the barrel of a gun. The shot that rang out nearly had Cass dropping her crystals.
In spite of the client who was waiting for her, Cass sat where she was for a few more minutes while fear warred with joy inside of her.
Dino and the woman would be facing serious danger, but Dino had been right. The Fates were making him an offer, and if he chose to accept it, he would find his true love.
ON HER WAY DOWN from her office, Cat took a moment to breathe and glance around her store. A toddler clutching his mother’s hand had decided to sing along with the rendition of “Jingle Bells” pouring out of the sound system. Another child was busily plucking ornaments off the Christmas tree she’d set up in one of the corners. Cat grinned. She had to retrim that tree almost every night, but it was worth it.
The bell over the Cheshire Cat’s door jingled. From her vantage point halfway up the spiral staircase in the center of her store, Cat spotted Mrs. Lassiter and Mrs. Palmer, two of her most loyal customers. No doubt they were here to pick up their dolls. She dashed down the rest of the stairs. Just as she reached the two women, the bell jingled again, and more customers pushed their way into the store. Cat briefly shifted her gaze to the newcomers, and she immediately recognized them as two sisters, Janey and Angela Carter. They had also ordered the dolls. Cat sent them what she hoped was a welcoming smile.
“I came to pick up my granddaughter’s doll,” Mrs. Lassiter said in a voice that carried. “It’s one of the special ones you ordered from that place in Mexico.”
“Yes. From Paxco, Mexico.” Cat did her best to project calm reassurance. “I’m sorry, but they haven’t arrived yet. I expect them—”
“You said they’d be here today. What’s the problem?”
Ignoring the nerves dancing in her stomach, Cat smiled. “No problem.”
“When will they arrive?”
Cat wished she knew. “I’m hoping tomorrow. Thursday at the latest.”
The bell over the door jingled again, and a portly whitehaired man entered and looked around. Cat was sure she’d never seen him before, and yet there was something about him that was familiar. He crossed to Adelaide and cut rudely into the line in front of her counter. Someone voiced a protest, and for a moment Adelaide lost her usual pleasant expression. She even dropped a toy soldier she was about to ring up. Then she said something to the man and pointed in Cat’s direction. As he strode toward her, Cat suddenly figured out why he might look familiar. With his white hair and mustache, and the narrow unframed spectacles that sat nearly on the end of his nose, he reminded Cat a bit of Santa Claus.
Oh, how she wished he were. Where was Santa when you needed him?
“But you’re not sure?”
Cat shifted her gaze back to Mrs. Lassiter. Worry outweighed the annoyance in the older woman’s voice now, and Cat could see the same concern reflected in Mrs. Palmer’s face, as well as in the Carter sisters’.
The shop was packed. It was Christmas week in Manhattan and lunch hour—that time of day when both locals and tourists poured into stores with one purpose—to finish their Christmas shopping.
And her father had wanted her to join him for lunch in midtown? Right. Her family didn’t really have a clue about the kind of pressures that built once you combined Christmas, children and toys.
Cat met the worried gazes in front of her one at a time. “I’m confident that the dolls will arrive in the next two days.” They had to.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that her assistant Adelaide had fully recovered from her encounter with the Santa Claus man and was ringing up a fairly hefty sale for a young couple. Tourists. The man had a camera slung over his shoulder and the woman was unfolding a street map.
“So the bottom line is that you have no idea whether or not the doll I ordered will arrive by Christmas Eve.” This time it wasn’t Mrs. Lassiter who spoke. It was the Santa Claus man. His voice carried and several customers who’d been browsing nearby stopped to stare in his direction.
“You said the dolls would be here no later than today,” Mrs. Lassiter chimed in. “Don’t we have a free trade agreement with Mexico? Would it help if I called my congressman?”
Cat turned the full wattage of her smile on the small group gathered in front of her and kept her voice calm. “I don’t think it’s time to panic yet. I only learned yesterday afternoon that the delivery of the dolls might be delayed a day or so. Might be. They could be on their way right now. Each doll is handmade, and a few of them weren’t quite ready for shipment. I told them to ship the ones that were immediately.” What she didn’t add was that Juan Rivero, who’d called her with the bad news, had answered her by saying that they only needed one more day. And then he’d hung up.
“In the meantime, my buying assistant, Matt Winslow, flew to Paxco, Mexico, late last night. I’m hoping to hear from him any time now.”
She should have heard from him already, even with the time difference. And Matt wasn’t answering his cell. Cat concentrated on the unhappy faces in front of her and firmly pushed that worry out of her mind.
“Worst case scenario, they’ll express ship the ones that are ready today, and Matt will personally bring back the dolls that are holding up the shipment with him.”
“You’re sure?” This question came from a very worried Mrs. Palmer.
“My granddaughter Giselle is expecting Santa to bring her that doll for Christmas. I showed her your brochure and that doll is the only one she wanted,” Mrs. Lassiter said. “I don’t want her to be disappointed.”
“It’s the same with my daughter.” In contrast to Mrs. Lassiter’s confrontational expression, Mrs. Palmer’s eyes held a great deal of worry and sadness. Her black wool coat was off the rack and was growing threadbare at the sleeves. “That doll was the only gift Mandy asked Santa for.”
Cat’s heart twisted. Both Mrs. Lassiter and Mrs. Palmer frequented her store. And because she made it a habit to learn as much as she could about her customers, Cat was aware of the number of visits that Mrs. Palmer and Mandy had made to the Cheshire Cat to choose that one special gift. If it didn’t arrive, Cat wagered there would be nothing else under the tree.
But the shipment would arrive. She’d been chanting that sentence to herself like a mantra all day long. The unique dolls that were now being finshed in the small town of Paxco, Mexico, were even more special to Cat because she’d asked the craftsmen to create them from a design of her mother’s. She’d taken twenty-four orders and added on one she intended to give her father. That had been in mid-November.
“The dolls are going to get here,” Cat assured the group in front of her. Her gaze lingered on the Santa Claus man. With his index finger, he shoved his glasses to the bridge of his nose and met her gaze for a moment. Once again, something tugged at the edge of her mind. She knew that she’d never seen him in the store and she wondered who had taken his order.
“You can track the shipment, can’t you?” The question came from the Santa Claus man in a calm voice.
Cat beamed a smile at him. “Absolutely. Just as soon as I get a tracking number.” Matt was supposed to phone her with that information. “Tell you what. I have a list of all your names and your phone numbers. I’ll call you just as
