“Yup, yup, that makes total sense,” Elise muttered, knowing that if anyone spared a glance down the action figure aisle she would look like the resident lunatic. “Let’s just pick things up and not put them back where they belong when you realize you don’t want them.”

It was pretty standard practice in stores like Bennington’s, honestly, and she was happy she didn’t have to deal with it in the grocery department. Nothing like finding some warm, extra-condensation-covered chicken thigh packages in the chocolate section because someone decided on sweet over savory. Still, was it so difficult to take products back to their shelves? Did customers have to shove them behind or on top of things as though an associate wouldn’t notice? This time, it was two stuffed bears sitting in front of the army action figure kits, which were supposed to be hot items for boys this season. Nothing like the chaos swirling around those Miss Molly dolls, but for being in such obnoxiously large boxes, the army kits were selling well.

“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t abandon you here.” The bears stared back at her with hollow, soulless eyes, better suited for a horror movie on an empty, slightly swaying rocking chair than the Bennington’s toy department. She grabbed them both and stalked to the end of the aisle. However, just as she rounded the endcap, Elise spotted her next disaster.

Two little girls dressed in identical purple leggings, pink boots, and blue winter jackets covered in huge white snowflakes had decided on that exact moment to knock everything within reach onto the floor. Down went Barbie’s car, the boxes landing with a shuddering crash that sent white-hot rage surging through Elise as the girls giggled. They moved on to the boxed dolls next, taking down the classic blonde bimbo and her new Miss Molly competitor. No discrimination here. No doll was safe.

“Ladies,” she barked, fighting the tremor in her voice as her fingers bit into the bear in each hand. The twins emitted two ear-piercing shrieks and took off, leaving Elise in an aisle that looked exactly how she pictured a war zone would after a bombing. She slowly loosened her hold on the bears and set them on the shelf. If her manager caught her walking away from this, even to put the bears back in the next aisle over, there was no way she’d escape a write-up. And Penelope was just itching to add more strikes to her employee file; she and Elise had never clicked, though not for lack of trying on Elise’s part.

She ran a hand through her raven locks, more tired than anything after spending six hours in Bennington’s that afternoon already. Noon to eight thirty. The perfect shift to spoil an entire day. At least she didn’t have to close.

As the anger ebbed, all she wanted to do was hide away in the back, organizing an already meticulously ordered stock warehouse, and run out the clock. Instead, she had to get all these narrow rectangular doll boxes back on the shelves, in the right order, in the right place, lined up to match the PLU on the price stickers. And while they all looked the same, any doll fanatic would tell you they absolutely, resolutely, utterly were not.

“Hooray,” Elise muttered. Not like she’d spent most of her shift setting up the Miss Molly section of this aisle already. Now she had to redo it. Like her brain wasn’t wasting away enough in this place. Grumbling a string of profanities under her breath, she started gathering the fallen comrades, each doll staring up at her with that plastic fake grin and wide, dead eyes.

Well, save for the “sassy” Miss Molly dolls. A few of them were winking or smirking almost seductively. Elise frowned at the green-haired one in hand, then shook her head when she caught her reflection in the plastic front of the box.

“Excuse me?”

She looked up sharply, panicked that someone had walked in on her having a staring contest with a Miss Molly, then felt her mouth go dry. Standing before her—towering over, more like—was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. What the hell was a stunning creature like him doing in the doll aisle?

“Uh…” was the most eloquent response Elise could manage in the heat of the moment. Her cheeks flushed as she took in his few days of rugged dark facial hair, contrasted perfectly with warm hazel eyes, more green than brown, and wickedly handsome lips. To make everything ten times worse, he was in a suit. A fitted, crisp suit that clung snugly to a muscular frame and broad—but not too broad—shoulders. Was this guy a model? Was she being filmed right now for some prank show? Men like him absolutely did not waltz into the Fort Trent Bennington’s Department Store; she was more accustomed to the beer gut, stained T-shirt and cargo shorts variety.

“Are you okay?” he asked, brow furrowing slightly.

Shit. She’d totally just been gawking at him like she had never seen a human male before. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she scrambled to her feet, tugging up her dress pants along the way. Her blush worsened when she caught him staring at her hideous Christmas vest.

“Sorry, hi, yes,” Elise rambled. “What’s up?” Oh, customer service faux pas. “Can I help you with something today?”

“Yeah. I’m looking for a Miss Molly doll.” One of the man’s hands slipped into his pants pocket, casually pushing his suit jacket back and revealing a trim waist.

Stop staring. Right now. Stop it.

Her eyebrows shot up. “A Miss Molly doll?”

“For my daughter,” he added hastily, his little impish smile doing weird, wonderful things to her insides. “You know… For Christmas.”

“Oh, right, yeah, sure…” Smooth as ever. “Of course.” If only the ground would open and swallow her whole right then and there. “Well, you’ve come to the right place.” She gestured to the sea of scattered boxes. “Obviously.”

He chuckled, a sound she’d probably hear again late tonight when she had totally inappropriate dreams about this gorgeous specimen.

“Did a tornado just pass through?”

“Twins,” she said, sighing as she held a hand up to her hip, “about this big. Might as well have been a tornado.”

When they stared at each other, Elise focused very hard on making sure she didn’t continue to gawk. Seriously. Model material. He must have just come off a shoot or something.

“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” she managed after an awkward pause. “I’m sure you can find something for your daughter in this mess.”

She crouched down and started turning the boxes the right way around. Even if they weren’t in their proper places on the shelves, at least he could see them. Then, much to her surprise, Model Man crouched down beside her to help. As they worked, she took a good look at his left hand. No wedding ring. Divorced? Widowed? Not that it mattered. A guy who looked like that didn’t need to explain his history—he just had to tell her when and where they were getting drinks.

At twenty-six o’clock in Fantasy Land, of course, where Elise wasn’t a department store stooge and she had her dream job in New York and the world wasn’t a swirling pit of suck.

“She said she wanted one with blue hair,” he admitted after about a minute of perusing. Elise had started to separate the Barbie from the Miss Molly boxes, hoping to make his search a little easier. He then stood, towering over her again at some six-plus feet of solid man, and planted his hands on his hips. “Actually, she was pretty damn clear that Santa had better bring her a blue-haired Miss Molly, or Santa might be in a bit of hot water.”

“We can’t have that, can we?” Elise said, laughing. Kids could be so particular about their toys—it didn’t surprise her that he had a daughter who knew what she wanted. After all, she had seen little princesses absolutely lose their minds over the nail polish colour on the doll Mom was trying to shove on them, so a blue hair preference didn’t seem all that ridiculous. Clearing her throat, Elise started sifting through the few boxes that were still left on the shelves. “Let’s see…”

Model Man helped her again, standing so close she caught a hint of his cologne. It smelled…rich. She wasn’t sure how else to describe it, but she’d smelled enough of the cheap crap in the beauty department to know the difference. It made her feel like she was back in Manhattan again, surrounded by gorgeous guys in pricey suits who had ambition, purpose, and charisma: the kind of guy Fort Trent sorely lacked.

Her cheeks warmed—he smelled fantastic. Understated. Worldly. Like he had a private jet waiting for him in the pothole-ridden parking lot outside.

“A lot of green hair around here,” he muttered under his breath, almost sounding surprised.

“Why don’t I just go check in the back?” Elise flashed him a quick smile before purposefully putting a bit of distance between them—otherwise she might dive right into his neck and take a big whiff. Model Man nodded, seemingly pleased.

“Ah, yes, the infamous back.” He chuckled. “Where you have everything anyone could possibly want like you’re a bunch of wizards.”

What? They stared at one another again, Elise’s smile faltering one moment and spread wide the next to hide her reaction to whatever the hell had just come out of his gorgeous mouth. “Right.”

“Anyway.” He cleared his throat, cheeks tinted. “I appreciate it. Thank you.”

“No problem at all,” she assured him. Just before she could turn around, she ended up tripping over a few of the remaining boxes behind her—stupid Barbie. Model Man rushed forward, as if to catch her, but Elise waved him off, her voice high and squeaky, cheeks pink, as she said, “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

Model Man stopped, hands outstretched like she was a baby deer caught on a slick patch of ice. Mortified, she all but ran for the Employees Only door at the back of the store—which was just a few flaps of thick, hanging plastic. She shoved through and pressed her hands to her cheeks. Of course Model Man was a total gentleman. Of course. The heat of her blush warmed her clammy fingers, and she headed for the toy section of the immense warehouse attached to the back of Bennington’s, head down so that the stock guys wouldn’t see her expression. The few who greeted her received an embarrassed half smile and wave, which just made everything worse.

Thankfully there was no one working in the toy section. Taking a few deep breaths as she massaged her cheeks, Elise went straight for the Miss Molly stock—she had become quite intimate with its section, given she had spent most of the day there anyway when she’d had to stock shelves the first time around. Sure enough, there was a whole skid of blue-haired Miss Mollies just waiting to be unloaded. Grinning, she tore into the plastic wrap.

“What the heck do you think you’re doing?”

She froze with the doll’s box in hand, colour rushing to her cheeks again.

“Elise. Seriously.”

She closed her eyes tight at the feel of her manager Penelope’s beady gaze burning holes in her back. Where had she been hiding? Elise could have sworn the aisles were empty in this section of the warehouse; did Penelope just materialize anytime she wanted to rip Elise a new one?

Sighing, she turned around slowly. Sure enough, there was Penelope—tall, blonde, lips plumped with filler. Somehow managing to avoid wearing the hideous Christmas vest that stooges like Elise were forced into. Her name tag—metal and polished, to highlight that she was a step above all the underlings who just had plastic name tags—gleamed in the fluorescent lights hanging overhead.

“There’s a customer looking for a blue-haired Miss Molly,” she explained, hating the way the woman stared at her like Elise was something she’d just scraped off her shoe. “There are none on the floor, so I thought—”

“You thought you’d just come back here and rip into stock that isn’t supposed to go out yet?” Penelope snapped. She snatched the box out of Elise’s hand and placed it back with the others, then smoothed the torn plastic over it like that would meld it back together. Flushed, the woman scowled at her. “The blue-haired doll is the main character on the commercial. She’s going to be the lead in the TV series they’re creating based around the collection.”

Elise’s brow furrowed in the silence that followed; apparently Penelope expected a response.

“Cool?”

“She’ll sell out in a second,” her manager said snippily before consulting her clipboard and scribbling something in the corner. “And then we’ll be sold out before the rush.”

“But—”

“Our stock team works very hard to keep this ship sailing, Elise.” Penelope’s blue eyes locked in on her, like a predator fixed on its prey. “You do not work back here. You have no clearance to dig through unopened skids!”

Elise pressed her lips together and swallowed a snort. Clearance. Like this was some elite government agency.

“You are not to touch any of these Miss Molly dolls until they are ready to go out. I thought I made that very clear when I assigned you to stocking the others this morning.”

At no point had anyone, Penelope or otherwise, specified that a certain hair colour couldn’t go out on the floor. Elise had been shown a skid to unload and that was what she did. Biting down hard on both cheeks, she held in the biggest eye roll of her life.

“Okay,” she said stiffly.

Penelope lifted a hand to her ear and leaned toward her. “What was that?”

“Okay.” She knew the woman expected an apology, maybe a bit of groveling like everyone else, but she wasn’t about to get that. Not today. Not from Elise.

“I need to get back to the customer.”

She fumed all the way back to the doll aisle—until she discovered Model Man had picked up all the fallen dolls and appeared to be trying to put them back in the correct spots. Elise’s jaw literally dropped—a first in her life, as she’d always thought dropped jaws were best reserved for soap operas. Model Man had about six boxes tucked under each arm, and he appeared to read the sticker on the back for the PLU, then search the shelves before finding the right spot.

“You… You don’t have to do that,” she stammered. As cute as it was to watch, she didn’t feel right about it. A man dressed like that, with looks to kill, like he was gearing up to be the next James Bond, absolutely should not stock shelves.

He shrugged, setting another box down where she assumed it belonged.

“Better than checking my phone,” he told her. “There are a thousand things to respond to. This seemed less likely to make me want to blow my brains out.”

“Wait until you do it every day,” she said as she strolled down the aisle, smirking. “You’ll get there.”

She took the remaining boxes from him, not able to watch a second more of this stunning creature stocking shelves. What did not go unmissed was the way his gaze flickered down—maybe to her chest, but more likely to the lack of blue-haired Miss Molly in hand.

That or the hideous Christmas vest. He wouldn’t be the first to openly gape at the tinseled-out nightmare.

“So, no luck in the back, huh?”

“We…” She hesitated. In the past, telling customers the truth had worked in one of two ways. The first was that the customer instantly sympathized with her and let their issue go. The second was that they flipped out and demanded to speak to a manager, then tore into them for whatever “truth” Elise had divulged. In this case, while Model Man was gorgeous, she had seen parents lose their minds for less than a staff member refusing to hand over the doll their kid wanted. So, while it pained her, she went with a white lie instead. “We won’t be getting our shipment in until next week. Apparently the blue-haired one is really popular.”

“She… She sings on the commercial,” Model Man offered, his cheeks colouring again. Elise bit back a grin.

“So I’ve heard.” She noted his slightly defeated posture after the news, and tried to smile as brightly as she could. “Next week though, right? You can grab it then. Still lots of time before Christmas.”

“Yup, I’ll be back next week. Any day in particular?”

“Thursday,” she said, assuming the stock would be set out by then.

“Thursday it is.” His gaze briefly dipped down again. “Elise.”

Just hearing him say her name… It did naughty things to her. She swallowed hard and nodded. “Yup. That’s me. I’m sure I’ll be here.”

“Good. I’ll be on the lookout for you.” Model Man cocked his head to one side, as if considering her. “You’ve been very helpful, but I need to get that doll. I’m trying to earn my title this year.”

“Your title?”

“On my coffee mug,” he told her. “The… Maya got it for me last year. It…er…”

Fumbling again. Somehow that made her feel like they were on even footing: even if she wasn’t supermodel gorgeous like the man standing in front of her, at least she hadn’t babbled too horribly.

“Is it one of those World’s Best Dad ones?” she offered, sensing he needed a bit of help. He nodded, beaming.

“That’s the one.”

Fuck, he’s adorable. She swallowed the desire to blurt out just how adorable he was. “That’s sweet. I’ll keep an eye out for you, then. Thursday.”

“It’s a date.”

His phone chirped noisily, an ear-piercing screech that made Elise wince—and totally shifted the focus away from what had just come out of his mouth. He appeared relieved by the distraction.

“I’m Jack, by the way,” he said after he tucked his phone back in his pocket, cheeks still tinted. Then, much to her surprise, he held out his hand for her to shake. Which she did, though only after subtly wiping her clammy cold sweats away on her pants. His grip was firm without being bone crushing—a good sign.

“Elise,” she said, more out of habit than anything, and he chuckled as they broke apart.

“I know. It’s on your name tag.”

A nervous laugh slipped out of her mouth. “Right. Yeah. I knew that.”

“See you next Thursday, Elise.” He flashed a charming smile, then strolled out of the aisle.

Once he left, the usual Bennington’s buzz of the in-store radio station, playing the same Christmas tunes over and over again, filtered back in. With Jack, it was like she had been temporarily transported to another dimension, where Bennington’s wasn’t soul-sucking and hot guys were plentiful.

However, the sight of those mischievous twin girls at the end of the aisle snapped Elise straight back to reality—as did the appearance of their mom, who, horrified, launched into a huge apology and demanded to know if her girls had broken anything.

And if so, will it be sold at a reduced price?

Elise plastered on her customer service smile, the one that hurt her cheeks, and got back to work.