Do Not Open 'Til Christmas

by Sierra Donovan

  That was a closing line if ever she’d heard one.

  Chloe returned to the copy room and scooped up her copies, remembering at the last minute to take out the original. She peered into the belly of the photocopier and didn’t see anything left of the jammed paper, so she closed the plastic door in front. The machine belched out a series of chugging-whirring noises, and it didn’t beep at her. It must be satisfied. She went back to Bret’s office and found him fixed on his computer screen. “Bret?”

  It felt strange to say his first name. Maybe that was why he raised his head so sharply, as if she’d startled him. She realized that so far, she’d avoided calling him anything at all.

  Now he looked at her with barely a trace of recognition. Certainly not as if he remembered bandaging her finger five minutes ago. Maybe you had to be bleeding to hold the guy’s attention.

  She shouldn’t have poked her head in. “I just wanted to say . . . I’m headed out. I think the copier’s okay now.”

  “Okay.” He was virtually expressionless. “No more bloodshed?”

  So he did remember. “No, I’m fine. Thanks again.” She ventured a smile.

  He didn’t give one back. “No problem. Rest up this weekend.”

  Okay, then.

  Chloe left, the cumbersome AP style guide weighing down her briefcase.

  * * *

  Once Chloe left, Bret dropped his head forward and clasped his fingers at the back of his neck, trying to stretch away the tension. The words he’d read for the last ten minutes had barely registered. He would have liked to blame it on an exhausting week. But he kept remembering the little hot and cold flashes he’d felt while he was holding Chloe’s hand.

  He’d be back in the office tomorrow; that went with the territory. He’d taken plenty of calls from McCrea on a Saturday afternoon, asking about some fine point on one of Bret’s stories for the Sunday or Monday edition.

  Pace yourself had been McCrea’s last words of advice to Bret before he left last Friday. For tonight, maybe the smart thing for Bret was to go home and get some food and a good night’s sleep before he tried to put together two more days of news. He could take copies of the layouts home with him and glance over them before he went to bed. Give his brain a chance to process them while he slept.

  So he took the layout sheets to the copy room. When he hit the button to make the first copy, the photocopier revved up, whirred, and beeped in annoyance.

  Bret sighed without surprise. Finding every source of a jam on this machine was a lot like trying to find an itch in the middle of your back. He opened the front of the copier and looked. Nothing in the middle of the machine, the site where Chloe had sliced her finger. He tried another lever, pulled a latch, and fished out a sheet of paper. It was curled, half-torn, and smudged with toner. He glanced at it.

  Chloe’s résumé.

  And suddenly, he recalled the way she’d stood in front of the machine when he walked in. Concerned about her hand, he hadn’t questioned it. Note to self: Chloe wasn’t too bad at subterfuge. He’d have to remember that.

  Better than remembering the pretty gray-green eyes that had looked at him so uncertainly, or the way she’d bitten her lip to try to hide the obvious fact that the cut hurt. Or how small her hand had felt in his. How he’d liked the chance to take care of her. Just for a few minutes. You’d think, by now, he would have had enough of taking care of people.

  More to the point, after one week in this office, she was already updating her résumé. Either a slacker, or she really didn’t like it here. Maybe it wasn’t hard to imagine why that would be.

  He glanced over the résumé, printed on smooth ivory-colored paper that was thicker than the photocopier’s standard stock. He’d never seen Chloe’s résumé before, since McCrea had hired her before he told Bret about it. Like the résumé of most people in their early twenties, there was basically nothing on it. Waitress at the Pine ’n’ Dine for two years, plus the recent addition of her job here, vaguely dated from the current year to present. Just as much space was devoted to her college years. B.A. in English with an impressive grade point average, graduated summa cum laude, volleyball team.

  Volleyball?

  He wondered if she had any prospects. Tall Pine wasn’t exactly rife with job openings. Maybe she’d try to take her vast journalistic experience down the hill. A few days ago, that wouldn’t have sounded so bad to Bret. But if she left, he’d end up doing more writing himself, or trying to find someone else with some ability. And train them.

  As green as she was, her writing skills were good, and she took direction pretty well.

  That lip-biting, though . . .

  Bret crumpled the tattered résumé and threw it into the waste paper basket next to the copier.

  Chapter 4

  She was late. Or, more precisely, she wasn’t here.

  Through his windowed wall, Bret eyed Chloe’s vacant desk, felt steam rise between his ears, and tried not to jump to conclusions.

  It didn’t mean she was off on a job interview or, more irresponsibly, that she’d simply decided not to show up. Chloe seemed more conscientious than that. But then, he didn’t really know her, as her clandestine copying attested. And no matter how you sliced it, late on a Monday morning didn’t look good.

  He tried to be patient. He didn’t even count her as late until Chuck rolled in at his usual ten minutes after eight. That, Bret had learned to expect long before he stepped into McCrea’s shoes. Chuck always made up for any lost time while he was here. But now it was eight-twenty, and with Chuck’s presence, Chloe’s absence became glaring.

  Bret did a recount of the stories filed last week. Chuck had turned in a whopping fifteen articles, stepping up his pace without breaking a visible sweat, while Bret had completed a measly six. McCrea’s warning was coming true. Bret couldn’t write nearly as much as he normally did—not while he was editing everyone else’s work, chasing photographers, choosing from the national stories that came off the wire, and laying out the paper. He was putting in a lot of extra hours, including most of his Saturday to get the Sunday and Monday editions put together.

  Three reporters, twenty-four local stories, counting Chloe’s three, plus all those press releases he’d had her write up. If you took out Chloe’s share . . .

  Bret passed a hand through his hair and glared uselessly at her empty desk again. No point in living out every scenario, McCrea would have said. After all, she’d left her cat coffee mug on her desk, along with the custom-printed mouse pad she’d brought in. Somewhere she’d scared up an image of the now-retired comic strip reporter Brenda Starr with a speech bubble that read, “I didn’t go into journalism for money or fame.”

  Bret gritted his teeth. A job interview at this hour on a Monday, he reminded himself, wasn’t likely.

  He’d almost succeeded in getting focused on his plans for the day when she pushed through the door from the lobby at high speed, just shy of eight-thirty. She wore a skirt, not the best choice for a November day in Tall Pine, but if she’d been on a job interview, it had ended pretty quickly.

  Dropping into her seat, Chloe shrugged her coat onto the back of her chair and cast a surreptitious look toward Bret’s office. Yep. I see you. He averted his eyes and tapped at his keyboard.

  Patience, he reminded himself. Give her the benefit of the doubt. After all, there were all kinds of reasons for being late. And hadn’t he made up his mind last week to be nicer?

  She was here. For the moment, he’d take it.

  He waited a suitable amount of time before he got up to go to the lobby. Jen ought to have the weekend mail sorted by now, and it would give him a chance to stretch his legs. He’d been here nearly two hours already.

  He passed Chloe with a nod, not acknowledging her tardiness one way or the other. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, the way he’d made up his mind to do.

  In the lobby, Jen sat behind the reception counter, stacks of envelopes piled in front of her. She didn’t look up as Br
et entered.

  “Hey, Jen. Have you got—”

  She scooped up a pile of mail, reached over the counter, and slapped it into his hand. “Here you go. Sorry.”

  Bret sifted through the envelopes. “So how was your weekend?”

  “Not bad.”

  Something off-key in the receptionist’s usually placid tone poked through Bret’s contemplation of the mail. He looked up to find her intent on the task of distributing envelopes in the vertical files on the left side of her counter. Her movements seemed brisk and just a little harried.

  That wouldn’t do. Jen wasn’t quite old enough to be his mother, but she generally gave off a calming presence that was almost maternal. The sane front line of defense in the Gazette’s chaotic little world.

  “Everything okay?” Bret asked.

  “Oh.” With a quick shake of her head, she looked up from her task for the first time with a distracted smile. Her hair was still shaped in its usual orderly brown waves, so nothing could be that amiss. “No big deal. Just running behind. My car wouldn’t start this morning, and I had to get a jump from a neighbor. I’m just playing catch-up.”

  “Sorry. Not a fun way to start the week.” Bret glanced back down at his mail, but then his brain processed a pertinent fact. “So you don’t know if it’ll start again.”

  “I’ll figure it out after I catch my breath.”

  Bret folded his arms. “I’ll give you a jump at lunchtime and we can run it over to Alex’s Garage.”

  Jen raised a neatly shaped right eyebrow. “Since when do you go to lunch?”

  “Not since McCrea left. See? You’ll be doing me a favor. Don’t give me any guff about it, or no cheeseburger for you.”

  He smacked the counter with the mail and started back toward the newsroom before she could argue.

  Jen’s voice stopped him. “By the way, when are you going to give that poor girl the key code?”

  Bret turned back, feeling a prickle of premonition. “What do you mean?”

  “The new girl. Chloe. She was waiting in her car in the front parking lot for me to let her in. She’s beaten me here most mornings. Didn’t you ever show her the side entrance, or the employee lot?”

  It hadn’t dawned on him. The twenty-four-hour employee entrance opened, not with a key, but with a code on a numeric keypad. He frowned. “You mean, give her the code? She’s only been here a week.”

  “What do you think she’s going to do, wheel out the printing press? Steal the silver candlesticks?”

  Bret shot her a warning look. Jen didn’t bat an eye, but her scolding expression looked more maternal than ever.

  He shook his head at her. “You’re lippy when you’ve had a bad morning.”

  He swatted the counter with the mail again and went back into the newsroom.

  * * *

  Behind her keyboard, Chloe tried to brainstorm three more story ideas to present to Bret. Last week he’d asked for five and turned down two of them. This week, she figured she’d better have no fewer than ten.

  He returned from the lobby, mail in hand, and started past Chuck’s desk and hers. Then he turned and leveled a look at her that she couldn’t quite decipher. But it was milder than the veiled glare he’d given her when he passed by a few minutes ago.

  “You don’t have a key code?” He looked at her, arms folded, a stance she was beginning to learn was a common one for him.

  “A what?”

  “For the employee entrance.” He inclined his head vaguely toward the hallway, in the direction leading away from the copier room.

  “I didn’t know we had one.”

  “You follow the hallway to the door at the end. The one that leads to the lot where the employees’ cars are parked.”

  “I didn’t know we had—”

  “The code is one-eight-three-five.”

  She pulled her ever-handy notepad toward her.

  “Don’t write it down. Memorize it. It’s Elvis Presley’s birthday, if that helps. January eighth, 1935.”

  “McCrea’s a big fan,” Chuck chimed in, half-turning from his screen.

  “If I have to change it before he gets back, I’ll change it to something that’ll really annoy him,” Bret said. “Perry Como’s birthday, maybe.”

  Chloe frowned. “Why would the code change?”

  A pause filled the air, and she wished she hadn’t asked. Chuck turned back to his screen. The answer was obvious: if an employee who knew the code quit. Or got fired.

  Bret said, “Just stay away from the silver candlesticks.”

  Huh?

  While she pondered that remark, Bret unfolded his arms. “Story conferences this morning,” he said. “Chuck, nine o’clock. Chloe, nine-fifteen.”

  And he went to his office, leaving Chloe with about twenty-five more minutes to brainstorm.

  * * *

  “And there’s a junior at the high school who makes money writing thank-you notes. She started her freshman year, and she’s put away almost enough for a car.”

  Bret leaned back behind his desk, arms folded. Again. A faint smile quirked up at the corners of his mouth. “I’m detecting a theme here. That’s three local entrepreneurs so far, plus the two other stories.”

  Chloe skimmed the list she’d printed out. “Mandy Wyndham is holding one more of her craft workshops at The North Pole Christmas shop.”

  “That’s more of a news brief.”

  She’d written plenty of those last week—little single-paragraph items that ran down the side column, with no byline. They didn’t count as stories. And if she didn’t get enough ideas approved, he’d probably drown her in press releases, and she’d probably never get a chance to meet her ten-story goal. Until last week, Frank McCrea had assigned the stories she’d written. Chloe bit her lip and reconsidered her list. She did know a lot of local entrepreneurs, thanks to small talk with customers at the Pine ’n’ Dine. She couldn’t think of much else to write about. Crime was low around here, and things didn’t change much. She’d have to—

  “Tell you what.” Bret’s voice broke in on her thoughts. “Go ahead with the thank-you notes—I know a lot of people who could use that. That gives you five stories to work on for now. Get started on those. Things are bound to come up during the week. When they do, run them by me. Look for local issues. The kinds of things that tick people off. I know Tall Pine isn’t exactly a hotbed of controversy, but it’s not all sweetness and light.” He considered her with that level gaze of his. “How would you feel about covering the town council meeting Wednesday night?”

  As a new hire, Chloe knew there was only one right answer to that. “Absolutely.”

  “Don’t get too enthused. You’ll probably wish you brought along a good book. But here’s what you don’t do. Tempting as it may be, don’t read a good book, don’t check your cell phone, and in this case, take notes by hand. Don’t use a laptop. You don’t want anyone to think you’re browsing the Internet. The meeting has your rapt, undivided attention.” Before Chloe could get any more insulted, his mouth quirked up a little higher. “I recommend lots of coffee beforehand.”

  Chloe brushed aside her indignation. “What’s my deadline?”

  “Let’s say ten p.m. The meeting starts at six; it’s usually out by eight. I know it’s an evening-killer. But if you do have a laptop, you can stop somewhere afterward for a bite while you write it up.”

  And, for the first time Chloe could remember, his eyes shifted away from hers. Leading her to believe he might remember The Night of the Unabomber at the Pine ’n’ Dine, after all.

  Bret resumed, “You probably won’t have Internet connectivity to e-mail it from where you are, so just bring it in on a thumb drive when you’re done.”

  “You’ll still be here at ten?”

  “Please. I live here. For the next three months, anyway.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  “That’ll do for now.”

  Chloe stood, and Bret did, too, in what appeared to be
a show of old-school manners. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Don’t thank me. You haven’t been to the town council meeting yet.” As she started for the door, he added, “You’ll want to look up the articles on the last couple of meetings before you go.”

  Annoyance prickled at her. Bret didn’t seem to think she had the sense God gave a grapefruit. “Of course.”

  Like I wouldn’t do that.

  One dark eyebrow arched up over his glasses, and Chloe almost wondered if she’d said it out loud. But she knew she’d watched her mouth, if not her tone. So she didn’t back down from his steady dark stare.

  McCrea’s clock ticked on the desk between them.

  Bret gave her one of his brief nods. “Thanks.”

  * * *

  The torrent of press releases slowed, and Chloe had the vague feeling she’d passed some sort of initiation, although she wasn’t sure when or how.

  Now that she had a key code, she started coming in earlier to get a jump on the day. Bret was always in his office by the time she arrived, even when she got there a few minutes after seven. And the coffee was already made. So it wasn’t just women’s work after all.

  He still didn’t have much to say to her, and he rarely left his office. Not, at least, until late Thursday morning, when he emerged, took a seat at the desk across from Chuck’s, and unceremoniously started typing.

  It was the desk he’d paused at frequently on her first morning here; it must be his spot when he wasn’t filling in as editor. Rather than sitting parallel to Chuck’s desk, it faced their row of desks at a ninety-degree angle, giving Chloe, who sat behind Chuck, a view of Bret’s face above his monitor. He’d barely sat down, but his speed and concentration suggested he’d been pounding away for the past half hour.

  Chuck looked up. “Decided to come down from Mount Sinai for a while?”

  “Shut up,” Bret said absently, with no visible sign of animosity. His typing barely slowed.

  It reminded Chloe of the way her brothers talked to each other. She supposed she’d have to be one of the boys for Bret to say anything that rude to her.

  “Hey, if you’re going to mingle with the mortals”—Chuck’s eyes were already back on his computer screen—“you’ll have to put up with our prattle.”