Santa to the Rescue (4 page)

Heather gasped. “Jamey?” She took a step closer, confused now. “But how?”

He chuckled and took her palm in his white-gloved hand. “Mr. Root approved the visit with my captain. He’s playing Santa on another wing. He seemed glad to have a clone.” He squeezed her fingers and let go. “I’ll explain later.” Jamey winked at her then turned back to the children. Santa belted out a jolly “Merry Christmas!”

Heather watched as Jamey worked his Santa magic on her young patients. The man certainly had been one surprise after another since she’d met him. He reached into his cloth sack and pulled out miniature red firefighter hats for each child. Heather’s heart melted. The kids came alive in his presence in ways she’d never seen before. Even Marsha’s cold heart seemed to thaw.

Clearly, they trusted the man in the red and white suit.

Could she do any less? Heather cringed at the thought of becoming bitter and distant like Marsha.

She shook off the notion and joined Jamey by the tree when he finished his circuit of the room, warmed by the light of his company. The newsletter editor leaned in to snap their picture. Lilly tried to hang back with the onlookers, but Heather led her to the tree to pose with Santa in her elf costume.

When they were done, Heather called out to the children. “Say ‘thank you’ to Santa Claus!” Her charges let out a sing-song “thank you” and waved good-bye.

Marsha walked off, but glanced back at Heather and Santa, her eyes narrowing, before disappearing in the direction of the tiny office at the end of the hall.

“She doesn’t like sharing the limelight,” Heather told him. “Especially with me.”

“Got her.” Jamey chuckled. “Payback for refusing to relay an important phone message.”

“You called here?”

“I’d hoped to catch you before the end of your shift. I wanted to let you know I’d stop by after I finished my job assignment at the firehouse.” He made a sweeping motion over his costume. “This was it.”

“You should have told me you were playing Santa.”

“I thought that might ruin your studly image of me.” He patted the artificial belly bulging from his suit. “I had planned to change back into street clothes after playing St. Nick at our Open House, and then stop by here. Better late than never, right?” His eyes glistened with the smile he offered her.

Guys hated when women called them
cute
, but Jamey had suddenly become irresistible. “What changed your mind about ditching your outfit?”

“Marsha. When she wouldn’t give you my message, I called hospital administration. When I explained who I was and where I worked, then offered to visit in my Santa suit, they were more than happy to grant permission. My boss confirmed with Mr. Root. The captain allowed me and a couple of other firefighters to take a truck and drive over here.”

The man clearly had no idea how endearing this all sounded.

He leaned in closer and whispered, “Glad I got to see you in your elf costume.”

Heather had never wanted to kiss a man more than she wanted to kiss Jamey in this moment. However, little children watched them from their chairs and wheelchairs with
way
too much interest.

Since she couldn’t kiss him, she offered Jamey the next best thing. Chocolate. “Wait right here. Be back in a sec.” Heather hurried off to the kitchen to retrieve her last batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

The plate sat on the counter, the plastic wrap protecting it, pulled away. A few cookies had disappeared, but enough remained to give Jamey the gift she’d made him.

She found a roll of plastic wrap in a drawer, cut a fresh piece and piled the chocolate chip cookies into a portable stack. She wrapped them tight, and then rinsed her dish and placed it into her locker.

Discarded bows lay on the kitchen counter, remnants of an earlier gift exchange. Heather took one with sufficient traces of tacky glue and stuck it on top of the cookie packet. The first chance she got, she’d bake Jamey a fresh batch.

She returned to the outer room and extended the token. “I made these for you.”

The smile he returned reached his eyes and warmed her to her toes. “You didn’t give up on me.”

“I wanted to, but I thought that maybe…”

“You were right to think that.” He placed the wrapped cookies in his Santa sack. “I never would have deliberately gone back on my word to you.”

She realized that now. Jamey might have the face of a movie star and the body of a fitness model, but his soul was pure Santa Claus.

Another thought popped into her head to make her grin. “Marsha is going to be furious when she finds out that messing with me backfired.”

Jamey snickered. “That woman’s been placed on the permanent Naughty List.”

“You’re really getting into this Santa gig, aren’t you?”

“Oh, Ms. Longhurst, you have no idea.” He took her by the hand and led her to a row of windows overlooking the parking lot. With his free hand, he pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket and spoke into the handset. “Okay, guys, it’s a go.”

With that, a siren blared. Children and staff members came to the windows beside Jamey and Heather to see what created the sound. Lilly joined them. Heather leaned over and told her friend the secret of Jamey’s identity. Lilly’s eyes went wide as a young boy shouted, “It’s a fire engine!” The horn sounded again.

“That’s Engine 54,” Jamey told Heather.

Music filtered up from the snow-covered blacktop to the pediatric ward above.
Santa Baby
played over the fire engine’s loudspeakers in Taylor Swift’s clear Country voice.

Jamey turned to her with mischief in his dark brown eyes. “Santa brought you a ’54 convertible, baby. Grab your coat and purse. Let’s take a ride.”

…

They hurried through the hospital halls, hand in hand, on their way to the parking lot. Patients, visitors, and staff alike smiled, waved or cheered Santa and his elf as they passed each room along the corridors and then dashed into the elevator.

When they reached the parking area, Jamey helped Heather climb to the top of Engine 54. He pulled a red blanket from a compartment, then sat beside her in his Santa costume and wrapped the wool around her shoulders. Children and staff members, including Lilly, watched and waved from hospital windows. Heather and Jamey waved back.

Jamey checked to be sure Heather sat securely in her seat, and then snapped on his own safety harness. Next, he pulled his walkie-talkie from his pocket. “All clear.” A firefighter replied, “Roger that.” The horn on Engine 54 sounded again.

As if Jamey had somehow prearranged snowfall on cue, delicate flakes drifted around their heads as the fire truck moved forward. He turned to the most beautiful and noble woman he’d ever met and said, “Ready to have some fun?”

While they rode through the streets across town to return Engine 54 to Appleton Fire Station, Heather and Jamey waved to passersby and motorists like characters in a parade.

“Are you warm enough?” Jamey asked as he brushed the snow from her shoulders and smoothed the blanket over her back.

The light that shone in his eyes made Heather realize, without a shred of doubt, that Jamey was the most honorable man she’d ever meet. He had done more to prove that in the few days she’d known him than she would ever have expected. The Santa suit and beard might be fake, but the handsome man behind them was sincere and kind. “I’d be warmer with your arm around me.”

Jamey pulled her close, erasing the winter chill with his embrace. He held her to him the rest of the way to the firehouse, until Engine 54 pulled into the Appleton Fire Station parking lot.

When the engine slowed to a stop, Jamey unfastened their safety belts. He radioed the driver. “Go on ahead, guys. We’ll be there in a minute.” He turned toward Heather and lifted her chin with his free hand. “I’ll change my clothes and take you home.”

Heather reached up and removed his hat. She pulled down the white Santa beard to reveal the handsome face hidden behind. The intensity of his stare conveyed both sincerity and desire. She slipped her arm around his neck.

When he brought his mouth to hers, his kiss chased away all her misgivings about entering a relationship. She kissed him back with something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Hope for the future.

Wasn’t that what Christmas was all about?

He deepened the kiss and pulled her tighter against his chest as light snow swirled around them. Despite the cold, Heather had never felt safer or more at home.

“I enjoyed the ride in your ’54 convertible,” she whispered after they broke the kiss.

Jamey pressed his lips to her nose, warming the tip. “I’ll never forget watching you sing
Santa Baby
in the supermarket aisle. The way you swayed to the lyrics nearly stopped my heart.”

She leaned back and grinned. “You were watching me?”

“Couldn’t take my eyes off you.” He shook his head. “Don’t want to stop, either.”

Heather touched his face, knowing the best Christmas, ever, lay ahead. “Kiss me again, Santa baby.”

Acknowledgements

With gratitude to our firefighters and their wives and families for their selfless dedication. You are the soul of Jamey Tucker.

About the Author

Adele Downs writes contemporary romance inside the office of her rural Pennsylvania home. She has a B.A. degree in Sociology and is a former newspaper and magazine columnist. Adele is an active member of Romance Writers of America and her local RWA chapter. She is happily married to her real-life Navy hero husband and has two children. Visit Adele at
http://adeledowns.wordpress.com
.

Get your Flirt on with another sweet romance…

On His List

by Wendy Sparrow

“Where can I take you, Mr. Savoy?”

That was how Remy Maison’s day began, not the glamorous world of guarding underwear from her creepy landlord on laundry day, but taking her brother’s place as driver for businessman Owen Savoy. And what was with this guy? Yeah, he’s hot and all, with eyes like melted chocolate and a lean, sexy figure she’d love to explore, but Remy’s never met anyone so rigid.

Owen has a list for everything. He’s planned the entire day down to the smallest detail. All Remy has to do is stick to the list, but she never follows the rules—there’s no freaking way. So why is she spending all her time looking in the rearview mirror, hoping she’ll make Owen’s next list?

Read on for an excerpt from ON HIS LIST.

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Chapter One

All Remy had to do was to follow her brother’s instructions to the last detail and everything would be fine. Just get in the car and drive the big, black, hulking sedan where she was directed. Don’t touch the client’s stuff. Don’t talk too much. Drive the speed limit exactly. Treat every request like a commandment. And, seriously,
don’t
touch his stuff.

Her upcoming passenger clearly had some issues if Denny had felt
that
needed to be driven into her gray matter. It wasn’t like she was all handsy about touching other people’s possessions for crying out loud.

“Hell, Denny, it’s not like I was going to go rabid and lick all his things. I’ll try to restrain myself,” she’d said this morning. “And you know me, I
can
be quiet.” Mostly at funerals and only then for short periods of time, but it
did
happen.

Denny pleaded, “You can’t be yourself. You have to be like me.” It was the wrong thing to say to a younger sister, but they needed today’s job. Like, really needed it. The rent money, stashed in a coffee tin, had been stolen last week in a break-in that had also claimed yet another cheap DVD player among other things.

She wouldn’t have put it past their lousy landlord to have stolen their stuff. She already suspected he’d taken some of her underwear when he’d replaced the faucet in their bathroom. The three-hundred-pound slob was probably wearing her Victoria’s Secret leopard-print thong while collecting the rent money.

The jerk had given them until Friday to come up with the rent. Rent money they wouldn’t have if Denny called in sick with a migraine today. And even though none of this was her fault and it was her day off—and she deserved a day off—it always came back to the money.

It sucked.

So, she was here. At San Francisco International Airport. Following directions. Which she hated.

And the guy had asked for Denny specifically. This was
so
going to blow up in their faces.

She waited beside the black sedan, flipping the sign around and around while she examined all the possibilities heading her way. Owen Savoy was young, so he wasn’t that whale of a guy who kept glancing at her while digging through his pockets. He looked short of breath and far too old to be giving her those looks. Did she look like she needed a sugar daddy? If he popped a blue pill, she’d hide in the car until he went away.

Then there was the woman who kept stomping around and snarling at people. Airports really brought out the worst in some freaks. She’d just yelled at a kid for bumping her Gucci purse. If it weren’t a knockoff, that purse could pay Remy’s and Denny’s rent for the month. She squinted. Hmm. It might be a knockoff, but since this was about the closest Remy had ever been to Gucci, she couldn’t be sure.

For a second, Remy entertained the fantasy of running over, snatching the lady’s purse, and selling it to pay rent. Desperation did funny things to a person.

The whale was still eyeing her up, down, and sideways. Maybe she should have worn something less sexy. Her cherry red, silk camisole hugged the definition of lingerie, and only the skirt she wore declared her outfit “work attire.” She frowned down at the short skirt. Maybe it erred on the side of working girl attire.

No. It was sexy. Just sexy.

Remy hoped Owen Savoy would keep this driver swap to himself if she provided a little eye candy. But it also attracted wrinkly and creepy…and sweaty. The whale guy was a puddle over there.
Yikes!

Hurry up, Owen. You’ve got twenty seconds before that guy melts like the Wicked Witch of the West from ogling this look I’m rocking.

The automatic doors opened with a
whoosh
, and she glanced over hopefully, only to feel sucker punched. Lean and tall with a warm golden tan, short black hair without a strand out of place. She couldn’t see his eyes due to the sunglasses he’d put on for the few moments he’d be outside, but the deep grooves on either side of his mouth implied his eyes were narrowed and seeking a victim for his inner fury. His eyes would be cold and severe.
Gray
, she thought.
Definitely gray
. Or a piercing “don’t touch me” blue.

His light gray dress shirt was meticulous and unwrinkled, which meant he’d changed after his flight landed. No one could keep a shirt that crisp on a plane. What kind of guy carried around extra shirts in his carry-on?

Such a crime—looks that good wasted on a guy too uptight to use them. This guy had inner demons. Evil demons that drove him to wear neat clothes and put on sunglasses so brief periods of sun wouldn’t scorch his soul. He was probably a vampire.

Mr. Crisp Shirt zeroed in on her sign and headed her way. She shouldn’t have bothered with the eye candy. She could have been naked and he wouldn’t break stride. His walk, tight and efficient in movement, screamed, “Don’t waste my time.”

She flinched, felt the temptation to turn and run, but there was the money at stake.

It
always
came down to the money.

On the plus side, he had nice muscle tone—and good bone structure if his jaw and cheekbones were a good indicator. With how tight he held his jaw, though, she’d bet her massage table he had a problem with it.

“Mr. Savoy?” Remy stood up straight, not quite the ramrod posture he had, but she tried to look like she knew what she was doing.

He gestured at her sign, taking off his sunglasses. Hazel. They were hazel, not severe or even piercing. Soft like melted chocolate with green streaks in them. Even narrowed and squinty, they were beautiful. He kept staring at her sign as if something was wrong with it. She peeked down, blushed six shades of red, and then flipped it right side up.
Crap. Way to be professional, Remy
. Still, it was clearly his name in her loopy, happy cursive. She’d even made the capital letters extra curvy—so much wasted effort on her part.

“You’re not Denny.” He set his bag down. “I asked for Denny.”

Remy fought back a snarky retort. Denny had warned her she might have to call the company for a replacement, but she’d thought that was just Denny being paranoid. Her feet were starting to sweat in her shoes.
This wasn’t going to work. Their landlord was going to toss them out and sell their stuff to fund his underwear fetish.

“Denny couldn’t make it. My name is Remy. Remy Maison.” She held out her hand to shake his. He stared at it for a moment before she jerked it back and clenched her fist at her side.
Oh, yeah, this was going well.
Maybe she could pick up someone’s shift at work or donate plasma or something.

“He couldn’t make it because he’s driving someone else?” Owen asked.

“No, he’s got a migraine, and it’s not safe for him to drive while he’s on his medication.” She said it through teeth clenched so tight
her
jaw might have some issues by the end of the day.

To her surprise, Owen relaxed and nodded. “You said your name was Remy?” He picked up the bag again.

Her knees felt like rubber from relief, and she yanked the car door open with so much enthusiasm that he took a quick step back. “Yes.”

“Does your company hire anyone named Joe or Bob or Jane?” His smile was more of a smirk, but she sensed he was trying to be nice.

She reached for his bag and, though he pulled it toward him with a head shake, their fingers brushed. An inferno of heat and tingling awareness shot up her arm from the incidental contact—like she’d touched a live wire. She jerked her hand back. What on earth? No way. Not him. Not with so much on the line.

“I’ll keep it with me,” he said. He was staring at her with a perplexed look on his face. Not that she could blame him. A little skin contact, and she acted like he’d lit her on fire—which was definitely how it felt.

She nodded in quick drops of her head and shut the door after he slid in. Remy stood there, memorizing the top of the car and wishing she hadn’t just felt that. She didn’t need to be attracted to him. It might be the last thing she needed.

It’s all about the money. It’s all about the money.
Owen Savoy was a have; she was a have-not. They were from completely different worlds. Attraction was a useless emotion.

With a deep breath, she went to the driver’s side and climbed in. “Denny is my brother,” she said, answering his earlier question. “Our full names are horrific.”

She saw him smile in the rearview mirror. Hot damn. He was sexy when he smiled. He had perfectly even, straight teeth. He probably even flossed regularly.

He smothered the smile quickly. Damn. “What are your real names?”

“It’s a secret. We don’t tell anyone our full names.” She twisted in her seat to face him. Big mistake. “Now, where can I take you, Mr. Savoy?” The pull of attraction made her words sound breathless and full of unexpected meaning.
Where can I take you? Nice, Remy
. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice.

“First, can we go get something to eat? Do you have In-N-Out Burgers here?” He looked around the airport as if suddenly unsure of where he was.

Remy raised her eyebrows. How would it be to travel so much you looked disconcerted with where you actually were? Envy wriggled through her heart. “I can take you to an In-N-Out.”

He nodded and pulled open a laptop, apparently done with the chitchat. As Denny had predicted, today would be a day she spent in quiet contemplation. Other than him muttering and moving his papers around after consulting his laptop, Owen didn’t talk. The minutes stretched on and on without any attempts at conversation.

What were the odds she’d be able to keep her mouth shut for the entire day? Nil. Maybe that’s why he liked Denny. Denny could be quiet. Her jaw hurt from the effort she’d expended keeping it shut. She normally talked her way through the whole day.

Okay, then. She spent the short drive trying to get a read on him and minimize how many times he frowned in response to her driving. A widely banked turn made him frown. If her turn signal was on long enough to intrude on his concentration, his head would pop up and he’d stare at the scenery with a scowl. A few times, she caught quick looks at the speedometer. Cute. But not really. Okay, it was a little cute.

“Drive-thru?” she asked when they arrived.

“Yes, but then park, so I can explain my schedule while we’re eating.”

Huh, apparently
they
were eating. No wonder Denny liked this job so much—you kept Denny’s stomach full, and he was happy. Plus, she assumed since he’d offered, she wouldn’t have to pay for it. She sighed at the mental intrusion money had become. Every thought. Every action. She flicked a glance in her mirror—something he probably couldn’t relate to.

Maybe Owen would loosen up after he’d eaten. Maybe he was like Denny in that.

“I’ll order,” he insisted.

Remy pulled forward so his window lined up with the speaker.

“A number one, hold the onions and tomato, and can I get the lettuce in between the top patty and the second patty? It’s cleaner that way.”

The cashier sounded bemused as she asked, “What to drink?”

Owen glanced at the drink holder in trepidation as if doubting it was up to the task. “Just water. Can you repeat that back to me, please?”

Remy covered her smile with her hand and tried to look nonchalant as the cashier repeated his order back, down to the lettuce placement.

“You don’t want your fries Animal Style?” Hopefully he didn’t catch the hint of innuendo she’d been surprised to hear in her voice.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Melted cheese, their spread, and then grilled onions on top,” Remy explained.

He snorted and shook his head.

She should have expected that. He probably preferred his life the opposite from Animal Style. Good to know. Might help her kill this weird attraction she was fighting.

“What do you want?” he asked.

For you to loosen up.
To not be wondering if his lips were soft or firm when he kissed.

She shrugged. “A Coke? Wait, no, a Neapolitan shake.”

“Where is that?” He stared at the menu.

“It’s a secret menu item. You have to request it.”

Both eyebrows lifted this time. He’d clearly never ordered off-menu. Her whole life was lived off-menu. Owen continued to stare at her, but said nothing, so she rolled down her window and requested it herself.