Do Not Open 'Til Christmas

by Sierra Donovan

  “Good job,” Kate said when she came home from the store. “You made me cry.”

  She made Kate cry?

  No, of course not. It was Aaron’s story that made Kate cry, and she couldn’t forget that. She’d only told the story; Aaron had lived it. Was still living it.

  She had a call from her parents, which shouldn’t surprise her, because she already knew they were proud of her. But she’d written so many articles for the Tall Pine Gazette by now, they weren’t usually a topic of conversation.

  When she stopped at the Pine ’n’ Dine to pick up some takeout chicken, it happened again.

  “Congratulations.”

  “Beautiful article.”

  “How long have you been writing for the paper?”

  She’d spent so much time steeling herself against Bret’s criticism, convinced she was never going to measure up, that it took a few hours for full comprehension to sink in. He hadn’t been trying to torture her, or even just using a harsh method to teach her.

  He’d made her shine.

  * * *

  “Bret.”

  He’d just settled behind his desk Monday morning when Chloe showed up in the doorway of his office. “I wanted to thank you.”

  He didn’t pretend not to understand. “Don’t thank me. You earned it. And then some.”

  She smiled. But there was a reserve to her smile, and that wasn’t like Chloe. “Okay.” She shifted in the door. “Nine-fifteen for story conference?”

  “Sure.”

  She turned to go. A cloud seemed to hang over her. Maybe she hadn’t gotten over the grinding he’d put her through, but he didn’t think that was the case. After all, she’d just thanked him.

  “Chloe?” He let his voice come out softer than usual.

  She turned back, eyes shimmering with what looked suspiciously like unshed tears. “What?”

  “Are you all right?”

  She leaned against his doorjamb, arms hugged around today’s rust-colored cardigan sweater. “I feel like I’m benefiting from someone else’s problem,” she confessed. “Aaron’s stuck in a wheelchair. And people are congratulating me. It doesn’t seem right.”

  Dear God. He knew he’d given her a hard subject to tackle. But he hadn’t expected this. Looking at Chloe now, he wondered why he hadn’t seen it coming. It was her empathy that made her so good at writing stories like this one.

  He struggled for some balance between moral support and professional neutrality. “You can’t fix everything. You told the story. You told it honestly and you did it well. That’s not nothing.”

  “I wonder—” Her shoulders drew up as she pulled in a breath. “I wonder if I’m cut out for this. I don’t know if I can be—objective enough.”

  He tried to ignore the unshed tears. The fact that they made her eyes brilliant, that at the moment they looked more blue than gray or green.

  He couldn’t acknowledge the tears, but he couldn’t ignore them, either. He sat forward, trying for once to minimize the amount of space the desk put between them.

  “I don’t quite understand,” he said. “What made this harder than the hospice piece? You asked for that one. And you were talking to bereaved families.”

  Her eyes drifted somewhere past him as she considered. “Maybe because when I talked to those families, the worst thing had already happened to them. It was over, and I guess they were already starting to heal a little bit. I mean, I didn’t talk to anyone whose mother died last week or anything.”

  Bret flinched inwardly. Once again, if he didn’t know better, he would have pegged Chloe for a closet sadist.

  But he did know better.

  “With Aaron—” She paused. “Maybe the worst thing’s already happened to him, but he hasn’t had a chance to start healing. He’s been going through it for four months. And I couldn’t make it better. I know that’s not my job. But I kept wanting to change the story.”

  “I understand,” Bret said quietly. “You wanted to make a difference.”

  She nodded, biting her lip.

  He’d set her up for this. Maybe he was the closet sadist. Professional relationship or not, he needed to make it right. But he needed to do it from this side of the desk, even though he found it increasingly hard to stay here.

  He asked, “Do you know why I assigned that story to you?”

  She hesitated. “To help me make an impression?”

  “That was part of it,” he admitted. “I wanted to show people what you could do. But the other reason was—you were the right person for the story. I knew Aaron McNamara was in good hands. I knew you’d treat him right, and you did.”

  Her arms wound tighter around her sweater. “I just hope I didn’t make it worse.”

  He shook his head. “He wanted to tell his story. Otherwise his family never would have let you in the door. And you treated him with respect. Don’t feel guilty because you wrote an article that moved people.”

  The shadow of a smile appeared at one corner of her mouth. “With your help.”

  “In your words. And don’t lie. I know you wanted to shoot me dead at least seven times.”

  She didn’t deny it. At last her lips curved up in a smile. It was small, but it was real. Her eyes were still shining. He shouldn’t be noticing, but in that moment he’d never seen anyone look more beautiful. Not because of her face, which was lovely enough, but because of the heart behind it.

  Bret ignored the lump in his own throat.

  “It’ll be all right,” he told her. “It gets better. You’ll see.”

  With visible reluctance, she pulled away from the doorjamb to leave.

  “Also,” he added, “if you quit this job before Christmas, I’ll kill you.”

  That got a shaky spurt of laughter out of her. Good.

  Bret didn’t say any more, but if he knew Tall Pine the way he thought he did, things would look better sooner than she expected.

  * * *

  Chloe returned to her desk. The weight she’d been carrying since yesterday afternoon felt a little bit lighter. Not gone. But lighter.

  She sat down and checked her voice mail. Several messages had come in yesterday and this morning, complimenting her on the article, most from people she didn’t even know.

  Then the e-mails. Two of them asked if there was anything they could do to help Aaron and his family. That was better, although she didn’t have a ready answer. Maybe she could call his mother and ask. She put her hand on the phone and hesitated. It was still relatively early in the morning. And frankly, she wasn’t sure what to say.

  She took a fortifying drink from her coffee—coffee that Bret had made before she came in—and got busy polishing up her weekly list of story proposals. She made sure to include some cheerful ones. She wanted to write about kittens and puppies and babies and—

  “Morning.” Chuck’s voice came from her right. She hadn’t heard him come in. “Good job on the Aaron McNamara story.”

  She smiled faintly. “Thanks.”

  Just before lunchtime, she got another phone call.

  “Miss Davenport? This is Wayne Schallert from Tall Pine Community Bank.”

  In what had become reflex, she grabbed her pen and notepad. “Yes?”

  “We’ve had several calls this morning about your story on Aaron McNamara. People read about the problems he’s been having with his insurance claim, and they’re looking for away to contribute.”

  Chloe sat up straighter.

  “We wanted to let you know we’re setting up an account for contributions. If you’d like to run something in the paper to let people know . . .”

  She wrote down the information, started to e-mail Bret, and called his extension instead.

  “Write up a news brief.” His tone was as clipped as ever. Then he added, less brusquely, “It’s all you’ll need.”

  With the response she’d been getting from the town, she was beginning to believe that. What she no longer believed was Bret’s terse, clipped tone. He had a hea
rt. He just didn’t want anyone to know it. She’d heard it in his voice this morning, when he talked about making a difference. The same words he’d used at The Snowed Inn. He’d been so much less guarded that night. She wondered what had gotten into him, and if she’d ever see that side of him again. Why did he work so hard to keep himself under wraps?

  She shook herself. But at least she was thinking about something besides Aaron in his wheelchair.

  Chloe worked through her lunch, taking calls about the story, referring readers to the bank when they asked how to help, all while trying to get this week’s articles off the ground.

  It was almost five, and she was finally almost done writing her first story for the week, when another call came through from Jen at the front desk. Chloe picked it up.

  “Miss Davenport? This is Rita McNamara. Aaron’s mother.”

  As if she could forget. “Call me Chloe. Please.”

  “Chloe.” There was something strained in her tone; Chloe hoped it wasn’t a bad thing. “I wanted to say thank you. I would have called sooner, but things have been so hectic.”

  She didn’t know if Mrs. McNamara knew about the bank account yet or not. “You don’t have to—”

  “We’ve had calls all day long,” Mrs. McNamara went on. “We’ve found money in the mailbox, under the doormat . . . But the best thing of all is, Aaron’s friends have been coming out of the woodwork. They’ve called, they’ve dropped by—it’s like Christmas came early.”

  Chloe found herself nodding, even though it was a phone conversation. “Just as long as they don’t all come in one day.”

  “I finally told a few of the ones who called that it might be better if they came by in a few days, or next week. I think they understood.”

  Chloe clutched the phone. “Good.”

  And I’m dropping by again, too, she decided. Before Christmas.

  As she hung up, she felt her heart lift, and she realized that was the call she’d wanted to get all day. She returned to her article, but she had trouble seeing the letters on her screen. She was crying again.

  But this time, for a better reason.

  Chapter 10

  Chloe had never seen so many of the Gazette staff at once.

  An e-mail from Bret had pulled them into the newsroom from the various departments throughout the building. She’d come to think of this place as the house M. C. Escher built; it didn’t seem possible that a structure that looked so unassuming on the outside could hold so many departments. But the newsroom, in her mind, was the kernel of the enterprise—not just because the stories generated from here, but because it seemed to lie in the center, judging by the doors and hallways that led away from it on every side.

  Most of the thirty or so faces in the room weren’t familiar. She’d chatted with a few people in the break room now and then while she heated her ramen noodles, but most of them seemed in as much of a hurry to return to their own departments as she was to get back to her next deadline.

  Bret stood against the door frame of the editor’s office, as if loath to leave his post, and Chloe suspected that was the case.

  He’d called the meeting for two p.m. Despite the murmur of voices as people continued to drift in, he started at five minutes after.

  “Okay, everyone, I’ll keep this short.” Although he didn’t raise his voice much, it carried easily, and conversation died off. Chloe had a feeling meetings like this were a rarity. “We have a Christmas surprise, or at least it came as a surprise to me. I got word this morning that an executive from the corporate office is coming to town tomorrow. Just in time for the company Christmas party.”

  That brought a fresh murmur of voices. Once again, Bret silenced it in the simplest way possible: he kept talking.

  “Executive Vice President Lloyd Mossel will be passing through our offices sometime tomorrow. It’s a disruption we didn’t expect. But he’s pretty high on the food chain, so we need to make sure we give the right impression. In our eyes, we’re the only paper this town’s got, and I happen to think we do a pretty fine job.”

  A small smattering of applause started.

  “But.” Bret cut it off. “In the eyes of Liberty Communications, we are a very small piece on a very big Monopoly board. Their interest in us is limited to how cost-effective we are and how little hassle we are. We need to be viewed as an asset, not a liability. When Mr. Mossel drops in tomorrow, I want him to see an efficient little gem. That means—and I’m sorry about this—tidy desks. Make an effort to clean up your work area before you leave tonight, because we’re not sure exactly what time our executive rolls in for his nickel tour. Also, tidy personal appearances. Some of us do our best work in sweats. But not tomorrow. If that’s you, dig something a little dressier out of the back of your closet.”

  That wouldn’t be a problem for Bret. He stood before them today in his habitual gray sport jacket. He went on, “Most of all, at the Christmas party tomorrow night, let’s all be on our best behavior.”

  “Define ‘behavior,’” a male voice somewhere behind Chloe interjected.

  “I was afraid of that.” Bret didn’t miss a beat. “It means common sense. We’ve all heard stories about company Christmas parties—not necessarily ours, mind you—but let’s keep tomorrow night free of colorful stories. If you drink, drink responsibly. You know your limits. And this should go without saying, but Mr. Mossel is to be regarded as a visiting dignitary. Give him the utmost respect. He’s the Pope, the President of the United States, and Paul McCartney all rolled into one.”

  “Paul who?” came a younger voice—once again, somewhere in the back, in the smart-aleck tones of someone who obviously knew better.

  Once again, Bret didn’t so much as blink. “Dave Grohl, then.”

  Another brief smattering of applause. Chloe was surprised Bret could whip out the name of the leader of the Foo Fighters at a moment’s notice. Bret’s lips twitched with what might have been amusement as he shrugged. “Enough said. We all have work to do, so let’s do some quick housekeeping and get back to it.”

  With that, Bret turned away and went back into his office. Five minutes, start to finish. No Q & A.

  Chloe considered the surface of her desk. She had a tendency toward clutter, and no matter how often she cleared it, the new piles of folders and scraps of notes started right away. She’d have to make some extra time to clear it.

  Eyeing her miniature Christmas tree and decorations, she hesitated. She hated to even consider it. But if anyone in the newsroom ran afoul of the bigwig from the corporate office, it had better not be her.

  She waited until Bret passed by on his next trip to the coffee machine. “Bret? What about Christmas decorations?”

  Bret’s eyes narrowed, regarding her tree once again. This would be a golden opportunity for him to play the Grinch. But after a long moment, the corners of his mouth twitched upward again. Just barely.

  “As long as the twelve days of Christmas are all in order,” he said, “I think you’re okay.”

  * * *

  Bret had never gone to the company Christmas party before, and he hadn’t planned to attend this one. Now he was obligated to be here, serving as both host and babysitter.

  He sat at a table in the banquet room of Barrymore’s Steakhouse, passing the time with Ned and Debbie. They wouldn’t be here long; it was their first night out without the baby, and Debbie kept sneaking furtive glances at her cell phone. Lloyd Mossel, the high muck-a-muck from Liberty Communications, was perusing the hors d’oeuvres at the buffet table, and for the moment Bret was content to leave him to it. Schmoozing could wait. If one of the guys from the press room started to dance on the table, that would be Bret’s cue to create a diversion.

  The banquet room was decorated for Christmas, but they’d gone for understated gold-and-silver elegance, rather than bright reds and greens. Bret had ordered a hot toddy—something he could nurse over a couple of hours without any real effects, but it carried a bite and a sting that had a certai
n Dickensian flavor.

  He thought of his crack to Chloe about the shoe-blacking factory and how quickly she’d picked up on the Dickens reference. So far, he hadn’t seen her here.

  “You know,” Ned said to Debbie, “if we leave now, we could stop by the tree lot on our way home. It’ll be easier without the baby along.”

  Debbie gave her cell phone another glance to check the time. “You’re right.” She turned to Bret. “Everything gets a little more complicated with a baby. It didn’t hit us until two days ago that we needed to set up a sitter.”

  Ned added, “And tying a tree to the car while you’ve got a baby carrier in the backseat—”

  “In the cold,” Debbie added.

  Bret shook his head. “Go, go. You don’t have to convince me.”

  They stood. Deb surprised him with a hug. “Merry Christmas, Bret.” She pulled back and studied him. With a softness in her tone, she added, “Are you doing okay?”

  Bret blinked. Plenty of people remembered Helena Radner. Very few thought of the fact that she’d died shortly before Christmas. Millie Bond would remember, yes. But the photographer’s wife?

  “Never better,” he said.

  “Say hi to your dad for me.”

  And there was the connection. Debbie had interned at the town hall, taking minutes at the meetings, when Bret’s mother got sick. His father had stepped down from the council shortly after her death.

  Bret didn’t know why he always forgot how intertwined everyone’s lives were in Tall Pine. But he knew Deb’s concern was intended as a kindness, not an unpleasant reminder. He needed to respond with some grace.

  “Thanks. I will.” Bret nodded. “Good night, Deb.”

  He’d just resumed his seat at the table when, across the room, Chloe walked in. But it wasn’t quite the same Chloe he’d seen at the office a couple of hours ago. She wore a black dress with slender straps at the shoulders, making her look more delicate than usual. Gold hoops gleamed at her ears, and she’d done something different with her hair, creating blond curls that fell loosely around her face. From across the room, her eyes had a look that was somehow smokier.

  At the moment, those eyes were directed at Mike from the press room, who’d crossed the room in three strides to reach her. She smiled a greeting, and her lips shimmered faintly.