A Lot Like Christmas

Ya smell good, kid. He couldn’t believe he’d said that, then rubbed her hair like she was ten or a puppy. What a jerk. He was normally pretty easy with the attraction dance.

Sylvie had thrown him. Because of their history? Or maybe just her. She sort of sucked him into her swirling energy, put him in a trance until he acted like a teen with no control over his urges whatsoever.

At least she was no longer pissed at him.

Until he told her about maybe selling the mall, of course. He dreaded that exchange. He’d tell her as soon as he knew enough to confirm the possibility.

After rounds, they headed back to the office where Sylvie buried him in printouts and minutiae about “A Starlight Desert Christmas,” the Black Friday event that evidently was the GM’s responsibility.

Nearby schools would present performances and an art show, stores would give discounts for parents, and there would be raffle prizes and a hidden-coupon scavenger hunt. Chase was impressed with the plan. Even if they decided to sell, banking higher revenues would be smart.

“Sounds good, Sylvie. You’ve put a lot of effort into it.” He started to stand.

“Wait. We still need to discuss the tenant party on Thanksgiving afternoon, when we prep for Black Friday.”

“Okay.” He sat down again.

She explained that the tenant party consisted of food, of course, plus a white elephant exchange. Then the employees shopped in the mall for gifts for a needy family, which they placed under trees decorated to represent each store’s merchandise.

It all sounded nice, but Chase’s brain was jammed already. Sylvie wasn’t helping, hypnotizing him with her cherry-pie smell and the way her breasts shivered whenever she gestured, which she did a lot. The generic khakis and simple white blouse she wore started to seem like something a stripper might wriggle out of.

Sylvie didn’t seem to mess much with her appearance—her nails were plain, she wore next to no makeup and her honey hair was a mass of curls held back by two clips—but with her natural beauty she didn’t need to fuss.

Then he’d seen her bra. He’d been innocently standing over her at the computer when her blouse gaped and there it was. Pink and lacy, cupping the soft rise of her breasts, and he’d wanted to tear it off with his teeth.

To escape the urge, he’d dropped to a crouch, only to get trapped in a close-up of her face in all its appealing detail—her snapping green eyes, edible mouth, that hint of a dimple when she smiled, right next to a beauty mark—pretty punctuation for her face—and her breasts close enough to—

“How do you want to handle it, Chase?”

“Handle…huh?” Had she read his mind? He whipped his attention to her words. She was looking at him impatiently.

“The work. The prep party and Black Friday itself. Officially both are GM duties. I’ve handled the prep party the past two years, though, since it was my idea, but it’s up to you.”

“Why don’t you keep doing that, then?” he said.

“All right. Black Friday is new and a lot of work as you saw. We have Olive, our marketing assistant, but she’s about to have her baby and has cut back her hours. Cyndi will do what she can, but she’s stuck on phones, so—”

“This is your plan, Sylvie. You know it inside out, so you should be in charge of it.”

“I’d love that, of course,” she said with a sigh, “but that was when I expected to be the GM. I’ve got operations to manage. This is your job, Chase. And it’s crucial. Black Friday revenues are make-or-break for our shops. I’ll help as much as I can, but it will take all of us working as hard as we can to pull this off. I’m not kidding.” Her eyes flashed at him. “You said you wouldn’t leave us hanging.”

“I won’t.” But he sure as hell wasn’t ready to throw the kind of energy at this stuff that Sylvie was. She was clearly worried, chewing her lip like mad. She’d already put so much work into this project, he wanted her to see it through.

“What then?”

She clearly doubted him. She had a point. “Okay, I get it. I don’t know a door buster from a loss leader, while you could do this job in your sleep.”

She went pink. “I wouldn’t have put it so bluntly, but basically, yes.” She lifted her chin to emphasize the point.

“So, here’s what I propose. You manage the Black Friday extravaganza and the tenant prep party. You know the plan, so that makes the most sense. I’ll fill in where I can with what I can.”

“But what about—?”

“Your operations job, right. It’s full-time and you already work twelve-hour days. Got it. I want you to hire someone short-term to get us through the holidays. Divide up the duties between the three of us however you think will work best. Just keep me informed.”

“Oh.” Sylvie looked startled. “Really? I can hire someone? We don’t have the budget for that, Chase.”

“Take it out of my salary line. No sweat.”

“Really? Oh. Well, okay….” He could see ideas flying behind her eyes, how this changed her goal, which had no doubt been to let the door hit him on the ass on the way out.

“Let me see if I understand,” she said slowly, her expression deadly serious now. “You’re telling me that you and I will share GM duties and I can hire someone to fill in the gaps as I see them? On a short-term contract, hourly wages. And it’s up to me who does what?”

“Within reason,” he said. “I have veto power and you and I need to stay in close communication.”

She beamed. “Then that’s great. That will work, I think. Thank you for being reasonable.” She was trying to restrain her excitement, he could tell. He liked seeing her eyes light up like that. One bright spot in an exhausting and irritating day.

“There’s one more thing I need from you,” Sylvie said, scooting forward, leaning toward him.

How about sex? Right here. Right now. The thought came unbidden and he leaned even closer. “Anything you want, Sylvie.”

“It involves costumes,” she said, her voice low and honeyed, her expression all sex kitten.

“Oh, I’m in.”

“I’m glad to hear that. How about Marshall and Fletcher? You think they’d be in, too?” She licked her lips slowly.

“Eew.” He sat up straight. “Forget it.”

Sylvie laughed her musical laugh. “Relax, I just need you three to dress up like Santa and his elves.”

“Are you nuts? Now, you and me, French maid and butler, would be great. But that…too kinky to even picture.”

She laughed. “I’m serious. It’s the perfect publicity stunt. Holiday shopping news stories are a dime a dozen, so we need a fresh angle to get TV coverage. Starlight Desert is a family-owned, homegrown mall. That’s our hook. How better to illustrate that than to have Marshall McCann be Santa Claus and his two sons Santa’s elves?” She grinned like Christmas morning. “You are nuts,” Chase said faintly.

“You and Fletcher would lead the kids to Marshall’s lap and take their photos. I know TV would eat that up. Chase? Your mouth’s hanging open.”

“You want my father to be Santa Claus? I can’t imagine anyone less jolly. And Fletcher in green tights and pointy slippers with bells?” He burst out laughing.

“He could wear a blazer and a tie if he wants.”

“Business Elf, right. I’d love to see that.”

“Don’t laugh too hard. You’ll be in green tights and bells, yourself, Chase.”

“I don’t see either of them agreeing to that.”

“It would just be for the opening weekend. We’d promote it on Facebook and Twitter.”

“The mall is on Facebook?”

“I created a persona—Bright Star. She’s a personal shopper who posts deals from our shops along with general shopping tips and tidbits.”

“Very smart.”

“So what do you say?” she said, her big eyes drilling him. “You can talk them into it, Chase. It’s important. They’ll have fun, too. And the store owners will love it.”

“I don’t know. I’d have to talk to Fletcher.”

“So call him.” She whipped out her cell phone.

“Jeez, you’re relentless, you know that?” He waved her away and pulled out his own phone. Sylvie had somehow made the most ridiculous idea sound vital to the mall’s survival.

He did like her. He surely did.

“Fletcher, listen. I’ve got a proposition for you,” he said when his brother answered.

“Uh-oh. First, I’m supposed to remind you about the big dinner tomorrow night. Nadia’s afraid you’ll forget.”

“I’ll be there, no worries. Listen, I’ve got Sylvie here with me and we’re talking about Christmas at the mall and—”

“Sylvie’s there? Yeah?”

“She is. And—”

“Put her on, would you?” Fletcher interrupted, his tone abruptly determined, as if he had a job to do.

“Okay….” What the hell? “He wants to speak to you,” he told Sylvie, shrugging as he handed her the phone.

Sylvie looked as puzzled as he felt. “Hi, Fletcher,” she said hesitantly. “I’m fine. How about yourself…? So far, so good. I’d say I’m giving him just as hard a time as he’s giving me.” She shot Chase a look. “Would I want to what…? Oh, I’d be intruding…. If you think so, I’d be happy to… All right. Sounds delicious. Sixish it is.”

Sylvie shut the phone looking bewildered. “Fletcher invited me to your homecoming supper. Nadia’s making pierogies.”

“So that’s my favorite. Hmm.”

“He said it’s been too long since I’ve been at the McCann table.” She frowned. “What’s this about, Chase?”

Uh-oh. Had their talk convinced Fletcher to fire up that torch for Sylvie again? “Your name came up when we were talking about the mall and he mentioned he hadn’t seen you in a while.”

“And…?” She held his gaze. “I can see in your face there’s more to it.”

“And…well, I sort of jerked his chain about being into you.”

“You what?” Her eyes went wide.

“From years back.”

“You knew about that?” Her cheeks colored.

“He let it slip once, yeah. Yesterday, he told me you turned him down, though.”

“It sounds like you two had quite the heart-to-heart. The whole McCann family seems to be entirely too interested in my love life. First you think I’m moving to Seattle to marry Steve and then you goad Fletcher into asking me out.”

“I was just joking around.”

“I’m not amused.”

“I don’t blame you, but my intentions were innocent, I swear. I wanted him to get a life. I told him to move on, find someone else.”

“He’s not going to ask me out, is he?”

“I can’t imagine he would, but I’ll make sure.”

“And how exactly will you do that?” She planted her hands on her hips, irritated as hell at him, he could tell.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll play it by ear. Trust me. He won’t ask you out.”

“Whatever you do, don’t make this worse. I don’t need another embarrassing moment with your brother.”

Chase was dying to ask what had happened back then, but he didn’t dare when she was this riled at him.

“I’ll be subtle.”

“Before tomorrow night at dinner?” she demanded.

“I swear.” He crossed his heart.

He was startled to realize he was glad that Sylvie didn’t want to date Fletcher. Which was completely nuts. It wasn’t like Chase was going to swoop in on her now.

Would she even want that? She’d felt something, he knew. He’d noticed the flicker in her eye, the softening of her body when they were close, a huskiness in her voice when the vibe zinged between them.

But Sylvie had discipline and restraint and had practiced self-denial since she was eight, calculating the best candy value instead of gobbling up whatever looked good. So even if she did want him, she wouldn’t act on it.

“Good, then. I haven’t been to supper at your house in a long time. Four years, I guess.”

“You used to come for holidays. I remember the first one. Thanksgiving, I think, with your grandparents?”

“Yeah. The year I moved in with them.”

“You sat so straight in your chair.” Her eyes had been wide with wonder at all the utensils, china and crystal. “Your grandma showed you what fork to use and how to scoop your soup.”

“And you shot a rubber band at me!”

“I wanted to see what you’d do. You gasped. It was perfect. Why’d you stop coming anyway?”

“When Desiree came back, I thought she and I needed to start some holiday traditions of our own.”

“It’ll be nice to have you back.” He smiled at her. “Maybe having you there will help the rest of us behave better.”

“Good grief. How bad can it be?”

He shrugged. “Hard to say.”

“Great. You forgot to ask Fletcher about being an elf.”

“Let’s save that for dinner and you can ask him and the General yourself.”

“You want me to do it?”

“They could turn me down, but you? One shot of those big green eyes and they won’t be able to climb into their costumes fast enough.”

“Oh, please.”

“What do you mean? It worked on me, didn’t it?” He couldn’t wait to see it happen. Way more fun than shooting rubber bands.

THE NEXT MORNING, Sylvie was pretty darn happy. She was more or less in charge of the mall. Chase had promised to support her and she could hire an assistant to fill in the gaps. She’d bet it wouldn’t be long before Chase stepped out of the picture altogether and she’d have what she wanted after all, just a little later than she’d expected.

Maybe it was better to have to fight for the job. A battle made the reward sweeter. That could only make her a better manager, right? Oh, she was feeling good this morning.

Parking her sturdy Volvo, she climbed out, clicked the key to lock it, then turned for the mall.

And stopped dead, staring with horror. All up and down one of the gold-painted turrets were the words F**K this mall. Over and over and over.

Again. It had happened again. Someone hated Starlight Desert enough to vandalize it twice.

Dread poured through her like ice water, followed by hot waves of anger. She fisted her hands, wanting to punch whoever had done this. She could hardly breathe.

Randolph and Betty rounded the corner with Chase, who was putting away his phone. Sylvie marched to meet them at the damaged columns, decorative pebbles crunching beneath each step.

“Looks like we’ll need that graffiti buster again, Betty,” she said.

“Not until the police see this,” Chase said. “I called them out here so we can make a report. Maybe there are vandals working the area they know about.”

“It’s those delinquents at Free Arts,” Randolph said. “They have too much time on their hands and plenty of art supplies.”

“They’re not allowed aerosol paints,” Sylvie said. “And they love the mall. Whoever did this has a grudge against us.”

“We did what we could with the manpower we have,” Randolph said. “Leo and his crew doubled their rounds and changed up the schedule. We need more guards to catch these creeps.”

Sylvie surveyed the damage more closely. “This looks different than the first message. It’s all capital letters and they used the F word. No toilet paper or dumped trash, either.”

“Different kid on the trigger is all,” Randolph said, “and they ran out of time to toss trash. Maybe they saw Leo coming.”

Chase joined her at the wall, studying the letters. “There are lots of blots and drips here.”

“I had that problem when I stenciled the umbrellas. It takes a while to get the spray right.”

“So maybe they’re new to graffiti?”

Chase bent down to the nearby hedge and pushed back the branches. “Looks like they left something.” It was a spray-paint can and when Sylvie got closer she noticed black thumbprints forming a perfect heart on the yellow label. She gasped. “I think that’s my can.”

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