have a peaceful Christmas to recover from the hurt of their breakup.

“Your father asked me to come get you. Said there’s new trouble at the Santa Station. Seems Santa is sneezing and the Grinch has probably struck again. He needs you down there.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Shea hastened toward the doorway, expecting him to move out of her way. Perfectly in tune with her movements, he did, letting her slip through, then falling into step beside her. “You should have told me about Dad first thing,” she scolded, all too aware of the riotous feelings his presence was evoking in her body now that she wasn’t ten feet away from him. But she’d be a fool if she gave in to pure lust again. It wouldn’t melt Jared’s ice-cold heart.

“I didn’t because you seemed preoccupied,” Jared returned. “Just like you seem right now.”

With the news of the baby, she thought. She gave him a curious glance. He had a dusky five o’clock shadow she’d never seen him wear before. It lent a sexiness to the chiseled lines of his face, a haunted cast to his eyes.

As he returned her look, she imagined she saw a flicker of vulnerability in his blue gaze. But then it was gone, and she knew it had just been a romantic notion on her part. Jared Burroughs would let himself be vulnerable at the same moment that the Grinch became Santa Claus. He had always been very much in control of his emotions, even when she had walked out on him. He could be warm, she knew that, but there seemed to be some level of feeling that he just wasn’t able to reach.

“So what’s all this about a Grinch?” Jared asked. “Wasn’t that some Christmas legend?”

Stepping onto the escalator, Shea grabbed the black grip for balance. “Some prankster has been trying to drive off our store Santas with practical jokes.”

“Why is having a Santa so important?”