LITMIR.BIZ

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interest in anything or anyone. So here he was less than an hour into his mysterious assignment, and having feelings sneak up on him.

      But was it going to be enough to save him? Or would it destroy what was left of him? He decided to have a little tiny bit of faith, and realized with a sigh that was another concept that had been foreign to his world for a long, long time.

      Well, he thought, if a man starts messing with the spirit of Santa, some surprising things were going to happen. That was a given.

      He found the address he had ripped out of the phone book. It was in a different world than the office of the Secret Santa Society, part of a brightly lit strip mall that housed upscale factory outlets on the edge of a neighborhood where the houses started in the half-million-dollar range. The Christmas displays were up in the windows, and lights blinked cheer against the colorlessness of the day.

      He entered a store called West Coats. More Christmas: a tree decorated totally in white, updated versions of carols blaring from a public address system. He hated this.

      Then he was nearly bowled over by a salesclerk who was exactly his type. Blond, tall, willowy, her lipstick a perfect match for her fingernails, a red Santa hat at a jaunty angle on her head. Her tag said her name was Calypso.

      The woman at the Secret Santa Society had not been wearing a name tag. He realized he had not asked her name. He bet it would be a good, sturdy, practical name like Helen or Susan or Gwen.

      “I need fifty kids’ coats,” he told Calypso, who leaned way toward him and gave him a look at the top of her lacy bra. Red, to match her hat. The surprising thing happened: not one vision of her fingernails and his back, no matter how hard he tried to conjure it.

      “Fifty coats!” She giggled and blinked her heavily madeup lashes. Considering how he was freshly aware of wanting to connect, he was now aware of not wanting to connect with her in more than a businesslike way.

      Somehow, painfully, he managed to pick out fifty children’s coats. He wanted practical coats that would keep them warm and survive snowball fights and the making of forts and snow angels. He picked out coats in as many different sizes and colors as he could find. He tossed onto his growing stack a few little sleeping bags with hoods, which Calypso cooed over and called bunting bags.

      And at the last minute, hesitating, he chose three little pink princess jackets with fur collars and cuffs on them. They felt in his hands the same way those dolls had—foreign, fragile, too delicate. He knew they were totally impractical. And yet he could not put them back.

      “There,” he said, “Done.”

      “What do you want all these coats for?” Calypso asked.

      He was afraid if he explained his mission it would just bring more cooing, so he only shrugged.

      “I can get you a discount if it’s for a charity,” she said.

      “No, it’s okay.” He was aware as he passed her his credit card that this was the first time he had enjoyed one single cent of all that money, huge state-of-the-art plasma television set included.

      She insisted on helping him carry the coats out to his car, even though he tried to discourage her.

      “Oh,” she breathed when she saw the car. “A Jaguar.”

      He saw his appeal to her had just intensified. Once upon a time, he would have played that for all it was worth. He had a sharp memory of all the times he and Brian had cruised in this car…

      “It’s 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?

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