Santa Series: Three Stories of Magical Holiday Romance Read online

  He wasn’t up for important, not with the most beautiful woman in the world. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated.”

  Nissa smiled as she picked up her coat, her bag, and her tablet. “I feel hungry,” she said. “I always forget how much energy it takes to fend off Becker.”

  “You can say that again,” the makeup artist said softly.

  Ryan looked at her. She shrugged.

  “Some people should be tied to a chair when they get their makeup put on,” she said. “And I don’t mean that in a Fifty Shades of Grey way.”

  She picked up the cloths. His coat rested next to them. He hadn’t seen anyone bring it in.

  “I’ll waylay your Wendy woman,” the makeup artist said. “But exit quickly, because I hear heels.”

  “Thank you,” Ryan said. He blinked in surprise. “People are so nice here.”

  “Some of them,” Nissa said. “Should we go?”

  He nodded, then grabbed a fourth cookie. “For the road,” he said, holding it up.

  7

  NISSA HAD NO idea what had gotten into her, both on air and off. She just hadn’t wanted to hear that pig Becker attacking Doctor—Professor—Palmer. Ryan. (He said to call him Ryan.) She hadn’t liked the way everyone was going after Ryan, even though she had intended to go after him just like that thirty seconds before.

  And then the invitation to dinner. Not just anywhere either, but one of her favorite restaurants. An almost-secret place. Certainly not somewhere Becker knew about, or anyone else on staff, not even Caryn. Nissa often went there as a reward for dealing with Becker. She usually tried to escape before he could talk to her.

  She usually succeeded.

  Only this time, she had waited around for Ryan, like a fan girl at the stage door.

  Her mistake.

  And now she was helping him escape from his publicist, which probably wasn’t a good idea. People like him were usually on such a tight schedule that they knocked over every single domino when they went rogue for as much as an hour.

  As if that were her problem.

  Her problem was that she found this guy incredibly appealing, and she had just agreed with him, when her mission was to take him down.

  She swallowed hard, then turned and smiled at him. He was walking beside her, munching a cookie like it was a lifeline. Some glitter from the frosting rested on his upper lip, making him look a tiny bit human.

  Did he realize how ridiculous it was for him to eat cookies after he had just traveled all over the country criticizing Santa for doing the same thing?

  Probably not. He looked hungry. And more than hungry. He was still the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. With that dark hair, that voice, and those soft eyes, he couldn’t get any more attractive—at least to her. The glitter didn’t detract from his looks. In fact, the glitter made her want to run her hand along his mouth, removing glitter just before she kissed him.

  Her cheeks warmed. She turned away, hoping he wouldn’t see that, or at least, he would attribute it to the pace they were taking through the hallway. She reached the stairs and pushed the door open, hoping she didn’t knock some research assistant aside á là Broadcast News.

  Ryan gave one quick glance at the elevator banks not far away, and then followed her. “Good thinking,” he said. “I’m not sure Wendy even knows stairs exist.”

  Nissa let out a laugh, surprising herself. “These stairs shouldn’t be attempted in heels of more than one inch.”

  Yet, here she was, wearing her winter stilettos. They had a bit of padding on the inside, and reinforced toes that protected her feet from snow. Plus they were easy to pull off. But they were still stilettos.

  Which reminded her. She stopped on the next landing, slipped off her right shoe, and dumped it in her bag, standing half barefoot on the cold concrete floor. Then she removed the other shoe, dumping it in her bag. She put on her slip-on boots, still stylish, but New-York-in-winter stylish, not North-Pole stylish (because North-Pole stylish involved real fur).

  He watched her like he’d never seen anything like this before. His eyes twinkled, or maybe that was a reflection of the glitter.

  Still, he didn’t say anything, and she felt just a little stupid for wearing fashionable shoes in the first place.

  She turned away, heading down the stairs. He clattered behind her. If people were listening—which they rarely did around here—they would hear the two of them coming.

  Finally, Nissa burst through the door into the lobby, looked both ways, and didn’t see the publicist. She beckoned Ryan as if they were spies sneaking into a summit.

  The lobby was full, as it always was, with milling fans, locals, and people who actually belonged here, many of whom walked with their heads down so that they couldn’t be recognized.

  Nissa wasn’t fooled; if the famous didn’t want to be recognized, they would have used a less public entrance. She took out her day pass and ran it through the scanner, a rule she always hated—approval going in, and approval coming out.

  She turned to make sure Ryan did the same thing. He fumbled with his pass, but he made it.

  They scurried across the lobby, nearly bumping into the new host of the network’s late night show as he carried a cardboard tray of specialty coffees just like an intern.

  Great camouflage, that. She’d have to remember it for her own clients.

  She slipped on her coat as she hurried through the main doors. The cold caressed her like an old friend. She held the door for Ryan, who was putting a coat over his silk suit. The coat was definitely down-market from the suit—at least $1000 down. She wondered if he knew. He didn’t seem to.

  They crossed the plaza, skirted the fountain (shut off for the winter), moved around the famous rink and its skaters, and went down a nearby alley.

  “Jeez,” Ryan said as they turned down another alley. “I feel like Harrison Ford in the Fugitive. The next thing you know, I’ll be blaming everything on the one-armed man.”

  “You’re cuter,” she blurted, and then wished she hadn’t.

  “Than the one-armed man?” Ryan said. “I would hope so.”

  She meant than Ford, but she decided not to clarify. They reached the entrance to the pub—or at least, the stairs leading to the entrance. It was on the basement level of another large skyscraper, and the pub’s owner paid for the outdoor entrance at his own expense.

  He also kept it up—no ice on the stairs, which, considering this winter already, was pretty impressive.

  She always felt like she was entering Cheers when she went in, even though she knew that fictional bar was in Boston. The angle was the same, though, and every time she entered from the deep cold to the enveloping beer-scented warmth of the wood interior, she half expected someone to shout “Norm!”

  “Nice,” Ryan said as they stepped inside. “This has been here a while. I wonder why I never knew about it.”

  “Most tourists don’t,” she said.

  He gave her a disparaging look, and she suddenly remembered his tone with Doctor Rayder. He had gone to Columbia, which wasn’t that far from here.

  “And,” she added, hoping to cover her mistake, “impoverished medical students probably couldn’t afford this place.”

  “Nice try,” Ryan said with a smile, “but you didn’t quite pull away from the faux pas.”

  He looked around, while she grasped for something to say.

  Then he added, “I suspect impoverished professors can’t afford this place either.”

  “Professors who wear silk suits should be able to afford anything,” she said.

  He looked sheepish. “The university is fronting the publicist, and I assume they’re paying for the clothes because I’m not. I was told I couldn’t go into public looking like a refugee from the 1990s.”

  “Is that the last time you bought a suit?” Nissa asked as she grabbed two menus and led them into the dim darkness at the back. The best tables were near the gas fireplace, not because it was warm, but because it w
as private.

  “I don’t remember the last time I bought a suit,” Ryan said, pulling a chair out for her as if he did that for women every day of his life. “But I do remember the last time I wore a suit. It was for my brother’s wedding, and the damn thing was purple.”

  “The wedding?”

  “Almost,” he said. “Their colors were purple and white.”

  “Like TCU?” she asked.

  “Like Northwestern,” he said. “Where they met.”

  “Uck,” she said. “I’d have to get married in Christmas colors.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t think there were schools with red and green.”

  “Not famous ones,” she said, covering.

  “Well, I’m not getting married in Columbia blue and white,” he said, looking around. “Should I go up and get us something to drink?”

  “Someone’ll be here in a minute,” she said.

  “Let’s hope the cookies hold out that long,” he said.

  Nissa grinned and slipped him a tin of bar nuts. “You know, I should have taken a picture of you eating those cookies.”

  He smiled. Which softened his face, and made him seem less handsome, more approachable. “I never said there was anything wrong with cookies.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “I think cookies, like everything else, are fine in moderation.”

  He slid the bar nuts back toward her.

  “Not feeling moderate about bar snacks?” she asked.

  “I had a friend who used to sneeze in those. Deliberately,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said. “You’ve had some lovely friends.”

  He grinned. “I could lie and say the ‘he’ in question was my brother. But that’s not true. Those friends were mostly like my brother. Or my students, if you prefer.”

  She heard something wistful in his voice. She was good at tones. She frowned. “Are you homesick?”

  He shrugged, but his gaze no longer met hers. Then he shook his head, as if he were having a conversation with himself. “I…this sounds so stupid.”

  She waited. She’d learned long ago that responding to a statement like that would derail the conversation.

  “I…” he sighed. “I didn’t know what I signed on for.”

  “The travel?” she asked.

  “The insanity.” He looked up at her. “I know you work in this profession, and I don’t mean to insult you, but everyone seems to be trying to gin up a controversy, and then when they have that controversy it rises to new levels of crazy as the time goes on. I mean, we’re talking about Santa Claus as if he’s real.”

  She stiffened in spite of herself.

  “To millions of little children, he is,” she said. Not to mention that he was real, just not quite in the way the rest of the world thought.

  “I know, I know,” Ryan said. “And had I known that using him as an example would turn my life upside down, I wouldn’t have done it.”

  She leaned back just a little, feeling confused. “Don’t you believe what you’ve been saying? Don’t you believe that Santa’s image is hurting children?”

  His right hand clenched for just a moment, and then it relaxed, almost as if it had never happened.

  “I never said that.” His voice was calm, despite his physical reaction. “I said that Santa’s image needs to be revised with the modern era in mind—and you defended that position not an hour ago.”

  Nissa felt the heat in her face increase. She hadn’t blushed like this in years. If ever. He was right; she had defended that position, and it could get her into a lot of trouble.

  She had had a moment of panic, thinking he didn’t even believe what he had been saying, when she had put so much on the line. She had misunderstood.

  A waitress hovered over them. Nissa hadn’t even seen her arrive.

  “I need a burger,” Ryan was saying. “Charred. Grilled to death. So well done that we all know the damn thing is dead. And instead of fries, a salad, up front if you can do that.”

  “A burger, Mr. Health Nut?” Nissa couldn’t help herself. She found his food choices amusing, especially since he was so judgmental about Santa’s.

  “That’s Professor Health Nut to you,” Ryan said, “and I indulge at times. I even stress-eat. I’m aware of it, and I’m trying to deal with it. But I give myself some treats on days like today. I bow to the public health concerns by eating the burger well cooked. No e-coli for this guy.”

  “Or for anyone else here,” the waitress said, sounding offended. “We get hundreds on our health inspections, and before you open your tourist blowhole again, we don’t pay for those rankings neither. We run a clean place.”

  Ryan looked startled. Nissa felt bad for him. She hadn’t meant to open that door. She didn’t want everyone to pile on.

  He said to the waitress, “I wasn’t implying that you ran a dirty restaurant. I’m just—”

  “Oh, you was implying it,” she said. “You was actually kinda stating it. You like this guy?”

  She asked that last of Nissa, whom she obviously recognized as a regular.

  “I just met him,” Nissa said. “But I do—”

  “And you brung him here, la-di-frickin-da. Ain’t we lucky?” The waitress sighed. “He’s this fussy about a burger, you gotta wonder what he’s like in the sack, you know?”

  Oh, Nissa did wonder. Nissa had to work to keep from looking at Ryan. She wasn’t sure if this would amuse him or insult him more.

  “You having your usual?” The waitress asked.

  “Yes,” Nissa said.

  The waitress pointed the pen at Ryan. “And you. That burger’ll be dead. I promise.”

  She stalked off. Ryan shook his head, and then put a hand over his forehead. He looked exhausted.

  “I’m sorry,” Nissa said. “I didn’t mean to start that.”

  “I’m so tired that I don’t know what I’m saying half the time. I’m not—fussy—usually, just—God, I’ve missed New York.”

  Nissa blinked. She hadn’t expected that. “What?”

  He let his hand drop. He was grinning. “People here say what they think. In the real world anyway. In the TV world, it’s all about the controversy, but here, you know where you stand.”

  He looked at the swinging kitchen door, and his smile grew wider.

  “And there’s nowhere I’ll ever be able to stand that will impress her. If I come here for years, she’ll give me an overcooked burger, and she’ll give me crap about it.”

  Nissa smiled too. “Yeah, she will. Let’s just hope the burger’s not tough.”

  “In a good restaurant, well-cooked hamburger will be just as good as undercooked. And if it’s not, I’m ready to eat the bar nuts. I don’t care who sneezed on them.” His grin faded. “I’m sorry I sound like a pompous ass. I’m dying of hunger. Except for cookies and a slice at the airport, I’ve eaten nothing since LA.”

  “You started in LA this morning?” That was a long flight by commercial air, and if the publicist treated him the way that others got treated, he was in coach. He might have gotten cocktail peanuts or some kind of truly bad sandwich, but little else.

  “Yeah, I was in LA. My day started at four A.M. One four-thirty A.M. interview, live on camera, another on tape for the eight A.M. show, and then a radio appearance on the way to LAX.”

  She did the math. He must have cut it close. Because to get to New York in time to be on Made Up Controversies Are Us, he had to be on a flight by seven A.M. at the latest.

  “I slept on the plane. It didn’t do a lot of good. Some kid kicked my seat for the whole five-plus hours of the flight. Or maybe it just seemed that way.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually a complainer.”

  “Maybe you should be,” Nissa said. “This sounds ridiculous. No wonder you’re stretched to the breaking point. When are you done?”

  He sighed. “What day is it?”

  “December third,” she said.

  �
�Oh, crap. I have another week.” He looked even more tired, if that were possible.

  Poor thing. She would have revolted long before this. “Then you get to go home?”

  “Then I get to go home just in time for the last week of classes, and exams. I’m sure I’ll get lots of ribbing from the students, lots of debriefing from the faculty.” There was that wistful note again, as if he couldn’t wait. He seemed to love teaching.

  She tried to find an upside for him. “At least your book hit the Times list.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “And how many people will read the entire book when they realize it’s not about Santa Claus?”

  Good point. She shrugged, even though she knew the answer. So did he. The book would languish on coffee tables until the next controversial book hit the airwaves.

  “You’ll make some money,” she said. She wasn’t quite sure why she was trying to make him feel better about all of this. Maybe because he looked so tired, so defeated.

  “I’m not in this for the money.” He grabbed the beer nuts and shifted the container from hand to hand. “I actually want to educate people. Our food is killing us. Additives and unnecessary ingredients, and corn starch, and overeating—”

  “I know,” she said, realizing why the publicist had focused on Santa Claus. Ryan really was on a mission; just not the one the Old Boys thought he was on. “I read the news.”

  “Which means you don’t know,” Ryan said. “Do you know anyone who’s overweight? Got chronic health problems like diabetes? Or gout? Did you know those used to be rich people diseases? And they’re infecting kids now? This is a crisis—”

  “Soapbox alert,” she said, holding up her hands. “I agreed with you, remember.”

  “Sorry.” He let go of the beer nuts. “This is what I’ve been wanting to talk about, and whenever I do, everyone runs from the topic. They don’t want to hear about it. I get it. I do. But I’ve been wanting to have a substantive discussion with someone for four weeks now.”

  “I’m your designated someone?” she asked with a smile.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you are. Do you mind?”