A man could puff up like a peacock around that kind of flattery, though the sleigh did look pretty good. When he had first been shown the old sleigh, an old flat deck made over, he’d been appalled. He wasn’t even sure how no one had ever been hurt the construction had been so rickety. With lots of enthusiastic help, he’d torn it down to the floorboards and started over. Now it was a work of art—velvet driver’s seat for Santa, huge brightly painted boxes to hold the gifts for the kids, carpeted walkways so that the elf, if they ever found such a creature, could get at the gifts.
All the other volunteers had drifted home after a wonderful night of organizing the sleigh. It was really like a float that would be pulled by a truck down the streets on Christmas Eve, making deliveries. They would be setting a new record this year: twelve hundred individually requested gifts, not including the Impossible Dreams file.
Still, for all that he was happy about the sleigh, what he was about to present her with was his greatest accomplishment at the Secret Santa Society to date.
He brought a large box, as yet unwrapped, from where he had set it by the door earlier in the evening. Now he put it in front of her. He stood back as she peeked in.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Impossible Dream Number Twelve, Amanda Watson, age six,” he said.
“Disneyland?” she gave him a skeptical look, but as she began to poke through the box the skeptical look melted into the one he waited for, maybe even lived for. The worry line on her brow melted. The lines around her mouth tilted up. The sun came on in eyes that were made to laugh and didn’t do it often enough.
“Disneyland,” he proclaimed with satisfaction. “Disneyland in a box.”
“Look at this wallpaper,” she gasped.
It had taken him three days of hunting to find it and the look on her face made every frustrating moment of that search worth it. It was a mural style, King Ludwig’s castle in Neuschwanstein, which had inspired the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. Then there was bedding—sheets, pillows, a quilt—with all the Disney favorites cavorting on it. Next came huge stuffed toys of the most popular characters.
And last, in the very bottom of the box was the best of all. Michael watched Kirsten’s face as she tenderly took out the princess costume: a tie on dress of taffeta and satin and lace, the little bejeweled crown, the clear plastic slippers that a child’s imagination would transform to glass.
Her eyes filmed with tears as she clutched the dress. “Oh, Michael,” she said. “How can you be so full of surprises? How could you know this? That a little girl would love this?”
“Santa seems to be whispering in my ear,” he said, as surprised as her by how inspired he was when it came to these Impossible Dreams tasks.
She sighed. The worried look came back. “It’s too much for one child,” she said reluctantly. “We’ll have to divide it up. There’s enough here for—”
“Over my dead body,” he said, firmly.
The worried look disappeared and she laughed. “Oh, Michael! You were swarmed when you picked out this dress weren’t you?”
“When I picked out the crown thingie, every woman in that store was smiling at me as if I was the most adorable thing!”
“Tiara,” she told him, touching the item in question with a certain reverence only someone of the female persuasion could manage for such a piece of fluff and foolishness.
“—and the whole time I was thinking of Amanda’s drawing with the castles and cartoon characters and Cinderella. Focusing on that little girl was the only way I survived the experience. You wouldn’t cheat the girl who saved my life, would you?”
“Okay, Michael, you win.” He could tell it was a victory Kirsten was more than pleased to give him. Besides, Amanda getting everything in this box did not mean other children would do without. Not on his watch. Not while he was doing Santa duty.
She laughed again, making every second of torture in that store called “Girlie-Girl” worth it. “I would have loved to have seen you buying this.” She waved the dress at him.
“Yeah, you and two dozen other women. I thought I was going to die. Cinderella does not come naturally to me. The next one was easier.”
For Impossible Dream Number Three, a request for a personal meeting with a top basketball player, Michael Brewster had been able to cruise the Internet and find a signed picture. After that it had been a quick trip to the store for a team jersey, number twenty-three, and that had been that.
The strangest thing had happened. Michael had thought that the Impossible Dreams file was going to be a heartbreaker, but he had wanted to take the burden off Kirsten. He figured he didn’t have much of a heart left to break, anyway.
To his amazement, he loved the Impossible Dream file. Fulfilling those tough requests made him feel alive as he had not felt alive since that day he had been pulled from the water. It was true, some dreams were impossible. He couldn’t get Geoff’s brother a new brain, he couldn’t bring back a mother gone to heaven. But he could work with the spirit of Christmas. Geoff’s brother was going to get extra remedial therapy. He’d arranged for a local bakery to deliver chocolate chip cookies once a week for a year to the little kid with no mom.
He had come to anticipate the look on Kirsten’s face when he crossed another item off the list, showed her his solution. It made him feel ten feet high and bulletproof, more like a man than he had ever felt, even when he was doing the most manly things, pulling crab pots, or swinging a hammer.
“Michael, we should go. It’s after midnight.”
He knew she was right. The days as they counted down to Christmas did not hold enough hours. Still, he didn’t want to leave here, or leave her.
“But that’s when all the magic happens,” he told her. “I bet if you put on that slipper, it would fit.”
She gulped, looked around like a rabbit cornered by the hounds. It was almost as though she hated the fact she loved the way he made her feel.
“No, it wouldn’t! I’m afraid I’m destined to be the ugly stepsister.”
He wished he could change that about her—the fact that she didn’t understand her own understated appeal. But he only knew one way to change it, and that seemed like it would make a complicated situation even more complicated.
So he did what men do. He held open the outside door for her and changed the subject. “I have a pretty good idea for Impossible Dream number six—”
But before he could tell her, she had scooped up a handful of snow and thrown it at him. That playful side of her came out more and more, surprising, delighting.
The snowball fight was on! They chased each other up and down the deserted street in front of the Secret Santa Society office. She had quite an arm for a girl who didn’t look as if she had ever played baseball.
Michael spun around and aimed, but before he could let loose with his own snowball, sploosh —hers, wet and heavy caught him right in the face.
He wiped the dripping snow away, let loose his own, but Miss Kirsten Morrison dodged with the expertise of a soldier dodging bullets.
Her laughter rang out through empty streets. A brand-new blanket of thick snow had not yet been churned into mud and slop by passing feet and traffic. The snow transformed the grimness of even this street, made it white and sparkling and magical. Which was what he knew his kiss would do to her.
And hers to him. Transform him. Was he ready?
Each day now, more and more volunteers showed up at the Secret Santa Society.
Each day, he could feel her and him solidifying into more of a team, uniting in their purpose to bring Christmas to these streets that could be so mean.
Reminded of the meanness of the streets, despite the cloak of white they hid under, he realized she was getting a little too far away from his protection, even now. Sometimes, on nights like this, drug addicts and drunks sought refuge in those doorways.
“Hey,” he called. “Come back. Truce.”
She looked over her shoulder, and he tosse
d down his already formed snowball, held up his hands in surrender.
Twelve hundred gifts and a swiftly diminishing timeline added up to an almost impossible workload. Kirsten was always the last one at the Secret Santa Society office, and he never left until he was sure she was safe.
Now she came back down the street toward him, hands in her pockets, probably frozen from making snowballs. She tilted her chin up and caught a snowflake on her tongue.
He could tell she was disappointed that he had declared the truce. Where was she getting all the energy from? Like him, she was putting in at least sixteen-hour days.
When she came close to him, he met her halfway, tugged her snowball frozen hands out of her pockets, cupped them between his own and blew his breath on them to warm them.
There was an old Michael who would have never been so gentle. Still, there was enough of the old Michael there to register the look on her face and take advantage of it.
“What do you want for Christmas?” he asked her, in between breaths.
It came to him with the suddenness of being hit by a snowball out of the darkness of night. It hit him—sploosh —that he was falling in love with her.
Only the thought did not fill him with terror, and it did not make him run away.
He only contemplated it, feeling a stillness grow inside of him as he blew on her hands and looked into the gray of her eyes that had become so familiar.
“What you’re doing right now is pretty good,” she said, and then sang in a surprisingly horrible voice, “Merry Christmas to me.”
“I’m serious!”
“So am I.”
“Come on, Kirsten. Tell me.” He realized he wanted her to tell him something that would give him hope that maybe she was ready for this thing that crackled in the air between them to move forward. Trust him with some little piece of herself, even if it was only the fact she wanted the Little in Love figurine, Knight in Shining Armor .
Nearly, he was discovering, as hard to get his hands on as an elf. The collectors of Little in Love were surprisingly meanspirited when it came to their collections.
Then, partly sad and partly dreaming, she gave in to him. She said, “One day. We only give them one day. Wouldn’t it be great if we could give them more than that?”
“Such as?”
She hesitated, gave him that look that meant she was trying to decide how far to trust him with her secrets, her dreams, her plans.
He was aware he was holding his breath, and when she sighed, he did, too.
“There’s a building around the corner for sale. Brick. A tiny little storefront. I think it used to be a candy store. I dream about buying it and turning it into a reading room. A lovely warm space full of sofas and pillows and books, a little snack table with fresh apples and oranges and bananas…simple, silly, impossible.”
Her voice faded, she blinked, her voice became businesslike. She laughed halfheartedly. “As if I don’t have enough to do already.” She seemed to realize he still held her hands, and she pulled them away from him.
Michael sensed that she had really given him nothing at all. Why wouldn’t she tell him about herself? Why wouldn’t she admit she liked Little in Love?
He’d teased her about them, and had some fun with the twirpiness of the names. Was it that easy to lose her trust? Maybe she already knew him too well and could sense his distaste for something so melodramatic, romantic, tender. But he wanted her to know he was growing—that he could put aside his personal tastes to make another person happy. Bite back his scorn.
“As noble as that is,” Michael said drily, “and though I’ll be sure to add it to the Impossible Dreams files, don’t you want anything for you? ”
She looked blank.
“You know, a present? Like china? Or a genuine pair of designer shoes?”
“Good grief, Michael, what do you know about china, and shoes?”
“I know that’s what girls want,” he said stubbornly. His expertise in what girls wanted was relatively new. He knew because he managed to get it out of each volunteer who came through the doors for his own Secret Santa list. Sandra wanted to add a place setting to her china collection. Lulu—as well as the foot bath—dreamed of owning a genuine pair of designer shoes.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “Don’t think you’re fooling me.”
“What?” he said innocently.
“You’re making note of what every one of those people tells you they want. I’m beginning to wonder, if Santa did exist, what would he look like? Michael Brewster?”
“You’re still not telling me,” he said.
“I’m thinking!”
“Well, take your time. Christmas is a whole twenty days away!”
“Eighteen,” she corrected him automatically. “No! It’s past midnight. Seventeen.”
Which meant he was really going to have to make a decision about the offer from that crabby old lady in Georgia who had told him he could have her reserved Knight in Shining Armor over her dead body—or for three thousand dollars.
“I don’t want you to get me anything. Michael, seeing you—what you bring to all of us—is gift enough. You don’t have to get anybody anything else.”
It was a thought a man could stay warm in for a long, long time. That he was enough without giving anything besides himself. Suddenly, Knight in Shining Armor seemed like it would be worth every penny of the ludicrous asking price.
“That was fun tonight,” he said, “I really enjoyed myself. I’m not really giving anything to anybody, I’m taking.”
She gave him one of those looks: the could-he-possibly-mean-it look.
“We painted wooden candy canes and touched up Santa’s seat,” she said. “Christmas music played the whole time, and I hate egg nog by about the third sip.”
“It was still fun. I liked it when Lulu pretended to be Santa. Her Santa dance should be recorded.” He smiled remembering the big woman’s surprising grace as she donned the Santa hat, wrapped herself in red velvet from the float and began to dance to the music. Soon everyone had been clapping and the more they clapped the more she swung her hips, until she looked like Santa doing a striptease and everyone was holding their stomachs they had laughed so hard.
He was being returned to life. To laughter. To warmth.
And he was ready.
Kirsten still looked dubious. “You strike me as a guy who has done a lot of things—wild things, outrageous things, really fun things.”
“Such as?” Oh, goodie, she was going to blush.
“Such as judging the wet T-shirt contest at the local watering hole. Such as skiing the out-of-bounds area. I bet you’ve jumped out of airplanes.”
“Just once,” he said.
“Bungee jumped?”
“Does it count if I was drunk?”
“Only if you were naked.”
She’d say these things—as if she was comfortable saying them—but the blush always gave her away, except he’d noticed lately she seemed to have better control of the blush. Either that or he was losing his touch. He didn’t know why she wanted him to think she was a racier, more experienced girl than she was, but it was endlessly entertaining.
“Shoot,” he said. “I guess it counts.” Ah, sometimes he still had it, after all. Her face turned crimson under the white glare of the streetlight.
“See?” she sputtered. “And now you expect me to believe you thought tonight was fun?”
“What makes you think bungee jumping naked would be fun?” he asked her, and he was serious. What could be less comfortable than that?
“Well, maybe fun is the wrong word. Uninhibited. Carefree. Not caring what people think.”
Now there was an interesting insight into her: world’s most responsible girl with a secret longing to be wild.
“You let me know if you want to work on those things. I know where they have a great catch-the-greased-pig contest. Only they don’t play it with a pig.”
“See?” she said.
“Building a sleigh float with a bunch of old people and me has got to seem tame after that. Boring.”
“Don’t forget Lulu,” he admonished her. “No one would ever mistake that girl for tame. And she’d probably kill you personally if she knew you put her in the boring category. She’s sure excited about the volunteer Christmas party. She’s reminded me three times that it is this weekend and that I need a tux.”
“I think for a lot of the volunteers it’s the only occasion to really dress up that they have all year. They love that it’s formal.”
He grimaced. “Not my idea of fun.” Still, he had dusted off a tux from a friend’s wedding.
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