Baby, It's Cold Outside (2 page)

“Look, I just want the kids to enjoy this.” His rudeness annoyed her enough to add, “As a stand-in, I was here early enough to make sure I learned the ropes and knew what was expected of me.” Which was exactly what
he
should’ve done, too.

“Uh-huh.” His face was utterly inscrutable. And Ellie really, really wanted to push him into a puddle.

“Excuse me,” he finished coolly, and strode off toward the door.

…

Talk about a bossy English schoolmarm. Who did the Chief Elf think she was, judging him and finding him wanting?

Though Mitch was guiltily aware that she had a point. Had it been any other job, he would’ve been there early. He wasn’t sure what spooked him more: the fact that this was a hospice and these kids would most certainly not be having a happy Christmas, or the fact that he was being Santa and had the weight of their broken dreams on his shoulders.

It was the first time he could remember doubting himself since he’d come to Philly. Not good. So he was going to have to fake this, for the kids’ sake.

What did Santa actually do?

It had been years since Mitch had visited Santa’s Workshop. He’d been so young that he couldn’t remember what it was like. Though he definitely remembered the fight his parents had had afterward—his father yelling at his mother for wasting good money taking the kids to see some loser in a red suit pretending to be Santa.

That was when Mitch had learned that Father Christmas didn’t actually exist. Or the Tooth Fairy. Or the Easter Bunny.

Ironic that he spent his time nowadays at a PR agency, promoting dreams.

He pulled himself together, changed into the red suit, and stuck his beard in place, then checked the sack marked “supplies.” The bag contained neatly wrapped presents, all named—so they’d clearly been chosen personally. This was something that his boss definitely hadn’t delegated. The wrapping, maybe, but the attention to detail was C.J.’s hallmark.

Would his boss expect him to take over that role, too?

He forced himself to smile—even though the beard would hide his face, he knew from years of training that a smile always sounded in your voice—and strode through the door. “Merry Christmas, everyone!”

The kids all cheered and gathered around.

While he’d been changing into the Santa suit, someone—most likely the Chief Elf, he guessed—had set out a chair for him. Mitch sat down, put the sack of presents down beside him, took out the first one and read the label. “Is Monica here?”

A little girl who looked about ten years old came over shyly.

“This one has your name on it.” He handed the present to her. “Merry Christmas.”

“Am I allowed to open it now?”

He had no idea. And with all the years he’d been in PR, he really should’ve known better. He should’ve checked his brief properly and asked for clarification on the finer points before he’d even started this. He glanced over at Chief Elf; being the bossy English schoolmarm type, no doubt she’d already asked the question and knew the answer.

To his surprise, she actually smiled, and gave him the tiniest of nods.

A smile that made him feel as if the whole room had just lit up. He really hadn’t expected her smile to be that gorgeous. Or to affect him this way. And this was totally ridiculous. He was here to do a job. Nothing more.

He forced himself to focus and smile. “Of course you can open it, Monica,” he told her.

The little girl looked thrilled when she took off the wrapping paper to reveal a book. “Thank you, Santa, this is just what I wanted! It’s the next in the series I’ve been reading.”

Yup. C.J. had done his homework. This was real attention to detail.

Mitch handed out the presents one by one. Each child seemed genuinely thrilled by his or her gift—even the teens he’d half-expected to be bored by the whole thing because they were more than old enough to know that Santa wasn’t real. Yet they were careful not to spoil it for the little ones. Or maybe they were just joining in the magic, relieved to leave their worries behind for just a little while.

It was humbling.

And he understood exactly why C.J. had asked him to do this. Exactly what his boss had wanted him to learn.

The next name Mitch called was Sam’s. The little boy looked about five years old, and his sulky expression warned Mitch that he’d have to be careful.

“Merry Christmas, Sam.” Mitch held the present out to him.

The little boy shook his head. “No, thank you.”

A child refusing a present from Santa? That hadn’t been in his brief, either. What now? He glanced at the Chief Elf, but she was biting her lip and looking worried. Clearly this hadn’t been something she’d thought to ask about beforehand, either.

He was just going to have to wing it. As he’d occasionally done in presentations where the account was worth serious money—but this felt much more important.

“Can I have something else?” Sam asked.

“I’ll have to see,” Mitch said. “What do you want?”

He’d half-expected a request for the latest game console, so he was completely floored when Sam said, “I’d like you to bring my sister home for Christmas.”

Bring my sister home for Christmas.

A little girl who was in hospice and clearly wasn’t going to be able to go home again, let alone for Christmas.

This wasn’t his department. No way was he going to be able to give Sam the one thing the child wanted so badly. But he couldn’t take that last bit of hope away. He just didn’t have the heart to trample on the little boy’s dreams. Instead, he said gruffly, “I’ll do my best. I can’t promise, but I’ll do my best.”

God, how he wished he could make that dream come true.

And something inside him felt as if it had cracked.

“In the meantime…” He handed the present to Sam.

“Thank you.” But the little boy made no move to open his gift. He just went to sit down with all the others, his eyes a little less bright.

Being Santa really,
really
sucked, Mitch thought.

He pulled himself together and took the next present from the sack. “This one’s for Hayley.”

She came up with a shy smile. “Merry Christmas, Santa. We should’ve left you a cookie and a glass of milk, and a carrot for Rudolph, and I’m sorry we didn’t.”

Her thoughtfulness surprised him, and built the guilt factor up just a little bit more. He knew he wasn’t that considerate of other people’s feelings. Look at the way he avoided his family.

“Hey, it’s fine. When you leave me cookies and what have you, it’s when I don’t get a chance to see you because you’re asleep. The rules are different when you see me. You don’t have to give me anything.”

“Yes, I do.” She gave him a handful of carrot sticks. “I saved them for Rudolph from the party. Will he mind if they’re a different shape?”

“He won’t mind at all. He’ll love them. I’ll put them in my pocket and he’ll know they’re there. That red nose of his can detect carrots at a hundred yards. Thank you.”

Then she gave him a Santa cookie. “We all had one. And they’re really special. Just like you.”

No, Mitch thought, he wasn’t special. He was a fake. And he didn’t dare look over at the Chief Elf, because he knew he’d see that knowledge written all over her face. And that he deserved to see it. “Thank you, Hayley, that’s really kind of you. I’ll enjoy that later when I have to fly off.”

He’d just given out the last present and was about to make his farewell speech when a little girl came up to him and tugged his hand. He remembered giving her an art pad and pens earlier.

“Santa, you’ve given everyone a present, but you haven’t gotten one, so I made one for you with the one you gave me.” She handed him a picture of himself with a huge smile on his face.

It was the first time he’d ever been given a drawing by a child. “Thank you, honey, that’s lovely.”

He stared at the picture. It shocked him to the core that it actually made him want to fly out west and see his sisters and the kids—to see their faces when they opened their presents, instead of keeping his distance and being too busy to reply to the text messages they sent to his cell phone to thank him.

Maybe, Mitch thought, he’d gotten Christmas all wrong.

Maybe Christmas itself was a gift.

Not that he was going to admit
that
to the Chief Elf. He was pretty sure she’d have something to say on the subject, and it wouldn’t be in the slightest bit complimentary to him.

…

“Ellie, it’s snowing. I mean
really
snowing,” Janet, one of the helpers, said, her face etched with worry.

Ellie went over to the window to discover huge, fluffy flakes floating down. It had been years since she’d seen snow like this. It was already starting to settle on the lawn and the trees, and it looked magical. “A real white Christmas,” she said softly. “How perfect.”

But it would also mean problems for people getting home, unless all the roads had been sanded. There hadn’t been anything on the weather forecast about snow. The forecasters had simply said there might be a little rain, and Ellie had swallowed her disappointment that her first Christmas in America was going to be just like her normal Christmases in England. But now it looked like her dream for a white Christmas would come true after all.

Janet bit her lip. “I just checked online. Apparently it’s a freak snowstorm.”

And everyone here at the party except her had a family to get home to, Ellie thought. It wouldn’t matter if it took her ten times as long to get back to her godmother’s house, because she only had herself to think about. But it would make a huge difference to everyone else. “Janet, tell everyone to go home. I’ll clear up.”

“You can’t possibly do it all on your own.” Janet shook her head. “It’ll take you
ages
.”

“It’s fine, really. Go home now, before the snow gets any worse.”

“Well, if you’re sure…” Janet looked doubtful.

“I’m sure,” Ellie said with a smile.

“Thank you. And for all your help today. You’ve really done Betty proud. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Ellie echoed with a smile. Though hers was going to be quiet, rather than merry. Her first Christmas in America. Her first Christmas on her own.

As parents collected their children one by one from the party, Ellie focused on clearing up. The paper plates all went into a rubbish bag, and she put the remaining nibbles on a tray ready to take through to the nursing staff.

“What’s next on the list of things to do?” a voice said beside her.

She looked up to see the stand-in Santa. “I thought you’d gone.”

“I just changed out of my costume. I didn’t think it would be right for the kids to see the man in red cleaning up. Where’s everyone else?”

“I sent them home.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because it’s started snowing and I didn’t want them to be stuck here when they need to be at home.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” She brushed his concern aside with a polite smile.

“Okay.” He glanced around the room and gestured to the broom propped against the wall. “Do you want me to sweep the floor?”

Oh. So he’d actually meant it about helping. “Yes, please. Though this isn’t in the job description.”

“Well, hey, I can’t let Santa’s Chief Elf down, can I?” He actually smiled then—and Ellie discovered that he was breathtaking when he did. He had a mouth that promised sin and made her libido sit up and start begging.

Which was so inappropriate. They were clearing up from a children’s party. She shouldn’t be thinking about Santa and how attractive he was. For all she knew, he could be married, or at least with someone. Though, she thought, given how wary he’d been with the children at first, she was pretty sure he didn’t have kids of his own.

No. Nothing was going to happen. She was in America to help her godmother and to get her head together, not to start fantasizing about the first man who’d smiled at her.

Between them they made short work of clearing up, and he helped her carry the leftover party food to the nursing staff.

They walked to the entrance of the hospice together, and Ellie stood there, shocked by the drifts of white that confronted them. The last time she’d looked out of the window, huge flakes had been falling, but it had only just been starting to settle. Now, every surface was covered in snow. “Wow. I didn’t think you’d get that much snow in Philadelphia.”

“It varies. Some winters, you get a sprinkle of snow; others, you get a major snowstorm. Obviously this is a snowstorm year.” Stand-in Santa looked at her. “How are you getting home, Chief Elf?”

“I’m taking the bus.” Provided she could actually find the bus stop.

“The bus?” He looked at her as if she had two heads.

“I have a driving license, but I’m used to a right-hand-drive car, so I haven’t borrowed my godmother’s car,” she explained. “I got a lift here with Sally—she does the deliveries for my godmother.”

“I’ll check the timetable for you. Which line do you need?” She told him and he checked his cell phone. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems the buses aren’t running. The snow’s brought everything to a stop.”

She shrugged. “Then it looks as if I’ll have to walk.” It was a pity she didn’t have her Wellingtons with her. She might get a bit cold and wet, and it’d take her a long time to walk back to Betty’s house, but her shoes were flat and had a decent grip, so she probably wouldn’t fall over and hurt herself.

“Where are you going?”

She told him the neighborhood.

He shook his head. “You can’t possibly walk all that way. Look, my car’s just over here. I’ll give you a lift.”

She could see how thickly the snow was lying in the roads, and there wasn’t a single car actually driving through the streets. He hadn’t been exaggerating about everything coming to a standstill. “Thanks, but I don’t think it’d be a good idea to drive in this.”

“I’ve driven in worse. You just need to take it sensibly and slowly. Come on, let’s get going before the snow gets any deeper.”

Ellie thought about it. She didn’t know him from Adam—and he wasn’t the man she’d expected to arrive as Santa. Then again, Santa had been expecting Betty, so she supposed that made them even.