Do Not Open 'Til Christmas

by Sierra Donovan

  “What was it?”

  “Oh, nothing much. Just the time Winston Frazier was accused of embezzling town funds.”

  “What?”

  Bret nodded. “About five years ago, one of the town employees came to me. He’d discovered a five-hundred-dollar shortage in city funds. They traced it down to a cash contribution from a couple months before. The last person to handle the money was Winston.” He shrugged. “I didn’t buy it. For one thing, I didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to pocket five hundred dollars cash. But I’ve known Winston all my life. He and my dad are good friends, so I was too close to the story. I can interview Winston about day-to-day town business, but not something like criminal charges. I took the information, gave it to McCrea, and he assigned it to someone else. Bella Graham. You’re using her old desk. Well, McCrea told her to proceed with extreme caution. The article did run, a few inches at the bottom of the front page. But needless to say, people saw it, and needless to say, Winston was pretty riled.”

  “She gave him an opportunity to comment, right?”

  “Of course.” Bret fought a smile. “I didn’t think even Winston used the word ‘balderdash’ anymore. But the town had to investigate, which meant a couple more articles.”

  He shifted his grip on the steering wheel. “Fast-forward about a week. Another town employee comes to me after hours. Me, again. And this one was in tears. Because she found the envelope of money between two folders in a stack she hadn’t filed yet. She was going through a divorce at the time, and she was pretty distracted. So.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know how reporters are protected from having to reveal their sources? I went to McCrea. I didn’t tell him who I talked to. And we agreed that we could run a story that completely exonerated Winston. And Bella reported the missing funds as a ‘clerical error,’ which, of course, it was.”

  “You don’t think the woman stole the money and decided to—”

  Bret shook his head. “No doubt in my mind. She was a wreck. But she was ready to face the firing squad. As it was—well, Winston knew what really happened, and he’s not the world’s most agreeable guy. Let’s just say she found another job in town pretty quick. And that’s the untold story of Tall Pine’s biggest scandal.”

  “And the moral of the story is . . .”

  “Tall Pine is a community,” he said. “We have to stand behind what we report, but we also have to live alongside the people we report about. The story did Winston a lot of damage—short-term, because cantankerous as he can be, he really is a decent person, and he’s lived here all his life. We had a chance to hurt someone else’s reputation—another well-meaning, competent person. I didn’t see any point in that, and McCrea agreed with me.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. “Also, if you tell anyone else even that much, I’ll have to kill you.”

  “Even McCrea doesn’t know who she was?”

  “Oh, he probably figured it out. You could, too, if you dug around enough. But again, no point. A nice person made a mistake she wasn’t even aware of. That’s not how they handle things in the big city, but there you go.” A smile touched his lips. “And remember, you’re sworn to secrecy. Because I really don’t want to kill you.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  She sat in silence for a moment, digesting Bret’s story. And realized that he’d distracted her from the question she’d been meaning to ask him for the past few hours.

  “Bret?” she asked. “What are you doing in Tall Pine?”

  “Writing news stories. Remember? We just went to a whole big luncheon about it.”

  “Right. But if you think I could get a job in San Bernardino—” She folded her arms. “Don’t play dumb. You interned at the Washington Post, for heaven’s sake.”

  “A lot of students intern there. You have no idea how huge that place is. It’s hardly a guarantee of employment.”

  “Still. With that on your résumé, I’m sure you could have gotten on a paper in a major city.”

  His eyes were on the road, his mouth set in a firm line that discouraged further questions. Chloe’s mind reeled with wild theories, each one more improbable than the last. He’d punched a senator. He’d gotten the president’s daughter pregnant. He’d driven into a fountain in front of the Capitol. She was tempted to reel them off, just for laughs, but if any one of them was anywhere close to the truth, she’d hate to be sitting in this seat.

  She tried for a direct approach instead. “You were so close,” she said. “It was what you always wanted. How did you end up back in Tall Pine?”

  After a moment’s silence, his answer came, brief and clipped: “Life intervened.”

  She studied him as the desert scenery slid past the driver’s-side window. The light was starting to take on the faintly gold color of late afternoon. His profile remained unmoving, like someone modeling to be the next face engraved on the nickel.

  Then he turned toward her. “You know what?” he said. “We’re wasting our last few perfectly good miles of nothing. Want a turn?”

  She tried to follow his change of subject. “You mean, drive?”

  Without a word, he pulled the Mustang to the shoulder of the road. Letting the car idle, he turned to face her. “One song. Your pick.”

  A faint smile teased at the edges of his mouth, but she tried like hell to read his eyes. They glittered with something she couldn’t name. A challenge? A dare? Or just a warning that the previous subject was closed?

  She couldn’t read his eyes, so she went with the smile. “You’ve got it.”

  Stepping out of the car into the cold desert wind, they traded places. Chloe slid the car’s front seat forward so she could reach the pedals, then fastened the safety belt before Bret felt compelled to remind her. The car felt different from the driver’s side. Even in neutral, it felt more powerful than her little white compact. She curled her hands around the wheel in the ten-and-two position and turned to Bret, who sat beside her. With his safety belt fastened.

  “The Killers, please,” she said. “Track five.”

  While Bret obliged with the CD, Chloe pulled back onto the blacktop. The guitars kicked in, and she pressed down on the pedal.

  The car shot forward, and she saw Bret clutch the door handle.

  * * *

  By the time his Mustang started the climb up the hill to Tall Pine, the light was fading from the sky.

  Bret slowed the car as required for the winding switchback curves, but that wasn’t the only reason he wasn’t in a hurry. Earlier today, when the road stretched out wide and straight in front of them, the world had seemed filled with possibility. As the road narrowed, it felt as if the possibilities narrowed, too.

  His vacation was coming to an end.

  Coldplay music filled the car—Chloe’s choice, a suitably gentle note for a day that was winding down. He glanced over at her in time to see her head drop slowly forward, then bob quickly back up again.

  She darted a look at Bret and sipped her soda. “Almost home,” she said.

  Why was it such a universal reflex for people to deny they’d been falling asleep? It was a silly thing, but somehow endearing.

  She’d picked up the soda when they stopped at a gas station halfway home. Bret wondered if she’d seen through the fact that the stop had been completely unnecessary. No one really needed a break halfway through a two-hour drive, not when the car had more than enough gas to get back to Tall Pine. But Chloe hadn’t questioned it.

  Maybe she didn’t want the day to end, either.

  It was after five o’clock. Suggesting dinner somewhere would certainly be an option. Except that once they reached Tall Pine, the game was over, and the possibilities ended. Dinner together in public would be the perfect fuel for the gossip mill.

  No, once they got home, he’d go back to being her boss again.

  Bret rounded another of the familiar tight hairpin turns and glanced over again as Chloe swayed, her eye
s half-lidded. He’d seen her down a soda and four cups of coffee today, three of those after lunch. She must not be getting enough sleep. Not that it was any of his business.

  After one more switchback, Bret turned onto the main highway back to Tall Pine. Within a few more minutes, the road straightened, and they turned onto Evergreen Lane, which led through town to the residential area.

  Evergreen Lane, with all its Christmas lights. They circled around light poles, stretched across buildings’ rafters, and lined store windows. Several arches of lights stretched above the street from one side to the other: one with bells in the center, another with candy canes, another with a rather dazzling silver Christmas star.

  Chloe looked fully awake now. “I think it gets prettier every year.”

  Bret doubted there was really any change in the lights from year to year, but then, he did his best to avoid the shopping section of Evergreen Lane during the holidays. He sneaked a look at Chloe as they passed under the silver star. He knew she’d been tired, but an unconscious smile touched her lips, and her eyes sparkled. Bret found room to hope that all her associations with Christmas stayed happy.

  They turned up into the hills. Chloe’s apartment complex—all right, the only apartment complex in Tall Pine—was a block off Evergreen Lane, just past the recreation center.

  Bret parked at the curb and got out to walk her to her door, ignoring Chloe’s protests that he didn’t have to do that. He might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who’d let a woman out to walk to her door alone in the dark. There wasn’t enough feminism in the world to convince him that would be civilized.

  He followed a step behind Chloe as she led him up the slate stairway where she’d met him this morning, so many hours ago. Familiarity assailed him as they walked past one door after another, all of them painted a deep green. Evergreen, of course.

  “I had one of these,” he said, feeling a sudden urge to keep talking.

  “You did?” Chloe stopped in front of a door and reached into her purse to fish out her keys.

  He nodded. “Mine was downstairs.”

  “I think they’re kind of a rite of passage around here when you move out of your parents’ house.”

  “Something like that.”

  She hadn’t put her keys in the door. And Bret became aware that his pulse had started racing.

  It was a classic scenario, and he suspected Chloe realized it, too. He didn’t feel like an editor and an employee. He felt like a boy walking a girl home after a first date. Her door didn’t face the street. No one would see. Except that he was her boss again and he needed to start remembering that.

  No matter how tempting it was to pretend he wasn’t, just for a few more minutes.

  Professional ethics, he reminded himself, and took half a step back. Just half a step. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Today would have been just an obligation for me. You made it a lot better.”

  Chloe’s face softened into a smile, and God help him, it was one of those smiles, its glow soft and genuine. “Thank you,” she said. “I had a wonderful time.”

  She hesitated a fraction of a second. Then she stepped toward the door, and Bret turned to go. Mission accomplished. He’d gotten through the day without crossing the boundaries, professional ethics intact. And doing the right thing had never felt so stupid.

  A voice in his head said, Screw professional ethics.

  The moment was almost gone and it would never be here again, so before it was over, before he could stop himself, before Chloe could get her keys in the door, he wheeled around, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her.

  Chloe stiffened, and for a millisecond Bret was sure he was going to get his face slapped.

  Then he felt her relax, and her arms, caught awkwardly between them, worked free, tracing their way up his shoulders to wrap around his neck. Her head tilted, angling so their lips connected fully, and then she was kissing him back. He drew her closer, tunneling his fingers into the soft tumble of her hair. Her lips parted to his.

  He felt lightheaded, almost dizzy, as he deepened the kiss, his fingers curling lightly around the tendrils of her hair. His other arm encircled her waist, pressing her closer, and for a moment he went for broke, kissing her with everything he had.

  And now that he knew he wasn’t going to get his face slapped, he slowed down to take his time and do it right. The outside world simply ceased to exist. There was only Chloe, warm in his embrace, as her lips responded to his.

  * * *

  Chloe wound her arms around Bret’s neck, trusting him to hold her up. Because she was pretty sure her knees didn’t work anymore.

  She’d kissed a few men in her day, although granted, not in quite a while. But she would have remembered if it had ever been anywhere near this intense. At first his kiss was urgent, almost fierce. Then it grew softer, and that was even more devastating. The longer he held her, the slower their kisses got. And the faster her heart beat.

  This entire day, and the weeks before it, had all been leading up to this. It felt so wonderfully inevitable.

  Gradually, something intruded at the edge of her mind, like the distant sound of her clock radio’s persistent beeping when she surfaced from a deep sleep and realized it had been going off for several minutes.

  Bret was her boss. And she was a fool to forget it. If she wanted people to take her seriously, this wasn’t the way to do it. She had to have a little self-control.

  Or, in this case, a lot of self-control.

  If Dr. Macias could see her now—

  That woke her up. With sheer force of will, she slid her hands back down where they’d started when they were pinned between her and Bret. She pushed back, and Bret broke the kiss. She steadied herself, forcing her eyes to focus.

  “Bret.” It was hard to speak. “We can’t do this.” She paused, trying to find words to formulate the reasons. She looked up at him. That didn’t help. Under the apartment’s dim porch lamp, his eyes were fathomlessly dark. She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and tried to draw in some common sense along with it. “You’re my boss,” she said. Could he possibly understand? “Neither of us would look good. But I’d look worse.”

  His arms had loosened around her, but he hadn’t let go. He gazed down at her in the weak illumination from the porch light.

  “You’re right.” He didn’t pull back. Instead, with the outer edge of one finger, he traced a line from the tip of her chin to her jawline, never taking his eyes from hers. If he kept doing that—just looking at her that way, just touching her with one finger—she was a goner. Pushing him away the first time had taken all the willpower she had.

  Then Bret took a step back, and the cold air seemed to rush in between them, like an unwelcome third party. He straightened almost imperceptibly, squaring his shoulders and taking on the taut posture she saw every day at work. In seconds, he changed back into the Bret she knew from the office.

  “It never happened.” His tone was so neutral, so convincing, she almost believed him.

  While Chloe steadied herself with a hand on the doorknob, Bret stepped back again. “Have a good night.”

  He turned and walked away, his steps brisk but not rushed, while Chloe stared after him, her lips still warm, her heart still hammering.

  Chapter 13

  Chloe stepped into the apartment and shut the door firmly behind her, taking care not to show how hard it was to walk a straight line.

  What had happened out there?

  Bret was gone and the apartment was dark, so she was putting on her show of steadiness for no one. Still wobbly, Chloe reached for the light switch. In that fraction of a moment, she wondered why the scent of pine should hit her so strongly after just a few hours of being in Barstow, and why the smell seemed stronger inside. Then the lights came on, and she had her answer.

  A humble Christmas tree stood in front of the drawn curtains, decked out in the oddball conglomeration of ornaments she and her roommates had pooled from their
families’ old tree decorations.

  Kate and Tiffany had gotten the tree without her. She batted away a childish disappointment at missing out on the ritual. When did they all have time to get the tree together, anyway? December was already nearly halfway over, and it was darned rare for all three of them to be together these days.

  Chloe crossed over to the tree and bent to plug in the lights. The multicolored bulbs winked on, and she went back to the entryway to turn off the living room light again. The tree glowed brighter in the darkened room, and the cast-off ornaments looked a little better, too.

  She sat on the couch and hugged a well-worn throw pillow to her chest as she stared at the tree.

  Spend the day with Bret, you said. It will be fun, you said.

  And it had been, up to and including those last few wonderful minutes, before she did what she had to do and put a stop to it.

  Now her job would be a bigger train wreck than it had ever been, and she’d probably lost a budding friendship in the bargain.

  Chloe scrunched the pillow harder. This day had had a warning label written all over it. She’d known it and she’d ignored it. Obviously, she and Bret weren’t meant to be just friends, at least not if they were going to spend hours and hours alone together.

  Or maybe he’d just grabbed her in an impulsive moment and was already wondering what in the world had gotten into him. Despite the blow to her pride, in a way, that would be better. That way, they could shrug it off and get back to business as usual.

  Yeah, right.

  Even if Bret could shrug it off—could she?

  She watched the colored lights go blurry in front of her eyes. It didn’t count as crying as long as she blinked before—

  “Hey! Is that—”

  Startled, Chloe squealed, jumped up, and spun around. Kate, startled by Chloe’s shriek, shrieked back.

  Her roommate stood in the doorway to the hall in purple sweats, hair rumpled. Down the hall behind her, a dim light showed from the now-open bedroom door.

  “What are you doing here in the dark?” Chloe panted.