A Baby In His Stocking
Shea tried to think of an explanation she hadn’t already given him, but her father sat down on the chair by his desk with an audible whoosh coming out of his mouth.
“Don’t need a Santa?” he asked incredulously. “Heck, Jared, of course Denton’s needs a Santa. Christmas in Quiet Brook wouldn’t be the same...” Mack frowned at Jared. “Didn’t Shea ever tell you about our gift-giving program? It’s been a family tradition for years.”
Jared aimed a long, unfathomable look in Shea’s direction that had her tingling all over and forgetting, for the moment, about their present troubles and the fact that the two of them were currently as incompatible as dry Christmas trees and Roman candles.
“I’m sure she might have tried,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’ve never paid much attention to anything about Christmas.”
That cool tone in his voice was all too familiar. She’d heard it a lot right before she’d left him, Shea remembered. It made her sad and afraid at the same time. Afraid especially because she knew she couldn’t help getting herself involved in trying to change him, and she was already feeling tender and wounded.
But she had to try, for Jared’s own sake. “During World War II,” she said, “my grandfather started a program. As each child visited Santa at the Station, the helper there recorded the child’s name and wish on a list. Then Denton’s would move heaven and earth, either through soliciting donations or giving the present themselves, to make sure the needy kids in town received at least one gift they craved.”
“The churches in town could do that now, couldn’t they?” Jared asked.
“They could,” Shea admitted. “Or the children could just mail their lists to Santa in the box in front of our store. But, Jared, the way Denton’s department store plays Santa to kids is one of the things that helps make Christmas in Quiet Brook the magical holiday it is.”
And, she added silently, they had to get things back to normal at the store by capturing the Grinch and hiring a Santa. She didn’t want to lose her job, the store, or anything else in her life.
She’d already lost Jared.
“So couldn’t you consider helping us—for the kids’ sakes?” her father asked.
From the way Jared was looking at her again, with an unreadable something in his dark blue eyes that Shea couldn’t figure out—but it wasn’t emotion—she knew he wasn’t going to stay and help by finding the Grinch, never mind by playing Santa. He wasn’t, she knew, because she was there.
Just as she predicted, Jared shook his head. “If that’s all you needed, Mack, old buddy, then I’ve got to be getting back to Topeka. There’s work there calling my name.”
The scene seemed eerily familiar to Shea. She had lived through it more than a few times since last December when she’d brought up the topic of having a baby and started pressing him to agree. Jared tended, to say the least, to avoid confrontation. If she didn’t miss her guess, in about four seconds...
She was right. With a wave, he turned and walked out of the room. Knowing the importance, Shea rose and hurried after him, flicking on the front porch light on her way out.
“Jared, wait!”
He cleared the porch steps and kept walking.
“Please?” The frosty air swirled around her, but if she went inside long enough to get her coat, he would leave and she would miss her chance. “Please? We have to talk.”
He stopped, his shoulders tensing, and she held her breath. To save Christmas for the store and the kids—and to help him and their baby, she had to find a way to persuade him to remain in town, even if every time she saw him brought back the painful memories of what could have been so perfect. He had to stay, only she didn’t know if she could be near him without falling to pieces.
Very slowly, he reversed direction. The shuttered look on his face was one she knew well, and it occuned to her that he had completely lost whatever sense of humor he seemed to have had at the store—or he’d just been faking it all along.
Either way, she was going to have to help him find it—and fast.
Chapter Three
Walking up to join Shea on the porch, Jared watched her with shaded eyes.
“I wish you wouldn’t go,” she said softly, her green eyes tearing him apart. “Mack needs you here.”
“I have to go.” He did, because he was not going to spend the upcoming days until the divorce torturing himself by being in the same town as Shea. Instead, he would be back in Topeka, working his tail off until he keeled over. If he timed it right, that event would take place at midnight of the morning of the divorce, and then he would sleep through until Thursday morning. After that...well, after that he would try to get through his life by pretending that Shea had never existed. Reaching out, he brushed a wisp of her hair behind her ear. “Why didn’t you tell your father there’s no hope for us?”
“I did, Jared,” she swore. “I even repeated it today. He just doesn’t want to believe.”
“Then I guess the question is, why are you out here trying to convince me to stay here and go through with his plan?”
“I have a couple of very good reasons,” she told him. “One of them is that Dad doesn’t need the strain of losing the store. The other...” Her voice dropped off. “It doesn’t matter. What does is that your helping us is so important for the sake of the store, the kids, the town—everything. You have no idea.” The cold was getting to her, and she couldn’t hold back a small shiver.
Jared took off his jacket, put it over her shoulders and pulled it close around her. “We should talk inside.”
“I think I prefer it out here,” Shea said with a small, wry smile. “Mack would eavesdrop. If I can’t convince you to stay, I don’t want him telling me what I should have said to you that might have worked.”
“Yeah, well, you’re cold.” Even as Jared said it, he realized he didn’t seem to feel it. Never had. Maybe he, like his father, was really made of ice. “Mack should be the one out here.”
“I’m all right.” Clutching his jacket, wrapped in what had been the heat from his body, Shea shook her head. “Dad thinks I should handle this Grinch thing—and you.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” Jared said wryly, a trace of a smile on his lips.
She didn’t smile back. “Probably because he thinks we belong together—but I guess we proved him wrong, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, we sure did.”
So much for lightening the mood, Jared thought. Unless he missed his guess, Shea was on the verge of tears. He’d already made her cry too many times. He wanted to go, but somehow he just couldn’t say no to her again and walk away. Not when she wanted the help so much.
“Congratulations on the promotion,” he said. “You always did enjoy the store and everything about it.”
“I think loving and being committed to Denton’s is a requirement before you can bear the family name,” she said.
“I’m surprised you ever agreed to leave Quiet Brook to come with me.”
“I loved you more than the store and the town,” she admitted softly. “More than anything.”
“And I messed that up, didn’t I?” His jaw moved as he surveyed her deep green eyes and high cheekbones and found her usually expressive face unreadable. “Give me a reason to stay, Shea,” he urged, his voice low. “One that I can understand.”
He was trying, Shea realized, only she’d run out of reasons for him to stay. The one she wanted—for him to stay for her—wouldn’t work.
“How about this?” she asked slowly, brainstorming. “If you stay and find the Grinch, you’d be saving Christmas for the needy in a small town in the heartland. A story like that hits the tabloids, and you’d be famous and get loads of publicity for your agency. What do you think?”
“I think that sounds pretty close to being exploitative,” Jared said. “And cynical. You wouldn’t want me to take unfair advantage of the public’s gullibility, would you?”
“Yes?”
He shook his head, pretending sadness. “Being married to me has warped your precious small-town values a little. But I’m still unconvinced. Want to give up now so I can go?”
“Okay, Jared,” she said, too calmly for his peace of mind, “I wasn’t going to do this, but you’ve driven me to it. I’ll beg. I’ll even throw something in it for you. If I agree to be very, very, nice—” she blinked the thick black lashes of her eyes and closed the distance between them “—will you please stay and help me make Christmas special for the needy kids in Quiet Brook?”
The closer she got, the more Jared wanted to stay, and not just because he wanted her. It was everything about her that enticed him, including the fact that she cared enough about him to want to give him the family life he’d never had. She was the one woman who might have filled the hole in his life, he realized, but he couldn’t let her—for her own sake.
He didn’t want to hurt her any further, so he backed away ever so slightly. “I can’t help you, Shea.”
Her face fell. “Why did I possibly imagine mentioning little boys and girls in the store with no Santa in sight would faze you?” she asked, her voice sadder than he’d ever heard it.
Her mention of small kids brought the image of that little sandy-haired girl in Denton’s back into his mind. Jared couldn’t move, thinking about how that child had been so damned worried about Shea—and so certain of herself. It was almost as if he’d been visited by... No, he wasn’t going to be sidetracked by the magic-of-Christmas bit. Stupid, fanciful thoughts would get him nowhere.
She’d struck some chord inside him. Shea knew it, could see the second his eyes changed. Taking a deep breath, she forged on. “There’s something else.”
He waited. The crisp air seemed to crackle with electricity between them. She crossed her fingers, both for luck and because of the little lie she was about to tell.
“Mack’s condition is worse than I led you to believe.” Maybe it wasn’t such a lie. Her father’s condition would definitely take a turn for the worse if Mack ever heard about what she’d just said to his best friend.
Jared hadn’t been expecting that, and the news took his breath away. “If this is a trick, I’m not sure what I’m going to do to you,” he warned. “But I guarantee that it won’t be anything with Christmas spirit in it.”
“I wouldn’t tempt Fate lying about something like this,” she said, crossing her fingers again under the cover of his jacket.
“You should have told me earlier.” But Jared couldn’t sustain his irritation, not when he was overridden with worry for his friend and the thought that if something happened to Mack, he would really be irretrievably alone—and so would Shea.
His throat went dry. Mack was the one person who had never wanted anything from him, no matter what, seemingly from the second they’d met. And Mack’s loyalty was limitless. Even when Shea had left him, Mack had refused to take sides. He’d do anything for Mack—and Shea knew it.
Yeah, Shea knew it. He gave her a suspicious look. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth about your father’s health before?”
“I didn’t want you to stick around before. Then Mack did his blackmailing bit, and now I need you here.”
Jared wasn’t at all worried about Mack doing anything to Shea that she didn’t probably deserve, but he had to ask. “What did Mack threaten you with?”
She looked like she might not answer. As she hesitated, she moved her arms, and his jacket almost slipped off her shoulders. Without thinking, Jared stepped forward and drew it around her again. He could hear her breathing stop and then he backed away, cursing himself for losing his control. He shouldn’t touch her. He really shouldn’t touch her.
“Mack basically told me if I wasn’t nice to you while you were here, he’d lay me off work until you left.”
In the front porch light, Shea could see a slow grin cross Jared’s face, lighting up his eyes. A true smile of honest amusement. Caught by surprise, almost mesmerized, she finally released her breath, which she seemed to have been holding forever. Then the meaning of his smile penetrated.
“Wait a minute. You think Mack’s blackmailing me is funny?”
“Hell, yes. Ironic.” His chuckle resonated from deep within. “Shea Burroughs actually needed to be threatened to show Christmas spirit? You were always so full of Christmas spirit, I used to think you could convince Scrooge to change into Santa Claus.”
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