by Shirley Jump
Then she reminded herself that Cole was an actor. Being Santa was just another role for him.
He was a hell of an actor, she’d give him that. He always had been, especially with her. She’d fallen for his whole together-forever, let’s-settle-down speech, as long as settling down meant living the life of a nomad while he flew all over the world for roles. As long as it didn’t mean plunking down actual roots, with a mortgage and a home. That was what she needed to remember, rather than getting caught up in those blue eyes and that deep voice she remembered. She couldn’t afford to fall for the fantasy and forget the real man who was underneath that suit.
She made it through the shift, and begged Arnold to finish closing up Santa's village. "I'm not feeling well," she told him. She felt bad lying to Arnold, but knew what would happen if she told Arnold the truth. Arnold meant well, but he was an overenthusiastic "life helper", as he’d dubbed himself.
"That's too bad." Arnold pouted. "I was hoping I could talk you into going to Chili's after work. I have a friend I'd love you to meet. He's adorable, single and a doctor. The whole trifecta."
"A potential mate for you?"
"Goodness, no." Arnold waved off that idea. "I'm happy as a clam with Ted. He's my soul mate."
A little twinge of jealousy poked her chest but she brushed it off. Out of everyone she knew, Arnold, with his sweet and caring nature, should have someone who appreciated him. "I'm glad you found someone special, Arnold. You deserve to be happy."
"And so do you, missy." He wagged a finger at her, his arm bells adding a jingle punctuation. "You’ll meet Mr. Right, I’m sure of it. I'm a hopeless romantic, you know. And if I could, I’d bring Mr. Right to you myself. Wrapped right up in a big old Christmas bow."
That was why Stephanie refused to tell Arnold the truth about Cole. He'd be trying to foster a hookup for them faster than she could order a double cheeseburger at McDonald's. She shook her head. "I'm not a romantic, I'm a realist, and that's what makes me hopeless."
Arnold laughed, then drew Stephanie into a one-armed hug. "Nothing like a little holiday cheer to put some hope back in your stocking. And who knows? Maybe Santa will bring you someone extra special this year."
"Did I hear someone say Santa?" said a deep baritone voice.
Oh God. Cole had heard that. Hopefully he’d missed the pertinent parts of the conversation. Like the needing a Mr. Right part. She cleared her throat, adjusted her elf hat. "We were—"
"Just talking about how Stephanie here needs a special man this holiday," Arnold cut in. "Someone to really jingle her bells, if you know what I mean."
Cole's eyes met hers. Fire blazed in those blue depths. "I definitely know about that."
Deep inside Stephanie, liquid heat pooled and a pulsing need rushed through her veins. Oh God, yes, he did know about that. She could remember a few times in particular when he’d jingled her bells and rocked her world and made her head spin. Just like that, she was fantasizing about him again, thinking about taking him inside that little gingerbread house, or riding him in that oversize Santa chair.
Lord help her. She needed a twelve-step program for getting over Cole.
"Wonderful!" Arnold squealed. "That makes you the perfect one to help."
Oh no. Arnold was going to enlist Cole as a partner in crime. That could only end badly. She put up a hand. "I gotta lea—"
"Is that what you want for Christmas?" Cole asked, taking a step closer to her. "A man who treats you right?"
She didn't see the Santa suit. She didn't see the beard. She saw only Cole, the man she had once loved, and had never forgotten. The same man who had left when she needed him most. The same man who had shattered her dreams and broken her heart.
"The last thing I need," she said, "is another present that's going to be nothing but a big letdown."
Then she turned on her slippered elf shoes and walked away from Cole with as much pride as a five-foot-five woman in green felt could muster.
1 two-liter bottle lemon-lime soda
1 container frozen orange juice concentrate
2 cups cranberry juice cocktail
1 bottle champagne
1 cup rainbow sherbet, optional
You need something fast to drink (and punch drinking is much better than punching that man for what happened in the past! Let it go, Chubby Chum, let it go, and find your inner happy). Be sure your ingredients are chilled, then pour all ingredients into a giant punch bowl. Add the sherbet in pretty little scoops, just to make it fancy.
Be sure to invite a special someone over for cocktails and share. No appetizers? That’s okay—you’re all he wants anyway! Now, let go of that pesky past and open your heart to a future with your soul mate.
Chapter Three
Refusing to take no for an answer had been what got Cole his first role in a low budget horror movie. After heading to L.A. for his callback, he'd followed the casting director out of the building and told the man there was no one in the world who wanted to be a zombie as much as Cole. Next thing he knew, he was stumbling around a campground, murdering scantily clad teenagers with more hormones than brains. That role had led to another in a Dolph Lundgren movie, then a third in a big-budget Stallone shoot-em-up. A year later, Cole was taking the lead in a romantic comedy, where he wooed a doe-eyed starlet who was lauded as Meg Ryan’s replacement. He'd won the Emmy for that role, and been dubbed America’s playboy by the tabloids.
Then it had all gone to shit, which was why he was stuck in the Santa suit.
If he was smart, he’d have hung around the mall to talk to Dexter. The exec was starting shooting for a new romcom the week after Christmas, and word was the leading man had dropped out, meaning there was an opportunity for Cole. The owner had popped by the Santa display, given Cole a little nod, then continued on his way. On any other day, Cole would have made the most of the opportunity, finding a way to snag a meeting with Dexter, but today he was too distracted.
By Stephanie. And the unfinished business that charged the air between them.
Maybe he was making a huge mistake. Maybe he should just let her go, and concentrate on resurrecting a career on life support.
Instead he blew on his cold hands, then strode up the porch stairs of the address he’d found in a quick Google search. He barely noticed the wreath on the door, the blinking Christmas lights draped over the snow-dusted shrubs. The beveled glass of Stephanie’s front door didn’t allow him to see inside, but the warm golden glow of light coming through the oval seemed to beckon to Cole, to promise fresh-from-the-oven bread and a soft hug.
God, he was getting sentimental. It had to be being back here, in the old neighborhood, the very place he couldn’t wait to leave. Being back here, in Stephanie’s world, had him longing for the things he’d never had, the stability he had always craved. Or maybe he just needed some protein and some time in the sun. Yeah, that was it. Too many years in California had softened him, making the December Boston weather intolerable.
He reached up, pressed the doorbell, and a moment later, the door opened. Stephanie stood on the other side, wearing plaid flannel pants, and an old pink v-necked T-shirt. She looked comfortable and warm, as if he could curl into her and never think about winter’s chill again. "Cole. What are you doing here?"
"I…" Damn, what was he doing here? "I just wanted to see how you are. We didn’t get much time to talk today."
She glanced behind her, then back at him. "This isn’t a good time."
He should let her go. They had been over for a long time, and just because they’d ended up working at the same place for a few days in December didn’t mean he had a right to intrude on whatever she had going right now. Except, the part of him that wondered if there was another man in her life, if the chemistry he’d read earlier was a figment of his imagination, and if maybe she’d meant those words in her letter, couldn’t let her go. "Just a few minutes, Steph. Just to catch up. You know, like old friends."
"Is that what we are?"
"I don’t know. I think it’s more complicated than that."
She considered him for a moment, then put up a hand. "Wait here for a minute." Then she shut the door. He could hear the murmur of voices on the other side, then the door opened again and Stephanie slipped past the narrow opening, pulling on a coat as she left. Whoever was inside, she clearly didn’t want to let Cole be a part of that.
He knew he’d given up the right to know about her private life when he’d left six years ago. Didn’t make the closed door sting any less, though.
"Want to walk?" he said.
"Sure. It’s a nice night." Then she laughed. "Though I bet to you, this is positively arctic."
"It is chilly," he admitted, "but considering it’s Christmas, a little cold weather and snow is appropriate."
"Plus you’ll be back in the California sun soon."
"That’s the plan." He should have been excited—the job here was supposed to be his way back to his life in L.A.—but a part of him looked at the twinkling lights, the cozy neighborhood, the normal suburbia that surrounded him and missed this world.
How could that be? He’d never had this normalcy, barely even had a taste of it. A man couldn’t miss what he’d never had. Stephanie had been the one with the Norman Rockwell life. Her mother had hung the stockings; her father had carried home the chubby fir tree that the whole family decorated. At Cole’s house, his parents were usually arguing, which ended with Dad drinking in the den and Mom slamming the door on her way out to another party. Christmas had been one more knot in an already tense rope. Cole would escape to Stephanie’s house, to a world so different from his own, it didn’t even seem to be on the same planet.
"So why are you playing Santa at the Orchard Mall?" she said, interrupting his thoughts.
He started to lie, to spin the web of falsehoods that had become part and parcel of life in Hollywood. No one told the truth in that town. Career shifts were strategic moves, bad reviews were disgruntled ticket holders and lackluster performances were purposely understated to allow the audience to be more engaged. Nobody failed in Hollywood. They just pretended to succeed.
But this was Stephanie, the only person in his life who had known him from day one, the only one who knew who he really was, and the only one he couldn’t lie to. "Everything was going great in L.A. Plum roles, great reviews. I even won an Emmy."
"I saw that."
"You did?"
"Well, I read People magazine too." She shrugged. "It was in there."
Did she read it to keep up with him? Or to follow the latest on Will and Kate? Cole wanted to ask, then decided he didn’t want to hear the answer. "Did you also see the follow-up story? The one about my drunken monologue at a party?"
She shook her head. "What happened?"
The street was quiet, houses buttoned down for the night. Christmas lights twinkled on front porches and in low shrubs, while inside those warm, cozy houses, families laughed and watched movies and ate popcorn. A car came down the road, slowed, then turned into a driveway on the right. A little boy ran and peeked out the window, waving to his father as he got out of the car.
Cole let out a breath that frosted in the cold air and turned away from the images of family. "I had a few too many and I was at a big-time director’s house for his party. Apparently I told off his wife, his mistress and his extra girlfriend, which became a debacle of screaming women who all thought they were the only ones in his heart and his life. By the time I was done, even the maid was crying."
"That’s a lot of alcohol."
"Yeah. My name was toast after that, and I skipped the Emmy’s, to stay out of the limelight, and humbled myself to beg for another shot. One of the execs at Holiday Pictures owns the Orchard Mall and when his regular Santa came down with the flu, he asked my agent to have me do it. I think it’s payback, because John Dexter is friends with the other director, but you know, I earned that payback."
She walked along, not saying anything for a while. "I’m surprised."
"Surprised at what? That I would make a fool of myself?"
"No. That you would undermine the thing you wanted so badly."
"I didn’t undermine it. I got drunk."
"I think sometimes we make certain choices because a part of us wants a change. Sometimes, it’s not a good change. And sometimes it’s a blessing in disguise." They had stopped at a crossing, and above them, moonlight glistened in Stephanie’s brown hair, in her green eyes. God, she was beautiful. "Do you remember the dog?"
Just like that, he was transported back in time, nine, no, eleven years in the past. Stephanie and Cole, walking home from school, when a beagle darted into the road at this very intersection. A distracted driver ran the light, hit the dog, and barely slowed before gunning the engine and disappearing around a corner. The dog lay in the road, whimpering and twitching, bleeding from a gash on its side.
"You ran right up to that dog," Cole said. "And I tried to hold you back in case he bit you."
"He was hurt."
"We carried him three blocks to the vet’s," Cole said. He remembered the beagle curling up against his chest, looking up at Cole with sad, trusting, brown eyes. At the time, Cole wouldn’t have cared if it was ten miles.
"You carried him. I just worried." She grinned. "The vet told us his owner would probably come looking for him, and not to get too attached, but we were already attached to him."
That whole week, Cole had stopped by the vet’s every single day after school, checking on the dog, praying that the real owners wouldn’t come, even though he knew his parents would never let him keep the dog. Then one day the dog had been gone, back to his real home.
"The day that dog got adopted was the day you tried out for the school play," Stephanie said. "Much to the objection of your father."
"I was grounded for a month for quitting football to do theater." He’d been a star in football, even had colleges talking scholarships. "My father told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life, one I would live to regret."
"And look how it worked out. You ended up in Hollywood, with an Emmy, seeing your dreams come true."
"And seeing them destroyed."
She put a hand on his arm. "Whether they’re destroyed or not is up to you, Cole."
He snorted. "Yeah, well, that remains to be seen."
Stephanie had a point, though. At the time that he’d quit football, he’d done it as a revenge move against his parents. In the end, he’d found his passion. But was it still his passion if the thought of making another movie exhausted him? Maybe it was the long days at the mall that had Cole feeling…disconcerted. A little lost.
They had reached the edge of the park that centered Stephanie’s neighborhood. He didn’t see the snow-covered grassy lawn or the stark silhouette of the playground against the bare trees and moonlit sky. Instead, he saw leafy trees spreading their shade over wide open spaces, a striped blanket and Stephanie, looking up at him with laughter in her eyes. Their last picnic, before he had left for California, alone. "Do you remember the picnic we had here? That was the best picnic I’ve ever been on," he said.
She laughed. "Well then you haven’t been on very many."
"Just the ones with you." Those summers in the years of high school and college had seemed endless. Just him and Stephanie, spending their afternoons in the sun, on the beach, or at this park. Laughing and kissing and soaking up the time with each other.
"Those days were a million years ago," she said.
He turned to her, and caught her hand before she could walk away. "Are they?"
A question sparked in her green eyes. "Cole, what are you doing? We’re over, and have been for years. You’re going back to L.A. after the holiday and I’m not going to be some fling you have before you go back to the coast."
The words, cold and sharp, were like an icicle to his heart. "Is that what you think I’m here for?"
"Aren’t you?" She took her hand out of his and tucked her hands under her arms, as if s
he was cold. "Because I remember you telling me that if I wanted all this," she waved at the neighborhood, the blinking lights, the minivans in the driveways, "then I wasn’t the kind of girl who would fit in with your Hollywood lifestyle."
Ouch. He had said that. And six years later, it didn’t sound any better. "I was young and stupid, Stephanie. I should have said…"
"What?" she prompted when he didn’t finish. "What should you have said?"
How did he begin to word the war in his head? How could start to tell her the constant battle he waged against what he wanted and what he was? That he envied her the world that she lived in, a world he had never dared to trust in himself? "It’s complicated."
"That’s what I thought. To me, what’s important is very, very simple to figure out." She shook her head and let out a snort. "Whatever, Cole. Do me a favor and quit trying to pretend we can be friends."
"Aren’t we?"
"No," she said, the words frosting in the cold, "we aren’t."
He closed the gap between them, watching her eyes widen, her breath catch. It wasn’t winter that made that happen, he’d bet his bank account on that. "Then what are we, Stephanie?"
"Over."
Stephanie wanted a big Hollywood exit after she said that word, but there was no director yelling cut, no scene break for her to conveniently slip away. There was a long, cold walk back to her house, and Cole refused to get the hint and walk the other direction. In his defense, his rental car was parked in front of her house, so he kind of had no choice unless he wanted to sleep in the park.
Thank God her mother had still been at her house when Cole came by. Helen had agreed to watch Joshua so that Stephanie could get rid of Cole before he saw their son’s cherubic face in the window. Trouble was, Cole wouldn’t go away.