Santa Series: Three Stories of Magical Holiday Romance Read online

  She did, a little. She wasn’t sure why she had asked him here, except that she had found him attractive and smart and sexy. And now he was revealing himself as a professor of public health. The kind you didn’t want to go on a tear.

  “Are you sure you want to have this conversation with me?” she said. “I work for a company called Claus & Company. I like Santa, as much as I agree with you about modernizing him.”

  “I don’t dislike him,” Ryan said, looking like a man who wanted to bang his head on the table. “I—”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s just I’m not the person you should be talking to.”

  Or maybe she was. Because his speech hurt a little, which was why she tuned him out. Her mother had loved her baked goods, her cookies, her candies, and just plain eating. And her mother hated exercise in all forms, not that exercise was easy at the North Pole. You had to like winter sports, from ice-skating to cross-country skiing to snowshoeing. Her mother hated all of that, and lived for her allotted month off in the Hawaiian Islands. Where the eating habits weren’t a lot better than the North Pole, but at least in the Islands, her mother walked everywhere and waded into Pacific and took diving lessons back when Nissa was a girl, a long, long, long time ago.

  That was where her mother had met Nissa’s father. Food had been their way to relate. And they both related themselves into larger and larger sizes. Her father had died young from something preventable. No magic there, either.

  Ryan was watching her. It was almost as if he could see those thoughts run across her face.

  Maybe he could. She had fought her own weight for years now, probably making a different sort of bad choice, not eating enough instead of eating too much.

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “You’ve been really nice to me, and I’ve been sticking my foot in my mouth all afternoon. Let’s stop talking about me. I really do want to know about you. You’re the first real person I’ve talked to in weeks.”

  She wasn’t that kind of real. She wondered what he’d think if he discovered she was from the North Pole. That North Pole.

  “Please,” he was saying. “Tell me what you do for Claus & Company?”

  She would love to. She would love to tell him everything, including how magic failed at the most important levels. She would tell him about the importance of happiness—how she was in the happiness business—but maybe that business needed some tweaking.

  She would talk to him, professional to professional, and maybe, maybe woman to the man she was attracted to, and—

  None of that was going to happen. She couldn’t let it happen. She’d only known him a few hours.

  “We manage Christmas brands,” she said, telling what little part of the truth she could. “Including Santa. So I am intrigued by all of this.”

  His smile looked pasted on, rather like it had on the show an hour before. He knew she was skating over everything. He probably thought she didn’t like him.

  And she did. She really did.

  “How do you get a job like that?” he asked.

  She let out a small laugh. No one had asked her that before. “It’s a family business. I showed an aptitude for Greater—um, for the media, and branding, and ended up in New York. I love it here.”

  “The company has offices outside of New York?” He frowned at her.

  “You’d be surprised at how big this company is,” she said.

  “I’m not sure I would, given what I’ve been through lately,” he said.

  The waitress came by and dropped the salad in front of him. The lettuce bounced twice before it settled. He thanked her, but she had already left before he got the words out.

  “It sounds like you need a break from all things Santa,” Nissa said.

  “If you’re all things Santa, then no, I don’t need a break,” he said. “You’re the nicest person I’ve meet in weeks.”

  She smiled. Maybe he wasn’t attracted to her, but at least he found her likeable. That was a start, anyway.

  Not that she knew what it was a start of. If anything. He was a professor, after all, and she had a weird job.

  And a very weird life.

  “Still,” she said. “Let’s talk about something else. How about them Mets?”

  He laughed, just like he was supposed to, proving that he truly was a New Yorker at heart. She wished she could have a real conversation with him.

  She usually didn’t wish that about anyone. She liked keeping the family secrets. But not today. Today she wanted to give him just a little bit of magic, something else to believe in.

  And giving away that kind of information was something she could never ever do.

  8

  THEY ACTUALLY TALKED baseball in the middle of the Christmas shopping season. They couldn’t talk football because he was too addled and stressed and time-challenged to keep track of the games like he usually did (and he refrained from telling Nissa that he was concerned—as a doctor and a professor of public health—about enjoying a sport which damaged its players horribly for life).

  Nissa got some kind of grilled chicken sandwich and ate it slowly. He had finished his burger so fast that he must have sent some sort of land-speed record. The burger had been delicious, even though it was charred an inch past its natural life, and he now knew why Nissa frequented this place.

  He was trying hard not to be a spoilsport, trying not to be that pedantic guy you invited to your house only to realize he could talk about three things well, and on everything else he was a judgmental idiot.

  The problem was that Ryan felt like a judgmental idiot whenever he was tired, and he had gone beyond tired around Thanksgiving. Which seemed like years ago. Thanksgiving had been his last day off. He had been “given” that day to spend with his family, although Wendy had called in the middle of dinner to ask if he would do a live remote from his brother’s library for some newscast.

  Ryan had somehow missed Wendy’s call. He got the rather irate voicemail five minutes after he hit “ignore,” and decided then and there that “ignore” was his very best friend.

  Thinking of which, he groped for his phone. Wendy should have been trying to call him. He should have been pressing “ignore” every fifteen seconds.

  “Everything all right?” Nissa asked.

  “I think I left my phone at the studio,” he said, and then he laughed. “No wonder Wendy can’t find me. She probably put tracking software on the damn thing.”

  “She’s dedicated to her job,” Nissa said.

  “I’m told she’s the best,” Ryan said.

  “You don’t believe it?” Nissa asked.

  “I don’t know this world, and I don’t really want to.”

  “That was polite.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not cut out for this.”

  “Actually,” Nissa said softly, “you are. You’re handsome and personable and you make even the most difficult subjects understandable—”

  “That part comes from being a professor,” he said, feeling a bit uncomfortable at her description.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I’ve known a lot of professors. The good ones make things clear and fascinating. The bad ones make you never want to discuss a topic again.”

  He chuckled, remembering an econ professor he’d had who was so stunningly bad that the dense and dry textbooks seemed twice as entertaining.

  “Okay,” he said. “Point taken.”

  “Really,” she said. “You’ve got more charisma on camera than anyone I’ve seen inside the business let alone outside of it. Your voice is very persuasive. Do you have ma—?”

  She stopped herself, as if she were about to say something untoward. He wondered what that would be.

  “Is that why you defended me? Because I’m persuasive?” he asked, thinking maybe he would make that into a joke, but by the time he’d finished the thought he knew it wasn’t.

  “No,” she said firmly. Then frowned. “Maybe. Actually, I think we agree on some of this, and I do want to take it
to my people.”

  “They can change Santa’s image?”

  She looked at him sideways, and for the first time since the elevator, he noted her slightly pointed ears. He was tired. Was he thinking she was some kind of elf?

  A woman who had pointed ears who worked for Santa. He knew he wasn’t hallucinating her because his stomach was full and he was in a pub that he could never have found on his own. He had had no alcohol, so he wasn’t wearing beer goggles.

  She was real. He was tired. He imagined things when he was tired. He just had to leave it at that.

  “We can try to change Santa’s image,” she said after a moment. “Not this Christmas, though.”

  “By next Christmas, I’ll be yesterday’s news,” he said. He hoped he would be. Because he couldn’t do this one more time. He just couldn’t.

  “I know. But Santa’s image isn’t a one-season thing.” She spoke softly, as if she were talking to herself. Then her gaze met his. He felt like she had touched him. There was something alive in her gaze, something he liked, something—

  Oh, jeez, he was tired.

  “I would like to see you again,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was speaking as a woman or as the public relations person for Claus & Company. Not that it mattered. He didn’t have time to sleep, let alone spend a day with a beautiful woman.

  “I’m so booked,” he said, and he hoped it didn’t sound like an excuse. He really wanted to be with her. More than he could say.

  “I know you’re booked,” she said. “I didn’t mean now.”

  He blinked. A date? She was asking for a date? Or was this professional? And how did he ask that without being really clueless?

  “Let me contact you after this tour thing ends,” she said. “Do you have a card?”

  He did, now, even though he had been tempted to toss them all. Wendy had drawn them up for him when she realized he didn’t have one.

  What professor needs a business card? He had asked.

  You, Wendy had snarled.

  He fumbled for his wallet. He had a moment of panic as he worried that he’d left his wallet with his phone, but he hadn’t. The wallet was with him; the phone wasn’t. He smiled to himself. Yeah, that wasn’t intentional. Nope, no sir, no way.

  He pulled out a card and handed it to Nissa.

  “I’m getting dinner too,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “I invited you.”

  “And I’m not paying for anything on this trip. Let me.”

  “Yeah,” the waitress said from behind him. “Let him.”

  She snatched the credit card out of his hand and vanished with it. He hadn’t even seen the bill, and he wasn’t sure he cared.

  “Here’s my card,” Nissa said, and handed him something done in tasteful green and gold. He never normally would have thought green and gold tasteful, but these colors were muted and the gold seemed to sparkle all on its own.

  The card just had her name, Claus & Company, a phone number, and a corporate e-mail.

  He turned it over as he put it in his wallet, hoping for a private number on the back, but no such luck. No date then. Just business.

  “You think I can help you with rebranding Santa?” he asked.

  “I want to read your material and develop a few things,” she said. “Then I need to talk with some important people. Maybe after the first…?”

  If I survive to the first, he thought but didn’t say. “I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that very much.”

  9

  NISSA WALKED HIM back to the plaza, figuring he could find his way inside again. She thought she might take him upstairs to search for that lost phone, but that felt just a bit off.

  He looked so tired. He needed sleep more than he needed—what had he called it?—a real conversation. She wished she had the kind of magic that would give him just a little energy boost. But her magic was subtler than that. It made people trust her. She could design beautiful imagery and convince people to spend money where they normally wouldn’t.

  In the off season, in fact, she designed brochures for some of Santa’s favorite charities, as well as websites and giving campaigns. Just a touch of magic to convince someone to click the “donate five dollars” button or text the right combination of letters to the designated number. Her campaigns always brought in more money because of that hint of magic.

  Not enough to convince people to spend money they wouldn’t normally spend, but just enough to relax them, to make them think they were a tiny bit better off than other people. Enough to make them confident in their own ability to change someone’s life for the better.

  She probably could have given Ryan that kind of boost, but she hadn’t thought of it until she watched him stagger inside the building. And even then, the idea felt just a little wrong. She didn’t want to magick him in any way. She wanted him free of any influence, even the slightest influence.

  Then she sighed, her breath frosting in the chill night air. She could hear the music from the skating rink, the laughter of lovers and tourists who were having their ideal Christmas.

  She liked this guy way too much.

  Now she would have to go home and tell everyone in the North Pole why she hadn’t reined him in. Why she had offered to meet with him in January.

  Why she wanted to meet with him in January.

  And she couldn’t even tell the truth about it, because she wasn’t entirely sure of the truth. Yeah, he had good ideas. But he had even better eyes. She could lose herself in them.

  Or maybe, she already had.

  10

  THE MEAL OUT had been worth the look Wendy, darling Wendy, Wendy darling had given him. Hell, the meal out had been worth the entire trip, with all of its hassles. And that was saying something.

  It had even relaxed him about Wendy darling.

  She had been marching around the third floor, searching for him, clutching his phone in one hand as if squeezing it would conjure him up.

  Then, when Ryan appeared, she had squinted and yelled at him for leaving without her, for blowing the schedule, for being impossible to find.

  Network employees watched. He had a hunch the encounter was being filmed. It might even end up on YouTube—or it would have if he had said what he was thinking.

  Instead, he said meekly, I need to eat sometime, Wendy. I just went for a meal.

  I have a meal scheduled for you after you get to your hotel, she snapped.

  Good, he said. I’ll probably be hungry all over again. You know, you really need to set up these tours with human beings in mind. We need food and sleep to function at even half capacity.

  And then he had walked off, taking the elevator down to the parking garage where he had gambled that the limo was waiting for him.

  He had been right. Same driver, same limo. And when Ryan asked if he could leave without Wendy, the driver smiled and said, Why not? as if it had been his idea.

  It took less than ten minutes to get to the hotel, less than twenty to have a shower and turn down the sheets on the bed. Less than thirty to realize Ryan wasn’t going to sleep no matter how tired he was.

  Visions of Nissa were dancing in his head.

  The woman had charmed him. He liked her more than he had liked a woman in years. Not since Claire in college. He’d lived with Claire for a few years, before they realized that they didn’t belong together. Claire had been a wonderful person, and now she was one of the best pediatricians in the five boroughs, but they’d never had that spark.

  Ryan got out his wallet and slipped the card from it. He was so tired that the words seemed to dance, the gold seemed to spark. He could see little flakes of magic float around his fingertips, as if the card gave off the essence of Nissa.

  He smiled at it, then closed his fist around it, and leaned back.

  This time, he fell asleep—and his dreams, well, his dreams were the best dreams he’d had in weeks. Maybe years. Maybe in his entire life.

  They almost made the four A.M. wake-
up call worthwhile, even when he realized he wouldn’t have time for room service breakfast. Even when he heard that Wendy, darling Wendy, Wendy darling had squeezed in another interview right over lunch.

  He wished he could see Nissa again, and he was sorry—oh so sorry—that he had to wait until January.

  Because at this rate, he was beginning to wonder if January would ever come.

  11

  CHRISTMAS PASSED IN a blur, just like it always did. No one at the North Pole got to celebrate in December. For a while, they tried to celebrate in January, but realized they were all too sick of the season to even pretend they wanted gifts or candy or Christmas trees. Christmas for the folks at Claus & Company took place in late May/early June, almost as incentive to get back into the festive spirit.

  Usually Nissa loved those celebrations. But this year, she worried about them, since her mother was still not well.

  Like everyone else at the North Pole, though, her mother had done what she could to get through Christmas. And Nissa took care of her and filled in where she was needed, which was usually Last Minute Toy Creation, something she wasn’t half bad at—something to do with imagery and good feelings and all those little things her magic could manage.

  She hadn’t minded the whirlwind end to the season because it prevented her from thinking about anything except toys and snow and holidays. Even her mother’s mood had lifted.

  Nissa hadn’t had much of a chance to think about Ryan, either, nor had she used any of the Pole’s spying capabilities to keep track of him. That had taken a lot more restraint than she had expected; after all, she had only met him the once.

  But she felt connected to him. She also felt a bit stalker-y. Before she had come home to do her stint in the toy mines, she had downloaded all of his interviews. She watched them one by one, sometimes over meals, sometimes before bed. (Too often before bed.)

  If someone had asked her what she was doing, she would have said that she was doing her research for her debrief after the holidays. But no one asked. She wasn’t even sure anyone noticed, although once her mother had found her, sprawled on the couch staring at her tablet, and asked, Who is that nice-looking young man?