Nick of Time

Mary resisted only a minute, her eyes still narrowed as if she didn’t trust him any more than she trusted the men who’d invaded her room. The thought disappointed him, although why, he didn’t know. In his line of business, he was always living a lie to infiltrate the situation.

“I’m watching you, Nick St. Claire, or whatever your real name is. And I’m trained in self-defense so don’t try anything.”

A smile tugged at Nick’s lips. “So noted.” Mary Christmas was no pushover and he bet she meant it about the self-defense training. He stepped into her room and stood perfectly still, staring at everything as it lay. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t anything odd or out of place. Her suitcase leaned against one wall, the clothing she’d worn earlier littered the bed, and a minimal assortment of toiletries lay scattered across the dresser. “Can you tell whether anything has moved from where you originally set it?”

Mary’s arms dropped to her sides as she inspected the room. “Everything looks the same except the water on the floor from the melted snow.” She opened the dresser drawers one by one. “No. Nothing in here is different from when I unpacked.”

When Nick caught a glimpse of lacy black panties and a matching bra, his heartbeat stuttered. He could picture beautiful Mary, dark lace resting against pale skin and nothing else. With a gulp, he turned his attention to the rest of the room. “What about the bed?” From one leap of the imagination to the next, he could have stuffed a sock in his mouth.

Her color high, Mary moved toward the queen-size mattress. “I don’t remember turning back the covers.” She touched a hand to the pillow.

Nick snagged her wrist, arresting her movement before she could lift the pillow. “Let me.”

Shrugging off his grip, she stepped to the side enough to allow him close to the bed. “Are you worried someone planted a bomb under my pillow?” she asked, her indignant tone fading with each word.

“Not really, but better safe than sorry.” He lifted the pillow.

Mary gasped.

A small box wrapped in shiny red wrapping paper lay against the crisp white sheets.

The fear Mary had felt only a moment earlier dissipated. “Dad.”

“This box?” Nick frowned. “Do you think your father left it?”

“It has to be him.” She reached out, grasped the gift and tore off the paper.

Nick grabbed the wrapping paper as it fell to the floor, lifting it with the tips of his fingers. He wrapped a tissue around the foil paper. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to keep this.”

She shrugged, staring down at the small white box resting in her hand. A smile lifted the corners of her lips for the first time since she’d learned of her father’s disappearance, denting Nick’s indifference like a head-on collision.

In a voice almost too soft to hear, she whispered, “We used to play a game called find the present when I was a child. He’d wrap a clue in the gift and hide it somewhere. When I found it, I had to guess what it meant and follow it to the next clue.”

Mary lifted the lid of the box and pushed aside a fluff of tissue paper. Buried inside was a shiny silver key.

“Any idea what the key belongs to?”

“No.” When she reached out, he caught her hand, wrapping his warm fingers around her cold ones.

“Wait, there might be fingerprints.” He continued to hold her hand, his shoulder rubbing against hers.

“They’ll be my father’s.” Mary pulled free of his fingers.

He maintained his hold. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course.” She held up the tissue where words had been scrawled in pencil. “That’s his writing as well.” She squinted as she read the message. “The past holds the secrets. What do you suppose that means?”

“I don’t know, but let me have the key. Maybe we can lift a print off it.” He snatched a tissue from the box on the dresser and carefully lifted the key from the box. “I’ll be right back.” Nick gave her a quick glance and then strode across the hall to his room, where he retrieved a fingerprint kit from his suitcase.

“I tell you, it’s my father’s handwriting. I’d know it anywhere.” Mary followed him across the hall and closed the door behind them.

“Still, it doesn’t hurt to check prints against the databases.”

“My father is not a criminal.” Mary crossed her arms over her chest, her chin jutting out at a stubborn angle. “Aren’t those databases geared toward criminals?”

Nick would rather she stayed back in her own room, but given the circumstances, he didn’t throw her out. Instead, he got down to the business of lifting the prints. He’d send them to Royce back in D.C. and see if they could find a match.

“I get it. You’re not going to answer my question, are you?”

“Nope.”

Mary wrapped her arms around the middle of her cottoncandy pink bathrobe. “Are you a cop or FBI agent?”

He glanced up for a brief moment, a flash of memory pulling his lips into a tight line. “Former FBI.”

“So you’re CIA or something like that?”

His attention returned to the fingerprints. “Something like that.”

She shook her head. “I’m standing here in my bathrobe talking to a stranger, and I don’t even know if he’s one of the good guys or the bad guys.” Mary had her bottom lip between her teeth, her brows furrowed into a worried frown.

“I like to think I’m one of the good guys,” he said, returning his concentration back to his task. For the most part. Though he’d crossed the lines more times than he cared to admit.

“Yeah, sure. And I guess it was a coincidence you showed up at the airport when I did, my father disappeared and someone broke into my room.” Her hands fisted and she propped them on her slim hips. “How do I know you’re one of the good guys? Do you have credentials to prove it?”

He completed his task before he stood. “I’m going to wash my hands, and then I’ll tell you what I can.”

“I get it, you’re not going to tell me anything.”

“Pretty much.” He pushed past her, strode through the doorway and down the hall, where he washed his hands in the communal bathroom. All the while he picked through what he knew to come up with what he could tell her. He hoped it was enough to appease her. As an SOS agent, he wasn’t at liberty to divulge his true duties. By doing so, he placed his entire organization in jeopardy and he wouldn’t do that, no matter how pretty the girl was. And Mary was a knockout.

MARY PACED inside Nick’s room. Despite her misgivings, she couldn’t or wouldn’t believe the man was one of the bad guys. So far, he’d been nothing but polite and helpful. Although she didn’t believe he was on the wrong side, she knew he was holding back information and she meant to extract it, one way or another. That he’d avoided the truth made her angry. She stoked her anger, letting it build with each passing minute.

When Nick walked back into the room, she braced herself, ready for anything. She held the gun he’d carried in both hands and pointed it at him. “Now, tell me what you know or I’ll shoot you.”

Nick smiled, shaking his head. “You won’t shoot me.”

His patronizing attitude only made her angrier. “You know so much about me, what makes you think I won’t?”

He closed the door behind him and then lunged for the weapon, yanking it from her grasp. “For one, it isn’t loaded.”

Deflated and feeling on less firm footing, Mary straightened her back and flicked her drying hair over her shoulder. “So, I wouldn’t have shot you anyway. Just give me answers, not more lies.”

“Have a seat.”

Mary glanced around the room, realizing the only place she could sit was on the bed. His bed. Tingling awareness started in her chest, spread south into her belly and lower still. “No, thank you. I prefer to stand.”

He nodded, his expression hardening into an impenetrable mask. “I came because a dead man in Brooklyn, New York, left a note to help Santa.”

“A dead man?” The blood drained from Mary’s face and a hand fluttered to her chest. “I never knew my father had friends in New York. I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, but if the man took the time to send help to Santa in North Pole, I thought it important enough to check into. Given that your father is now missing, there might be credence to his request.”

Mary sat on the bed and rested her head in her hands, willing a sudden attack of nausea to abate before she made a bigger fool of herself. When she finally had her stomach in check, she glanced up. “That still doesn’t tell me who you are and why you were with a dead man in New York.”

“Let’s just say we received an urgent call from him but arrived too late. By the time we got there, he was already dead.”

“We?”

A smile tipped the edges of his lips, the effect sending danger signals ricocheting through Mary’s brain.

“Never mind the ‘we.’”

“Argh!” She stomped her foot. “I don’t like all the secrets. Can you at least tell me who the dead man was?”

“Frank Richards. Does the name ring any bells?”

Mary scratched through her memory. “I’ve never met a man by that name, nor has Dad mentioned it. My dad and I are very close.”

“What about your stepmother?”

Her jaw tightened. “She’s only been in the picture for the past couple months. Before that, my father and I had no secrets from each other.”

“What do you know about his life before he moved here?”

“My dad’s lived in North Pole ever since I was born.”

“Where did he live before that?”

“I don’t know, I never asked. I knew he’d been in the military, but he didn’t like to talk about it.” For someone who loved her father more than any man in her life, she didn’t know him very well, did she? Her breath caught in her throat and she swallowed hard.

“What about your mother?”

“She was from Fairbanks, born and raised.”

“Was?” he prodded, his voice low, but insistent.

Mary turned to stare at the curtained window. “She died fourteen years ago in a car wreck.” Her death had been the reason Mary had stayed in North Pole as long as she did. Her father had loved his first wife completely. Olivia Claus had been a shining beacon, a consistently happy woman, content in her life in Alaska, thrilled to be a part of Christmas Towne and in love with her husband. And Santa had loved her more than life itself.

When Olivia Claus died, Santa needed Mary more than ever.

For the next twelve years, she’d concentrated on making her father happy. She graduated with honors from high school, went to college in Fairbanks and put off her dreams of moving to the Lower 48, indefinitely. Then she’d met Bradley and thought she was in love. When he’d turned out to be a cheat, her dreams of raising her children near her father fell through. That’s when her father arranged for her move to Seattle, to get away from bad memories.

She shook herself out of her morose musings. “How old was the man in Brooklyn?”

“Early sixties, maybe. We’re still looking into his background. I don’t know much about him yet, other than he was a retired army sergeant.”

“You think he might have known my dad before he moved to Alaska? Back when he’d been in the military?” When had her father moved to North Pole? Perhaps she could ask Christmas Towne’s janitor, Mr. Feegan. He’d known her dad about as long as anyone, she guessed. A glance at the clock confirmed it was too late to call now. At nearly midnight, she wouldn’t get a coherent response if she got him to answer the phone at all.

And Nick still hadn’t answered all her questions. “You still haven’t said who you work for.”

“Let’s just say I work for the country. You better get some rest. We want to start fresh and early looking for your father.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Like what?”

“That I still don’t know what you are.”

“I’m just a man here to help Santa.”

“Like some kind of saint from heaven?” Mary snorted. “North Pole’s very own St. Nick?”

“I’m no saint.” All humor disappeared from his face, leaving his eyes dark and fathomless.

She glanced at the gun in his hand. “How do I know you’re not here to kill my father? How do I know you didn’t kill Frank Richards?”

“You don’t.” He set the gun inside a dresser drawer and scooped her elbow into his palm. “Now, are you going to your room, or would your rather sleep here?”

Mary’s heart flip-flopped in her chest at the thought of staying in the same room with this man who was sexy enough to be a model and with just enough mystery to be dangerous. A deadly combination for her underexercised libido. If she didn’t leave now, it might be fatal to more than her tenuous hold on self-preservation. Who was to say he wouldn’t kill her? Her skin chilled. “I’m going.”

She couldn’t hustle across the hallway and into her room fast enough. When she turned to close the door, she noticed Nick leaning in his door frame. Having shed his jacket and with his black hair falling over his forehead, he could crank up any female’s blood pressure and she was no different. Damn.

Mary glared at him. “I intend to learn more about you and what’s happened to my father tomorrow. So don’t go anywhere.”

His lips twisted. “Don’t worry. I’m not. I’m just as interested in finding your father as you are.”

After closing the door with a sharp click, Mary leaned against it and wondered if Nick’s reasons were much darker than hers. She tested the lock on her window, and shoved her dresser in front of the door. When she fell into bed, she lay with her eyes half-open, jumping every time the heater kicked on or the walls settled. Questions raced through her mind, keeping her awake into the wee hours.

Who had bumped into her in the hallway? Was he after her father? Why hadn’t her father tried harder to contact her once she was in North Pole? And what did the sexy mystery man across the hall have to do with her father’s disappearance? Most of all, what did her father’s clue mean?

Chapter Four

The incessant theme from Mission: Impossible jarred Nick from the light doze he’d fallen into after lying awake all night, listening for any sound from the room across the hall.

Mary might have been certain about the intruder in her room being her father, but it didn’t account for the man who’d plowed into her in the hallway. Probably the same man who’d chased her father away on a snowmobile. Since her father had left a clue, what would keep the other man from coming back to claim it?

Nick grabbed for the cell phone on the nightstand. The display screen indicated a private number. “Yeah.”

“Tim did a name search into Alaska state records.” A pause lengthened as if an acknowledgment was required.

It took two full seconds for his boss’s voice to register. Tim was their techno-guru back at the SOS office in D.C. Royce Fontaine didn’t waste words on simple pleasantries.

“You awake?” Royce asked.

Nick scrubbed his hand down his face and glanced at the clock. The bright green digits indicated five-thirty, Alaskan time. “What did you find?”

“Not what, but who. Charles Hayes.”

Nick shook his sleep-clouded head. “And Charles Hayes should ring a bell?”

“Frank Richards had contracted with a NewYork publishing house to sell his Vietnam War memoirs. Tim hasn’t been able to tap into Richards’s computer. The motherboard looked pretty much like swiss cheese. We also learned that Frank Richards had recently been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. His doctor gave him three months to live, four months ago.”

“Could his memoirs be some kind of confession?”

“If so, it wasn’t just his actions he’s confessing. He’s got someone else scared.”

“What do Richards’s memoirs have to do with Santa?”

“Tim checked his phone records. He’d made two calls to North Pole, Alaska, in the past two weeks. The phone number he called belonged to our Santa Claus, aka Charles Hayes. Mr. Hayes had a legal name change over thirty-five years ago upon his arrival in Fairbanks. Your Santa’s fingerprints also match the military records of Hayes.”

“Why change his name?”

“That’s what we have to figure out. Do you need help on this one?”

“No. It’s still early in the investigation.”

“Yeah, but we have one man dead and another missing. I already have Tazer running a scan through military records to see if we find a connection between Hayes and Richards. I lay you odds they were in Vietnam together. I’ll alert Kat Sikes from the Anchorage office to head your way.”

“How is Kat?” Nick asked. He’d worked with Kat on a mission involving a terrorist element in Florida. The woman was a top agent until her husband was killed in an embassy bombing in Africa a couple of years ago.

“She and Sam should be back tomorrow from their delayed honeymoon in Nome.” Kat had helped keep Sam alive when an SOS agent-gone-bad had tried to end Sam’s life during last year’s Iditarod dogsled race.

Nick rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. “Nome, Alaska in the winter? Whatever happened to honeymooning in Hawaii?”

“They never made it to Nome when they were competing in the Iditarod. Sam wanted to go, Kat went along with him.” Royce laughed. “Me? I would have gone for a tropical beach, not a frozen coastline. I’ve got another assignment for Sam, but I can send Kat when they get back. Can you hold out for a day or two?”

“Sure. I’m working an inside connection.”

“You are?”

“Yeah.” Nick stood and walked across the room. “Santa’s daughter.”

“Santa’s daughter, huh? What’s her name? Want Tazer to run a check on her?”

“No. I think she’s genuine. Her name’s Mary…Mary Christmas.” Nick grinned, imagining Royce’s expression.

“I’m sorry, there must have been some static in the line. Did you say Mary Christmas?”

“That’s right. These people really get into the whole Christmas theme up here.” Something completely foreign to Nick.

“I knew that, but…Mary Christmas?” Royce paused. “Is she normal?”

Normal? Mary Christmas? Nick envisioned the long silky blond hair and even longer, silkier smooth legs he’d glimpsed peeking out of her robe last night. His groin tightened. “Yeah, she’s normal,” he grunted.

“Well, keep an eye on her. If Richards thought Santa was in danger, Santa’s daughter might be a target as well. Keep me informed. Kat will be there in the next day or so.”

Nick slid the cell phone shut. He’d already considered Mary as a target for whoever was after Santa. Thus the restless night, listening for sounds.

The best way he could protect her and learn more about the town was to get close. A pinch of irritation gnawed at his gut. He liked working alone. Liked keeping a distance from the subjects of his mission. It spared messy goodbyes. And face it, he would be saying goodbye once he’d located Santa and neutralized the threat to the bearded elf and his family. Nick St. Claire didn’t stay long in any one place. Get in, solve the problem and leave. Passed from foster home to foster home as a child growing up in Texas, he’d learned emotional ties only weighed you down.

Another glance at the clock. He’d promised to meet Mary at eight, two and a half hours from now. Going back to sleep wasn’t an option. Going for a run was. He slipped into socks, tennis shoes and several layers of clothing before stepping out into the darkness of an early winter morning. With the cold wind biting at all exposed flesh, Nick reevaluated his decision to jog. After ducking back inside and donning his snow boots and a solid white snowsuit, goggles and hood, he left his room, feeling a bit more prepared for a brisk walk and a chance to learn the layout of the town.

MARY MUST HAVE FALLEN asleep sometime after three because she didn’t wake until thirty-five minutes after five, when she looked at her clock again. Nightmares had plagued her. All involving her father and some dark menace lurking in the shadows of the town, of her home and the bed-and-breakfast where she and Nick St. Claire were staying. Had she scared herself awake or had something disturbed her sleep? Maybe a noise? She sat up and held her breath, straining to hear it again.

A door opened and closed in the hallway, and from the sound of it, right across from hers. She flung the covers back and ran barefoot across the carpeted floor. She took a moment to shove the dresser aside before she could yank open the door.

A man in a white snowsuit stood in the hallway, bundled up from head to toe.

Mary opened her mouth to scream, but before she could utter so much as a squeak, the man reached out, grabbed her arm and spun her around, clamping a hand over her mouth.

Her heart pounded in her chest so hard, she thought maybe she’d pass out, but she couldn’t. This could be the man who was after her father. Barely able to breathe, she fought with all her might against the arm crushing her breasts beneath the thin flannel of her pajamas. No matter how much she wiggled and kicked, his hold didn’t loosen.

Over the sound of her own muffled grunts, a deep baritone penetrated her frightened mind. “Be still. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Too late, her foot had been in midswing and she couldn’t stop her heel from gouging the man’s shin. Her heel radiated pain from the force.

The man grunted. “It’s me, Nick.” He let go of her so suddenly, she almost collapsed on the cool tile of the hallway floor. She spun and faced him, ready to kick again, her breath coming in ragged pants, anger replacing fear. “Why the heck did you grab me?”

“Did you have to go and kick me so hard?” He bent, rubbing his shin, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead, exposing those brown-black eyes that sparkled like a moonlit oil spill.

“What did you expect? My room’s broken into—”

“—by your father, so you said—” Nick straightened, a frown denting his forehead with fine lines.

“—my father’s missing, and last night a man almost runs me over in the hallway—”

The corners of Nick’s lips twitched. “—who could have forgotten to turn off the stove in his house—” And the jerk had the audacity to grin.

“—and you aren’t wearing your cowboy hat—” She knew she was floundering, but the man had her tied in freakin’ knots!

“—which I couldn’t fit under my parka hood—” His grin widened.

Mary glared at Nick, unable to stop now. “—and you expect me to welcome you with a kiss?” She jerked her bare foot back and kicked him again, hopefully in the same spot as the first time.

He yelped. “Hey, what was that for?”

“For laughing at me when, for all I know, you could be the man my father’s having to hide from.” She flattened both her palms on his chest and pushed. “You could have been feeding me lies all along and be the root of my problems. Give me one good reason why I should trust you.” She pushed him again until his back hit the wall behind him. “Just one good reason.”

His eyes darkened and his hand grasped her flannel-covered shoulders, jerking her forward.

She gasped, drawing in a deep breath to scream, only for the sound to be muffled by the force of his lips crushing hers in a lip-lock that defied breaking. Even if she’d wanted to push away from him, she couldn’t. Her knees buckled and she fell against him, her breasts pressed against the cushiony thickness of his insulated jacket.

At first hard, his mouth softened, his tongue darting out to trace the line of her lips until she opened them on a sigh. He plunged in, past her teeth to her tongue. The gloves he’d had in his hands hit the floor as his fingers rose to thread through her hair, gripping the length. With a gentle tug, he tipped her head backward, exposing the long line of her throat.

Just when she thought she might never breathe again, his lips slid off the end of hers and traced a path along her jaw and downward to the pulse shooting blood up in her ears. Her fingers moved between their bodies and she slid them inside his jacket, letting his skin warm hers. When his hands rubbed down her sides and slid beneath the hem of her flannel shirt, his warm fingers against her naked skin, Mary’s body flared with red-hot desire and she moaned.