my brother’s car,” he said abruptly.
With his car so stuffed with coats he could no longer see out his back window, he was aware Calypso was still standing there, hugging herself against the cold. All those coats and she hadn’t put one on?
She was waiting for something, so he said, “I don’t suppose you’d know where I can find an elf?”
She popped her gum and settled a hand on a cocked hip. “Ooh,” she said playfully, “I wouldn’t have figured you for kinky.”
For some reason he thought of another woman. And her blush. A woman who probably wouldn’t use the word kinky with a man even if she’d known him for fifty years, never mind for a little over an hour. A woman who probably wouldn’t know the difference between a Jaguar and a Honda Civic.
A red fingernailed hand—an exact match for the hat and bra—was laid on his jacket sleeve.
“I’m available for dinner,” Calypso announced, her voice sultry and her made-up eyes inviting.
She was exactly the kind of woman he’d always gone for. A girl who knew how to have a good time and who knew exactly how the game was played. If he was really going to start connecting again, if he was really ready, Calypso would be a safe way to do it.
Again, he thought of another woman. One who wouldn’t have announced she was available for dinner if she’d gone four days without food.
And suddenly he found himself wondering if she was.
He wanted to find out if her name was Anne or Mary or Rose. Surely, for fifty jackets, she’d surrender her name. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she saw the pink ones with the silly collars.
“Thanks for all your help. Sorry, no, I’m not available for dinner.”
“How about your brother?” she said, running a covetous finger over the sleek blackness of the hood detail.
He did not risk evoking her sympathy by telling her his brother was dead. He forced a smile, but he felt like a wolf, baring its teeth in warning. “He isn’t available, either.”
She took it in stride, a woman who knew men were just like buses—another one would be along in a few minutes—winked at him and walked away putting lots of swish in it.
Michael put the car in gear and started driving back across town. Rush hour had begun with a vengeance, the still thickly falling snow not helping. He found himself in a tangle of cars on West Washington, glaring at his watch, thinking, She’ll have gone home by the time I get there.
The traffic finally started moving, inching along through the streets made treacherous with melting snow. He reached for the heater, turned it up a notch.
And then his hand fell away, and he contemplated what he had just done. Why had he turned up the heat? The windshield was clearly defrosting adequately.
When he focused, sure enough, there it was. The tiniest shiver along his spine. He realized he was feeling something. Cold. He felt just a tiny bit cold. He’d been getting warnings all afternoon that something was in movement. The guilt over tearing the pages from the telephone book. Enjoying spending the money on the coats. The desire to connect with her. Now this.
The shiver was already gone, and he deliberately turned the heat back down. He wasn’t ready to feel anything. He certainly wasn’t ready to go invite some woman he barely knew—he didn’t even know her name, for God’s sake—to have dinner with him.
He could send the coats to the Secret Santa Society by courier tomorrow. He could find her a damned elf without ever seeing her again, without immersing himself any further in this dangerous world that would make him feel.
He slammed on the brakes, slid, used the power of the slide to yank on the wheel and do a complete U-turn, dramatic, worthy of Hollywood. Horns honked their outrage. He didn’t care. He was heading away from the Secret Santa Society as fast as he could!
Because his side and rear windows were nearly completely blocked with children’s coats, he heard the siren before he saw the lights. Michael looked in his side mirror and sighed. The red and blue lights were flashing right behind him, and when he pulled over, the police car did, too.
The cop was not in the Christmas spirit. “That turn back there was illegal—even if you could see, which you can’t.” Out came the ticket book. And then he looked more closely at Michael’s cargo.
“What is this? You rob a store?”
It would be so easy to say yes, and see where that led.
“You got a receipt for this stuff?”
Michael passed him the receipt.
“Okay, so you bought fifty kids’ coats. What’s up with that?”
The cop didn’t look like he was in the mood for the none-of-your-business that Michael wanted to give him. In fact, the man was trying very hard not to look as cold and miserable as he obviously was.
Suddenly it seemed like it was the right thing to do to let him know good happened in the world, too. It wasn’t all drunks hitting their wives and kids, dope dealers on the corners, asses doing U-turns.
“The coats are for the Secret Santa Society.” Michael offered it up reluctantly, the man who least wanted to be seen as a do-gooder.
The ticket book was snapped shut and replaced in its upper pocket home, beside a name tag, Adams.
“You were delivering them?”
It seemed hopelessly complicated to say he had been delivering them, then decided not to deliver them, at least not personally, so Michael only nodded.
The policeman looked at the clogged road. “Washington’s always like this at this time of day. Were you going to try Wilmore instead?”
Michael decided for honesty. “Actually I was thinking maybe I’d just go home, make the delivery a different day.”
Adams frowned at the traffic, then brightened. “Emergency delivery to the Secret Santa Society. Follow me,” he ordered. His whole face and body language changed. He was thrilled to be part of something good.
So, that’s what happened, Michael thought, when you fooled with something as powerful as Santa. He was now headed, under police escort, directly toward a place that moments ago he had decided he was not going. He pondered, uneasily, how much of his life was now going to be out of his control.
Then he reminded himself that thinking life was in your control was the largest of illusions anyway.
Sirens were nothing unusual for this neighborhood, in fact they played in the background, a noise Kirsten blocked out as easily as elevator music. There had been a rush of volunteers earlier, but they had all left at suppertime and now she was alone. Happily she pulled her catalog closer. Love in a Little House on the Prairie, was a wonderful piece, too. Not as good as Knight in Shining Armor, but—
The siren wailed, demanding attention, and suddenly the inside of her office was strobed in red and blue. Curious, she set aside the catalog
