No Christmas Like the Present (6 page)

“Really?” Fred looked astonished. “Why, that's the hardest trick of all.”

As the little boy left with his empty box, he glanced back over his shoulder at Fred, his eyes notably rounder than they'd been when he came in.

Chapter 5

“So,” Fred said, “you have urchins selling candy in the streets, in this day and age?”

“Not exactly.” Lindsay followed Fred's gaze to the windowpane, where the boy stopped outside for a final, unabashed stare before he continued down the sidewalk away from the restaurant. “Here, they have to do it for school fund-raisers.”

She grappled with a sudden disquiet. In the festive Christmas setting, everything had seemed so fitting, she'd almost forgotten the strange circumstances that had brought Fred into her life. But somewhere between the mysterious candy bars and the modern American currency and the mention of street urchins, her mind started swirling again. Who, or what,
was
he? With Fred's eyes off her, Lindsay caught herself staring at those smooth, impeccable features.

She shouldn't ask. Especially not in the middle of a crowded coffee house. But no one seemed to be paying any particular attention to them, and she doubted her words would carry far in the steady hum of chatter. “Fred, where did you come from, really?”

He turned back to her, eyebrows lifted. “Again? I thought we'd been through all that.”

Lindsay wasn't going to be so easily put off. Questions darted through her head, any one of which was guaranteed to give her a headache. She grasped for the simplest one. “Where do you get money?”

He shrugged. “Is that all? I generally find I have what I need. Now, if I reached into my pocket because I thought I
needed
the down payment for a Rolls Royce, I have a feeling I'd be disappointed.” He leaned back, allowing one arm to rest loosely on the back of his chair. “And here I thought I was going to have to explain something complicated, like the art of making candy bars appear. You worry about the strangest things, Lindsay.”

Maybe because it was easier to think about something practical like money than how fund-raiser candy bars could materialize out of thin air.

His cajoling smile faded. “Do you get headaches very often?”

Lindsay lowered her hand from her temple, only now aware that she'd been rubbing it. “Not until you came along.”

“It's all because you're much too serious.” His voice brushed over her ears like velvet. “Why not accept things as they are? You should know by now you're not getting rid of me. Not until December twenty-fifth, anyway.”

That jarred her. “What—”

Fred nodded over her shoulder. “Here's just what the doctor ordered.”

Lindsay looked up to see their waitress arrive with two tall glass pedestal mugs of hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream. She set the mugs down and smiled. At Fred. Whose dollop of whipped cream was distinctly bigger than the one on Lindsay's mug.

The waitress left. Wordlessly, Fred slid his mug across the table toward Lindsay, taking the one with less whipped cream for himself. He looked as if he were biting the inside of his lip again, this time in an effort to hold back a smile.

Lindsay held his solemn stare for as long as she could before she gave in and grinned, shaking her head. Her beginnings of a headache eased. She took her first sip of hot chocolate, then held the mug in front of her face while she quickly licked the whipped cream from her upper lip.

Fred managed his first drink with no problem, and somehow, without picking up a whipped cream moustache. “Perfect.” He set down his mug. “How can anyone who knows enough to add vanilla to hot chocolate have trouble enjoying something as fine as Christmas?”

Lindsay sighed. “I guess it's all the deadlines.” Fred propped his chin on his fist, as if he were listening to something fascinating. “I think part of it is just something that happens when you're an adult. When I was a kid, I remember counting down the days. Ten days till Christmas seemed like forever. Now, that's right about the time I start to panic. When you're a kid, you just enjoy Christmas. When you're a grown-up, it turns into this big to-do list. The cards, the presents, the fudge—”

“Well, you've heard my lecture on that.”

“But a person can't just stop doing all those things. Everybody would think I was antisocial.”

“And it wouldn't be any fun, either. If you decided not to participate at all, I guarantee, you'd be miserable. The key is to find a happy balance. Simpler ways to do things. You make everything so difficult.” He shook his head. “Envelopes in your own handwriting. And I'll bet each of the notes has to be different too, just in case Aunt Betty calls Aunt Arline and reads her card over the phone.”

Lindsay's mug froze on the way to her lips.

His eyes gleamed. “I knew it. Lindsay, do you think that child in Bethlehem cares how many cards you send out, or whether you have a tree up? Those things are meant to help you remember the holiday, not be swallowed up in it. It's supposed to be a time of joy, and you go about it with such grim purpose. ‘I'm going to have a merry Christmas this time even if it kills me.'”

Lindsay took a deep drink of her hot chocolate. But she could only hide behind her mug for so long. When she lowered it, Fred was watching her, eyes contemplative. For the moment, any trace of teasing seemed to be gone.

“I just figured out what you are,” he said.

“What?”

“You're a present.” He nodded as if in satisfaction. “Tightly wrapped, with lots of tape, lots of beautiful shiny ribbon, all tied up in impossible knots. The kind of present that makes you half mad when you're trying to get it open. Because you know, the whole time, what's inside is going to be wonderful.”

He studied her, so long and so steadily that she ducked her head as she scooped out a spoonful of whipped cream. “I told you before,” she said. “You don't know me.”

“I'm learning. Unwrapping the present.”

When she raised her head, his eyes were still on her. There was something heavy in that stare. Something more than attentiveness, or interest. He looked—

He shook his head, and the look was gone. “Excuse me. Lost my train of thought. So tell me. What was the nicest Christmas present you ever received?”

Lindsay flinched. “The nicest? Or the best?”

He gave her a puzzled look. “Your favorite.”

“Well, the tape recorder was awfully nice, even if I did ruin the surprise. I used that thing for years, taping songs off the radio. And I learned something, too.” She fingered the base of her mug. “You were right. I never peeked again.”

“So that's not the year Christmas went south for you.”

“Does it have to be any one year?”

“I suppose not.”

Lindsay smelled a personal question coming up and tried to dodge it. “What about you? What's the nicest Christmas present you ever got?”

It worked. For possibly the first time, Fred seemed to be caught off guard. “Me? Not much point, my dear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. Suppose someone gave me a sweater, and my next case calls for me to be a jockey. Or a football player. Or a trained seal. It would never fit.”

She couldn't help grinning at that.

“There,” he said. “
That's
something I can take with me.”

“What?”

“Your smile.” He was smiling himself as he said it, but something in his eyes was serious. The longer they sat across the table from each other, the longer their stares seemed to get. Lindsay went for another scoop of whipped cream and found it had dissolved into a thin white foam at the top of her hot chocolate.

“Enough about me,” he said. “Where does Steven figure in?”

Lindsay's throat tightened. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“Come, now. This is going to look very bad on my performance review. Can you do me a favor?”

He touched her hand. Barely. He laid his fingertips lightly over her hand where it rested on the table, and Lindsay's pulse skittered. That single touch brought her eyes back to his and made it impossible to look away.

“Take one small step.” His fingertips traced the back of her hand, still barely touching it. “Tell me one thing about Steven and I'll drop the subject for the rest of the night.”

Lindsay licked her lips. He was touching her like that, and she was supposed to think about Steven?

“Let me guess.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, eyes glimmering. “He's seven feet tall, with red eyes and arms the size of tree trunks.”

“No.” At least that helped her remember something about Steven. “His eyes were blue.”

“Too easy. Doesn't count.” Fred released her hand. “Lindsay, if you could see yourself. You look like a poker player trying with all her might to give up the worst card in the deck.”

At least now that he'd let go of her hand, she could think. A little. “He was nice.”

Fred drummed his fingers on the table, his eyes fixed on her face, a clear signal she wasn't going to get off that cheaply.

“Okay.” Lindsay tried to think harder. Fred waited, not moving, clearly ready to listen—ready, she was sure, to be sympathetic. He'd automatically assumed she was the injured party, and no other thought appeared to have entered his mind. He only seemed to see good in her. And wasn't that what she wanted everyone to see?

If she ever told him what really happened, he wouldn't look at her that way anymore. It shouldn't matter. But somewhere, somehow, in the past few days, she'd started to care what he thought of her. When he shouldn't even exist, and she shouldn't even be sitting here with him.

She said, “We broke up a few days after Christmas.”

It sounded like a lot. But it really didn't say anything.

And, as expected, Fred's face filled with compassion. “That explains a lot.”

Hot chocolate turned to burning lava in her stomach. Lindsay slid her hand off the table as Fred leaned forward.

“All right,” he said softly. “I'm a man of my word. No more tonight. But we do have to talk about it sooner or later, you know.”

Fine. He wanted to set her up with her ex-boyfriend. So why did he keep giving her looks that made her heart threaten to melt into her shoes? “What happens if I don't go along with all this?”

He shrugged, lifted his mug once again. “I'd be fired, I suppose.” His eyes were guileless, a transparent ploy to play on her sympathy.

“Fired? What does that mean?”

“My dear, I have no idea. Banished to outer Mongolia, maybe. Or vanished into a puff of smoke. But it's not going to happen.”

She frowned. “How do you know?”

“Lindsay, relax. I've never heard of it happening.” He raised his mug to her. “You won't let me down.”

Lindsay cringed inside, and she wondered how he could be so sure.

 

 

The sidewalk leading to Lindsay's apartment stretched out gray-white in front of them, thanks to the bright moon overhead and the remaining snowdrifts on either side of the pavement. Lindsay slowed her steps, not sure what to expect when they reached the front porch. The scene reminded her too much of a blind date, the kind that generally ended with that awkward clinch on the front porch. Did the situation carry that kind of association for Fred? Probably not. After all, it wasn't likely you could call this unconventional, if lovely, evening a date. For Fred, this was purely professional. She thought so, anyway.

So what would Fred do when they got to the door?

What did she
want
him to do?

She didn't know.

Lindsay handled the moment the same way she'd handled similar ones in the past. She prattled. “I think it might snow again.” The brisk stillness did, in fact, hint that more snow might be on the way. She breathed deeply, sampling the air as if she were Colorado's leading meteorologist, able to gauge the weather sheerly through sense of smell. “Probably not tonight, though.”

“Care to make another bet?”

She glanced up at him. Mistake. She wasn't ready for the impact of his dark eyes and that smile, even in the half-light. But even as stupidly nervous as she was, she couldn't help smiling back. “Your bets are rigged.”

“You're catching on,” he acknowledged.

They had almost reached the door. Keys. That was it. Lindsay lowered her head and busied herself digging through her purse, as if its vinyl compartments offered someplace to hide. “So, you say, snow tonight?”

“No.” A thoughtful pause, or at least it sounded thoughtful, as Lindsay kept her eyes fixed on the key ring she'd just fished out from under her wallet. “Not for another few days. But I predict you'll have a white Christmas.”

“That could make it hard to get to my parents' house.”

“A white Christmas with clear roads, then.”

Could he possibly arrange the weather? She'd wondered, briefly, if Fred could have had anything to do with the storm that had snowed her in yesterday. Another question she didn't really want to ask. Lindsay fumbled with her keys, concentrating with all her might on getting the right one into the doorknob. It was nearly as difficult as she tried to make it look; her fingers were half-numb, and the porch light was turned off.

“Oh, for goodness' sake, let me.” If Fred was nervous, or had any idea of the thoughts circling through her head, his tone didn't show it. He reached for the doorknob, and Lindsay moved her hand as though dodging fire.

He opened the door and, to Lindsay's surprise, swept past her into the apartment. At first it seemed like an unprecedented breach of his usual gentlemanly etiquette. But no. Fred appeared to be exercising an even more ancient manly ritual, checking the household for intruders.