few miles went by with Rory maneuvering in and out of the traffic. He spent the time alternating between wondering if he’d told Finley the right thing and forcing his mind away from the sure knowledge that Shannon would have known exactly what to say. Then a worse thing happened. Suddenly, he began wishing he could call her tonight and tell her about this conversation.
“So if there are lots of Santas, that explains how he gets everywhere on Christmas Eve to deliver presents.”
“Exactly.”
“So that means not everybody gets a real Santa. Most of us get a fake!”
Panicked, Rory glanced at her. “No. No. He’s a special magic guy who can go around the world all in one night. Because he’s special.” He floundered, grasping for words. “Magic. It all has to do with magic.”
“But you told me magic is just some guy who knows how to do things really fast or by getting you to look away from what he’s really doing.”
Caught in the web of an explanation he’d given Finley after they’d seen a young man doing magic tricks on the beach a few months before, he wanted to bounce his head off the steering wheel. This is what he got for having a super-intelligent child. “That is true with most magic. But this is Christmas magic.”
“What’s the difference?”
He peered over at Finley again. Shannon would have handled this so easily. She would have told Finley the truth. And maybe that was what he needed to do. Tell her the truth. Not the big truth that Santa wasn’t real. But the other truth. The truth most parents hated admitting.
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a guy who buys stores and fixes them up so that they make lots of money. I’m not the guy in charge of Santa. So I’m not in on those secrets.”
She nodded sagely, leaned back in her car seat. “I miss Shannon.”
He struggled with the urge to close his eyes. Not in frustration this time, but because he missed Shannon, too. He swallowed. “So do I.”
“She was pretty.”
Gorgeous. He couldn’t count the times he’d longed to run his fingers through her thick, springy black curls. He couldn’t count the times he’d noticed that her eyes changed shades of blue depending upon what she wore. He couldn’t count the time he’d itched to touch her, yearned to kiss her, thought about making love to her.
“She was smart, too.”
He’d definitely have to agree with that. Not only was there a noticeable difference in Raleigh’s income from when her dad ran the store and when she’d taken over, but she also ran that store like a tight ship. And she always knew what to say to him, how to handle Finley.
She’d thought of sled riding and baking a cake on days when he probably would have been stumped for entertainment for himself, let alone himself and a six-year-old.
A pain surrounded his heart like the glow of a firefly. He could still see her laughing as she slid down the hill on her saucer sled, hear her screams of terror that turned into squeals of delight when he forced her down the big hill on the runner sled.
His throat thickened. He could also remember the sorrow in her voice when she told him she couldn’t have kids. She believed herself unlovable—
It hurt to even think that, because she was the easiest person to love he’d ever met.
He drove another mile or two before the truth of that really hit him. Not that she was easy to love, but that he knew that. How could he know she was easy to love, if he didn’t love her?
Shannon’s dad arrived home around five. The store stayed open until nine for late shoppers, but Santa’s throne was deserted at five with a note that told children that he was on his way to the North Pole to begin delivering gifts.
In the kitchen, where Shannon and her mom were making Christmas Eve supper, he shrugged out of his coat. He’d already removed his fake beard and white wig, but his salt-and-pepper hair had been flattened against his head. He still wore the Santa suit but the top two buttons of the jacket were undone. “So what did Wallace have to say? Is he going to buy the store?”
Shannon watched her mom shoot her dad one of those warning looks only a wife can give a husband and she laughed. “It’s okay, Mom. We can talk about it.”
Her dad headed for the table. “Talk about what?”
“About Rory Wallace breaking our daughter’s heart.”
His eyes widened, his forehead creased. “What?”
Shannon batted a hand. She didn’t mind talking to her mom, but her dad had a tendency to make mountains out of mole hills. “I’m fine. We just sort of began to get close while he was here and I might have taken a few things he said to heart that he didn’t mean.”
“Scoundrel!”
“No, Dad. It was me. We were attracted, but he sort of laid everything out on the table early on in the week. He had a wife who left him, who doesn’t want anything to do with their daughter.”
He fell to one of the chairs at the table. “Oh.”
“Then he mentioned a time or two that he loved being a dad and wanted more kids.”
He glanced up sharply, held her gaze. “You’re not out of that game. You can always adopt.”
Though she and her father had never come right out and talked about this, she wasn’t surprised that he’d thought it through, that he’d already come to this conclusion. She smiled shakily. “I know.”
“So what’s the deal? Why can’t we talk about him?”
“Because in spite of the fact that I knew we weren’t a good match I sort of let myself fall.” She sucked in a breath. “But I’m okay now. And I can tell you that he’s definitely interested in the store. He has to talk to his family first.”
“Maybe I don’t want to sell it to him.”
For the first time in hours, she laughed. “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. The Wallaces own a big company, with lots of capital. I’m sure they’ll make you a very fair offer.”
“Everything in life isn’t about money.”
She laughed again, glowing with the fact that her dad loved her enough not to take a deal. Even though that was idiotic and she planned to talk him out of it, she said, “That’s the first time you’ve ever said that.”
“Well, it’s true.” He scooted his chair closer to the table. “Are we going to eat tonight or what?”
His mom brought him a drink. “It’s only a little after five. I invited Mary to dinner at seven. Have a drink, go get a shower, and before you know it Mary will be here.”
A sudden knock at the door had her mom turning around. “Maybe she’s early?”
