Lone Star Santa

by Heather MacAllister

  That prompted a nice, sexy chuckle. “Santa is harnessing his reindeer as we speak.”

  “Hey, Santa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Ditch the elves.”

  AFTER MITCH HUNG UP the phone, he stared at it. Holey shomoley had things ever changed in Sugar Land. It’s a good thing he’d never had a call like that years ago. A teenaged guy would do something stupid like lock up the office and head toward Noir Blanc right in the middle of a business day.

  Now that he was an adult, Mitch would remember to set the answering machine first.

  Sparky Monaghan had told him to take calls until his schedule was full, but as far as Mitch was concerned, the lady at Noir Blanc could have all the time she wanted.

  Grabbing a hooded sweatshirt—bright red with a Santa Claus face on it and The Electric Santa emblazoned across the back—Mitch headed toward the parking lot where his sleigh awaited.

  And here he abandoned any pretense, all hope of cool.

  He thought of The Voice on the phone. And in his mind he capitalized it. A voice like that was always capitalized. A voice like that would not, under any circumstances, be attracted to a man who drove a bright red pickup truck with a wreath on the grill and a three-foot-tall plastic Santa Claus strapped to the roof. At least it wasn’t nighttime when the lights on the Santa figure flashed. A hearty “Ho, Ho, Ho!” sounded when he honked the horn, but no one needed to know that because he was not ever going to honk the horn. Not. Ever.

  No, Mitch wasn’t going to be cool when he met The Voice. At the best of times, accountants got a bad rap. Accountants who owned their own businesses fared better. Accountants who were living with their parents while being investigated for…for something had no business even mourning the loss of cool.

  So Mitch had no illusions that The Voice would be wildly attracted to him. He was just curious to see her.

  And, okay, he was wildly attracted to her. He didn’t even know what she looked like but imagined all sorts of sultry possibilities.

  She’d be a brunette, for one thing. Brunettes had depth. Brunettes had dark secrets and a sensual confidence. Brunettes toyed with lesser mortals and boy howdy, was he a lesser mortal.

  On the other hand, lesser mortals were frequently underestimated. He’d go with that.

  Mitch made it to Noir Blanc investigations in eleven minutes, incredibly without any incidents requiring use of the ho ho ho horn.

  Noir Blanc was a free standing building in a new shopping village, a cluster of house-like structures that were home to a children’s clothing boutique, a gift store, an antiques store, legal offices and an interior decorator.

  Cute. After he finished with Noir Blanc, Mitch figured he’d pay a visit to them to see if The Electric Santa had their business as well. Sparky had offered him a commission on top of his near minimum-wage salary.

  Good ole Sparky. Mitch had enjoyed working for him years ago. It was amazing how he’d just fit right back in. Yeah. This was a good thing. And now he was going to meet The Voice, so working for Sparky was going to become an even better thing.

  Mitch drove the Santa truck around to the side parking area. Just in case The Voice missed his arrival, he wanted that chance of coolness.

  Leaping up the three steps leading to the porch, Mitch took in the old-fashioned glass door with the black-and-gold lettering and the black, white and gray paint job. Then he turned the knob and stepped into a late-night detective movie.

  A ceiling fan turned lazily. Clunky wooden and leather furniture decorated the room. A coat tree was by the door and framed black-and-white film stills hung on the walls.

  And there, sitting behind the reception desk, filing her nails and giving him a haughty look, had to be The Voice.

  “May I help you?” she asked. Yes, The Voice. The kind of voice that greased a man’s gears and seeped into all the little cracks and crevices of his brain, ready to whisper commands for him to do its bidding.

  She raised an eyebrow, prompting him. Great eyebrows. Very expressive and defined. She’d spent time on those eyebrows.

  “Yes,” he said. He needed help. No, wait. “I mean, I’m from The Electric Santa.” He tried to make that sound like something more than it was.

  Her gaze flicked over him. Over his red hoodie. Lingered at the Santa Claus face on the chest.

  She was not fooled that it was something more than it was.

  “That was quick.” She gave him a slow smile. “Are you always a fast performer?”

  Mitch swallowed, conscious of his blood pounding through him in a way it hadn’t pounded in a very long time. His eyes were hot. He should blink. “I do a thorough job,” he managed. “No complaints.”

  “Ah, but do you have any repeat business?”

  He stared at her mouth. Her red lips fascinated him. This was the lipstick that smeared on men’s collars and got them into trouble with their wives. Heck, it would get men into trouble even if it weren’t on their collars.

  “Repeat business?” He managed a smile. “Once you’ve had The Electric Santa you’re spoiled for anyone else.”

  She carefully set down her nail file. “Is that a fact?”

  “That’s,” he said fervently, “a promise.”

  Their gazes met and held. Mitch thought there was some significant something passing between them. Significant in a good way, he hoped.

  The Voice stood. Actually, it was more of an unfolding undulation. Anyway, she got to her feet and walked around the desk. And then she did something he’d never seen a woman do before, at least outside of old movies. She looked down over her shoulder as she bent her knee, and then adjusted her stocking until the black line down the back was straight.

  It was, without a doubt, the sexiest thing Mitch had ever seen and not just because he could look down her blouse. This was a Woman with a capital W. Since her voice was already capitalized, that meant she was really something.

  She lowered her leg and smiled knowingly at him. “Shall we go outside and discuss the lighting?”

  “Okay.” He would have said okay to anything.

  This woman was not the usual Sugar Land woman. This was the woman one encountered in smoky bars in slightly seedy areas of town—some other town. She was the kind of woman with long legs, tight skirts and blouses with too many buttons undone. The kind of woman mothers warned their sons about.

  The kind of woman who wouldn’t even know he was alive.

  “Just a moment.” She leaned over her desk and pressed a black lever and Mitch’s fingers curled into fists at the sight of what a tight black wool skirt could do for a woman.

  “Yes, Kristen?”

  “Mr. Zaleski, the guy from The Electric Santa is here and we’re going to discuss the decorations.”

  “Fine.”

  She straightened and gestured toward the door.

  Wait a minute. “Zaleski?” Mitch asked. “Kristen Zaleski?” It couldn’t be.

  She cast an uncurious, heavy-lidded look back at him as they walked across the porch. “Yes?”

  The look hit him so hard in the solar plexus that he nearly missed the “yes.”

  This was Kristen Zaleski? This…this woman was the formerly perky Kristen Zaleski? And then of all things to say, he said, “So that was your father? Then why did you call him Mr. Zaleski?”

  “It’s more professional.”

  “Right.”

  She raised one of those remarkable eyebrows. “Have we met?”

  He cleared his throat. “Actually, we have.”

  She negotiated the steps and turned to face him as he lumbered after her.

  “Debate team? High school?” he prompted.

  “Ah.” She nodded, but Mitch didn’t think she remembered.

  “My sister was in your sister’s wedding?”

  That did it. “Mitch Donner?” She’d dropped the capitals from her voice.

  She remembered his name! She remembered his name! But from the way she stared at him, he didn’t think it was in a goo
d way.

  Well, how could it possibly be in a good way?

  What she saw with those long-lashed eyes was a grown man with a kid’s job. There was nothing to indicate that up until a few weeks ago, he’d owned half of a successful financial services company. Technically, he still owned half.

  Technically, he was wearing a red hoodie with a Santa Claus face on it.

  “Mitch Donner,” she said again. “So… Mom mentioned you.”

  They’d been talking about him? Clearly, the situation was completely unsalvageable.

  “What are you doing here?” She waved an arm around indicating either the front of the building or Sugar Land proper.

  “I’m getting ready to take measurements and give you the Winter Wonderland estimate.”

  “No. I mean—” she shrugged “—what are you doing.” And this time she indicated The Electric Santa logo.

  “Call it helping out an old friend.”

  “What do you do when you’re not helping out old friends?”

  Dangerous territory. “Did you know Jeremy Sloane in high school?”

  “I knew of him and his parents still live here.”

  “He and I went into business together. Sloane and Donner Financial Services up in Dallas.”

  “Oh.”

  Couldn’t she have looked even a tiny bit impressed?

  Couldn’t she stop staring at the Santa Claus face on his sweatshirt?

  Okay, so she was no doubt wondering how successful his company could be if he had to take on a Christmas job. Yeah. There was that. Best not to go there. “What about you?” he asked. “I remember from the wedding that you were on your way to becoming Sugar Land’s next star.”

  “Well, I’ve—I’ve done a few things, but it takes a while to establish yourself. I was lucky enough to be accepted into the Sofia Perlman acting studio.” She said this as though he should recognize the name. “My agent called in a favor.”

  “Wow. So you’re doing great.” And he was not. At least not now. “Um…is there anything you’ve done that I might have seen?”

  She gave him a brilliant smile. “Do you drink orange juice?”

  What? “Sure.”

  “Well, I’ve done a couple of national commercials for Citrus City Orange juice.”

  Mitch waited for more and then realized that there was no more. “That’s…that’s great!” He sounded fake even to himself. “I remember that you were a persuasive speaker in debate, so you should be great at selling.” Mitch, Mitch, Mitch. You aren’t doing so good. Not to mention that he’d used the word “great,” like, ninety-five times.

  Her gaze flicked to the Santa logo. “I remember that you were the smart one.”

  Always what a guy wanted to hear from a hot babe. “It probably seemed that way because I was ahead of you in school.”

  “No, I’m pretty sure I remember you getting the senior debate scholarship, right?”

  “That was a long time ago.” And not the sort of thing he trotted out to impress women.

  “Obviously, they gave it to the right guy. I mean, look at you.” She gestured before crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re a big success. You own your own business and it’s doing so well you can afford to take all this time off.”

  Mitch didn’t remember telling her he was taking time off. “What do you mean ‘all’ this time off?”

  She shrugged and looked away. “Mom mentioned something about you being here on an extended vacation.”

  “Who said anything about extended?” His mother, probably. “I’m here for the holidays. It’s what people do. You’ve been here longer than I have.”

  “How do you know that?” She sounded as defensive as he had.

  “My mother may have said something.”

  “I haven’t been back since my sister’s wedding! Pardon me for spending time with my family.”

  “Same here. What’s the big deal? Our parents are thrilled to have us back. I can’t believe people are making an issue of it.”

  “Are people making an issue of it? What have you heard?”

  “Well…”

  “Tell me.”

  He had to be honest. “Your name came up a couple of times over the weekend when I saw people who recognized me. You know, when I was lighting their houses.”

  “Oh, great.” She looked away. “So everybody’s talking about me.”

  “I said a couple. That’s not everybody.”

  “Then it’s only a matter of time.” She leaned against the porch column. “Kristen Zaleski, Sugar Land’s biggest flop.”

  A light seemed to go out inside her. Mitch didn’t see the femme fatale, or the perky cheerleader, or the surprisingly good debater, he saw another person socked in the chin by life.

  “You think you’re a flop? Listen to this. The week before Thanksgiving, I arrived at the office—after spending all weekend working—to find the FBI and the SEC impounding all my files, my office furniture and even my plant.” That got her attention. “Then, they take my car. Then, they do the same thing to my town house, including the plants. And then they freeze my bank accounts. So here I am, broke and living with my parents. I do have this cool job, though. Think you can top that?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I changed my name to Kristie Kringle and after six and a half years of auditions, two orange juice commercials and a lot of perfume demo gigs, my agent sent me on an audition for a burlesque house. And that’s when my film career aspirations ended. I sold my car for scrap and bought a one-way bus ticket home. So I, too, am broke and carless, but with a cool job.”

  They regarded each other solemnly. Mitch didn’t know who cracked the first smile, but in moments they were grinning at each other. Mitch thought he’d never been as attracted to a woman as he was to Kristen at this moment. “I’m glad we had this chat,” he said.

  Kristen exhaled. “Me, too. It’s such a relief to be able to relax around someone. Have you told your parents?”

  “No, but they’re bound to figure it out soon. They know Jeremy’s parents. How about you?”

  “Mine can probably figure out everything but the burlesque house.”

  “So we’re pretty much in the same boat.”

  “You could say that. However, I don’t believe I did anything illegal.”

  “I didn’t either!” Mitch protested.

  “That’s what they all say.”

  “I didn’t!” Mitch spoke more sharply than he intended.

  Kristen didn’t even blink. “So what do they think you did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “They wouldn’t say.”

  “They have to say. Isn’t that a law or something?”

  One would think. “Jeremy’s handling it.”

  Mitch looked away, which reminded him that he should be measuring. He got out his nifty laser thingamabob—they hadn’t had those when he’d worked for The Electric Santa before—and pointed it to the corner of the property line.

  “And Jeremy thinks…?”

  She was just not going to let this go. “He doesn’t know either.” Mitch recorded the reading and set the parameters for the next measurement.

  “Mitch?”

  He ignored her, hoping she’d drop the subject. He hadn’t told the entire story to anyone. He’d avoided thinking about it. But hearing it all at once like that sounded really bad. Really bad.

  She touched his arm and then poked it until he looked down at her.

  “What?”

  “What does your lawyer say?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Oh. My. God. You don’t have a lawyer?”

  Her voice had gone kind of squeaky at the last. He missed the sultry, sexy come-hither voice she’d used earlier.

  “You don’t have a lawyer,” she answered her own question.

  “I thought it might make me look guilty if I ran out and hired a lawyer. Besides Jeremy is handling everything.” Mitch strode toward the other edge
of the property line. “He excels at handling.”

  She followed. “Is Jeremy a lawyer?”

  “No. Why are you hung up on this?” He didn’t want to think about it. Thinking about it made him feel slightly sick. He pointed the laser at the corner of the building.

  “Because even though I’ve only been working for my dad a couple of weeks, it’s long enough to realize that smart lawyers can get people off anything.”

  “Again, this is a misunderstanding.” He recorded his measurement without checking to see what it was. He hoped it was right. “True, it’s taking longer than I figured for them to realize they’ve made a mistake, but—”

  “But nothing!”

  Mitch walked to the edge of the building. “You want the roofline outlined, right?”

  “Mitch.”

  “Yeah, we’ll outline the roof.”

  “Mitch.”

  He looked down at her. “You’re very nosy.”

  “I consider myself a student of human behavior and I tell you this with all sincerity: people are weird. And sneaky. And money hungry. But you, I can’t figure out. Why aren’t you doing something?”

  Mitch measured the roof line. It was satisfying to point the tiny beam of light at things. He could pretend he was shooting them. “I thought Jeremy was working with our corporate attorney, okay? I just found out he wasn’t. Something about conflict of interest. We both thought this problem with the SEC would—”

  “You mentioned the FBI was also involved,” she reminded him sternly.

  “Well, yes, but that’s because of regulations. The point is we figured this would blow over in a couple of days and I guess Jeremy…things get really busy this time of year and he…must have forgotten about the lawyer. But he works better under the gun.”

  He didn’t like the look she was giving him. No doubt it was exactly the same look he’d give someone who told him this kind of a story. “What’s it to you, anyway?” he snapped, because she was right.

  “Take off your shirt.”

  “What?”

  “The sweatshirt.” She waved her hand at it. “Take it off.”