by Kristy Tate
But something like this had never happened to Millie before, and she wondered if he had experienced the same time-stopping moment. Pulling down her navy sweater, she adjusted her pea coat, and to cover her flushed cheeks, she tucked her bag beneath the seat in front of her, refusing to meet his eye again, and wondering what would happen if she did.
“Do you often wear Santa suits?” she asked, finally raising her gaze to meet his. His eyes struck her again. They were the color of chocolate, but this time the world continued around them. The train clacked away from the city. Lower Manhattan’s gritty landscape flashed by the windows. Mothers hushed crying babies. Conversations filled the air.
“No. Almost never,” he said, his voice thick with humor, “but I will be tonight.”
“Are you going to work at a mall?” He didn’t look like the plump bearded guys who sat at Macy’s this time of year.
“No. I—never-mind.” In an obvious effort to change the subject, he nodded at the book in Millie’s hand. “My grandmother reads her books.”
Millie flushed with pleasure. She loved hearing from her readers. “Then she must have excellent taste.”
The man chuckled, his laugh as warm as eyes. “No. Quite the opposite, in fact. She’s a connoisseur of The Helping Hands Thrift store. She loves the hunt and the kitschy.” He wore a luscious camelhair coat so soft that Millie longed to touch it. He had a Burberry scarf draped around his neck and a gold watch on his wrist. He didn’t look like the sort of man who frequented thrift shops.
“Sounds like my kind of gal,” Millie said.
His lips twitched. “That sappy writer’s books fill my grandmother’s shelves and her movies are all over the Hallmark station. I have to watch at least one whenever I visit my grandma.”
Millie bristled and tucked the book in her pocket, praying he wouldn’t see her picture on the jacket cover and realize she was the sappy writer his grandmother loved.
“What takes you out of the city?” Millie asked, taking her turn to change the subject.
“My grandma. She told me she had a Santa emergency.” He sighed and shook his head. “I hope this isn’t another one of her ploys.”
“Ploys?”
He nodded. “She’s a schemer.”
“A schemer and a thrift store shopper. I like her already.”
“How about you? Why aren’t you headed to work?”
“Who says I’m not?”
He laughed, and something about the sound filled Millie in a way she couldn’t describe. It was as if she’d been hollow inside, but this man’s laugh filled a space she hadn’t even known existed.
“What do you do?” he asked.
Millie’s thoughts scrambled. Come on, you write fiction. She thought up something close but not quite the truth. “I’m a travel writer.”
She was a writer, and at the moment she happened to be traveling. Good one.
“Oh yeah? That’s great. I love to travel. Where have you been?”
“Hmm, lots of places, of course.”
He smiled. “Of course. But where are you traveling to now?”
“There’s a brand new inn in Chickory, New York. I’m going to check it out.”
His face paled, his lips pressed together, and a calculating look filled his eyes. “Is that so? What magazine did you say you work for?”
“I freelance.” Sometimes.
“Ah.” He cleared his throat, a low, grumbling unhappy sound. “So, you’re coming all this way to see this new inn.”
She nodded. “The Snowfield Inn. I even love its name.”
“But will you still love it in July?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“When it’s sunny, no one wants to stay in a snowfield.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I think that depends on how sunny it is. There’ve been plenty of melting hot summer days where I longed for a good snowfield.”
“It’s a ridiculous name for an inn,” he said in a tone that made her wonder why he should care.
“Do you know it?”
“I’ll be playing Santa there tonight.”
“Really?”
“Yes, you should come.”
“I won’t be staying long. This is just a day trip.”
“You’re coming all the way to Chickory for the day?” He nodded at her bag. “Then what’s that for?”
“I have my computer and just a couple of things in case I decide to stay the weekend.”
“So, there’s hope.”
“Not really. I’m mostly trying to avoid a party tonight.”
“Not a party person?”
“I like parties, but this one…” She took a deep breath, looked out the window, and relived the pain. “My ex is going to be there with his fiancé.”
“You’re divorced?”
“No, but Liam and I…we’d been together a long time.” She didn’t know what made her open up to this man with the chocolate-colored eyes, maybe it was because she thought she’d never see him again, or maybe it was because she hadn’t told anyone for so long about how badly she’d been hurt, or maybe because she liked the way his gaze touched hers, but she found herself telling him all the sordid details: the purple panties under the sofa, the anonymous posts on her writing blog asking her why if she was such an expert on romance was her boyfriend partying with Scarlett McFaye?
“Wait, your ex is marrying Scarlett McFaye?” His eyes widened. “Wow, just wow.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s what Liam and all the rest of mankind think, too.”
“Hey wait, don’t lump me into Liam’s camp.”
“I can’t believe I told you all of this.” Millie flushed and looked out the window. “I don’t even know your name.”
He reached out and took her hand as if to shake it, but he didn’t. Instead, he held it in his own. “I’m Carson Trent, but tonight, if you come to the inn, you can call me Santa.”
When she didn’t respond, he gently squeezed her hand. “This is where you tell me your name,” he said.
“I’m Millie Cruise.” But most of the world knows me as Camille Harper, AKA the sappy writer.
They parted at the train station. Millie had a ridiculous desire to give Carson a hug, even though she had just met him. Her sensible voice told her to shoulder her bag, casually wave, and get her rental car, but her feet shuffled and she stuttered over saying goodbye.
“Are you sure you want to rent a car?” Carson asked. “I’m going there anyway, and it’s a three-hour drive.”
“That’s really nice of you, but how would I get back?”
“You ride back with me on Sunday night.”
“Mmm, no.” For once, she agreed with her sensible voice.
“Do you know how to get to Chickory?” Carson asked.
“My phone does.”
“Of course.” He looked deflated. Taking her hand, he said, “If I’m lucky, I’ll see you again.”
She left her hand in his. “Do you believe in luck?”
Pain flashed in his eyes. “Not really. Do you?”
“I want to…but it often lets me down.”
“Then let me give you my card, just in case you…” His voice trailed away, but after he cleared his throat he added, “In case you need anything or get lost.”
“Thanks.” She scanned the card. It was heavy, cream-colored with bold navy print. Carson Trent, Principal, Trent and Tavenor Investors, Your Business Partners. She pocketed the card, thought about giving him hers, but quickly changed her mind.
Her sensible voice told her she couldn’t hide her identity from this man forever, but Millie was getting pretty tired of her sensible voice.
Why not tell him who you are? A less sensible voice demanded to know. After all, you both live in New York. Why not meet? Why not date?
Millie shut down all the voices in her head because she now realized they had all stopped being sensible the moment she had first seen Carson.
“Nice meeting you,” she said, tightening the grip on her bag and turning a
way.
She didn’t look back.
CARSON
Carson watched Millie disappear through the crowded train station. He didn’t even know her, and yet he wanted to follow her. Taking his keys from his pocket, he jingled them. The happy noise reminded him he’d see her soon at his grandmother’s inn, the only bright spot on the weekend looming before him.
He winced, thinking of how the rest of his weekend would go. He foresaw heaping helpings of guilt, maybe even a few tears, and a lot of stubbornness with balking thrown in.
He found his car in the garage, pressed the button, and slid inside. Turning over the ignition, he blew on his hands to warm them. The steering wheel felt like ice, and the heater shot a frosty blast to his face. The car would take a few minutes to warm, but Carson knew it might take a lifetime for his women-folk to wise up.
His phone rang. Carson pulled it from his pocket and stared at it. His mom had a spooky way of showing up every time he thought of her.
“Hey, Ma,” he said.
“Carson, love, are you on your way?”
“Yep. Just landed in Scranton.”
“Oh good. Your grandmother is so excited about tonight!”
“The Twelve Days of Christmas thing, right?”
“Yes! Every day a charitable event. It’s brilliant.”
Brilliantly costly, Carson thought. He couldn’t let his mom, aunt, and grandmother dominate over common sense. How could they forget what it’s like to be cold? To have the electricity shut off? To be hungry?
“Ma,” he began.
She interrupted him. “I don’t want you bringing any of your David Downer attitude around here. What with Emily and her kids showing up—”
“Emily’s there? Is she staying at the inn, too?” And not paying for a room, of course. “Is Jackson with her?”
His mom sighed. “No-o.”
“How long will she be staying this time?”
“Poor Ems, and my sweet babies, of course we love having them stay with us.”
“Ma, is Emily leaving Jackson?”
“Now, how would I know that when Emily doesn’t even know?”
Carson pulled the car out of the garage, silently cursing his mom, her mom, and his flakey sister, knowing that when Jesus said the poor you always have with you that he was absolutely right. Some people, and by some people he meant his family, if you gave them a million dollars, they would spend a million and one.
All the warm fussy happy tingles he had felt during his brief exchange with Millie melted beneath his frustrations.
“Now about the food for tonight,” his mom began. “We had a mishap with the pastries and wondered if you’d mind stopping at Costco.”
And foot the bill. “Just text me what you need.” Knowing he could afford to buy a few pastries, he stopped listening. But the inn…
“Ma, you get it’s not just my money, right? You understand I have business partners and investors counting on me. I have to make sound investments.” He had to be accountable. He couldn’t afford to throw Trent and Tavenor Investors money down an inn-sized hole.
“Sweetie, don’t start.”
A tiny red Fiat pulled out in front of him, and Carson caught a flash of blond curls and a navy sweater hiding beneath a scarlet pea coat. Millie. Carson followed, his jaw clenched, his grip on the steering wheel, determined. He promised himself two things: this weekend he would not lose another penny over the inn, and he would not lose Millie Cruise again.
And Carson always kept his promises.
MILLIE
Millie slipped in an audio disk and soon the raspy, grandmotherly voice of Lenora Lamb filled the car as she read The World’s Worst Christmas Pageant Ever. Her mom and dad had read her this book as a child, and Millie had listened to it every holiday season since. It made her sad that neither of her parents’ voices had ever grown old the way that Lenora Lamb’s had.
The story was of the Calvin children—the worst children ever to perform a nativity play. Millie still laughed at all the Calvins’ craziness, despite the hurt that she didn’t have children of her own.
And that’s a good thing, her sensible voice said. Millie really hated her sensible voice. Liam didn’t want children, the sensible voice continued. And being a single parent is hard.
Millie had learned how hard it was to be a single parent from watching her mom trying to cope with grief, crippling finances, and a moody teenager. Cancer had not only stolen Millie’s dad, but it had also taken her mom’s joy.
Determined not to relive her mother’s life, Millie had worked hard to put herself through school. She got her BS in business and a law degree from Columbia. But before she even took the bar, she had published her first book with Loving Hearts press. A second bestseller quickly followed the first, and she’d been pumping out two to three bestsellers a year ever since.
She read only slightly more than she wrote, and sometimes Millie felt as if she didn’t live her own life. Her interior world was so much bigger and brighter than the quiet one inside her Brownstone. She rarely took moments like this where she just enjoyed the rolling snow-covered countryside, the icy blue sky, the—
COW!
The creature blended so well into the snow, Millie hadn’t even seen it until its snout was inches from the windshield. She slammed on her brakes and the Fiat spun on the slick and icy road until it hit the gravel-lined road and flipped into the ditch. The impact pounded Millie’s head against the window. The airbag punched her in the gut. Hanging upside down, tightly secured by her seatbelt, Millie faded away into a cloud of pain.
The Little White Christmas Lie is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Little-White-Christmas-Lie-ebook/dp/B01MPZJA14/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8