Do Not Open 'Til Christmas by Sierra Donovan (1)

“Just once, couldn’t somebody kill someone?”

Bret Radner bit out the words as soon as he hit the period at the end of his latest story for the Tall Pine Gazette. The headline read: EVERGREEN LANE SHOPS PREDICT SUCCESSFUL CHRISTMAS SEASON.

Shocker.

“I’ll get right on it.” Bret’s fellow reporter, Chuck Nolan, didn’t even glance up from his own computer screen. “Who’ve you got in mind for the lucky victim?”

Bret released a long, slow sigh. Chuck had heard it all before. And there wasn’t really anyone in Tall Pine he was that annoyed with.

“Okay,” Bret said. “A tourist.”

Chuck battered out a few words on his keyboard with his oddly efficient hunt-and-peck method. He was in his early forties, and somehow Chuck had never learned to type. “And how about the murderer? I’m not doing your dirty work for you.”

“Another tourist. How’s that? Two really rude tourists.”

Bret returned his attention to the story on his screen, running the cursor down the text to proofread it once more before he sent it to his editor’s in-box. Holding back another sigh, Bret reached for the writing pad that contained the notes from his interview with the head of the local water district.

“Radner.” His editor, Frank McCrea, stood in the doorway of his glass-walled office, twenty feet from Bret’s desk. “I need to see you for a minute.”

A summons to the editor’s office at four o’clock was pretty unusual. Too quick to have anything to do with the story Bret had just sent over. And if it was a reaction to his mini-rant, that would be a first.

Only one way to find out. Bret followed McCrea into the editor’s inner sanctum, aware of Chuck’s curious stare behind him. He sat in one of the straight-backed chairs facing McCrea’s massive oak desk. Massive, but scarred with age, like just about everything in the Gazette’s offices. At thirty, Bret sometimes suspected he was the youngest thing in the newsroom. Including the coffee machine.

“What’s up?” Bret asked.

McCrea—middle-aged, graying, and broadening around the middle—took his seat in the larger, cushioned chair across from Bret. “I’ve got a curve ball for you.”

Bret’s brows lifted. Ordinarily, he loved curve balls.

McCrea continued, “I had a call last week from our corporate office in St. Louis. The editor at their paper in Chicago stepped down about six months ago, and the associate editor they promoted is making a hash of things. They asked me to step in and do some damage control until they find somebody permanent.”

Bret blinked, trying not to show signs of whiplash. After all, it was logical enough. McCrea had headed up the Chicago paper before he moved his family to Tall Pine a decade or so ago. If he’d been looking for peace and quiet, he’d certainly gotten what he was after. What Bret had never understood was how McCrea had ever found Tall Pine. Tucked away in the mountains some two hours from Los Angeles, it was barely on the map.

But any good newspaper story led with the most pertinent point of the article, and Bret had the feeling his commander-in-chief had buried his lead.

McCrea moved quickly to correct that: “I’m putting you in charge.”

That, too, was logical. McCrea had hired Bret when he came home from college, and Bret had spent the last seven years living and breathing the job, such as it was. When McCrea took vacation time, it was Bret who filled in. Although he couldn’t recall McCrea taking as much as a full week off at any one time.

“Okay.” Bret couldn’t hold back a half smile. “Sure you don’t want to trade and send me to Chicago?”

“Were you listening? I’m going there to clean up the mess from another guy with years of experience in a major metropolitan area.” Bret flinched at that. McCrea pretended not to notice. “You’ll have your hands full here, I guarantee. The Christmas season is coming up next month, so you’ll have to work smart, with the holidays to schedule around. I know you’re not big on Christmas—”

“It’s not my favorite thing, no,” Bret responded automatically. McCrea knew that better than most. And he’d remember why, better than most.

“—but on the up side, as I said, this will keep you busy. It’s no secret you’d like more of a challenge.”

Bret inclined his head. “You think?”

“Trust me. There’s more to running this place on an ongoing basis than you realize. We get by okay on two full-time reporters plus me. But you’re going to need to delegate. I know your work ethic, and if you don’t watch out, you could end up trying to write the whole paper by yourself. By the time you figured out you were in over your head, you wouldn’t have time to look for someone else. So I hired one of our freelancers to fill in while I’m gone.”

“A freelancer?” Bret kept his features still.

Generally, freelance reporters were amateurs. They worked from home, usually as a sideline to another job. Their skills left a lot to be desired, and they didn’t tend to last long. More trouble than they were worth, in Bret’s opinion.

“I know what you’re thinking. But this one’s consistent. She’s been working with us for nearly two years. Chloe Davenport.”

The byline rang a bell, but barely. Freelancers were entrusted with less timely articles, the kind that even Bret tended to skip over. Church bake sales, prize-winning pickles, interviews with this year’s valedictorian. McCrea added, “She was in the office yesterday.”

Bret remembered glimpsing the back of a blond female head through McCrea’s glass walls. “I thought it was one of your daughters coming in for lunch money.”

McCrea shook his head. “Chloe graduated college a couple of years ago. You’ve probably met her. She’s a waitress at the Pine ’n’ Dine.”

Bret frowned. He didn’t know of any blond waitresses at the local diner. Unless . . . A faint image surfaced in his mind.

“She works nights most of the time,” McCrea added.

The picture snapped into focus. Bret didn’t usually go to the Pine ’n’ Dine in the evening. But a couple of months ago, he’d stopped in to write up his notes on a town council meeting before he came back to the paper to file the story. A petite, blue-eyed blonde had waited on him. She looked like a china doll, for heaven’s sake.

He dredged his memory further. She’d made some sort of joke....

Whatever it was, it wasn’t important right now. But he wondered if McCrea was suffering from a touch of middle-aged crazy. His editor was a family man, ethical to the core, and Bret didn’t think he’d ever dream of cheating on his wife. But that didn’t mean a pretty face couldn’t cloud his head.

“Are you sure about this?” Bret picked his words with care. “She’s awfully young.”

“Older than you were.”

Hard to get around that one. Bret flicked a brief smile. “Yeah, but I was a prodigy.”

“Then you should have no trouble getting a newbie up to speed.” McCrea leaned back in his chair. “Unless you’re not up to it. I could always put Chuck in charge.”

It was a transparent bluff, and both of them knew it. Chuck was a great guy and a good worker, but organization wasn’t his strong suit.

“Hey, they say print journalism is a dying field,” Bret deadpanned. “No point in rushing the process.”

“It’s a yes, then?”

“I didn’t know it was a question. But sure. I’m your guy.”

“Glad that’s settled. I’m leaving this weekend. You take over Monday.”

Monday? “You’re telling me this on two days’ notice?”

“Didn’t want to listen to your griping any longer than that.” McCrea sat forward again, resting his arms comfortably on his desk. “Now get out.”

Most of their talks in McCrea’s office ended that way.

“Fine.” Bret stood. “But you’re going to freeze your butt off in Chicago.”

He walked back out, his head spinning. A lot had changed in ten minutes, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t salivating just a little bit. He loved a challenge, and he was overdue for one. Now McCrea had given him the keys to the kingdom.

And a freelancer to babysit.

* * *

Chloe Davenport pushed through the door from the reception area to the newsroom Monday morning, brand new briefcase in hand, trying not to feel like a kid on the first day of school.

It was only her third time inside the Tall Pine Gazette offices. All of her other contact had been by phone or e-mail. Just like school, it was a roomful of desks. Instead of thirty small ones, a half-dozen big ones stood lined up in two rows. And at the far end of the room, the mystical, glass-walled editor’s office.

The editor’s office was empty, and only one of the desks was occupied. Behind it sat a brown-haired man, probably about forty, rifling through disorderly stacks of paper on top of his desk.

“Good morning,” she said.

He looked up, startled, although Chloe hadn’t exactly tiptoed in. “Hi.” The man gave her a puzzled, but not unfriendly, smile. She was a few minutes early, but he didn’t look as if he’d been expecting her.

She smiled back and put out her hand. “I’m Chloe Davenport.” As he rose to shake her hand, his puzzled expression didn’t clear, so she added, “I’m looking for Bret Radner?”

The man looked distractedly over his shoulder. “He’s around here somewhere.” He turned back to her. “Sorry. I’m Chuck Nolan. I’m on my way to an interview at the school district office.” He sifted through his papers again until he fished out what he’d apparently been searching for: a blank notepad. “You must be the freelancer?”

Good. They did know she was coming. “Right. Well, not a freelancer anymore. I’m here full-time, at least until Mr. McCrea gets back. He said to come in at nine. I guess I’m a little—”

A door opened at the far side of the room, and a trim, dark-haired man burst through it, wearing glasses with thin black wire frames, a cell phone in one hand, a cordless phone handset pressed to his ear. As he spoke into the phone, his calm tone of voice belied his rapid stride. “There’s been a delay. We’ll have your photographer out there shortly.” He hit a button to disconnect the call, then punched a few keys on the handset. “Jen?” His tone was more brisk. “We still haven’t heard from Ned? Okay, thanks.”

He lowered the phone to his side, eyes closed as if in thought. Or as if willing someone to spontaneously combust. “Who dedicates a plaque at eight-thirty on a Monday morning?” he said to no one in particular.

She recognized him.

She could only hope and pray he wouldn’t recognize her. Chloe glanced at the pleasant, laid-back Chuck. Why couldn’t it have been the other one?

Bret Radner had been one of her customers at the Pine ’n’ Dine a few months ago. She’d noticed him because he was one of those men who looked good in glasses, which she liked. And he’d been typing away at a laptop, which intrigued her. Especially since the Pine ’n’ Dine didn’t have Wi-Fi, so he was probably writing something.

But he hadn’t looked up from his laptop since he ordered. Not once.

Curiosity warring with frustration, she approached his table when his cup reached the half-full mark. “Would you like more coffee?”

“Please.” Not taking his eyes from his screen, he unerringly maneuvered his cup under the spout of her coffeepot.

A little demon prodded her. “Excuse me.”

She had to wait several seconds before he seemed to realize she wasn’t going to go away. Finally he raised his head and met her eyes with a dark-eyed stare behind the black wire rims.

Now that his gaze was fixed on her, unblinking and waiting, she started to regret her gumption. But the little demon spurred her on.

“Thanks.” She tried not to stammer. “We’re required to see all of our customers’ faces at least once. That way, in case you turn out to be the Unabomber or something, I can give a good description.”

His stare sharpened, and she knew she’d had it. No tip for you, baby. You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t complain to the owner.

“They caught the Unabomber in 1996,” he said. “You’re way behind on your current events.”

Then his lips twitched in a faint smile. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said, and returned to his laptop.

It all made sense now. The laptop, the writing, and especially the crack about current events. No wonder he’d known the Unabomber’s capture date off the top of his head.

Great. He probably thought she really believed the fugitive was still at large, over twenty years later.

Maybe he wouldn’t place her. Maybe she looked different enough without her uniform. She’d pulled her blond hair into a bun this morning, in an effort both to keep it simple and to look professional. Unfortunately, she realized, that was pretty similar to the way she had to wear it when she waited tables.

Right now, Chloe wasn’t sure if he’d noticed she was standing here or not. He was speaking to Chuck. “Ned’s missing in action. I’m going to have to steal the photographer for your nine o’clock. Can you shoot it on your phone?”

Chuck shrugged. “Sure.” He nodded toward Chloe. “Uh, Bret? Miss Davenport is here.”

Sharp dark eyes fell on her from behind his glasses, and Chloe’s stomach did a twist. Maybe he remembered and maybe he didn’t, but he looked as if he’d just found an overdue bill underneath his refrigerator.

Resolutely, she put on her best smile and put out her hand. “I’m Chloe Davenport.”

He accepted her hand, his smile tight. “The freelancer.”

She held his stare and kept her smile. “Not anymore.”

“Right.” He released her hand. “You’re early.”

Early was generally a good thing. Clearly, not today. “A little.”

“I’m putting out a few fires this morning. I’ll need about an hour to get my feet under me. Hold on.”

He thumbed out a number on his cell phone.

“Winston? Bret.” His voice returned to the brisk-but-polite tone he’d used with the receptionist. “I need to move our ten o’clock. Can we bump it up to eleven?” He nodded. “Great. See you then.”

She only knew of one Winston in Tall Pine—Winston Frazier, the oldest member of the town council—but she couldn’t imagine anyone speaking to him in that brusque tone. He was a regular at the Pine ’n’ Dine, and every waitress called him “sir.”

Bret lowered the phone and zeroed in on Chloe again. “You’re my new ten o’clock.”

“Okay. Where do I—” She hefted her briefcase awkwardly.

Bret glanced over the two rows of desks. He nodded toward the one behind Chuck’s. “That one.” It was littered with a hodgepodge of newspaper sections, a phone directory, a vintage-looking computer monitor, and a telephone Chloe hoped was actually plugged in. “How about if you get yourself situated, have a cup of—” His eyes darted to a coffee maker on a small cabinet against a wall, with about an inch and a half of coffee at the bottom of the pot. It looked lonely and cold.

Chuck sidled to the exit, sending what might have been an apologetic nod in her direction.

Bret took no notice. “Could you make a pot of coffee?” he asked her. “I’ll get with you at ten. Sharp.”

As if that were settled, he turned away and headed for a side door at the other end of the office at high speed, dialing the cordless phone as he walked. Leaving her alone in the newsroom. With the coffee maker.

If her new boss had paused long enough for her to draw a breath, Chloe would have been tempted to object. Probably just as well. His quick departure gave her time to remember her mother’s advice whenever her dad or her brothers were being sexist: Pick your battles.

So, Chloe laid her briefcase down on top of the desk Bret had indicated and got to work.

Her first day as a full-time reporter, and her first assignment was to make a pot of coffee.

* * *

For the next hour, Chloe watched Bret Radner with a mixture of apprehension and fascination.

She’d only met McCrea in person twice, and she missed him already. The editor had definitely been a no-nonsense type, brief and to the point; she’d learned to keep her e-mails to him short, because sometimes he’d miss a question if she surrounded it with too much extraneous detail.

Compared to this guy, McCrea was a model of patience and leisure.

Bret made his way in and out of the newsroom with the speed of a tornado, but no tornado was ever so purposeful. The air around him practically crackled as he wore a path between the editor’s office and the desk across from Chuck’s, making and taking phone calls in quick, clipped tones. Physically, he wasn’t as imposing as either of her two brothers, but even from across the room, he intimidated the heck out of her.

He got over to the coffee maker moments after the pot had finished perking and poured a cup with a brief glance in her direction before he vanished through another door, this one at the back of the room. The Gazette didn’t look that big from the outside, but obviously the building branched off in all directions.

Midway through the hour, Bret got the call he’d apparently been waiting for. “Ned? Where the heck are you?”

He’d come to a momentary stop in front of the desk across from Chuck’s. Standing with one arm propped on the desktop, he said, “I don’t get it. Your wife’s in labor, not you.”

Chloe studied his face for any sign that he was joking. She saw no change in his expression.

Then, as the person on the other end responded, he grinned—an expression she’d never seen on him before. “Same to you.” The grin faded as he eyed the desk blotter calendar in front of him. “This is early, isn’t it?” Another pause. “Okay. Keep us posted. Give Debbie my best.”

He switched from the cell phone to the telephone on his desk. Chloe wasn’t sure what had happened to the cordless handset. “Jen? Could you get me McCrea’s list of freelance photographers? Ned’s going to be out for awhile. Debbie’s in labor. Yeah, two weeks early . . . Do you know if we have an account with the florist?” He nodded. “But hold off until we hear how it goes.”

As he hung up, Chloe volunteered, “Two weeks isn’t that bad.”

He looked at her as if surprised to see her still there. “So he told me.”

And he sped off to the reception area.

Chloe sipped her coffee and returned to the task of straightening—or finding—her desk. The newspapers covering the top ranged in age from two weeks to two years old; she set them aside for recycling. The phone did, in fact, have a dial tone, and the computer hummed to life when she turned it on. The drawers were filled with curious archeological artifacts: stray teabags, broken pencils, absolutely no working pens, and half-filled memo pads with scribbled notes dated three years ago. Had it been that long since they had another reporter?

She thought Bret might forget her, but he returned to stand in front of her desk promptly at ten. “Okay. Let’s back up and start from the beginning.” He extended his hand to her again. “I’m Bret.”

“Chloe.” She leaned across the desk to shake his hand again and got the same brief, firm squeeze as before.

Did he remember her from the Pine ’n’ Dine? He gave no indication. Good.

Bret leaned back to sit against the top of Chuck’s desk, arms folded in front of him. Chloe wondered if he realized what a closed-off posture that was. She wondered if it was intentional.

“So,” he said. “This is your first full-time news gig?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He closed his eyes briefly, as if he’d just witnessed a ten-car pileup. “Basics.”

Then his eyes opened, and the onslaught of instructions began.

“Work day starts at eight. Deadline is two-thirty, but we’ve never taken that literally. It was designed for the best of all possible worlds, and this isn’t it. But unless you have an appointment, which you’ll let me know about, you need to be back at your desk by then. We’re short-staffed here, as you can see, so I need boots on the ground pretty quick. By the end of two weeks, I’ll expect you to be filing ten stories a week. . . .”

Without taking her eyes from Bret, Chloe felt around on her desk for the pad of paper she’d left there. Thank God she’d brought her own pens.

Bret nodded. “Yes, put that at the top of your list: always have a notepad ready.”

If he saw any irony in that statement, Chloe couldn’t tell, because as soon as her pen was poised, the torrent of information resumed.

“When you’re doing a phone interview, use a headset and take notes on your keyboard, not by hand. It’s faster and it’s way more accurate. And when you quote someone, make darn sure it’s what they said. No paraphrasing.”

That was almost insulting. “I would never—”

“Good. No profanity of any kind, even in a quote. We’re owned by Liberty Communications, which owns over four hundred newspapers across the country. They’re very conservative, and believe me, we want to keep them happy.”

By the time Bret came to a stop, she’d filled five pages with scribbled notes. She just had to trust that she’d be able to read them later.

He pushed up from Chuck’s desk. “Generally I’ll be meeting with you on Mondays to go over story proposals for the week. We’ve already lost too much time today, so have at least five ideas ready for me tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I’ll get you some press releases to write up into news briefs. That should keep you busy.”

As Bret retreated to the office formerly occupied by McCrea, Chloe sat back, took a deep breath, and exhaled it. She had a feeling it would be her last chance to breathe easily for quite awhile.

She could do this.

Writing for a newspaper hadn’t been her first choice for a job, but then, her career plan hadn’t been especially well thought-out. She’d had the conversation dozens of times in college.

That had been vague enough to shut them up.

She’d been told what a versatile major English was for going into anything from marketing to the legal field. Somehow she’d believed it. What she really wanted, she supposed, was a solid day job so she could pursue something more creative on her own time.

Chloe knew what she was good at. She excelled at writing, and she loved it. She just didn’t know how to make a living at it. Especially in Tall Pine. So, six months into her stint as a waitress, when the Tall Pine Gazette had advertised for freelance reporters, she’d cracked. As it turned out, she enjoyed it far more than she expected. But writing a few stories a month certainly didn’t earn enough for her to quit the Pine ’n’ Dine.

Now she had this, while it lasted.

Ten stories a week for the next three months. Including interviews and research, as well as writing them. Not to mention coming up with enough story ideas that would pass muster with her new boss.

She could do this.

It was this, or back to waiting tables.

* * *

Bret closed the door of McCrea’s office behind him and resisted the urge to lean back against it and bar out the outside world. With glass walls, that wasn’t an option. So, keeping his back straight, he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He’d been wrong about one thing: her eyes weren’t blue.

There was some blue in there, but they were more of a deep gray, with a hint of green if you looked long enough. Like the ocean on a stormy afternoon. Especially when he’d asked her to make coffee. And now he remembered her snarky joke about the Unabomber. So, not a china doll.

But she still didn’t look much like a reporter, unless you counted the ones you saw on TV shows, with that bright smile and that shiny briefcase. Pretty enough to make him wonder, again, if McCrea had been thinking straight when he hired her.

He wouldn’t invest much time in her—couldn’t afford to—until he knew whether she was going to last beyond the first two weeks. He’d set the bar pretty high. But no higher than McCrea had set for Bret when he started here.

She’d pan out or she wouldn’t. And he wouldn’t let a pretty face sway his judgment.