Dashing Through the Mall: Santa, BabyAssignment HumbugDeck the Halls

by Sherryl Woods

  She swallowed. “It’s no small feat to cancel a wedding with three hundred guests, especially when my mother made all the arrangements. She’s in Tahiti with my dad until after the holidays, you know.”

  Her parents, both attorneys who worked long hours, rewarded themselves with a holiday trip for two to a far-flung locale. When Merry was growing up, they’d left her at home with her grandparents and so many presents she never remembered what she’d gotten a few months later. Now that she was grown, they delivered the presents before the bon voyage, though they’d never once asked her to come along.

  “If you talk it out with me, maybe we won’t have to cancel at all,” he said, still in that seductive voice that caused the hair on her arms to stand up.

  Fearing that her body would take over from her brain, she stepped sideways to put some much-needed distance between them. “We have nothing more to talk about.”

  “We could talk about working things out rather than ending them. We could talk about how plenty of brides-to-be get cold feet before the wedding.”

  He touched her arm, and warmth spread underneath his hand. Nothing felt cold. Not her feet, not her body, not her heart. But it wasn’t their physical relationship that was the problem. She took another step sideways so that his hand fell away.

  “This is a bad time, Patrick,” she hedged. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m working.”

  She detected the leather strap of the camera bag slung over his shoulder an instant before he replied, “So am I. I’m your cameraman.”

  The bottom fell out of Merry’s stomach and her mind rebelled, even as the evidence that he was telling the truth stared her in the face. “Danny’s my cameraman,” she insisted.

  “Danny’s down with the flu. Seems like it’s going around.”

  Merry couldn’t dispute that. The mall’s events coordinator had told her that King’s Mall had been hit particularly hard this season. Employees were calling in sick in droves. And Danny had been at the mall just days ago getting footage of the mall’s Santa. But that still didn’t explain Patrick’s announcement.

  “But you can’t be my cameraman. You quit your job at WZLM and gave up camera work. You’re in corporate development now. Corporate developers do not take video at the mall.”

  He bent his dark head to hers. He smelled warm and wonderful, although she never had been able to identify the scent. Eau de Patrick, perhaps. He’d shaved recently and she knew his skin would feel soft and smooth if she reached up and stroked it. She leaned away.

  “They do when the assignment editor knows how much the corporate developer wants to mend things with his fiancée.”

  “Ex-fiancée,” Merry corrected firmly even as the reporter in her admired his resourcefulness and her traitorous body responded to the low timbre of his voice. “This isn’t going to work. I’m going to call Betsy and request a replacement.”

  One of his dark eyebrows arched. “What’s the matter? Afraid to work with me?”

  “Of course not,” she retorted even though he’d gotten it exactly right. She’d never had much willpower where Patrick MacFarland was concerned, which was why she’d agreed to a wedding before she’d thought things through. “It’s just that I can’t have you getting the idea that I want you back. You have to accept that it’s over between us.”

  A challenge lit his eyes. “Then prove it to me.”

  “How can I do that?”

  “Spend today working with me.”

  “That won’t prove anything. I’ve worked with you plenty of times.”

  “Ah, but this time will be different.” He lowered his head and leaned toward her. She felt the warmth of his breath on her lips. “This time, if you tell me the engagement’s still off when the workday’s over, I’ll leave you alone.”

  * * *

  PATRICK FOUGHT TO REMAIN confident as he waited for Merry’s answer, deliberately downplaying the uncertainty in her eyes and the bare spot on her finger where he’d put a diamond engagement ring.

  She loved him. He knew she did. The doubt she was experiencing had to be prewedding jitters.

  He was partly to blame because he hadn’t been around much in the past three months. After Merry accepted his proposal, he stopped indulging himself with camera work and took a job in mergers and acquisitions for an executive search and recruiting firm called The Goulden Group.

  Because it had been five years since he’d gotten his business degree, he’d been lucky to secure the position. The firm was owned by a financial dynamo named Greg Goulden, who happened to be the father of one of his college roommates.

  The hours were long and the work more than a little mundane, but Patrick couldn’t complain about the money. The money was fantastic.

  So, yes, he’d been busy establishing himself at work. But Merry was still the most important thing in his life. He wasn’t so clueless that he didn’t realize the wedding, an elaborate soiree for three hundred at a posh country club, was causing her stress.

  That’s why he repeatedly backed her up whenever she disagreed with her mother over an aspect of the planning. Like the doves. If Merry didn’t want doves at their wedding, fine.

  He couldn’t accept that Merry didn’t want him there.

  “What do you say?” He stuck out a hand. “Do we have a deal?”

  She ran her fingers through her long, glossy brown hair and stared back at him with the face that had helped her get a job in TV: sharp, angled cheekbones, a jaw more wide than narrow, a high forehead and eyes the color of evergreen. She wore a formfitting red sweater over a short green skirt that showed off her long legs.

  If he hadn’t known her better, he might have been intimidated by her appearance. But the woman inside the front she presented to the Charlotte viewing audience was even more beautiful than the package. Soft and sweet, like the center of a chocolate-dipped marshmallow.

  For some reason, she kept that part guarded, as though it was a liability instead of the very essence of what made her who she was.

  “Deal,” she finally said without a trace of softness in her voice. But when she took his offered hand, the electricity they generated whenever they touched ran up his arm. She felt it, too. He could sense it in the slight quiver of her fingers.

  “Aren’t you Merry Deluca?”

  A short blonde in a red jacket ringed with a white fur collar suddenly appeared in front of them. Merry pulled her hand from Patrick’s and the brief moment when they’d connected was gone. She gave the woman her TV-reporter smile.

  “Yes, I am,” Merry said. “I’m reporting today from the mall.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be on TV.” The woman gave her name as Kelly. She was on the plump side, with cherub cheeks and a rosebud of a mouth. “I could tell you about how I’m shopping for the perfect gift for my husband. We just got remarried last month.”

  “I really don’t think—” Merry began at the same time Patrick said, “That sounds great, Kelly.”

  Kelly looked from Merry to Patrick and back again, obviously confused by the mixed message.

  Merry, always the professional, kept her composure although Patrick picked up on the slight tightening around her mouth. For some unfathomable reason, she really hadn’t wanted to interview Kelly.

  “This is Patrick MacFarland,” she told Kelly. “He’s my cameraman.”

  Kelly’s hand flew to her throat as she regarded him. “A cameraman? With your looks, I’m surprised you’re not in front of the camera rather than behind it.”

  Wasn’t she a charmer? Patrick smiled at her. “Thank you.”

  “I’m ready.” Kelly clapped her hands, clasped them together and addressed Patrick. “So where’s the truck and the big camera?”

  Patrick chuckled. “The ENG truck—the initials stand for electronic news gathering—isn’t coming until later. I have a camera but it’s probably not what you’re expecting.” He picked up his leather bag and removed a lightweight digital camera. “This isn’t the camera I use for live broad
casts, but it’s plenty good enough to get you on tape.”

  “Then let’s get the tape rolling,” Kelly said.

  She barely contained her excitement while Merry provided her with the questions she’d be asking. Patrick busied himself considering and rejecting backdrops for the interview, finally settling on a spot in front of a window display featuring snowflakes and candy canes.

  A small crowd had gathered around them by the time he’d set up the shot. He’d missed this, he thought as he gazed through the lens and envisioned how the interview would look on TV.

  Facts and figures didn’t compare with the pleasure he got from bringing the world to television viewers. This simple assignment at the mall wasn’t on par with some of the pulse-pounders he’d taped in the past— forest fires, riots, live concerts—but it was still more exciting than a day inside the glass and chrome building that housed The Goulden Group.

  “I don’t care if it takes me until the mall closes,” Kelly said while looking into the camera exactly as he’d instructed her. “I’m going to find a gift that will let my husband know that this time I’m in the marriage for keeps.”

  Patrick zoomed out to include Merry in the shot, easily understanding why she’d been chosen over a few dozen applicants for the WZLM job. Not only did the camera love her, but she was good at her job.

  Days after she began working at WZLM, they’d been sent out together on a live broadcast about the record cold temperatures. A naked man had streaked across camera. “As you can see,” Merry had ad-libbed, “those of us caught unawares by the cold are in a hurry to head home and add more layers.”

  After Patrick had turned off the camera, she’d laughed until her eyes teared, then wiped off her ruined makeup. He’d expected her to reapply it, but how she looked hadn’t mattered to her when she was off camera.

  He’d fallen hard and fast. The next day was Valentine’s Day. He’d sent Merry a three-foot-tall teddy bear holding a giant chocolate kiss and an invitation to dinner at a classy French restaurant.

  She’d accepted, and he’d been charmed by her intelligence and kindness. Before the night was over, he’d vowed to himself that he’d marry her.

  And he would. If he could convince her by mall closing that her doubts were simply prewedding jitters.

  The interview concluded, Kelly thanked them profusely and then went off in search of that perfect gift. The crowd dispersed, and Patrick waited for Merry to acknowledge that he’d been right about putting Kelly on camera.

  “That was a waste of time,” Merry told him. “If she hadn’t been so excited about the interview, I wouldn’t have done it.”

  Patrick knew better than to smile when she was in this mood, but he loved the soft part of her that put other people’s needs above her own.

  “I’m sorry, love,” he said. “But I don’t know why you’re saying that. I thought Kelly was great.”

  “That’s probably because she fawned all over you.”

  Pleasure shot through him. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of a married woman shopping for her husband.”

  “I am not jealous,” she denied, not entirely believably. “I’m irritated that you didn’t ask me what kind of story I was working on.”

  He thought back to what Betsy had said when she’d given him the assignment. “Aren’t we supposed to capture the excitement and anticipation in the air?”

  “That angle’s been done to death. I’m going to show how the commercialization of Christmas is tarnishing the holiday.”

  He laughed. “You’re joking, right?”

  “It’s no joke.” She seemed offended by the very notion. “The mall is all about commercialism, with the Christmas shopping season starting earlier and earlier. Decorations went up in a couple of stores this year at the end of October! Not only that, a recent Gallup poll said that Americans spend an average of almost eight hundred dollars on Christmas.”

  “So?”

  “So haven’t you paid attention to the advertisements about the items we can’t live without? The toys that our children absolutely must have? And it all comes to a head on Christmas Eve, when malls everywhere are teeming with people.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” he said. “They’re just folks who need to finish up their shopping.”

  “You’re missing my point. The focus of Christmas shouldn’t be on shopping. These people should be home with their loved ones instead of at the mall.”

  “They’re at the mall buying things so their loved ones have presents to open on Christmas morning.”

  “They’re here because these stores and their advertising dollars convinced them that this is where they should be.”

  “This is where they want to be.”

  She perched her hands on her hips. “Oh, really?”

  He looked around them. Signs of the holiday were everywhere. Banisters bedecked with rich holly and giant red bows. Store windows decorated with Christmas scenes and carefully-crafted snowflakes. Pretty trees sparkling and winking from nearly every store. Shoppers wearing a disproportionate amount of red and green. He couldn’t imagine a more ideal setting.

  “Yes,” he said. “It is.”

  “Well, I don’t think so. And I’m going to prove it.”

  “Let me run this by you so I’ve got it straight,” he said slowly. “You’re wanting me to scour the mall with you looking for people who illustrate the negative side of Christmas?”

  She nodded. “Exactly.”

  He angled his head. “Should I be shouting ‘Bah, humbug’ before I turn on my camera?”

  “Not funny.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be, but this idea of yours, I can’t see how it’ll work. It’s Christmas. People are, well, merry on Christmas.”

  “Not people in the mall. They’re so desperate to have their Christmas shopping over and done with, they’ll buy anything.”

  “How about Kelly? She won’t buy just anything. She’s holding out for the perfect gift.”

  She snorted. “There is no such thing.”

  He disagreed. One of his coworkers at The Goulden Group had purchased a day at the spa to show his wife she deserved to be pampered. Another had bought his girlfriend, who loved the winter, everything she needed for a trip to a ski resort. And his boss had gotten his wife a brand-new car with premium safety features so she’d be safer on the roads.

  Patrick’s thoughts raced. He’d already bought Merry a diamond tennis bracelet, expensive perfume, a black leather jacket and a digital camera but none of those things were personal enough to convince her of his love.

  But such a present had to be out there. He gazed at the plethora of stores around him and thanked the Christmas star on top of the closest tree. For what better place than a mall could there be to find the perfect gift?

  “Well?” she prodded, her voice cutting into his thoughts. “Are you ready to get started?”

  Her arms were crossed over her chest, her expression conveying that she clearly expected him to argue some more.

  “Absolutely,” he said cheerfully.

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You mean you’re going along with me on this? Even though you think I won’t be able to find material to back up my angle?”

  “I don’t believe you will.”

  “Then what kind of game are you playing?”

  “It’s no game, love,” he said. “One of these days you’ll understand that I’m on your side, no matter what. In the meantime, let’s try to find somebody who isn’t humming along with the Christmas carols.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  MERRY WANTED TO ARGUE with Patrick some more about disagreeing with the slant of her story, but she couldn’t when he was being so agreeable.

  “Now tell me more about what we’re looking for,” he said as they walked side by side on the highly polished floor through the mall. “Shoppers dropping a lot of cash? Shoppers whose nerves are frayed? Shoppers who don’t care what they buy as long as they buy something?”

  “All
of the above,” Merry said, while harboring serious doubts that he’d be any help at all. Patrick was one of the world’s biggest optimists. Even if he were no longer openly questioning her plans, he couldn’t truly be backing her up.

  “Let’s try the toy store,” he suggested.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The toy store. You’re looking for something useless that retailers are trying to get consumers to believe they need, right? What could be a better example than the Snickering Stone?”

  “What’s that?”

  “According to a magazine article I read, only the hottest toy this Christmas. Did you ever hear of the Pet Rock?”

  She nodded. It was hailed as the perfect pet—cheap, easy to take care of and exceedingly well behaved. Even though the fad had started before her childhood began, it had never totally died. Her parents had bought her one. But then, they’d bought her one of almost everything.

  “The Snickering Stone is kind of like a Pet Rock with personality. It has a motion sensor. When you walk by, it laughs.”

  “And people are buying that?” she asked, even though it was a rhetorical question. People would buy anything at Christmas. Witness the Chia Pet and Singing Trout.

  “Let’s go to the toy store and find out.”

  They waited their turn at the mall directory. Once they’d located the nearest toy store, they walked quickly through the sea of shoppers to their destination.

  The toy store was an affiliate of one of those chains that tried to get the most for their rented mall space, cramming an amazing amount of inventory into a relatively small space. It hadn’t hurt business. The store was crowded and the lines long.

  Merry hesitated at the entrance, surveying the crowd. “I don’t see any salespeople who aren’t busy either helping somebody or manning a cash register.”

  “Why do we need a salesperson?”

  “To direct us to the Snickering Stone.”

  “Trust me, we’ll find it all by ourselves,” Patrick said and reached for her hand. “So we don’t get separated,” he explained.

  He ventured into the store ahead of her, weaving through the cramped aisles. She was concentrating so hard on ignoring how good it felt to simply touch him that she jumped at the sound of a cackle that would put a wicked witch to shame.