LITMIR.BIZ

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      “You got a receipt for this stuff?”

      Michael passed him the receipt.

      “Okay, so you bought fifty kids’ coats. What’s up with that?”

      The cop didn’t look like he was in the mood for the none-of-your-business that Michael wanted to give him. In fact, the man was trying very hard not to look as cold and miserable as he obviously was.

      Suddenly it seemed like it was the right thing to do to let him know good happened in the world, too. It wasn’t all drunks hitting their wives and kids, dope dealers on the corners, asses doing U-turns.

      “The coats are for the Secret Santa Society.” Michael offered it up reluctantly, the man who least wanted to be seen as a do-gooder.

      The ticket book was snapped shut and replaced in its upper pocket home, beside a name tag, Adams.

      “You were delivering them?”

      It seemed hopelessly complicated to say he had been delivering them, then decided not to deliver them, at least not personally, so Michael only nodded.

      The policeman looked at the clogged road. “Washington’s always like this at this time of day. Were you going to try Wilmore instead?”

      Michael decided for honesty. “Actually I was thinking maybe I’d just go home, make the delivery a different day.”

      Adams frowned at the traffic, then brightened. “Emergency delivery to the Secret Santa Society. Follow me,” he ordered. His whole face and body language changed. He was thrilled to be part of something good.

      So, that’s what happened, Michael thought, when you fooled with something as powerful as Santa. He was now headed, under police escort, directly toward a place that moments ago he had decided he was not going. He pondered, uneasily, how much of his life was now going to be out of his control.

      Then he reminded himself that thinking life was in your control was the largest of illusions anyway.

      

      Sirens were nothing unusual for this neighborhood, in fact they played in the background, a noise Kirsten blocked out as easily as elevator music. There had been a rush of volunteers earlier, but they had all left at suppertime and now she was alone. Happily she pulled her catalog closer. Love in a Little House on the Prairie, was a wonderful piece, too. Not as good as Knight in Shining Armor, but—

      The siren wailed, demanding attention, and suddenly the inside of her office was strobed in red and blue. Curious, she set aside the catalog and went to the front window. She peeled back a corner of the paper they used to keep curious kiddies from speculating what Santa might be up to this year.

      A car, low slung, black and sexy—she thought it might be a Honda—was pulled over right in front of her office. To her practiced eye the car did not look like the more souped-up models the drug dealers favored.

      And then the siren and lights were cut. The cop got out of his car and the driver got out of the sports car.

      Him!

      What was he doing back here? Uncharitably, Kirsten found herself hoping he was getting a ticket.

      For being too good-looking and too sure of himself and for driving a car like that—a car that said he was sexy and sleek and way out of the league of a girl whose idea of excitement was poring over a catalog of porcelain figurines!

      “You have to want to play to be in a league,” she informed herself sternly. And she didn’t. Okay, so she had moments of weakness, like this afternoon. That was only human. But generally she was extremely disciplined at keeping the larger picture in mind: love was fragile and easily breakable and not to be trusted.

      She told herself to go back to her catalog—the only kind of love she planned to invest in. Instead, she found herself watching, unwittingly fascinated, as he walked back to the policeman with utter confidence. Even she, who had never been pulled over in her entire life, knew you were supposed to stay in your car. That rule surely applied doubly in this neighborhood. Having a gun pulled on him and being yelled at should take a bit of that masculine swagger out of his step!

      But he didn’t get a gun pulled on him, or get yelled at. No, he and the policeman seemed to be best of buddies. She sighed and realized even with his hands up and a gun pointed at him, he would have been the same. He was one of those most annoying men who carried something—some certainty—deep inside himself. It showed in the ease with which he was engaged in conversation with the policeman. Not intimidated. On firm footing, knowing himself to be equals with anyone.

      The cop did appear to be writing him a ticket, which he took without glancing at, and put in the pocket of that same leather jacket. He didn’t appear cold, though night was now falling and the temperature was dipping. The cop was shifting from foot to foot, and had his shoulders hunched against the cold.

      The radio in the police car went off and the cop jogged back to his car. Moments later the siren was wailing and he was gone.

      And he was leaning in the door of his car, filling his arms with…coats.

      He staggered toward her door, and she had to run out in the snow and grab one of the jackets before it fell off the huge heap in his arms. The coat was pink, with fake fur trim, absolutely adorable, a coat a man like him could not possibly have chosen!

      She raced back in ahead of him to clear a spot on a table.

      “Set them here,” she said breathlessly.

      He set the coats down—at least twenty of them—and for a moment she simply stared. He had not brought her old secondhand junk, but brand-new winter jackets. From West Coats, no less, and in every shape and size and color. The price tags were still on them.

      “I’ll get the rest of them,” he said.

      “The rest of them?”

      “You said fifty.”

      Some emotion clawed at her throat so big she thought it would choke her. Thankfully a flash to halibut worked on all kinds of feelings!

      By the time he came back, and dumped another armload on the table, Kirsten was feeling quite composed, as if people delivered fifty brand-new West Coats jackets to her all the time. Unfortunately, on the very top was another pink jacket, trimmed at the collar and cuffs with fake fur, and she had to think of the sockeye salmon to get her feelings under control.

      “Okay,” she said, finally, folding her arms against the emotion she was still wrestling with, “who are you?”

      He stuck out his hand. “Michael Brewster.”

      She took it and felt a shiver of awareness so strong it nearly took what was left of her breath away. She saved this one for moments just like this: the live lobster tank.

      “Kirsten Morrison,” she managed to stammer, visualizing like crazy.

      “Kirsten,” he repeated slowly. Was that surprise in his voice?

      It seemed so unfair. How dare he be this good-looking, this self-assured, and kind, too? For a girl who worked with Santa, she was realistic to a fault about what life was really like. What men were really like. Treacherous, like James, or worse, like her brother-in-law, who had seemed like the boy next door. The man least likely to have an affair with his secretary.

      Thankfully, when she looked in Michael’s eyes, she was not sure it was kindness she saw. In fact, she was almost certain it was not. Sadness?

      No, bigger than that. Something had happened to his soul.

      “So, what did you get the ticket for?” she asked abruptly, trying to think of anything except his soul, and his lips and his hands and the way snow was melting in his thick dark hair.

      “Ticket?” he looked puzzled. “Oh. It wasn’t a ticket.” He reached into his pocket. “A check. For the pink jacket. Or another one like it. Officer Adams insisted. I had him make it out to the Society.”

      Kirsten

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