Do Not Open 'Til Christmas

by Sierra Donovan

  “Really?” She lifted her eyebrows. “‘PM’?”

  Bret may have balked, but he recovered quickly. “Résumés in the copier?”

  It was Chloe’s turn to balk. “On my own time. With my own paper.”

  “And company toner.” Bret shook his head. “Never mind. Not the point. The point is . . .” He shifted back from the table, assuming the familiar arms-folded stance. “I know I’ve been tough on you. There isn’t a lot of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in this business. If McCrea ever said anything nice to me, I’d probably have a heart attack. If things were different, I might say, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’”

  If she’d been hoping for a sugar-coated apology, this wasn’t it. Chloe took another sip of cocoa, clinging to her feeling of peace on earth. “But?”

  “But under the circumstances, I really need you to stick around. For one thing—I’m up against it. Filling in for McCrea is a lot more work than I expected. He warned me I’d need extra help, and he was right. For another thing . . .”

  Chloe kept her mouth shut and waited. And waited.

  “You’re good,” he said finally. The two words were low and quiet, as if it cost him something to say them. “You’re green, but you learn fast. And you have talent. Your hospice piece was excellent.” Bret lowered his eyes and traced the edge of the table. She didn’t think she’d ever known him to break eye contact before. “That’s why I held it for this Sunday. Which—since you’re green—you might not realize is the most-read edition of the week.”

  She was going to fall over. If a kind word from McCrea would have given Bret heart failure, Chloe was one step away from a slab in the morgue.

  Mandy returned, buying Chloe a moment to recover. Mandy set two mugs in front of Bret. He looked up at her questioningly.

  “There’s your coffee,” she said. “And I made a hot chocolate by mistake. Habit. It’s our most popular item. That one’s on the house, of course.”

  “Mandy.” Bret’s eyebrows lifted in an I-don’t-buy-it expression.

  Mandy straightened, both hands raised. “Sorry. I can’t take it back once it’s on the table. Food service regulations.”

  “Okay.” A smile twitched at Bret’s lips, his tone milder than usual. “Thanks.”

  Mandy walked away with a light, brisk step. Bret looked after her bemusedly, and Chloe remembered what he’d said in the newsroom: he didn’t care for chocolate. But he eyed the mug for a moment, shrugged, and took a tentative sip.

  He sniffed the drink. “Cinnamon?”

  Chloe nodded. “She puts in some vanilla, too. I asked her how she makes it, but she wouldn’t tell me exactly.”

  “Not bad.” Bret took another drink and set it down, regarding the two mugs in front of him. Then looked at Chloe. “I should go,” he said. “I said my piece, and I promised I wouldn’t keep you. See you Monday?”

  “Of course. I’m not going anywhere. But—”

  She cut herself off as Bret started to rise. When she broke off, he hesitated, halfway out of his chair.

  “—But you have two drinks,” she said.

  “Thanks to our generous hostess, yes.” His eyes flicked to hers; it wasn’t quite the usual incisive stare. “Hanging out with the boss probably isn’t quite what you had in mind.”

  Chloe shrugged. Manners aside, she found she didn’t really want him to go. Maybe because he’d actually said something nice for a change. “We’re off the clock.” She smiled a little. “Just don’t tell me what to do and we’ll be fine.”

  Bret settled back into his seat. “You can have the coffee, if you want.”

  “That works.”

  Bret slid the coffee cup across the table to her. Mandy had added the creamer, per Bret’s specifications; he drank it the same way Chloe did. She eyed her near-empty cup of cocoa and saw the solution. Picking up the coffee, she upended the cup and poured most of it into her remaining cocoa. Bret flinched in alarm, but the coffee went safely into her mug without spilling.

  She grinned. “When you’re a waitress, you learn how to pour.”

  He relaxed visibly, sat back, and took another sip of cocoa. And suddenly they were in uncharted territory.

  “So,” Bret said, “tell me about your book.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I asked before. I wasn’t kidding.”

  Chloe hesitated. She didn’t talk about her writing much to anyone—largely because she didn’t get much of it done. Especially these days. And hardly anyone ever asked. Bret was asking, and he looked as if he might even be listening.

  She took a sip of cocoa-tinged coffee and confessed, “It’s a murder mystery.”

  His eyebrows lifted, but it wasn’t quite the astonished reaction she’d expected. “And?”

  And it would help if I could decide who did it. She bluffed, “A good mystery writer never reveals her plot.”

  “Oh, not fair.” Bret smiled—actually smiled, a real smile—over his cup. It sent an unexpected warmth through her. Or maybe it was the coffee. “Do you go home at night and try to think up new ways to kill editors?”

  “Not yet. Although that’s an idea.” She fingered the handle of her mug. She liked this new version of Bret, and her mouth got ahead of her brain. “Can I say something? Without fear of reprisal?”

  This wasn’t safe. She shouldn’t bring it up. But sitting by the fire in the middle of The Snowed Inn, for some reason, she did feel safe. And of course, now that she’d started, Bret wouldn’t let it go.

  He nodded. “You said it before. We’re off the clock.”

  He might remember this Monday, when they were back on the clock. But it felt too late to turn back, so Chloe forged ahead. “You can be . . . a little . . . sexist.”

  He blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  He looked honestly surprised.

  In for a penny, in for a pound. “When I told you I was writing a book, you immediately assumed it was a romance or a children’s book. Why is that?”

  “Because you write stories about Christmas hotels and nice old ladies who knit?”

  “Those are the kinds of stories McCrea assigned to me.”

  “They’re also the kinds of stories you’ve been proposing, except for the hospice piece.”

  She considered. “Well, I don’t exactly know where the bodies are buried in this town. I know the people I meet at the Pine ’n’ Dine. So, a lot of the stories I have material for are . . .”

  “Soft.” Bret shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with that, really. Nice, human interest stories about nice people—there’s no shortage of those in Tall Pine. And you do them well. Not because you’re a girl. It’s just part of who you are. You like positive things, and most of those stories tend to be light. It’s one of the reasons I underestimated you.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “So you’re admitting you were wrong about me?”

  “I thought I already did.” Bret cracked another smile. “But cut me some slack. You walked in your first day smiling like Mary Poppins. Complete with magical bag.”

  “Briefcase.”

  “Still. What was I supposed to think?” He shifted forward. “Can I give you an honest piece of advice? If you want people to take you seriously, don’t put volleyball on your résumé.”

  She blinked. So he’d actually read her résumé. “It’s a highly competitive sport. And I was good at it.”

  “Chloe.” A glint of humor lit his eyes. “Think about it. A Southern California blonde. Who plays volleyball. Who went to college in Long Beach.”

  “And that’s not sexist?”

  “All I’m saying is, the world isn’t a fair place, and you do fit a certain stereotype.”

  She frowned, feeling a little of her good will dissipate.

  But Bret wasn’t looking at her now. He was gazing down as he swirled the remaining cocoa in his mug. For someone who didn’t care for chocolate, he’d managed to go through more than half of it.

  When he raised his e
yes, their serious expression caught her completely off guard. “What I’m really trying to say is: never let anyone underestimate you.”

  Bret regarded her, dark eyes solemn, giving Chloe the feeling he was really seeing her. The sensation was hard to define, but it made her feel warm, and she felt color fill her cheeks.

  Or maybe the combination of cocoa, coffee, and the fireplace beside her was more potent than she’d realized.

  It felt like a good time to shift the conversation over to Bret. “Meanwhile, what you’d like to write about is a real murder mystery.”

  “Not exactly.” Bret rested his elbow on the table, leaning his head against his hand. “Chuck and I joke about it all the time, but that’s not what I had in mind when I went into journalism.”

  I knew when I was ten. He’d said it her first week. Chloe asked, “What did you want to write about?”

  “You’ll laugh.”

  Her? Laugh at Bret? She shook her head.

  “When I was ten years old,” he said, “my dad left a copy of All the President’s Men lying around, and I read it. I’d read anything.” That, she believed. “But when I read it—that was what I wanted to do. Other kids wanted to play cops and robbers. I wanted to crack a story like Watergate.” He gave a self-deprecating grin. “Of course, that’s not what all reporting is. I know that now. But the idea of finding the dirt, righting the wrongs . . . I wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein. To expose a corrupt president, or something else important. The kind of story that makes a difference.”

  His eyes had drifted past her, and Chloe wondered what he was seeing. Some imaginary time and place, maybe, taking anonymous phone calls, meeting informants in an alley. It made her wonder why he’d stayed in a place like Tall Pine—where, as far as she knew, there weren’t any bodies buried. Admittedly, she liked it that way. It was why she’d moved back here after college. But from Bret, across the table, she felt a wistfulness that pulled at her.

  She thought of an answer. “Maybe those aren’t the only stories that make a difference,” she said. “Maybe the soft stories make a difference, too. Maybe positive stories about everyday people really need to be told.”

  “And you’re writing a murder mystery?” Bret shed his pensive look with a shake of his head and a wry grin. “Come on, tell me. Who gets killed? How far along is it?”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” She folded her arms smugly, enigmatically. Bluffing again. “You’ll have to find out when it’s finished.”

  If that ever happened.

  As she stared across the table at her complicated boss, keeping her Mona Lisa smile in place, Chloe realized how quickly Bret had deflected the topic back to her. He didn’t like being the subject of conversation, she realized, and she suspected it had been some time since anyone had asked him any serious questions about himself. Perversely, it made her want to dig deeper. Maybe those reporter instincts really were becoming ingrained.

  But she’d glimpsed a yearning underneath his customary crispness. And under that, maybe, something else. A melancholy, for lack of a better word. Whatever it was, the puzzle of Bret suddenly intrigued her far more than the mystery she’d been trying to write.

  Chapter 8

  Chloe crossed the employee lot of the Gazette, relishing the crunch of snow under her feet even as she took care not to lose her footing. The layer of white was thin and crisp from melting and refreezing the past few nights. But it still sparkled in the morning light, a cheerful herald of the Christmas season.

  By February the snow would be old hat and no longer so welcome, but today, it was perfect. She didn’t even mind the way the cold seeped into her on the short walk to the employee entrance.

  She adjusted the cardboard box under her arm, entered Elvis’s birthday on the keypad by the door, and stepped into the quiet building. At seven-thirty the Monday after Thanksgiving, all the doors she passed in the hallway were still closed.

  The newsroom was dark and empty when she reached it, and she made short work of decking her desk. A swag of bargain-shelf garland across the front, a wooden stand-up MERRY CHRISTMAS sign on her desktop, followed by the pièce de résistance: her pre-lit, battery-operated mini-tree. It took just a few minutes to hang the little ornaments on it; after all, there were only a dozen of them.

  Satisfied, she settled into her chair, booted up her computer, and started going over the list of story proposals she’d e-mailed to herself over the weekend. She felt refreshed, rejuvenated, and optimistic after two days away from the office. And Friday night had been an encouraging sign that Bret was fairly human, after all.

  When the newsroom door swung open a few minutes after eight, she was surprised to see not only Bret, but Chuck as well. Early for Chuck. Late for Bret. Chloe had never beaten him into the office before.

  “. . . two feet of snow in Utah already,” Chuck was saying. “We don’t know what cold is around here.”

  “So I hear.” Bret was already shrugging out of his overcoat. He hung it on the rack that stood near the door leading out to the lobby. “Jake’s from Pennsylvania, and he says we have no idea what a real winter’s like.”

  Chuck went to his desk, shook his own coat off to hang over the back of his chair. He greeted Chloe as he sat. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

  “Great. How—”

  “What’s that?” Bret interrupted. He’d stopped on his way to the editor’s office, his eyes on Chloe’s miniature Christmas tree.

  “Oh.” Chloe sat forward, picking up a pen to point out the ornaments. “It’s the twelve days of Christmas. See, the topper is a pear, for the partridge in a pear tree. There’s a turtle dove over on your side—”

  “I get it.” Bret’s gaze went from the tree to the swag of garland across the front of her desk. “You’re not going to get carried away with decorations, are you?”

  Stunned, Chloe looked at her humble tree, then at Bret. If he had any memory of their conversation at The Snowed Inn, there was no evidence of it on his face.

  As the silence in the room lengthened, he added: “It’s . . . distracting.”

  “You know, you’re right.” To her surprise, Chuck stepped into the fray. He held one hand out in front of him as if to shield himself from the glare of the tree’s tiny bulbs. He swayed comically. “I’m starting to freak out.”

  Bret’s eyes darted to Chuck with a look that could melt lead.

  Chloe held her breath, afraid that Mr. Neutrality had picked the worst possible time to chime in. She didn’t want Chuck to get his head chopped off for sticking his neck out on her behalf.

  Chuck switched on his computer, seemingly oblivious to Bret’s stare. By the time Bret turned back to Chloe, his glower had faded.

  He gave a faint shake of his head. “Just don’t overdo it.”

  Without another word, he went into McCrea’s office, closing the door behind him.

  Okay, if she’d ever thought she and Bret were going to be pals, obviously that wasn’t happening.

  Chloe sagged and turned to Chuck, bewildered. “Thanks,” she said. “But I hope I didn’t buy you any trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Chuck pulled his keyboard toward him and started typing.

  “I never thought—” She stopped. She didn’t think she needed to apologize for Christmas decorations. Unless . . . “Did I do something politically incorrect?”

  “Nah. He goes to Tall Pine Community Church, same as me.”

  “That’s where my parents go.”

  “What about you?” His mildly chiding tone fell somewhere between that of a father and an uncle.

  “I used to. When I came back up here after college and got my apartment, I kind of... got used to sleeping in on Sundays.”

  “It can be a bad habit.” There it was, that faintly paternal tone, as he gave her the same mild rebuff she got from her own parents.

  Then Chuck’s glance drifted toward Bret’s closed door. “Come to think of it,” he said, “Bret gets into the same habit every Decemb
er.”

  “Any idea why?” Suddenly the lights on Chloe’s little tree looked louder to her, more conspicuous. Thank goodness she hadn’t put them on the flashing setting.

  Chuck started typing. “At this point, you know what I know.”

  Whether or not the newsroom was a boys’ club, Chloe realized, boys didn’t tend to tell each other much.

  Half an hour later, Bret’s door opened. “Story conferences. Chuck, nine o’clock. Chloe, nine-fifteen.”

  This time when he retreated back into his office, he left the glass door open, as was his usual habit. Chloe contemplated her list of story proposals. Maybe she’d better rethink this list of topics. Trouble was, she didn’t have much time to brainstorm.

  She joined Bret in his office promptly at nine-fifteen. She started off by pitching two of her non-holiday stories, and he approved them. He also approved the story about a third-grade class that was making shoebox gifts for underprivileged children.

  She had a feeling it would get harder from here. “Christmas tree preservation tips,” she said.

  “That’s more of a news brief.”

  She nodded. She’d expected that. But she hoped it made a good segue to her next idea. “Speaking of Christmas trees, I got to thinking about the tree in the town square. I thought it might be neat to do a history—when the first tree lighting was, what kind of lights they used back then, find out if anyone knows how old the tree actually is . . .”

  “Chloe.” Bret was shaking his head. “The tree is lit. It’s going to stay lit. If the tree goes out, then it’s news. If we wanted to run a piece on the tree, the time to do it was before the tree lighting.”

  She didn’t even allow herself a sigh. She forged on. “The Christmas parade on Evergreen Lane is this Saturday—”

  “We’ll run a brief this week.” Now he wasn’t even letting her finish her sentences. “And a stand-alone photo the day after.”

  “Okay.” Think of yourself as a turtle, Chloe told herself. Just let it bounce off your shell. Because Bret obviously had a shell of his own, and whatever aberration had made him set it aside the other night, it was firmly back in place.

  She skimmed her list. Bret had already approved two of her non-holiday topics; she only had one left. She should have spread them in between the others. But when seven out of her ten story ideas had to do with Christmas, what could she do?