Return to Christmas

by Anne Stuart

  “Larsen,” he said. “John Larsen. So tell me, Miss Madison whoever. I assume it’s Miss and not Mrs.?”

  “I’m not married. And the name is Simcoe.”

  He didn’t offer his own marital status. He wasn’t wearing a ring—she’d been weak enough to look—but that didn’t mean anything. Lots of men didn’t wear rings. “Well, Madison Simcoe, you want to tell me the truth?”

  She opened her eyes wide. “What do you mean by that?”

  He’d risen, and he stretched, his long body practically rippling with strength and health. God help her. “I mean that you aren’t simply a lost shopper. I’ll go get the coffee while you come up with a believable answer. You might even try the truth.”

  She watched him go. Son of a bitch, she thought, trying to ignore the tingle of awareness that had flooded through her. Those blue eyes were far too observant. He was right—she was going to have to come up with some believable story. Telling the truth hardly seemed like a viable option.

  She wasted no time finding the bathroom again and finished with splashing her face with water and finger-combing her hair. It was thick and curly, past her shoulders, though she’d gone for a close-cropped look for the last ten years. She almost looked the same, if a woman with twenty-first century wisdom was suddenly stuck in the 1950s. What the hell was she going to say to John Larsen? It was going to have to be believable, but she was a competent liar with an excellent imagination. It shouldn’t be that hard. She headed back to the small lounge, wracking her brain. Maybe she could say she’d been lying about being single and she had an abusive husband...? No, given the attitudes of the day, they’d probably try to send her back. Women didn’t have many rights back then, and she had to come up with something that wasn’t going to get her into worse trouble. There must be something...

  “Who are you?”

  Madison had jerked her head around, for a moment dumbfounded. Joan Crawford was sitting on her sofa, with her giant shoulder pads, her thin, arched eyebrows, and her pompadoured hair and elegant suit. Madison was tempted to look for wire coat hangers. The woman rose, taking an aggressive step toward her, and Madison realized the resemblance was superficial. This woman looked, if anything, even meaner.

  “Are you going to answer me?”

  She opened her mouth, not certain what she was going to come up with, when John Larsen suddenly reappeared, two thick china mugs in one hand, a paper bag in the other. “Good morning, Miss Davis,” he said casually. “I see you’ve met my new assistant.”

  The woman immediately turned to him, her bright red mouth in a thin line of disapproval, so she missed Madison’s own double take. And then the woman smiled, trying to look more conciliatory. “Oh, I hadn’t heard. I thought you had that girl...Maria...helping you. I must say I’m glad you got rid of her. She wasn’t really Macy’s material, if you know what I mean.”

  Larsen’s cynicism was in full force. “I know exactly what you mean, but Macy’s customers are going to have to get used to it. Rosa’s still here. Mollie is going to be working with us. My work triples during the Christmas season, and I need the extra help. Is that a problem, Miss Davis?”

  The woman’s placating smile was so pitifully obvious. She had the hots for Larsen, and he couldn’t care less. And who the hell was Mollie?

  “I’ve told you to call me Irene, John,” she said. “After all, we’re colleagues. And of course I have no problem—if you’d talked to me I would have taken care of it for you.” She cast a dismissive look at Madison. “At least she’s white.”

  Madison choked. John moved past the woman, handing Madison the mug of coffee, and the aroma was enough to distract her from her instant rage. She took a gulp, burning her mouth and not caring.

  “Rosa is Italian, Irene,” he said patiently. “Not colored.”

  Madison almost spat out her coffee.

  “Mollie is just here temporarily,” he continued smoothly, passing her the paper bag of donuts and standing beside her.

  Madison resisted the impulse to kick him. Mollie? What a revolting name! She sounded like a nineteenth-century maid.

  Even-more-evil-Joan-Crawford looked at her with a beady eye. “And what do you usually do, Mollie?” There was a condescending emphasis on the wretched name. “Don’t you have a husband, family? You’re a little too old to be in school.”

  She was about to tell her she was in graduate school when she realized that was probably unlikely. Divorce was also unheard of, and had that bitch just told her she looked old?

  Fortunately, John answered smoothly. “She’s a model, with the John Powers Agency, but right now she can’t find work and she’s not trained for anything else. I thought I’d give her a chance.”

  The woman barely glanced at her. “I can see why she can’t find work—there’s something a bit tawdry about her. And she’s a little too thin, don’t you think?”

  “I’m right here,” Madison growled.

  “So you are,” Irene said unpromisingly. Then she shrugged those massively padded shoulders. “Where do you live, Mollie?”

  Once again, John spoke for her before Madison could snap out a response, moving between them. “At the Barbizon, of course. A nice safe women’s hotel with no men allowed above the first floor.”

  Irene sniffed. “Macy’s has a reputation...”

  “I’m all too aware of Macy’s reputation, Irene. Aren’t you due at a meeting around now?”

  “Oh. Yes.” The woman seemed startled. “I was just...that is...” She flushed. “I’ll come back later,” she said finally, her eyes lingering on John.

  “We have a very busy day ahead of us.”

  “Well...” she said, obviously struggling to come up with something. She cast a last, venomous look at Madison before giving John an ingratiating smile. “We’ll find some time.”

  There was absolute silence when she left, and Madison waited until the sound of the woman’s high heels disappeared before rounding on her companion. “Mollie?” she said in terms of loathing. “Why the hell do I have to be Mollie?”

  “Because you’re lying to me,” he said, taking his coffee and sinking down on one end of the old sofa. “Irene Davis doesn’t like other women, and she’s got the power to get you fired.”

  “She can’t get me fired—I haven’t been hired.”

  “You need a job,” he said flatly. “I just got you one. Why don’t you show your gratitude by telling me the truth?”

  She’d taken the seat at the opposite edge of the sofa, delving into the bag for a warm doughnut. “What makes you think I’ve lied to you?”

  “You said you couldn’t get out of the building last night, when I know most of the doors are easy enough to open from the inside. I’ve gone through them a hundred times. You have no purse, no identification, no money as far as I can tell. Your clothes are expensive, and you certainly act like an entitled member of café society, but there’s a desperate edge to you that you’re trying to cover up. And lastly, you spent the night on my couch.”

  “It’s not your couch, it’s Macy’s couch,” she said, at a loss for any other response.

  “No, it’s mine. It’s where I sleep every night. Where do you sleep?”

  She blinked. “You sleep here? You’re homeless?”

  He sighed. “I told you I wasn’t homeless. I sleep here because it’s quiet. The security guards leave me alone, I don’t bother anybody, and I get twice the amount of work done.”

  “Can’t you afford an apartment?”

  “Yes. I just don’t want one.”

  “Why not?”

  “None of your business, Mollie.”

  “Don’t call me that!” she snapped.

  “No one’s going to believe your name is Madison. I’m trying to help you, lady. Stop fighting me.”

  She stared at him for a long, silent moment. “Why? You don’t strike me as a good Samaritan. Why would you put yourself on the line for me?”

  “I stick my neck out for no one,” he said flatl
y, and the words sounded oddly familiar. “If you hadn’t invaded my floor, then I wouldn’t care. But you did, and you’re here, and I don’t want anyone coming in and snooping around. I have the life I want, and I don’t want anyone interfering.”

  “You like your life? You’re a homeless workaholic and you’re telling me you’re happy?”

  His look was pitying. “What the hell is a workaholic? And I never said I was happy. Happiness is for idiots and dreamers. I’ve figured out a way to get by, and that works for me. I don’t ask for much more.”

  “So why are you helping me?”

  “Damned if I know.” Again, there was that look. “So, you ready to tell me the truth? Of do you want me to call the store dicks?”

  “The what...? Oh,” she added, as she realized he meant the night watchmen. And they would all be men, she was sure of it, even if she hadn’t managed to run across any of them. “I’ll tell you the truth,” she said finally. “But you won’t believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  What did she have to lose? “I’m from the year 2020. I walked through the revolving doors and suddenly I’m transported back to...when is this?”

  “Monday, December 15th, 1947,” he said without batting an eye.

  “Oh. I thought it was the 1950s,” she said, momentarily distracted. “Anyway, I’m trapped here and I need to get back to my own time and life. I work for a group of social media influencers and I have campaigns to run, people who are counting on me. I’d think this was a crazy dream except that it feels so real.”

  The only expression on his face was polite interest. “O-kay,” he drawled. “You influence people on something called social media, and you’re from the future. How’d you end up in those clothes? What happened to your purse?”

  He was sounded refreshingly open-minded. “I don’t know. Once I realized that things weren’t right, I looked down and saw I was wearing this crazy shit. And I have no idea what happened to my bag, and my money. There probably wasn’t much inside, maybe a couple of hundred dollars, but it would be nice to have at least some proof of my identity.”

  “Not much,” he echoed. For some reason he looked startled. “Only a couple of hundred dollars. So how do you think you got here? Did a cyclone come and pick up your house and dump it here?”

  “My name is not Dorothy Gale.”

  Again, the eyebrow came into play. “If you’re from seventy years in the future, how come you know about the Wizard of Oz?”

  “Everyone knows the Wizard of Oz. Practically everyone owns a copy of the movie.”

  “People don’t own movies. So how did you get here?”

  “I told you, the revolving door...”

  “Is a portal into outer space. Yes, you told me.”

  “No, to other time dimensions.” She was growing frustrated. This would be so much easier if she could reference Doctor Who.

  “So someone decided you should go back in time and live in Macy’s? I gotta tell you, I’ve heard better stories.”

  For a moment, the sidewalk Santa popped in her mind, but then he was gone. “Well, why don’t you come up with one?” she snapped.

  “For one thing, how old are you? The truth.”

  “Why would I lie? I’m twenty-seven.”

  “Because every word out of your mouth has been a lie. And I don’t think you could be that old and not be married. You’re too pretty. So maybe you’re on the run from a husband. Hell, maybe you’re on the run from the law.”

  She growled, low in her throat, but he plowed on. “Either way, you need to get your pretty little behind back home where you belong. A girl like you should be married and a mother by now, busy with housework and children and not wasting her time in the city. You’re not getting any younger.”

  She was just about ready to explode in rage. “Fuck...you,” she bit out.

  He blinked. “And that’s another thing. You have a mouth like a sailor. Girls aren’t supposed to even know words like that, much less use them.”

  “I’m not a girl. You already told me I’m an old maid. I’ll say any goddamn thing I want to, you prick.”

  “I’m bigger than you. I can wash your mouth out with soap or I can spank you, take your pick. You’re giving girls a bad name.”

  “I’m a woman, you idiot, not a girl.”

  He reached for her, and she had a moment of real fear as she scrambled away, ending up on the floor. “Don’t you touch me!”

  He sighed. “It’s not worth the trouble. Are you going to tell me the truth?”

  “I told you the truth.”

  “Sure, you did. In the meantime, you need a job, don’t you?”

  She really wanted to tell him no. He hadn’t believed a word she’d said, he’d threatened and bullied her, and he was a sexist pig, though possibly no worse than anyone else around him, given the times.

  “Yes.” She was shocked when the word came out of her mouth. What the hell was she saying? She needed to get out of this place....

  John Larsen didn’t look particularly gratified. “Okay. Rosa will be in at nine, and she’ll show you the ropes. I don’t have time to train you.” He pushed up from the sofa, making no effort to help her up from her ignominious position on the floor. “You got any other clothes?”

  She was too shocked to move. “Uh...no.”

  He nodded. “Rosa will take care of that. Just don’t give her any trouble—she works hard and she needs this job a hell of a lot more than you do.”

  She watched him stride out of the room, those long legs in the loose trousers eating up space, and then she slowly got to her feet. He’d left the bag on the sofa, and she reached for it, grabbing the last remaining doughnut and shoving it in her mouth. As soon as the store got busy, she’d find her way downstairs and try to leave. Anything was possible—it might even work.

  But in the meantime, John Larsen had decided to look after her, though neither of them could figure out why. She was employed—no one would question her presence in the store. If he managed to sleep in this humongous place, then she could too.

  But why didn’t he have his own place? What was going on with him? She wasn’t the only one with secrets, though that knowledge was far from reassuring. In the distance, she could hear the crackly sound of music coming from a radio, and it reminded her of the night before when she’d first come face to face with him. It had taken her far too long to believe the unbelievable, and she still wasn’t quite ready to. But it was useless to fight the evidence all around her. Right now, she was living in 1947, her only “friend” if you could call him that, a bad-tempered Hollywood god.

  “I am so screwed,” she said out loud.

  No one was around to disagree.

  Chapter 4

  Rosa Valenti was so tiny, she made Madison feel like a hulking giant—Larsen must be careful not to accidentally step on her. She showed up in a plain cotton dress, her hair covered, looking a little like a pint-sized Rosie the Riveter, her arms full of clothes which she proceeded to dump on the sofa before turning to look up at Madison.

  “You’re a big one, ain’t ya?” she said cheerfully. She had snapping dark eyes and bright red lipstick and the first friendly face Madison had seen since she stepped through the looking glass. “Johnny called me at home and told me to scrounge you up some clothes. He said you were big, so I grabbed some stout clothing as well as more regular stuff. I’m Rosa.” She thrust out her hand and pumped Madison’s own with vigorous enthusiasm. She tilted her head sideways, taking her in, then nodded. “There should be something in there that’ll work.” She nodded toward the pile of clothes.

  Madison wasn’t sure what she should react to first, that Larsen had called her stout, that someone actually called him Johnny, or where the new clothes had come from. She decided Rosa was more important. “Are you going to get into trouble for taking these things?”

  Rosa shook her head, plopping herself down on the sofa. “Those clothes are the donations—stuff that’s damaged, returned for some
reason or another. They get shipped to hospitals and the like, but no one minds if we poach a few things as long as we don’t go overboard.”

  Madison looked at the small mountain. “That seems overboard to me.”

  There was a hint of uncertainty in Rosa’s face. “You aren’t going to...?”

  “I’m so grateful,” Madison broke in quickly, knowing she was sending the wrong message. “I’ve been in this thing...” she gestured at her dress, “forever. I just don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  Rosa’s face lightened. “Don’t worry about me—I’ve been around the block more times than I can count. Johnny looks out for me as well.”

  Madison ignored the odd pinch in her chest. Rosa was young, maybe in her early twenties, pretty and energetic—just what a grump like “Johnny” needed. “Is he your partner?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  Rosa looked perplexed. “Partner? Like how?”

  It was too late to turn back. “Is he your...” she was about to say “lover,” then remembered the tight morality of earlier times. “Your boyfriend?”

  Rosa burst out laughing. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in days. Tony would cut his throat if he thought Johnny had eyes for me! Johnny’s my boss and my friend and that’s all. That’s hysterical—wait till I tell him...”

  “Please don’t!” Madison said quickly. That was all she needed—for Larsen to know she’d been asking personal questions about him. She didn’t have time to be distracted—she just needed to get home. “I was just curious.”

  Rosa grinned. “Well, I can’t say that I blame you. He’s a dreamboat, all right. Hasn’t had a girlfriend for as long as I’ve known him, which is coming on two years, ever since he got back from the war. I figured he saw too much over there and it’s taking him time to get back in the swing of things. That’s true for a lot of vets.”

  She’d forgotten all about it—of course a man like Larsen would have served in World War II. This was a world that had just recently emerged from a global horror—it would be a good idea to keep that in mind. “I guess,” she said noncommittally.