by Jule McBride
A first time for him to be a father, Cyn thought. Through the carriage window she could see all the untouched snow in the park. Next to her, Santa’s hand, which was so strong and yet so sensual, continued to smooth the hair over Amanda’s forehead.
She had robbed him of their little girl. It was strangely ironic, since for so long she’d thought of him as the thief. He had stolen from her family, as surely as he’d stolen her heart. And yet, she thought now, maybe it was Anton Santa she’d loved all along.
No doubt her younger self had wanted the wild rebel she’d seen in Jake Jackson. But perhaps she’d sensed another man deep down inside. Perhaps she’d known there was a real man beneath—an Anton Santa inside Jake somewhere.
Thinking that, Cyn didn’t feel like such a fool. Looking at Anton Santa now, it was becoming clear that she hadn’t been one. This man made snow angels and said things about there being heaven on earth. He watched over her and her baby. And yet, for all that, she couldn’t quite bring herself to invite him into her bed again or to let him tell Amanda he was her father.
If she did those things, her comfortably predictable world would become just like the virgin snow. Every day with Santa she’d take a thousand steps she’d never taken before. Mundane, routine things would seem as fresh and new as they did to Amanda. And her heart would feel so full...like it could break again.
“Still there?” he whispered. He leaned and found her lips, parting them in a soft, slow, heartfelt kiss.
“I’m just not sure I believe what’s happened in the past week or so,” she murmured when he drew away.
“Maybe this will convince you.” He reached up and grazed his thumb and finger over her cheek, in what was more of a caress than a pinch. “It’s real, Cyn. You, me, Amanda—everything that’s happening to us is real.”
Chapter Eleven
Friday, December 23, 1994
“You didn’t have to come with me to get the car.” In the back seat of the cab Santa draped his arm around Cyn as if to indicate otherwise.
She tweaked his nose playfully as their driver pulled to a curb nearer the Fifty-ninth street entrance to The Plaza Hotel than to the Harrison House. “But we wanted to.”
Amanda giggled. “Somebody’s gotta protect Mr. Santa Claus.”
“Oh, Giantelli’s!” Cyn exclaimed, glancing across Fifth Avenue. One look, and her mouth started watering. She’d thought only Santa could make her drool like one of Pavlov’s dogs, but she’d forgotten about Giantelli’s. Stacked arrangements of cheesecakes, Key lime pies, tortes, tarts and bite-sized chocolate confections beckoned through the gleaming windows. “I’ll make the diet my New Year’s resolution,” she murmured contritely.
Santa shifted his hips in the seat, dug into his pocket and peeled the cab fare from a money clip. “Hmm?”
“Why don’t you get your morning papers while Amanda helps indulge my sweet tooth?”
“Why go across the street, when I’d be more than happy to indulge it right here?” Santa got out of the cab and offered her his hand.
“The day you’re as sweet as Giantelli’s,” Cyn quipped, “is the day when you-know-where freezes over.”
“Where?” Amanda asked as Cyn caught Santa’s hand and stepped onto the sidewalk, pulling her daughter with her.
Cyn chuckled. “Just you-know-where.”
Santa’s eyes narrowed with sudden seriousness. “I should come with you.”
“Mom and Dad’ll be here any minute,” Cyn said, hating the sudden reminder that they might be in danger. She nodded in the direction of the pastry store, where a policeman was mounted on his horse. “There’s a cop right there.”
“Well, it’s just across the street,” Santa conceded, glaring toward Giantelli’s windows as if each cake were a villain in the flesh.
“You look so cute when you’re concerned.” Cyn cozied beside him and planted a solid smack on his cheek.
The kiss decided him. “I’ll grab a paper and meet you.”
Cyn caught Amanda’s hand and headed across Fifth, saying, “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it, honey?”
“Why can’t you marry Mr. Santa like Beauty and the Beast?” Amanda returned in a complete non sequitur.
Cyn would have stopped in her tracks if the traffic light hadn’t been about to change. When they reached the opposite sidewalk, she considered voicing a denial that would end Amanda’s train of thought. “Would you like that?” she asked, instead.
“If we went to a wedding, would Mr. Santa be my daddy?”
He is already. Cyn cleared her throat and held open Giantelli’s door. “I suppose so.”
Fortunately, the shining glass cases of scrumptious treats caught Amanda’s eye and she raced forward. “Mommy! We gotta get these Santa Claus cookies, ‘cause Mr. Santa can eat them all. Lots ‘cause he don’t share.”
“Won’t,” Cyn corrected automatically. She glanced over the counter, into a clerk’s sympathetic eyes. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll take a dozen.” Her eyes dipped down, past the cheesecakes, to a number of chocolate cakes decorated with red-and-green-icing poinsettias. “And I’ll take one of those and—” She pressed a hand to her heart and smiled. “And one of those incredible marzipan Christmas trees, please.”
“Can I get a baby pie?”
Cyn squinted at the tiny round crusts stuffed with lime filling. “Three baby Key lime pies,” she continued.
The clerk hastily boxed their purchases and secured them with string, then handed the boxes to Cyn over the counter.
“Amanda,” Cyn said, “I can’t carry these and hold your hand, so grab my coat pocket. Okay?”
Amanda immediately did as she was asked, and the clerk was nice enough to step from behind the counter and open the door for them. Outside, the air smelled as clean as it had the previous night. The morning traffic had turned the snow in the street to slush, but the day was glorious.
“Look! There’s Grandmama and Granddaddy!” Cyn nodded across Fifth, while she and Amanda waited for the light to change.
“Granddaddy!” Amanda screamed. There was no way he could have heard at this distance, but Paxton waved.
Cyn felt a rush of pure happiness. She wasn’t exactly sure where she stood with Santa, but the past seemed ages away. Now they were headed into the frontier of the future. As hard as it was to reconcile herself to sharing Amanda, Cyn knew Amanda needed her daddy. The icing on the cake today was that her mother and father had both agreed to meet them for brunch at The Plaza.
And maybe if Santa were really in my life, things would be as perfect as this day, she thought. It was nearly impossible to imagine him leaving. “C’mon, Amanda, our light’s green.”
Cyn heaved the cake boxes up, pressing them against her chest, then started across the avenue, moving at Amanda’s pace. The roads had been salted, but where the snow came only to the tops of Cyn’s high heels, Amanda’s boots were covered to the ankles.
“Grandmama!” Amanda yelled. This time when she waved, she nearly slipped.
“Easy there,” Cyn murmured gently, glancing at the light.
Amanda came to a dead halt and stared down, to contemplate a pile of snow. “Can we wait till Santa comes and saves us?”
Cyn heard a nearby motorcycle rev its engine. “C’mon, Amanda, the light’s going to—”
Suddenly Amanda tugged Cyn’s coat with superhuman force.
My baby’s not that strong!
“What the—” The cake boxes pitched violently from Cyn’s arms as she whipped around, her body no longer moving of its own accord. What’s happening? She wrenched in the opposite direction, and her fearful gaze darted to her coat pocket, just as a rider on a motorcycle lifted Amanda into the air.
“Mommy!” Amanda screamed.
He steered with one hand. Amanda was clutched beneath his free arm and her legs flailed madly above his handlebars.
But she still had Cyn’s coat.
Her baby was holding on for dear life!
Cy
n spun across the icy snow, out of control, with nothing between her and the kidnapper but Amanda’s small, outstretched arm.
“Don’t let go!” Cyn shrieked. She clawed at the air, reaching for the cycle, but when the man gunned the motor, Amanda lost her grip. As Cyn lost her footing one of her high heels flew off, spinning toe over heel. She tumbled across the snow in a ball of fur coat, like a round, fuzzy animal. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Santa emerge from the gold-framed revolving door of The Plaza and amble down the red-carpeted stairs.
Cyn scrambled to her feet just as the light changed. Cars and trucks bore down on her, horns blaring, showing no inclination of stopping.
Santa was now coming at a dead run.
Cyn bolted for Giantelli’s, so fast that she lost her other shoe, and wound up slamming into the policeman’s horse. “My daughter!” she screamed. “My daughter! My daughter!”
The cop dismounted and flipped open his notebook.
“Didn’t you see? Didn’t you see what just happened?”
“Ma’am, you’ll have to calm down,” he said gently.
But the cycle was fishtailing toward Fifty-ninth! Cyn shoved the policeman, threw her foot into the stirrup, then kicked the horse hard before she’d even fully mounted. She realized the cycle was taking a shortcut through the park, just as the horse reared on its hind legs and shook its massive head like the devil, trying to throw her. Somehow her flailing hands snatched the reins. Before the front hooves even hit the ground again, the horse was off at a sprint.
Cyn hunkered down in the saddle, galloped down Fifty-ninth, and when she saw a stretch of low guardrail, managed to jump it. Up ahead, the cycle hit a trail path. The man was headed uptown. Cyn reached around and slapped the horse’s backside, screaming, “Faster!”
She hadn’t ridden since high school and the freezing air and metal of the stirrups were painful against her stocking-clad feet. Her hat had flown from her head, her gloves were in her pockets, and her stinging eyes were tearing so much that she could barely see. She squinted against the sun and wind. Where was he going? The pond? The zoo? The Tavern on the Green, she thought illogically.
He headed for the reservoir. Cutting through a stand of trees, Cyn felt her heart soar. She was gaining on him. He had Amanda in front of him and he was steering with both hands, which gave him more control. She jerked the reins with all her might, forcing the horse onto the tree-lined jogging path around the reservoir.
“Get out of the way!” Cyn sat up long enough to yell, but terrified joggers were already diving off the track. Barren, snow-tipped tree branches dripped with icicles just inches above her head. She ducked again.
“You can’t do this, lady!” an irate runner screamed.
“You’re going to kill somebody,” a woman shrieked.
“I’ve had it with this city!” a man yelled. “I’m going to move! I swear, I’m going to...”
Cyn barely heard them. She slunk so far down that her chest hugged the horse’s neck. Even though his blowing mane and her own hair slapped against her cheeks in stinging strips, she hoped the horse’s neck might protect her from the furious onslaught of the wind. “Amanda!” she screamed, wishing her little girl could hear her but knowing she couldn’t. “Amanda!”
The cycle veered off, heading for the West Side. Good, she thought as he disappeared between trees. He was on fresh snow. She could see tracks. But where was he headed?
Just as the horse burst through a thicket, the cycle popped a wheelie and jumped a guardrail. By the time Cyn reached the spot, there was no sign of the motorcycle. And no sign of her daughter.
She kept moving. She was now trotting down a West Side sidewalk on a horse stolen from the police. Her eyes darted everywhere, but she didn’t hear a motorcycle or see Amanda. Her stockings were in shreds and she could no longer feel her feet. When she looked down, she realized that one of them wasn’t even in the stirrup.
She kicked the horse’s belly, glancing down one street, then another, thinking that the motorcycle was blue and green. The man had been dressed in black and had worn a black helmet. On either side of him, she’d seen Amanda’s two little legs kicking the thin air, as if seeking a foothold.
Over and over Cyn saw that blue and green bike pop its wheelie and jump the white guardrail, and she clung to the image. She’d just been thrown over a perilous cliff and that mental picture of Amanda was like the branch she’d caught to save her life. I will see my baby again.
Just as she darted down yet another street, the driver of a car slammed on the brakes. They squealed, then the vehicle hit a patch of ice and swerved in front of her. The horse reacted, leaping upward and resting his weight on his back legs. When he came down, his hooves missed the hood by a fraction.
Something inside Cyn snapped. “Get out of my way!” she screamed murderously at the driver.
The passenger door swung open. “Get in!”
It was Santa.
He didn’t wait for her to dismount, but leapt out of the driver’s side, then hauled her down into his embrace. Cyn’s arms clung to his neck as he ran toward the car. She didn’t know if minutes had passed or hours. But she suddenly felt something almost resembling relief.
“Don’t worry.” Santa reached across her and slammed her door. “No man escapes me for long.”
“No woman, either,” she murmured numbly.
* * *
“OFFICER BLANKENSHIP’S horse is at Fifth and Ninety-fourth.” Santa clutched the car phone with one hand and the steering wheel with the other. Once he’d relayed the message, he hung up.
“The motorcycle was green and blue, and I think it was a man, but now I don’t know—I just don’t know,” Cyn rambled. “He had black clothes and a black helmet and he jumped the guardrail.”
“Where do you think he was going?” Santa demanded.
“New Jersey, maybe,” Cyn said shakily. “But maybe uptown.” Her voice wavered. “I don’t know, anywhere.”
“Okay.” Santa tried to concentrate on driving, while his eyes darted down the side streets and alleyways. That was better than contemplating the murderous things he was going to do to whoever had taken his daughter. He didn’t want to think about how Cyn had looked on that horse, either. Furious, terrified, numb, lost. Oh yes, he’d kill the man who had done that to her.
It was all his fault. He’d been hired to protect Amanda, and at the crucial moment he’d gone to buy newspapers. He’d known he was doing the wrong thing, but when Cyn kissed him, there was nothing he’d deny her. She’d wanted to go to Giantelli’s while he’d bought the papers. So he’d let her. Now, unless he got Amanda back safe and sound and soon, he’d never forgive himself.
He reached across the seat and squeezed Cyn’s knee. Beneath her ripped stockings, it was like a knob of ice. “Here.” He cranked the heat and trained the vents on her hands and feet. “Your shoes are on the floor. Your daddy got them.”
“What are we going to do?” she wailed. She leaned forward and stared through the windshield.
“We’re going to find her.” Santa wished he felt as convinced as he sounded. “And you’re going to start rubbing your hands together. You won’t be much help to me with frostbite.”
That got her moving. She began to vigorously rub her feet together, too. Then she quickly stripped off her stockings and slipped her bare feet into her shoes. “But she could be anywhere....”
“Don’t worry,” he repeated. “I got the plate numbers.”
“You got the plate numbers!” she echoed, her voice leaping as if for joy.
“The cops are running them. I gave them the number in the car, too, and they’ll call as soon as they have something.”
“Oh, thank you.” Cyn pressed both her hands to her heart.
It was clear she was talking to God now, not Santa. Santa smiled reassuringly, praying he wasn’t encouraging false hope. “There’s more.”
“You think you know who did it?” Her every word seemed to have “please” after
it.
He shook his head. “But there was a guy from the Daily News, hanging out in front of The Plaza, looking for celebrities. He got a picture. Paxton bought the film, and he’s taking it to an hour developer. He can get the results faster than the police.”
“A photographer?” Cyn scooted beside him in the seat, her neck still craning in one direction, then another, as her eyes searched for the motorcycle. “If the story gets out—” Her voice suddenly caught, and she choked down a sob. “I mean, if there’s a ransom— Oh no, if this hits the papers, somebody else could call in a ransom.”
“The Daily News guy is the only one we saw.”
“Where’s my mom? What...” Her voice trailed off again, as if talking required too much energy.
Santa hoped Cyn could hang on and stay strong until they found Amanda. “With your father. As soon as they drop off the film, they’re heading to your place. That way, if any calls come, they’ll be there. They’ll call us every half hour. If we haven’t found her by the time we get the pictures, we’ll get blowups. I’m sure it’ll turn up something helpful.”
He didn’t really see, but felt Cyn cross her arms over her chest and hang her head. He knew exactly how she felt. “Cyn, it’s way too early to give up.”
“I’m not giving up!” Once again, she scooted next to the passenger-side window, her eyes scrutinizing the streets.
Good, he thought. He could handle anger better than despondency. As much as he wished he could take her into his arms, and that they could comfort each other, they had to keep looking.
“It’s a motorcycle!” Cyn suddenly screamed. “Behind us!”
He jerked the wheel so quickly that the car fishtailed. Coming out of the spin, he did a U-turn in the middle of traffic, then laid on the horn and punched the gas. He’d passed two cars before he realized the cycle was silver.
He glanced at Cyn. Tears shimmered in her eyes and glistened on her lashes. “For weeks we’ve known this was a possibility,” he managed to say. “It’s why I’m here.”
Cyn whirled on him. “Then why don’t you do something about it?” she shrieked.