Do Not Open 'Til Christmas by Sierra Donovan (15)

A pretty silver locket for her mom. Click.

A sports watch, with lots of bells and whistles, for her dad. Click.

Gift cards for Todd and Joel, because they liked to pick out their own gifts. Click. Click.

Chloe sat on the couch with her laptop Sunday night, finishing her Christmas shopping. It seemed like she’d spent most of her December in front of a computer screen, one way or another.

She’d made the time to go shopping on Evergreen Lane yesterday, where she’d found nice presents for Tiffany, Kate, and Sherry. She’d even found a silly key chain for Chuck. But she’d been buying presents for her family ever since she’d been old enough to shop, and it was getting harder and harder to find special gifts she hadn’t already thought of for them.

Hemingway tried to help. Purring loudly, he started to stroll across her laptop. Chloe scooped him up and planted him back on the couch beside her, only to have him try again from the other side. After being thwarted three times, he rubbed his nose insistently against Chloe’s elbow, which almost made her order ten gift baskets for Aunt Janice.

It had taken no effort for Tiffany and Kate to wheedle Hemingway into their home. Now Chloe had become his go-to person. Maybe because her hours were more predictable, or because she sat still on the couch longer. Maybe because she always had that thing opened up on her lap, taking her attention from him. Or maybe just because it made her lap warm.

Whatever the reason, she was grateful to have him around, pesky paw pads and all.

Chloe rubbed behind Hemingway’s ears as she looked up from the screen. She took a few moments to focus on the flashing lights of their little tree, and to listen to the Train Christmas CD she’d put on.

Christmastime was passing her by faster than a sled with a slick coat of wax on the runners. Working full-time during the holidays always made it hard to celebrate. Working more than full-time for the Tall Pine Gazette, trying to pretend things were normal at the office with Bret—that was even harder.

Bret. Without even trying, she’d thought of a dozen gift ideas for him. She was sure he’d prefer she didn’t give him anything at all. Unable to resist, she’d finally bought a coffee mug. Surely that was safe. But she probably wouldn’t have the nerve to give it to him. Long after she moved on from the Gazette, wherever she ended up, she’d likely find herself sipping from a mug that read DEADLINES AMUSE ME.

Like it or not, in spite of all her efforts, she’d fallen for her boss. She didn’t really know how Bret felt at this point, except that she obviously made him intensely uncomfortable. If she hadn’t tried to talk about their kiss that day, maybe he would have forgotten about it already.

She knew she wouldn’t have.

With a guttural moan that made Hemingway look at her askance, Chloe closed her laptop. Tiffany and Kate wouldn’t be home from work for a couple of hours; she resolved to take that time to put her stress on hold.

She gathered Hemingway up in her arms. Now that he had her full attention, he squirmed as if he suspected some kind of trick. But she could be persistent, too. Chloe held him up to her shoulder and stroked him as his raspy purr filled her ears. He quickly forgot he’d been trying to escape.

She lay back on the couch, and Hemingway settled on top of her in the classic sphinx pose. She breathed in the scent of the tree and let the music flood her ears as Pat Monahan sang about tinsel and lights.

“Merry Christmas, buddy,” she said. “You like music, too, don’t you?”

He meowed through a purr, giving her a whiff of cat food. But hey, he seemed to know she’d asked him a question.

She rubbed the soft fur around Hemingway’s ears until she fell asleep.

* * *

“Thanks, Mona,” Bret said as he paid his lunch tab at the Pine ’n’ Dine.

The brown-haired waitress smiled shyly from behind the register as she took his money and made change. So Ramona Billone had graduated high school and was now waiting tables at the Pine ’n’ Dine. Another one of those Tall Pine rites of passage, like that apartment complex. You got out of school and either went on to college or worked at one of the local eateries. Bret remembered being waited on by Ramona’s sister Kelly a few years back.

It occurred to Bret, as he went back to the table to leave the tip, that Mona had probably filled Chloe’s spot at the diner.

He’d avoided the Pine ’n’ Dine for the past week or so, trying not to run into one of Chloe’s roommates, or Sherry, who’d ratted him out to Chloe about the fact that they’d dated. But it was impossible to avoid anyone in Tall Pine for too long, logistically speaking, so he’d chanced it today.

Bret stepped outside and turned the collar of his overcoat up against the chilly afternoon air. Truth be told, he was getting tired of avoiding people, period. It took a lot of energy.

As he walked toward the public parking lot, he approached a boy and a girl standing near the brick wall outside the row of shops. They were situated between Isabel’s Antiques and The North Pole Christmas store, where they couldn’t be accused of standing in front of either business. A TV tray stood on the walkway beside them.

They couldn’t have been there long. Bret hadn’t passed them on his way into the Pine ’n’ Dine. Also, they hadn’t frozen rock solid yet. This had to be the coldest day so far this season, allowing the town to hold on to its coating of snow. If the skies stayed clear, it would be great for the tourist trade this weekend.

But standing on the sidewalk on a Tuesday afternoon, the two kids weren’t likely to do too well with their wares. It was way too early for Girl Scout cookies, and a little too late for Boy Scout popcorn. Bret squinted as he got closer to the improvised display table and its paltry display of—

The boy, about eleven years old, stepped forward. “Would you like to buy some mistletoe?”

For a moment Bret had a surreal vision of himself launching into a full-scale rant, telling the two hapless kids how much he did not need mistletoe, how very little use he had for mistletoe, and how he was probably destined to die alone. In a van down by the river.

The picture was so ludicrous that he almost laughed, for the first time in days.

He looked at the pair of them. The boy was tottering right at that edge between childhood and early adolescence. The little girl, silent and big-eyed, was several years younger than her brother—probably six or seven. She had pulled up the fur-trimmed hood of her coat so that just her face poked out, and Bret couldn’t even see the color of her hair. Where were their parents? Probably working, Bret surmised, unaware of this little enterprise.

Bret eyed the display of droopy green sprigs, tied with red ribbon and packaged in sandwich bags. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll take one.”

He handed the boy a dollar bill and waved away the change. “Get your sister home.”

“Yes, sir.” The boy nodded, the picture of politeness. And in that instant, Bret knew this kid. Probably not even in junior high yet, he already had a sense of public relations. The kind of kid who knew just what to say to a friend’s parents. In a few years, those parents had better keep an eye on their daughters.

What the boy had overlooked was that not all thirty-year-old single men cared to be called sir.

The little girl, on the other hand, looked at him with solemn eyes. He didn’t think anything about her was fake.

“He is your brother, right?” Bret wasn’t sure the huckster standing beside her was above recruiting a waifish little friend to boost his sales pitch.

Her surprise was genuine. “Yes.”

“Why?” the boy asked, suddenly defensive.

The girl looked at Bret with imploring eyes. “Have you seen a cat?”

“Sophie.” Her brother nudged her impatiently.

Bret ignored him. “You mean, have I ever seen a cat? Or did you lose a cat?”

“He got out the other night,” she said plaintively. “When it snowed.”

Her brother nudged her again, a bit more gently. “Sophie.”

“It’s okay,” Bret said. “No, I haven’t seen a cat lately.”

The girl’s eyes shimmered. If that cat had been out overnight in the snowstorm, Bret didn’t give long odds for its survival. His voice softened. “But I’ll ask around. Okay?”

The girl nodded vigorously. Her soulful gray eyes had no trace of green or even blue. It didn’t matter.

Bret’s voice roughened again. “How much mistletoe do you have left?”

“Just those.” The boy nodded at the tray. About five bundles.

“I’ll take the rest,” Bret said, and handed the girl a ten-dollar bill.

* * *

When he got back to the office, Bret found Chloe alone in the newsroom. They’d reached a tacit understanding since the day his father was hospitalized. Bret tried not to be excessively polite, and Chloe didn’t press him to talk. About anything.

But today they were alone, and he had a pocketful of mistletoe in his overcoat. Somehow it felt like a loaded combination. She looked up from her screen, her eyes quietly assessing, lips slightly parted, reminding him of that night at her door. Stupid mistletoe.

He greeted her with a nod and made for his office without stopping to hang his overcoat on the rack.

“Bret?” Chloe’s voice called him back, and that sounded like trouble. Sure enough, when he turned, she said, “I’d like to ask you a favor.”

He approached her desk with caution. “What?”

Her shoulders squared. “Tomorrow night’s the town council meeting. I know that’s my beat. But my roommates and some other friends are going out Christmas caroling and—” She paused and pushed through with that determined jut of her chin. “I just haven’t had much Christmas. I wondered if there was any way you or Chuck could cover it.”

Bret wanted to be annoyed, but he couldn’t. Chloe had put in a lot of hours, and with everything he’d added into the mix, this had to be a rough Christmas for her.

“Why not,” he heard himself say. “I’ll get more out of the council meeting, and you’ll sure as heck get more out of the caroling.”

Okay, that sounded glum even to his own ears. He couldn’t walk away on that note. He thought of the kids who’d sold him the mistletoe and remembered his errant promise.

He asked, “By any chance have you seen a cat?”

Chloe gave a sharp intake of breath. “Why?”

It wasn’t the response he’d expected. Chloe looked at him wide-eyed, and Bret wondered if that was the look she used on traffic cops when they pulled her over.

“I ran into some kids today,” he answered. “The little girl told me they lost a cat. I said I’d ask around.”

Chloe blinked. “Tiffany and Kate saw one the other night.” She sounded hesitant. “In the parking lot at the Pine ’n’ Dine.”

Bret tried to interpret the dismay in her expression. “Was it dead?”

She blinked again, and color flooded her face. “No.”

She didn’t say any more, but Bret started to put two and two together. About a month ago, the night the photocopier jammed, Bret had thought she made a pretty good liar. He hadn’t known her very well then.

“Did you get the kids’ number?” she asked.

“No. I didn’t think of it. I thought it was a long shot. Maybe you could make up a flyer. You could . . . mention where the cat was last seen.”

Like last night, he thought. In your apartment. Maybe on your lap.

Chloe bit her lip, and Bret was sure he’d nailed it.

She shifted in her chair and changed the subject. “I had a call before you came in,” she said. “They’re having a living Nativity at Tall Pine Community Church two nights before Christmas. Live people, real animals, the whole bit.” A smile touched her lips. “They even got hold of a camel somewhere.”

That was less than a week away. They should have started promoting it sooner. Of course, Bret would have known about it, if he’d set foot anywhere near the church in the past few weeks.

Chloe waited for his answer. She probably expected him to say no, or relegate it to a news brief. Bret wondered how hard she’d fight for it. Perversely, he decided to find out.

“And?” He kept a straight face. “You’d like to, what, interview the camel?”

Ignoring the quip, she persisted. “They haven’t tried something like this in quite a few years. Pastor Craig’s really getting the youth involved on this one. I think it’s worth a nice advance piece.”

“So do I.”

Chloe, who’d already opened her mouth to argue further, went silent. She looked at him as if he were an imposter, and he almost felt bad for messing with her.

In truth, his mood felt lighter than it had in days. They were having a normal conversation, and the floor hadn’t opened up under their feet.

“Christmas may not be my favorite thing,” he said. “But I never said I don’t believe in what it stands for. Get with Ned, see if you can set up a good photo while you’re at it. Maybe they’re doing some kind of walk-through rehearsal. If the camel isn’t already booked for Good Morning America.”

“Thanks, Bret.” She smiled, that dimple showing below the corner of her mouth, and suddenly Bret wished for a herd of camels. Dangerous, he reminded himself. Especially with that mistletoe still in his pocket.

He started to move on, and Chloe sat forward, hands returning to her keyboard. She wore one of her cardigan sweaters again. In the colder weather, she still wore them in the office, and pulled on her coat over them when she left. This one was dark blue.

Dark blue, with traces of fine white hair clinging to the sleeves.

Bret couldn’t resist. He reached over the desk and carefully pinched a few of the hairs off the cuff of Chloe’s sleeve. She looked up, startled, and Bret stood stock still.

All he’d really touched had been yarn and cat fur. Absolutely no reason for anything like a sizzle to race up his arm, unless it was the flash of surprise in Chloe’s eyes.

Surprise . . . and maybe a little guilt. Bret felt a deep tug inside. He knew she hadn’t meant any harm. She’d been rescuing a stray animal, not trying to deprive a little girl of her pet.

“Don’t worry,” he said.

“About what?” She blinked rapidly. She’d never make it as a felon.

“That cat your roommates saw,” Bret said. “Once you get some flyers up, I’m sure it’ll all work out.”