Do Not Open 'Til Christmas by Sierra Donovan (18)

“Okay, guys.” Bret stood in his customary stance, arms folded, half leaning against the desk that he never came out to write at anymore. “It’s D-day. As in Day Before Christmas. Let’s do our best to make it a short one. We’ve got two papers to fill—tomorrow and the day after—so let’s take a look at what we’ve got.”

Chloe bit her lip. She’d been way off her stride the past few days, unable to sandbag any interviews to work ahead on. The silent tension between her and Bret was taking its toll, and so was the fatigue of the past several weeks.

While Bret turned his attention to Chuck, Chloe slid her notepad in front of her and hurriedly started jotting ideas for generic filler articles. The tradition of Boxing Day. The town’s program for curbside recycling of Christmas trees. Coptic Christmas, which was celebrated in January . . .

“Chloe.” Bret turned from Chuck, speaking in the tone of someone greeting a barely remembered junior high acquaintance.

She met his eyes, or tried to, because he was looking at an invisible person standing just beside her left ear.

“I had an e-mail from a family in Mount Douglas,” Bret said. “Their boy’s constructed a pretty impressive village of snowmen in their front yard. Can you go up, get a photo and an interview?”

“Mount Douglas?” Chloe stared at him. “Why’d they contact us?”

“Apparently their local paper had bigger fish to fry. But it sounds pretty unique.”

Mount Douglas was nearly an hour away, and definitely outside their usual coverage area. Which Bret knew full well. He had something in mind here.

She tried, “Wouldn’t a phone interview—”

“The boy’s eight. I have a feeling he’d be a lot easier to work with in person. Plus, they e-mailed a picture, but it’s pretty lousy. And you get great results on your phone camera.”

“The day before Christmas,” Chloe said. She became aware of Chuck shifting around at the desk in front of hers, making an effort to be very busy at . . . something.

“It’ll make a good front-page centerpiece for Christmas,” Bret said. “Plus, there’s snow in the forecast for tonight, so that snowman village won’t be around after today.”

In the time it would take her to get to Mount Douglas, do the interview, and come back, she could knock out . . . well, three news briefs, anyway. This assignment wasn’t a great use of manpower, but clearly, that wasn’t what it was about today.

Bret’s eyes actually met hers, and she saw a silent appeal there. “Once you get back here and write that one up, you can be done for the day.”

That was what this was about.

He was sending her out to cover the puff piece of the year, in another town, just to get her out of the office so he didn’t have to deal with their awkward situation.

There was nothing else to say. “Okay,” she said. “Forward me the e-mail.”

In front of her, she thought she heard Chuck exhale.

Chloe called the family and set up the interview. They couldn’t see her before eleven o’clock, but she left early and made a detour to her apartment to pick up her laptop. Maybe she could find a place to stop and write up the story before she drove back. That would get her out of the office that much quicker.

* * *

He was a heel.

After Chloe left, Bret sat in his office to bang out stories to fill the paper for the next two days. But it was hard to focus beyond his circling thoughts.

Of course Chloe saw through the pretext of the Mount Douglas story. Tomorrow was Christmas and he’d sent her out the door like an idiot. As if that would help matters.

It didn’t help. It made it worse. He hadn’t been trying to hurt her. Just push her away. Even if that amounted to the same thing.

When this was over, he decided, he was changing his middle name to I-shouldn’t-have-done-that.

When this was over.

What was this, and when was it over?

After his father died? A pretty bleak thing to put your life on hold for. After that, there’d be more guilt, more reasons to keep people at bay.

Sending Chloe out of the office the day before Christmas did nothing to alter the fact that he still had to deal with her on December twenty-sixth. And for the next month, until McCrea came back. The fact that being near her, and trying to act like nothing other than business had happened between them, felt like dining on a steady diet of ground glass.

His cell phone rang, and he answered without glancing at the caller ID. “This is Bret.”

“Bret?” His sister’s voice cut through the miles between here and Cincinnati. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

He gave a weary chuckle. “You got all that from ‘This is Bret’?”

“You don’t sound like yourself.”

Bret rested his head on the back of McCrea’s chair and closed his eyes. “Busy day. How are you, Rosalyn?”

“Good. Except for the part where I’m helping Cindy with her college applications.”

“College?” Bret did the math, as if Rosalyn wouldn’t know how old her daughter was. Ten going on eleven when his mother died, fourteen when he and his father had visited that summer . . . okay, it added up.

“You should see the essays she’s been doing. You’d be proud.”

“I already am.” Not that he could take any of the credit, but the girl was smart as a whip. Last time he saw her she’d been reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. During the summer. For fun. It had done his heart good.

“How’s Dad?” Rosalyn asked. “Is he doing any better?”

“Not really.” Bret pinched the bridge of his nose. “I kind of hoped this last hospital trip would be a wake-up call, but he keeps hitting the snooze button.”

“I’m sorry, Bret.” This was the unfortunate thing about Rosalyn’s annual Christmas call. Sooner or later, she got to the guilt. “You’ve taken on so much.”

“Rosalyn,” he said gently, “I understand.” Bret eyed the open door of his office, but Chuck was typing away at the far end of the room, out of earshot. “By the time Mom got sick, you were already settled on the other side of the country. You had your job, Dennis’s job, you were bringing up Cindy . . . it’s okay.”

“It’s not, though. It isn’t fair. You’re not responsible for the world turning on its axis. Dad . . . needs to take some personal responsibility.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose again. “Yeah, well, we’re not going to solve the world’s problems this morning. Do I still get a ‘Merry Christmas’ from you?”

“Sure, Bret. Merry Christmas.”

“Love you.”

After they hung up, Bret checked the forecast, called the art department, and asked them to work up a WHITE CHRISTMAS banner to have on standby for tomorrow’s front page. They already had the MERRY CHRISTMAS banner they used every year ready to go; they could make a quick switch if the snow arrived on schedule tonight.

Bret tapped the mouse alongside his keyboard. Knocked out a piece on the town’s annual New Year’s Eve square dance. And looked at the time. Ten after eleven.

Chloe would be in Mount Douglas by now, finding the right notes of personal interest in the piece of fluff he’d sent her off to write about. Granted, she’d make a great story out of it. They’d even gotten a few dozen e-mails in response to her piece about the cat. From a little column on page three of the editorial section.

Chloe had away of making the most of things. She’d even tried to do that for him, despite his repeated efforts to brush her away. She’d probably given up for good by this time, and maybe that was the best thing for her.

Or maybe, just maybe, he could change that.

* * *

Chloe left the Marsden family’s house shortly after noon. As she pulled out of the driveway, she took one more look at the snowman community, glittering like gems in the early afternoon sun. Big drifts of snow surrounded the little display; there was still plenty of raw material to spare. But at a population of fifteen, the snowman town included a policeman, with a navy cap and a toy sheriff’s star; a doctor, complete with white coat and stethoscope; and a baker, with apron and rolling pin. Oh, and a cat. With adorable pine-needle whiskers.

Chloe had rightly deduced that one eight-year-old couldn’t have built all this in less than a week, even on Christmas break. Under gentle questioning, he and his family had come clean with the details.

No, Joshua hadn’t worked alone, but the village had started out as his vision. When the neighbors saw him shoving snow around for hours, people of all ages had stepped in to help. To Chloe, the team effort made the story that much more magical. That, and the fact that so much work and ambition had gone into something that, by its very nature, couldn’t last.

Bret might have assigned her the story just to get her out of the office, but she looked forward to writing it.

She started down Mount Douglas’s main drag. Compared to Tall Pine, the place was a minor metropolis, but Main Street was still a two-lane road. And unlike Evergreen Lane, Main Street boasted chain restaurants with drive-through windows. Chloe kept an eye out for a quick lunch, and her eyes lit on a Starbucks at the next corner.

Starbucks had Wi-Fi. Because Mount Douglas actually had decent cell phone and Internet reception.

Maybe she didn’t need to go back to the office at all.

She stopped in and wrote the story over a panini sandwich, then prepared to e-mail it to Bret. She bit her lip as she started to compose the note to accompany the story. She kept her tone as professional and neutral as possible.

* * *

Bret arrived at his father’s house with a large bag of groceries and a smaller bag of chicken from the Pine ’n’ Dine. Grilled, rather than their legendary, decadent fried chicken.

“Bret,” his father said when he answered the door. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I know.” Arms full, Bret moved past David to the kitchen table, where he set down the bags. “I brought lunch.”

But first, he started unloading groceries. He started by setting up a bowl of fruit in the middle of the kitchen table. Not that he hadn’t tried this before.

His father joined him at the table. “Aren’t you awfully busy at the paper?”

“Extremely. But my brain wasn’t working too well, so I took a break. With a purpose.” He unloaded a fresh batch of produce into the refrigerator and closed the door. With the added space between himself and his father, he took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”

“You sound like your mother when you say that.” With a faint smile, David Radner sat down at the kitchen table. If he was trying to look frail, he was doing a pretty good job.

“Maybe she and I have a lot in common.” Like looking after you. Bret thought it, but he couldn’t say it. Confrontation wasn’t the idea here.

Plates. That was something to keep him busy moving. But knowing Sherry . . . “Are there plates in that bag?”

David peered inside. “Right here.” He fished the plates and napkins out of the white bag, and the tantalizing scent of chicken wafted out. It might not be fried, but it still smelled darned good.

“Okay,” Bret said. “So, what this is about . . .” A part of him wanted to remain standing, to retain the height advantage. And hold on to his nerve. But he sat, dishing chicken and rolls onto the sturdy paper plates. He sat back, brushed hair from his forehead. “Dad, I know you’ve heard this before. I love you and you mean a lot to me. And I don’t mind helping you out. But—you need to help me out. I can’t do it for you.”

“I know.”

Bret blinked. And searched his dad’s eyes, a lighter brown than his own. Possibly he just wanted to say whatever it took to make Bret shut up. But there was something about his father’s lack of surprise. “Did Rosalyn call you?”

“No, but Winston just left about twenty minutes ago. Said I needed to man up and take care of myself. Said I was turning you into a grumpy old man.”

Dear Lord. By the time Winston called you grumpy . . .

Bret asked, “And what’d you tell him?”

“That I noticed. You’ve been getting skinnier again. Not a good thing. But that’s not all my fault, either. In fact, Winston sort of hinted that you might be using me as an excuse.”

Bret felt a smile twitch at his lips. “Balderdash.”

But it had a ring of truth. He couldn’t pin everything on his dad.

He sat forward. Their food was getting cold. “I know it’s been hard for you. But you’re still here, and there’s got to be a reason. I think it’s time for you to find it.” Bret shrugged. “Maybe try for the town council again. You wouldn’t need to worry about conflict of interest anymore. We’ve got someone else at the paper covering that now.” For a while, anyway.

“The cute blond reporter,” David said.

“Yeah—” Bret couldn’t gather up a denial. “She’s more than cute, Dad.”

“I knew it.” His father reached for one of the containers of side dishes and pulled off the lid. “Cole slaw? Seriously?”

“Try it. It’s hardly a health food.”

They ate for a few minutes in silence.

“So,” David said, “if Rosalyn calls, don’t answer it?”

“No. Answer it. Just wish her a Merry Christmas.”

Another pause.

Then his father said, “Does this mean I’ll see you at church tonight?”

And that one was on Bret. Because while he’d avoided church during the Christmas season in the years since his mother’s death, his dad remained a faithful attender throughout the year. Including the Christmas Eve service.

So David Radner still had the knack for negotiation from his town council days. Time for Bret to give a little, too. Fair’s fair.

“You got it,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

* * *

Chloe’s e-mail to Bret took longer to write than the story. She read it over one more time before she finally clicked Send.

She looked up to find that Starbucks, quiet to begin with, was deserted. No surprise there. After all, it was Christmas Eve Day.

And she was going to have a good Christmas tomorrow with her family. Without thinking about Bret. Or his reaction to the e-mail she’d sent. She hadn’t written it for the reaction. She’d written it to put all this behind her.

“Be careful out there,” the lone barista behind the counter said as she left.

The significance of that remark hit her full force as she pushed through the door, out into a frigid world significantly different from the one she’d seen an hour and a half ago. She’d been so engrossed on her laptop she hadn’t looked out the window.

The sky was gun metal gray, and it looked more like five p.m. than two o’clock in the afternoon. Nothing like the harsh, bright sunlight of a few hours ago. She didn’t know if they’d get a white Christmas in Tall Pine, but up here in Mount Douglas, those clouds were unquestionably loaded with snow.

She should have driven back before she wrote the story. And the e-mail.

Chloe hurried to her car. Maybe she could still get home ahead of the storm.