The Santa Suit (Holiday Homecoming #4)

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “No man wanting to be a daddy, in other words.”

  “Or not wanting to be, which would have been worse.”

  “Having been raised by my dad, that’s a little hard for me to imagine.”

  She looked at him curiously. “Your mother?”

  “She died when I was five. I remember things…a voice, a touch, laughter…but I don’t really remember her.”

  Katherine was silent, then, and Gabe didn’t press her. He knew she must be considering all the memories the twins would never have of the father they would never know. On the ice, Andy, being a brother, laughed hysterically as Abby attempted another spin and promptly landed on her butt, for at least the third time in the past five minutes. Gabe smiled, thinking Abby was every bit as determined, and on her way to being just as brave, as her mother.

  “My father left when I was eight,” Katherine said, surprising Gabe with the suddenness of the confession. “He left right before Christmas. He made this elaborate plan to meet my mother and me at Macy’s so I could sit on Santa’s lap and we could do the Christmas shopping together, but then he never showed up. Turns out, he just wanted us out of the house so he could pack his things.”

  She met Gabe’s eyes, but while there was a curve on her lips, there wasn’t a trace of a smile. “My mother tried to pretend he’d be back. She even went so far as to tell me Santa Claus needed Daddy’s help at the North Pole and he’d be home on Christmas morning. But I knew it was a lie. I only saw him once after that…at my mother’s funeral, ten years ago. He brought his new wife and their teenaged daughter. She was very pretty.” Katherine shrugged, as if the pain were too old to bother her anymore. “He seemed happy to see me, but I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “I’m sorry.” Gabe could hardly get the words out over the ache in his throat “What an awful thing to have happen to you.”

  “Yes.” She lifted her cup, but didn’t drink, just held its warmth against her lips. “I haven’t told anyone that pitiful story in ages.” Her glance slid to him, then away. “Just goes to show how hard I’m trying to warn you away.”

  “And I thought you were just being nice, giving me an excuse to tell you my own sad stories.”

  Her mouth softened in sympathy. “Having your mother die when you’re only five is pretty sad. I hope you don’t have many stories sadder than that one.”

  He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her until she couldn’t remember how it felt to be sad, how it felt to know your father had deserted you to make a new family, a new daughter. But that was more comfort than he knew how to offer, more than she knew how to accept. So he cleared his throat and offered the only cure he knew for sadness. “If we’re going to be swapping pitiful stories, I should probably warn you I’ve got some that will have you sobbing into your beer…er, coffee. And in this weather, that may require a can of deicer.”

  She made a melancholy attempt at a smile. “I’ll take my chances. Go ahead. Do your worst. Tell me something horrible that happened to you.”

  His arm moved easily around her, cupping her against his side in a companionable fit. She didn’t pull away, which pretty much made his day. “It’s difficult for me to talk about this without choking up,” he began somberly. “But, well, once I asked Santa for a pony, and—”

  She interrupted with a nudge of her elbow in his ribs. “You already told me that story, and it wasn’t horrible.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No, you asked Santa for a pony, but you got a dog, instead.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I forgot.”

  “And you’re supposed to have such an excellent memory, too.”

  “Well, give me a minute to think about it. I’m positive I have some other angst-ridden story locked inside me, somewhere. Oh, I know. I’ve got it. There was the time Dad got shot…in the butt…with a BB gun. My BB gun, to be specific. The one Santa brought. Now, that was a terrible experience. And it happened on Christmas Day, too, so instead of getting to play with my new BB gun and shoot the devil out of a paper target, I had to spend the entire afternoon in the emergency room with a very cranky father.”

  Laughter lit a sparkle in her eyes, and her lips curved in a frown that somehow looked very much like a smile. And Gabe felt like he’d just gotten the only Christmas present he ever wanted.

  “CAN WE WALK HOME through the Park, Gabe?” Andy asked almost the second Katherine got his skates off. The apartment building was only a few blocks away, and she’d already decided the walk would be a good way for the twins to wind down from their exhilarating hour on the ice rink. But to have the question put to Gabe so naturally, as if it were his decision to make, caught her off guard.

  “You’ll have to ask your mother.” Gabe smoothly deferred to her authority, and she just as smoothly agreed that a walk through Central Park would be the perfect way to get home.

  But the moment lingered in her mind, Andy’s innocent question taking on significance as she strolled beside Gabe down one of the paved paths. She had let down her guard, let the twins become too comfortable with him. She had no idea how she’d come to do that. She only knew she couldn’t let it continue.

  “I thought they’d be exhausted by now,” he said in a tone of wonder.

  Katherine followed his gaze, making sure the twins weren’t dashing too far ahead in their race to pack a thousand activities into a thirty-minute walk. “That is exhaustion for a seven-year-old.”

  “That? You mean, they get tired and they go faster?”

  “Faster, louder, funnier, everything magnified twice over. They’ll fight sleep tooth and nail tonight.”

  “I’m exhausted just thinking about it.”

  “Maybe you should go home now and take a nap.”

  He grinned. “And admit I have no stamina? No, thank you. Besides, you’ll need me if a question about biology comes up on this little nature hike.”

  “It’s only physics I’m a little fuzzy about. I think I can handle biology.”

  “Mom!” Abby shouted. “Over here! Look what Andy found!”

  “I hope it’s a spider’s nest,” Gabe said as he headed for the spot where the twins had clustered.

  Spiders? Come to think of it, she didn’t know all that much about biology and, really, there was no reason Gabe shouldn’t walk them all the way home.

  THERE really was no reason not to invite him up to the apartment for a cup of coffee, either. After all, when they finally reached the co-op building and entered the lobby, he was just as rosy from the cold as she and the twins were, and it seemed churlish to send him immediately back out into the weather again.

  “Hey, Gabe!” Andy’s eyes brightened with inspiration. “Wanna come up to our ‘partment and play Jet Jupiter, Laser Ranger, with me and Abby?”

  “I get the big pan for my helmet,” Abby shouted, and raced for the bank of elevators.

  “That’s my helmet, Abby!” Andy took off after her.

  Gabe looked after them, then turned toward Katherine, a hopeful glint in his brown eyes.

  “Do you want to come upstairs and warm up a bit?” she asked. “I could make some coffee.”

  “I’d like that. Thanks.” His words were warm. So was his smile, and she was feeling a little too warm already. Coffee, she decided. One cup. Then she’d show him the door.

  “MOM? Is Gabe still here?”

  Katherine pulled the covers over Andy’s Bugs Bunny pajamas and tucked them around his shoulders. “He’s in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess you guys made.”

  Andy smiled through a huge yawn. “That was the best hot chocolate I ever had, Mom. Only I wish it could have been strawberry hot chocolate. That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

  “Delicious.”

  “Gabe is good at making delicious. I liked how he cooked dinner. Tyler’s dad cooks moo goo gai pan. Tyler told me. I wonder if Gabe knows how to cook that. Aren’t you glad he stayed and cooked for us and watched The Muppets Christmas Carol with us and made us hot chocolate? Aren’
t you glad me and Abby ask’d him to?”

  “Abby and I,” she corrected, unwilling to admit even to herself how glad she was that Gabe had stayed. Because if she admitted that she had enjoyed the evening as much as the twins had, it would be harder to say to Gabe what had to be said. Tonight. Face-to-face.

  “Could you maybe ask him to come and say goodnight to me again?”

  “No, Andy, I couldn’t.”

  “But, Mom, I forgot to tell him something.”

  She gave her son a meaningful look. “I’ll be glad to tell him for you, but he has to go home, now, Andy. And you have to go to sleep. No more getting out of bed tonight.”

  “I haven’t got out of bed since the first time you tucked me in,” he announced indignantly. “Is Abby asleep yet?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you be the first one asleep tonight?”

  “I’m too excited, Mom. I can’t wait to see the North Pole.”

  Katherine frowned, separating a strand of truth from the many threads of his imagination. “Are you planning to dream about the North Pole?”

  He shook his head vigorously against the pillow. “It’s not a dream, Mom. Gabe’s takin’ me on Saturday. He said.”

  “Taking you where?”

  “To the North Pole,” Andy explained with exaggerated patience. “He said since we couldn’t find the real Santa Claus here, we were just gonna have to go look for him at the North Pole. At his workshop.”

  “Whose workshop?”

  Andy rolled his eyes. “Santa’s. Weren’t ya listenin’?”

  “I think someone forgot to say anything to me about this. When did Gabe mention it?”

  “When he came in to say good-night. Ask Abby. He told her, too.”

  She smoothed back the red-gold curls from his forehead. “And how, Mr. I-Haven’t-Been-Out-of-Bed, do you know he told her, too?”

  He rounded his eyes innocently, a sure sign of guilt. “She came in my room, Mom. I didn’t go in her room. I didn’t. Really.”

  Leaning down to give him a kiss, Katherine straightened and walked to the door. “This is the last tuck-in, Andrew. Don’t get out of bed again tonight.”

  “Okay, Mom. I won’t. Good night, Mom.”

  “Good night, Andy.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you.” Pulling the door partly closed, she stepped across the hall to say another, and hopefully final, good-night to Abby. But Abby was already asleep, her eyelashes curving against her cheeks in a thick, gold shadow, her squiggly curls strewn all around her face in a riotous freedom from the braids she’d worn all day. Katherine kissed her, too, and smoothed the covers around her thin shoulders.

  “Mom?”

  Andy called her as she left Abby’s room, and she opened his door and looked in. “I thought we’d already said good-night,” she reminded him.

  “I have to ask Gabe somethin’ important, Mom. Please? I’ll just ask him one thing, then I promise I’ll go right to sleep.”

  She sighed, uncomfortable that in such a short amount of time, Gabe Housley had woven his way into their routine. Even if it was only one night. Even if it never happened again. It had been too easily accomplished this once, and that was what bothered her most. “You can ask me, Andy. I’m sure I can answer any question you have. I’ve always answered them before, haven’t I?”

  There was hesitation in the semi-darkness. “It’s a guy question, Mom. Couldn’t I please ask Gabe?”

  It’s a guy question, she repeated to herself as she looked at him, sitting up in bed, Bugs Bunny glowing in the dark on his pajama top. How did they learn this so young? she wondered. How did they know there was guy stuff and girl stuff and that it wasn’t all the same stuff? “I’ll ask Gabe to come back so you can ask him one question, Andy, but then you have to go to sleep. I mean it”

  He snuggled happily under the covers, once again pulling them up over Bugs Bunny’s glowing face. “Okay, Mom. I mean it, too. I’ll go to sleep soon’s I get to talk to Gabe.”

  She started to close the door.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, Andy?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  KATHERINE stood by the window, waiting for Gabe to return from his question-and-answer session with Andy. As soon as he did, she was going to have it out with him.

  Well, maybe that was too strong a term for the matter-of-fact discussion she had in mind. Conversation, really. There wasn’t anything to be discussed. She was simply going to tell him that she wasn’t interested in having a relationship. If he pressed for an explanation, she’d tell him it was nothing personal, just a decision she’d made to keep her life, and the lives of her children, a little less complicated.

  And it wasn’t as if the three of them needed anyone else. She’d considered all the angles and made peace with the sacrifices before she ever got pregnant She’d made her choices, and she was sticking with them. And that was why she didn’t have relationships with men.

  She had fantasies. Harmless, uncomplicated fantasies that didn’t make demands, didn’t have expectations, didn’t get up some morning, pack a suitcase and head for higher ground. Fantasies were easy, available, and completely within her control.

  But of course she wouldn’t tell him that. She wouldn’t blurt out the embarrassing admission that she had been carrying on a most satisfying fantasy with him for nearly a year. Ever since the kiss he didn’t remember. Actually, even before that…since the first time she’d seen him in the lobby of the Fitzpatrick Building, wearing that Armani coat. He wore it for her, occasionally, in the fantasy, but somehow, she could never get him out of it, couldn’t get him to be the flasher she had in mind. Now that she thought about it, he had been very coy lately—with or without the coat—and he had not been all that cooperative. And as to satisfying…Well, once she convinced the flesh and blood Gabe to stay out of her life, she would turn her attention to whipping the fantasy Gabe into shape.

  A self-conscious blush heated her cheeks. Well, she wasn’t into whipping, but she just might start insisting that he unbutton that coat when she told him to. But that was all for later on. Right now, she needed to focus on what she wanted to say to him. Taking a deep breath, she focused…and wondered how he’d look in nothing but his Calvin Kleins. No, wait. Focus. She wasn’t interested in a relationship. Good. That was good. Focus on what she wanted to say. She wasn’t interested in having a relationship with him. No, she was interested in having sex with him.

  This was not good. Not good at all.

  Another deep breath shoved the fantasy into the closet. Another one brought the room, the view, the coming conversation, into sharp focus. She was calm, cool, collected, a stranger to impulse, a strong, decisive woman, who knew what she wanted and was completely impervious to the appeal of his warm quirk of a smile.

  The kitchen light went out, and her calm fled, just from the knowledge that he was on the way. Then the dining room lights went out and her stomach did a swan dive, taking cool and collected with it. Then he walked across the living room toward her, switching off one lamp, and then another, until the only light left on was the forty-watt halogen in the corner and her strong, decisive inner woman suddenly became very chummy with the impulse to throw herself at him and start ripping off his clothes.

  “Do you have something against the electric company?” she asked, because she had to say something.

  “It’s habit. Dad goes around the house turning on the lights and I go around turning them off.”

  Her eyes adjusted to the softer light, but he continued to move toward her, and she began a life-and-death struggle with the impulse. “You, uh, live with your dad?”

  “He lives with me…when he’s not out making the world a safer place for the good guys. He thinks he’s Spenser for Hire nine days out of ten.”

  “Who is he on the tenth day?” She would get this breathing problem under control…no matter how many inane remarks she had to make.

  �
�Sometimes he’s Lieutenant Columbo. Sometimes, James Bond.” Gabe came to a stop a bare three feet from where she stood, and she had to clasp her hands behind her. “I’ve even accused him of being Miss Marple, at times. But he’s a good detective. A good man.” Gabe smiled. “He’d like you. You’re short.”

  She blinked and congratulated herself on taking a nonchalant step away from him. “I…don’t think I’ll be meeting your dad. In fact, I’m afraid I won’t be seeing you again, either.”

  “You’ll see me tomorrow. I thought we’d take the kids to see the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall. Not that I believe the real Santa Claus will be there, but I think they’ll enjoy it.”

  “Of course they will, Gabe. They’re having such a good time, they’re practically drowning in enjoyment.”

  “You almost make it sound like a bad thing.” He took a step closer. “But I’m drowning in enjoyment, too, and I can tell you it’s good.”

  She was in trouble here. She knew by the low, husky, seductive tone of his voice. She knew by the heated awareness spiraling through her. She knew by the impulse that leaped to attention in her thoughts. Distraction. She needed a distraction. “What was the question Andy had to ask you before he could go to sleep?”

  Gabe did not look distracted. He looked as if he wanted to kiss her. “He wanted to know what snails taste like.”

  “That’s it?” Her eyes drifted to his mouth, but she didn’t allow them to linger. “I was imagining all kinds of guy things a little boy might want to ask out of earshot of his mother, but ‘What do snails taste like?’ was not a possibility.”

  “He wanted to know if they taste like dirt.”

  “Oh.” She was breathless and couldn’t keep her glance from falling to his lips. “Do they?”

  “They taste like earthworms, only chewier.”

  “I hope you were just using your imagination when you said that.”