by Alyssa Dean
Mable’s forehead furrowed. “You know, Josh, this is the second family thing you’ve gone to in a week. Is there something wrong that you haven’t told me about, or are you just trying to set a world record?”
“No,” said Josh. “I’m giving Amanda a hand—at finding out personal things about people.”
“Oh.” Mable’s lips twitched slightly. “That’s... uh...decent of you.”
Josh put on his coat. “They are my relatives, Mable, and there are a lot of them. I can’t expect Amanda to do it all by herself.”
“Right,” said Mable. “Well, it’s...uh...nice of you to sacrifice yourself.” She walked out of the office, shaking her head.
IT’S A BUSINESS FUNCTION, Amanda told herself.
However, when she opened her door and saw Josh standing on the other side, it was very difficult to remember that.
He stood in the entranceway and studied her from head to toe. “You look nice,” he said. “Very elf-like.”
Amanda flushed with pleasure at the compliment. “You look nice, too.” He looked more than nice. He looked scrumptious, dressed in a long brown parka, which he hadn’t buttoned up, a pair of dress pants, and a white-and-gray shirt under a dark blue sweater. “That’s a great sweater.”
“Is it?” He shrugged. “I think my mother gave it to me. Or one of my sisters. Or maybe an aunt.” He glanced around her small place with outright curiosity. “You know what,” he said. “This does look like an elf lives here, except the doors are normal size.”
Amanda glanced over her shoulder, taking in the small, square living room with the odd bits of furniture her grandmother had given her—a small, dark-oak coffee table with matching end tables, a white-and-green-striped couch, the minuscule Christmas tree in the corner—their papers spread over the coffee table. “A messy elf,” Amanda confessed. “We’re using my entire apartment as an office until we can afford a real one.”
Brandy came out of the kitchen while she was pulling on her coat. Amanda introduced them. “This is my partner. Brandy Bradford. Brandy, this is Josh Larkland.”
“Hi,” Josh said. He smiled his charming smile and shook Brandy’s hand. “Mandy and Brandy. The Christmas elves. You even look like one, too.”
Brandy scowled at him. “It’s not polite to make remarks about people’s height. And for your information, I am not short. I am vertically challenged.” She turned to Amanda. “Remember, you can’t reform them.” She nodded at Josh, and stomped into the living room.
Josh stared after her. “Was it something I said?”
“Don’t mind Brandy,” Amanda advised as she took her coat out of the closet. “She’s just having a... a bad elf day.”
“Oh,” Josh said. He helped Amanda on with her coat, his breath warm against her neck. “I hope it isn’t contagious. Otherwise it could be a very long evening.”
IF THE DRIVE to Shelby’s place was any indication, it was going to be an extremely long evening.
“Are you positive you know where she lives?” Amanda asked as she peered out the window. The city was receding rapidly out the back window, there didn’t seem to be very many lights out here, and Amanda was starting to wish she’d found another means of transportation.
That wasn’t just because of the drive. Being alone with Josh in the dark intimacy of the car just reminded her of how attractive he was. She had to keep looking out the window to stop herself from admiring his profile, the way his hands curled around the steering wheel, or the movement of his thigh when he pressed on the brakes.
“Of course I know where she lives,” said Josh. “I have been here before, you know.”
“Really?” Amanda studied him. “When was that?”
“I’m...not sure. In the fall, I think. Or maybe it was spring.”
“More likely two years ago,” Amanda muttered.
Josh glanced over at her and frowned. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to get you lost.” He stretched out an arm to ruffle her hair. “God knows what Santa would do to me if I lost one of his elves.”
If he didn’t stop touching her, Amanda wasn’t sure what she’d do to him. Just the feel of his hand on her hair made her dizzy.
“Is Brandy your roommate?” he asked after a moment.
“Not anymore,” said Amanda. “She’s been a friend for a long time. When she broke up with her boyfriend she moved in with me for a few months, but now she has a place of her own.”
“Oh,” Josh said. “Well, it was nice of you to help her out.”
“She’s my friend,” said Amanda. “Naturally I wanted to help her out. That’s what friends are for.” She paused, then added pointedly, “That’s what families are for, too.”
“Of course they are,” Josh said easily. “And speaking of family, I hear you were at a cat show yesterday with Marilla.”
“Oh? How did you hear that?”
“The family grapevine keeps me informed.” He glanced over at her. “How did that go? Did you find out anything personal about her?”
“Only that she really, really likes cats, she used to have one named Fitzgerald, and that she finds you intimidating.”
“Intimidating? Me?” He chuckled. “I wouldn’t call myself intimidating.” He glanced over at her. “What do you mean she used to have a cat named Fitzgerald?”
“He got pneumonia.”
“Fluffy got pneumonia?” Josh’s eyes widened. “Poor Marilla. She must be really upset.”
“I think she’s getting over it,” said Amanda. “After all, it did happen last year.”
“Oh,” said Josh. “I didn’t know that.” His forehead furrowed. “I don’t know why people don’t tell me these things.” He stopped the car in front of an enormous house that seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere. “Oh, no,” he said.
Amanda took a quick look around, but couldn’t spot anything unusual. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Isn’t this the place?”
“No, this is the place, all right.” Josh looked over at her and grimaced. “I’ve just remembered a couple of personal things about Shelby.”
“What?” asked Amanda.
“Well, for one thing she’s a university professor.” He switched off the engine and opened his door. “And for another...she’s a lousy cook.”
UNFORTUNATELY. Josh was right.
Amanda stood in Shelby’s kitchen and eyed the tray Shelby was pulling out of the oven. “They’re crab canapés,” Shelby explained. “It’s a variation of a recipe I got when I was in Tucson a few years ago. I discovered that the addition of a little Tabasco sauce and a few jalapeno peppers really spices it up.”
“They look...uh...interesting,” Amanda said, then began to arrange the canapes on a platter. “I really like your house, Shelby. It’s beautiful. And it’s the perfect place to raise a family.”
“We like it,” said Shelby. “Although the drive out here can get exhausting. I seem to spend half my life on that highway.” She paused. “You know, I’d almost forgotten that you hadn’t been out here before. You seem to belong with us, if you know what I mean.”
Amanda shifted uncomfortably. “Well...uh... thank you, but...um...I’m not exactly—”
“And I’m so pleased about it, too,” Shelby went on. “It’s so nice to see Josh out and about again. He seems to spend his entire life in his office—at least that’s where I assume he is,” she said dryly. “My children have even suggested that their uncle Josh might be an agent.”
“An agent?”
“A secret agent,” Shelby explained.
“You mean, a spy?” Amanda bit down on her lip. In that profession he probably wouldn’t last more than a day. On the other hand, when she’d left Josh in the living room a little while ago, he’d been pumping Shelby’s husband Gordon for information. “So, Gordon,” he’d been. saying. “Tell me. What exactly is it that you do?”
Come to think of it, he was sort of acting like a cloak-and-dagger Christmas agent.
“Yes.” Shelby shoved anoth
er cooking platter into the oven. “On our side, of course.”
“Of course,” said Amanda.
“I know it seems far-fetched. But he has all the signs. He’s never around, no one understands what he does, and we don’t see much of him.” She waved around an oven-mitted hand. “He does behave like he’s a spy, doesn’t he?”
Amanda focused on the platter she was creating. “I suppose he does.”
“For a while I almost believed it myself,” Shelby continued. “I think I wanted to. It’s much better than the truth.”
“The truth?”
“You know. That he just isn’t very interested in us.”
Amanda looked over her shoulder at Shelby’s earnest face. “I’m sure he’s interested in you, Shelby.”
“Not really,” said Shelby. “Months go by when no one hears from him, and we seldom see him anymore. I think the party at Mimi’s was the first time I’ve seen him since the summer. And I can’t remember the last time he was out here. Today he even had to ask me for directions.”
Amanda narrowed her eyes. “Oh, he did, did he?”
“Of course, I can’t remember the last time I was at his place, either. And I have no idea what he does. I have asked but he says something like ‘network throughput factors.’ I don’t know what any of those words mean.”
“Neither do I,” Amanda admitted.
“Of course, Josh has always been like that,” Shelby continued. “Even when he was young I couldn’t follow what he was doing.”
Amanda found the idea of a little Josh incredibly interesting. “Really?”
“Oh, yes. He was always wiring things up in the most amazing ways. At one point he had half the house wired up to the television remote control. The only way you could make toast was to turn the television to channel three.” She busied herself doing something with salmon. “Of course, that might have been because of his father.”
Amanda hadn’t followed that. “His father?”
“Yes. He was in some sort of car accident, you know.”
“No,” Amanda said. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well, he was. Of course, I never met him. He passed away before Dad met Edwina. But I understand that he was pretty crippled by it. He found it difficult to get around.”
Amanda was just digesting that when Josh wandered into the room. “Gordon’s been showing me your computer,” he confessed. “I reconfigured your memory, fixed the lost clusters on your hard drive, and got your printer working.”
Shelby stared at him. “You did? That hasn’t been working for six months.”
“That’s what Gordon said.” Josh shook his head. “You should have fixed it a long time ago, Shel. It wasn’t that hard to do.”
“I certainly don’t know how. And neither does Gordon.”
“Yeah, but I do.” Josh washed the black toner off his hands at the sink. “I don’t know why you people don’t call me when you have problems like this.”
“I...uh...just didn’t want to bother you,” Shelby stammered. “You’re busy and...”
“You’re my sister, Shelby,” Josh said patiently. “I’m never too busy to help you out. After all, that is what families are for.” His gaze met Amanda’s over Shelby’s head, and he gave her a smug smile before glancing down at the canapé tray in her hand. His eyes widened, and he cleared his throat. “Well...uh...this has been great, Shelby, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to leave now.”
“But it’s only ten o’clock,” Shelby objected. “And you’ve hardly eaten anything. I...”
“I know,” said Josh. “But we have to get home. Amanda has a headache.”
“She does?” Shelby glanced at Amanda. “She didn’t mention it to me.”
“She didn’t mention it to me, either,” said Josh. He put an arm around Amanda. “But all I have to do is look at her and I know she isn’t feeling well.”
“ALL YOU HAVE TO DO is look at me and you know I’m not feeling well?” Amanda repeated incredulously. She took a bite out of her hamburger and frowned at Josh. “I can’t believe you actually said that.”
Josh’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “Hey, if we’re going to go places as a couple there are some things we should know about each other. Besides, I was getting hungry... and I wasn’t going to eat that. Was it my imagination, or was there fish in everything she served?”
“There was a lot of fish,” Amanda admitted. “Shelby said it was brain food.”
“My brain wasn’t getting full on it.” Josh set down his hamburger while he took a sip of his Coke. He’d stopped at the first fast-food place they’d come to, insisting that he was going to perish if he didn’t have something to eat. “Let’s give her a cookbook for Christmas.”
“We can’t do that!”
“Why not?” Josh asked. “Isn’t it personal?”
Amanda hesitated. “Actually, it’s a little too personal.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, how about if we give it to Gordon, then?”
“No. In Gordon’s case it wouldn’t be personal enough.”
“This is really complicated,” Josh complained. “Ornaments are personal, cookbooks are too personal, or not personal enough. Who writes the rules on this stuff?”
“No one writes them,” said Amanda. “Everybody just knows them.”
“I don’t,” said Josh. He smiled into her eyes. “It’s a good thing I’ve got you around.”
Amanda averted her gaze. Don’t you dare come on to me, Josh Larkland, she thought. I just might go along with it. She knew how that would end. She’d get too intense and he wouldn’t even know it had happened.
“Shelby could sure use some new computer equipment,” Josh said after a moment. “I don’t know why she didn’t call me to take a look at it before.”
“Perhaps she didn’t think you’d be interested in her problems,” Amanda suggested.
Josh looked shocked. “Of course I’m interested! She’s my sister. I’m interested in her.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know that. After all, it doesn’t sound as if you spend much time with her.”
Josh lowered his eyelids. “I spend time with her. Besides, I’m...busy.” He was silent for a moment. “You know what I’d like to give Shelby? A ten-gig hard drive, some extra RAM memory and a fast data/ fax modem. Would that be personal?”
“It depends what it is,” said Amanda. “I didn’t understand a word you said.”
“It’s what Shelby needs to bring that computer of theirs up to date.” He leaned back in his chair. “Gordon told me that Shelby spends a lot of time driving back to the university at night to use the Internet. With some new equipment, she’d get better response time at home, and she wouldn’t have to do that. I’d even volunteer to come out and install it—as long as it’s after lunch and before dinner.”
“You would?”
“Of course, I would. She’s my sister, Amanda. I’d like to help her out.”
“Oh,” said Amanda. “Well, in that case, I’d say it’s very personal. And very thoughtful.”
“It is?” Josh looked both pleased and surprised. “Hey, maybe I’m getting the hang of this, after all.”
Amanda watched him munch away on his hamburger. Maybe he was getting the hang of this.
When Josh stopped his car in front of her apartment building, switched off the engine, and started to get out, Amanda put a hand on his arm to hold him back. “Thank you for taking me,” she said. “But there’s no need for you to get out.”
He turned his head toward her, with a quizzical expression on his face.
“This is a business arrangement, Josh,” Amanda reminded him. “I think we should keep it that way.”
JOSH WAS DEEP in thought when Mable walked into his office the next morning.
“So?” she asked. “How was the party last night?”
“Not too bad,” Josh said.
“Did you...uh...find out anything personal about anyone?”
“Yup,” Josh said. “Shelby
serves a lot of fish, she doesn’t know anything about computers, and Fluffy got pneumonia.”
“Oh,” said Mable. “Well, I suppose that’s something.”
She was on her way out the door when Josh called her back. “Tell me something, Mabe. Would you call me intimidating?”
“intimadating?” Mable turned to face him and released a bark of laughter. “No, I certainly wouldn’t. Obnoxious, maybe. Overbearing. Sometimes belligerent. Intelligent, of course, but...”
Josh scowled at her. “I wasn’t asking for a personal critique. I was asking about intimidating.”
“Oh,” said Mable. “Well, in that case, no. I don’t think you’re particularly intimidating.” She gave him a curious look. “Why?”
“Marilla told Amanda she thinks I’m intimidating.”
“Oh,” said Mable. “Well, I’d say Marilla doesn’t know you very well.”
“That’s what I thought,” Josh muttered. He watched Mable walk out of his office, then pushed himself out of his chair and wandered over to the window. He had found out a few more personal things last night, but they were mostly about himself.
For one thing, he hadn’t expected Amanda to practically leap out of his car when he took her home, after coolly advising him that she thought they should keep their relationship strictly business. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been anticipating another of those tantalizing kisses of hers.
However, now that he thought about it Amanda was probably right. They should keep their relationship strictly business. If they didn’t, it could turn into a relationship sort of relationship, and Josh wanted no part of that. He’d been in enough of those to know how they turned out. As soon as he started dating a woman, she expected him to do things like go out every night, or show up someplace on time...and she’d get annoyed when he didn’t do it. He didn’t want that to happen with Amanda. She was his Christmas elf, and that’s all he wanted her to be.
He shoved aside the niggling suspicion that he wasn’t being completely honest about that and concentrated on his family.
For some time they had been telling him that they didn’t see enough of him. He had thought they were exaggerating, but he was starting to wonder if maybe they were right. There sure seemed to be a lot of things he didn’t know about them. He couldn’t remember the last time he was at Shelby’s. He hadn’t even known she owned a computer, much less needed help with it. She hadn’t called him to give her a hand, either. Marilla thought he was intimidating and she hadn’t told him that cat of hers had gotten pneumonia.