Shaking the Sleigh

by Delancey Stewart

  "Yeah, so, Callan …" Cormac trailed off. "He's probably not going to be willing to open up the house to a bunch of cameras at this point."

  "I got that."

  "And you can bring him lawyers all day long, trying to enforce that contract, but his agent will probably help him out of that."

  "Right."

  "And I don't know if there's money involved, but that won't win him over either."

  "Great. So far you're not really making me feel good about this."

  Cormac sighed and leaned back, his golden eyes scanning my face for a long minute as I perched on the edge of my seat. I didn't know how he could stay in this small close room. I was beginning to feel like the walls were caving. I waved a hand in front of my face, trying to move some air around.

  "This office is the worst, huh?" Cormac laughed.

  I shrugged. "I mean, it's …"

  "Terrible. I just needed an office address, really. I work across from home half the time."

  I smiled, realizing Cormac was just a nice guy who’d lost his wife and was doing the best he could. I needed to leave him alone. I sighed and stood up, picking up my purse. "Well, I'm sorry I bothered you," I said, feeling like we must be finished. "Thanks for your time."

  "Hang on a second," Cormac said, his voice low and thoughtful. I sat back down. "You seem like a nice person," he said, narrowing his eyes at me.

  "Um. Thanks." Where was this going to go?

  "So I'll give you a tip. The thing my brother needs most is a reason to get up every day. He thinks he's lost everything. And in a way, he kind of has. The guy might be good looking and richer than God, but he's miserable because everything he ever believed his life was about is gone."

  My heart squeezed a little for the handsome stranger I’d met in his big empty house, and I thought of the last article I’d read, a feature with Callan’s ex-girlfriend, describing that she’d had to leave him because he’d become a miserable hermit since his injury. "I don't think a Christmas home show is going to be able to touch that …"

  "No," Cormac said. "But you might."

  "Ah, I'm not following." Was this guy trying to set me up? He didn't even know me.

  "I'm just saying none of the usual tactics are going to work. So your only hope at getting my brother to agree to feature Singletree Manor on your show is if you win him over some other way. And the guy has a shortage of human interaction and kindness in his life. Though if my daughters have anything to say about it …" he trailed off.

  I wrinkled my nose at him, confused. Now he was dragging his daughters into it? Where was this going exactly, and how much work would I have to put in to get this to actually happen?

  "Sorry," Cormac laughed. "I never thought I'd see the day, but my brother volunteered to babysit my kids. That's how I know he's desperate for some kind of interaction, though I imagine he's going to get tired of chatting about Santa Claus and Dora the Explorer in another day or two."

  "Okkkaay," I said slowly. I had no idea how to use that information. "Well, thanks."

  "Just go back over. Be nice. Get to know the guy."

  I really didn't have time for any of that, and getting to know the stars of my shows hadn’t worked out super well in the past. "Sure."

  "And if you mention the need to decorate for Christmas, I think you might find a couple little girls on your side on that one."

  "You're sending me over to recruit your daughters to my cause?"

  Cormac smiled at me. "They could probably use some interaction, too," he said. "Like I said, you seem like a nice person. My gut says so, and my gut is never wrong about that kind of thing."

  I frowned at him, and understood that he must have loved his wife very much to end up looking so sad and tired. The Whitewood brothers both seemed like they needed someone to be kind to them—it wasn't just Callan who needed a friend. "Well," I said. "I guess I've got nothing to lose."

  "Good luck, April," Cormac said. "I hope to see you again."

  I shook his hand and left the cramped office, heading for my room. I needed to do some paperwork back at the hotel, but this afternoon, I was going back out to Singletree Manor.

  6

  Christopher Moves In

  Callan

  Waking up to the sun streaming over the back lawn as it rolled down to the shores of the Potomac should have been enjoyable—uplifting maybe. Especially since I had always been a morning person. Only now, mornings were close to torturous.

  My morning process before my injury went something like this:

  1. Open eyes.

  2. Feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

  3. Roll out of bed and put feet on the floor.

  4. Head out into my awesome life to do all kinds of awesome shit that probably included playing soccer, posing for pictures for some new endorsement deal, and being invited to rub shoulders with other pretty awesome people (which, honestly, wasn’t my favorite part, but it was still pretty … awesome.)

  My morning process since the injury was more like this, and it was pretty solid:

  1. Open eyes.

  2. Feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

  3. Roll out of bed and put feet on the floor.

  4. Be nearly felled by crippling pain shooting up left leg and by the subsequent memory that everything I ever wanted in life had disappeared in the course of five minutes on the field.

  5. Lay back down and curse the world.

  6. Close eyes.

  7. Plan to build in-bed bar so morning drinking was more feasible.

  And when you had an established morning routine that was working so well for you, the weather could do little to alter it.

  Only today, I actually needed to get up. The girls were coming over after school, and I needed to get a few things ready and clean up the house.

  I repeated steps one through four of the usual routine, and forced myself to hobble to the bathroom instead of climbing back into bed a second time. I flipped on the hot water in the shower and leaned over the sink, resting a hand on either side and staring down into the bowl. I took a deep breath and pulled together the courage to look myself in the face.

  There. There was the bastard who'd taken everything for granted and actually believed he'd deserved it. God it was hard to look at myself. I scoured my face in the mirror, letting my eyes linger on the dark circles that had developed beneath the sockets, the scruff covering my chin and neck, the slightly haunted look I couldn't seem to shake.

  "Get it together, Whitewood," I muttered, and then stripped off my boxers and stepped into the blazing heat of the shower.

  The ankle hurt worst in the mornings, and once I’d warmed up a little bit and moved around, it seemed to loosen. While the pain was always a dull throb, it became tolerable once I forced myself to move. The pain in my chest and head was harder to anticipate. I was actually feeling a little better there since the move, though there'd been a point early on, right after Becky had left, when I’d believed it might be worse than the ankle.

  I knew now the pain had more to do with my love of the game than it did Becky. She had been a constant in my life over the past couple years, and I’d come to think of her as permanent—but once she'd left I almost felt relieved after the initial shock had worn off. Becky had been in it for the wrong reasons, and I realized now, so had I. Without her by my side pushing me to go to the next big event, to take the next high-profile sponsorship, I was able to think more clearly, not that events and sponsorships were exactly falling in my lap these days. With the distance, I realized Becky had been in it for what I could do for her, but not for me.

  That had been clear enough when she'd left, telling me she did enough nursing in her day job.

  Good riddance.

  I shut off the water and cleaned up, shaving and actually combing my hair and putting a little bit of pomade in it to hopefully keep it all going the right direction. Not that the little girls would care, but I felt pressure to put myself together for them, to try to be whole. Or a
t least to appear that way.

  I cleaned up the house, ignoring the pain as I managed to unpack the last few boxes and put together the playroom I’d set up since they'd last been over. It was a surprise for them, and I hoped they'd love it.

  When the clock ticked near to three-thirty, I picked up my keys and wallet and ventured out to my car. I was actually going to leave the property for the first time. I’d installed a booster and a convertible car seat in the back of the car at Cormac’s request, and he had even come by to ensure they were installed properly. I was ready.

  The school wasn't far from home, and I picked Taylor up with no problems, her enormous smile upon seeing me confirming that yes, this was a great idea. We went to Maddie's daycare next, and I earned another giant grin and a little-girl hug that pretty much validated all my reasons for forcing myself out of bed and into the shower this morning.

  When they were both strapped in, I turned around and addressed them both. "I thought we might need to make a stop on the way home."

  "Ice cream?" Taylor piped up hopefully.

  "Ice cweam?" Maddie repeated her sister, her big eyes wide.

  My heart might have melted a tiny bit at their hopeful faces.

  "That wasn't the plan, but we can probably fit that in, too. I was thinking that I probably need a Christmas tree, since I've got two helpers to decorate it with me."

  "Yes!" the girls chimed. Their enthusiasm was infectious, and I let their joy seep in around the edges of my own misery, loosening my chest just a bit.

  They picked out one of the bigger trees and the man at the lot helped tie it to the top of the car. The girls instructed me to drive slowly so "Christopher" wouldn't be injured.

  "Is naming the tree standard practice at your house?" I asked them as I guided the car slowly back down the lane toward my house.

  The girls were quiet for a long minute, and I found Taylor's eyes in the rear-view mirror. She looked thoughtful, and then said, "Mommy used to do it."

  And there was the familiar pain of loss. I hated that these little girls were familiar with that pain, and wished I could take it away from them, but I also knew that the memories they had of Linda were some of the things they needed to hold onto as they grew. I’d lost my parents not long before Linda had died—Mom and Dad going in quick succession, and I knew that pain a bit. But these girls were so young. "Well, your mommy was a very smart lady. If she said we need to name our Christmas tree, then that's what we'll do." I rolled the window down and reached up to pat the roof of the car. "You doing okay up there, Christopher?"

  "The twee doesn't talk," Maddie said, her voice full of the derision three-year olds can muster so easily when addressing silly adults.

  I pulled up to the gate at the house to discover two things at once. One, there was a little silver Honda parked outside the gate containing a certain television producer I had wondered if I might be seeing again. And two, I couldn't for the life of me remember the code to open the gate. I parked and switched off the engine.

  "You guys wait here a sec, okay? My security system is very high tech and it's gonna take just a minute to get it opened up."

  The girls nodded as I got out of the car. I cast a glance at April, who was getting out of her car, too, and despite the fact that we had a fundamental disagreement between us, I couldn't help but smile at her. "You're back."

  "I told you I would be," she said.

  "I'm not going to change my mind about the cameras and the decorating and stuff." I tried to sound stern, but the two eager little sets of ears in the back of my car didn't need to hear me badmouth their favorite holiday.

  "Looks like you might be willing to give just a little," April said, eying Christopher tied up on top of the car.

  "That's for my nieces." I approached the keypad on the gate and stared at it. Six, five …? Seven? I thought there might be a two in there somewhere. I punched in four different codes as April watched with a tilted head and sparkling eyes, but the gate didn't open.

  "No joy?" she asked.

  "I'm just practicing," I told her, trying one more useless combination as I felt an embarrassed flush crawl up my neck. I was an adult. I owned the biggest house in town and I couldn’t even manage to open up the front gate without help. I grunted in frustration as I tried another code.

  "Anyone you could call?" April had stepped closer and was staring at the keypad like the numbers might just pop out at her any second.

  I blew out a frustrated breath and pulled my phone from my pocket, dialing Jessica Betts at her office. Voicemail. Perfect.

  April watched all this with interest, and I felt myself flush hotter with embarrassment. Not that I cared what she thought of me, but being locked out of my own yard was not the coolest thing I’d done lately.

  "Told you I think I can scale it," she said, eyeing the gate with a measuring gaze.

  "No. No way I'm going to have you getting hurt on my property. Your network is already talking about suing me—can you imagine what would happen if you got injured on the job at my house? Not a chance."

  While I was explaining how there was no way in hell I’d allow her to climb the gate, April climbed the gate. She now sat atop the massive steel doors, one leg on either side.

  "When I get down, is there some way to open these from inside?"

  "Be careful," I scolded. "I swear, if you get hurt—"

  April cut me off by jumping down from the gate with an agile ease I both admired and envied. "I'm fine, see?" She asked me from the other side of the gate. "Do I need a key? Is there an alarm on the main house?"

  I shook my head and passed her the key through the gate. "I'm pretending this isn't humiliating.”

  She grinned. "Is it working?"

  I felt my face flush hotter. "Not even a little bit."

  April's face smoothed, and she tilted her head, lifting a finger to her plump pink lips. "Do you think maybe you'll feel like you owe me anything if I let you in?"

  Ha. Clever girl. "Tell you what, I'll repay you by not calling the cops to tell them you're trespassing."

  She crossed her arms and frowned, jutting out a hip and tapping her toe on the gravel. "That isn't very nice."

  April was an attractive woman. But when she pulled her false pout, I was surprised to feel an overwhelming urge to scoop her up and toss her over my shoulder to wipe that little frown right off her face. I took a deep breath, a little overwhelmed at my own reaction to her. "Just open the front door and push the button on the gate. We'll figure out the rest inside. These little girls should get out of the car, okay?"

  She peered past me to the girls glued to the windows of the car over my shoulder and smiled. She gave them the "thumbs up" sign and jogged up to the front door of the house, her striped nautical sweater and fitted boyfriend jeans making her look like something from a J.Crew catalog, especially with the huge colonial house looming behind her. She was more than pretty, I realized. It was too bad she was the enemy at the moment.

  April stopped on the porch and then disappeared inside the front door, and a moment later, the gate swung open. She jogged back out and handed me the keys, which I took before spinning on my heel to go back to the car. Distance. I needed distance from her before I did or said something I’d regret.

  "You're welcome," she called. "Mind if I come in?"

  I shrugged and got into the car, forcing myself to concentrate on driving and parking just in front of the house. As I got out, it annoyed me to realize I was happy to see her pulling up behind us. I released Maddie from her car seat, setting her next to the car as her sister climbed out.

  "Since you're here," I told April, "and you're so into demonstrating your athletic abilities, you can help wrestle this monster tree into the house."

  "Ahem." Taylor's small voice came up from my left side.

  "Sorry," I corrected, dropping a hand on her thin shoulder. "I meant Christopher. You can help us show Christopher his new home."

  April's eyebrows shot up and her face held a
question, but she didn't ask. "Fair enough."

  April was strong, considering she was a pretty small woman, and she hoisted the front end of the tree off the car and up the front steps of the house like she did this kind of thing every day.

  "You got a stand for it?" she asked, once we’d laid Christopher on the floor in the middle of the front room where he was going to live.

  "Yup, in the car, give me a sec." I limped toward the door, but April sped past me, shooting a look over her shoulder as she trotted to the front door.

  "I'm on it."

  Great, I thought. She feels sorry for the gimpy guy. I didn't know exactly why I cared what she thought. No, scratch that. I knew why. April was hot. She was energetic and bubbly, and there was something strong about her that I was more attracted to than I wanted to admit. And I didn't want her pity.

  I swallowed my pride as she returned with the tree stand, and together we lifted Christopher and got him set up in the front window of the room that was probably once called the parlor. Despite the tree's massive size, it didn't quite reach the ceiling of the room. Which was a bonus, since I didn't think the little girls would be thrilled to watch their uncle saw the top of Christopher's head off, and I sure as shit wasn't cutting a hole in the ceiling of my new house.

  "He's glorious," Taylor breathed, looking up, and I had to stifle a grin at her use of such a big descriptor.

  "Gloww-ee-us," Madison echoed at her side.

  "Just wait until he's got lights and decorations," April said, grinning at the little girls.

  I pointed to the back of the room where I’d hauled out the Christmas decorations Becky had boxed up last year when we’d shared a townhouse in San Diego. I had no idea what was in there—decorating had been her domain.

  The little girls scrambled to the boxes, and soon the room was a scattered minefield of shining balls and whimsical nutcracker ornaments. April helped string the lights on, though as soon as she was standing on the ladder I’d found in the shed outside, wrapping the strands around the tree's top, her face took on a lost expression. When the lights were done, I stepped to her side.