C.J. didn’t have time for her to get the Scrabbles sorted out from the Monopolys. “I’ve heard you are the person to see for Christmas. And, lady, believe me, I need a Christmas.” Right now, because he had a short time frame, an impossible daughter to win over and a major life change to deal with. He didn’t want to wait on a board game.
“You can find that anywhere, Mr…. What did you say your name was?”
“Hamilton.”
She paused, a checkers game halfway to its proper place on the shelf. “You’re Sarah’s father? But I thought…”
She didn’t finish the sentence and he didn’t blame her. Most people he’d run into since arriving in town—from the gas station attendant who’d given him directions to the building super who had let him into Kiki’s apartment—had looked at him, added two and two and automatically labeled him as a bad paternal figure. “I’m here for Sarah now, and that’s what counts. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes. Of course.”
“The only thing she wants—and what she deserves this year more than anything—is a good Christmas.” He didn’t mention that he had zero parenting experience, had yet to get his daughter to talk to him, that LuAnn had told him the girl’s melancholy increased every day, or that he was counting on Christmas to help him build a bridge to a six-year-old stranger. A miracle on so many fronts, even he had lost count. “She never really had one. Will you help me give her one or not?”
The woman before him hesitated, smoothing a hand over the game’s black-and-red cover, avoiding his gaze. But most of all, the question.
Jessica Patterson was right. He could take Sarah to a mall. To another town. He could, indeed, find his Christmas anywhere. But he wanted to create those happy memories here, in the town where his daughter had had so many unhappy ones. He wanted to turn the tide for her, to show her that there was, indeed, a rainbow behind all those clouds.
And if he could pull off that miracle, then maybe, just maybe, there was hope that he could be the dad he needed to be for the years ahead.
Because he hadn’t been much of one up until now. And he had a lot of ground to cover between here and December twenty-fifth.
For that, C.J. suspected, he was going to need a lot more than a reluctant blonde in a red suit.
CHAPTER TWO
JESSICA TUCKED the striped one-piece bathing suit into her bag, did a final visual check, then shut the suitcase with a click. Her clothes were ready to go, albeit two days early. Mentally she’d been ready to leave for weeks.
In a little more than forty-eight hours, she’d be on a beach in Florida soaking up the sun. Far from the cold and snow, she could forget about Dennis, the town that had started to take her for granted and the time of year that had lost its meaning somewhere between the stocking stuffers and the bargain hunters.
Her doorbell rang, and Bandit, her German short-haired pointer, scrambled to his feet, bounding down the stairs at Greyhound speed, his tail a friendly whip against his hindquarters. To hedge his bets, he let out a few ferocious barks, but everyone in Riverbend knew Bandit had less guard dog in him than a stuffed frog.
She opened the door, expecting Mindy. “You can’t talk me out—” The sentence died in her throat when she saw the tall, lean figure of C. J. Hamilton on her front porch. “It’s you. Again.”
“I’m not a man who gives up easily.”
He had the kind of voice that sent a woman’s pulse racing. Deep and thorough, he seemed to coat every syllable with a smoky accent.
Regardless of his voice or the way his dark hair swept one stubborn lock across his brow or how his jeans hugged his hips, she couldn’t give him what he wanted. Christmas and Jessica Patterson were no longer operating hand in hand. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hamilton, but I thought I made this clear earlier. I will not be participating in any Christmas activities this year. Maybe I could refer you to one of my colleagues. There’s even a network of Santa performers that are available for malls and private parties, if you—”
“It has to be here. And that means it has to be you.”
“I’m leaving in two days. I won’t even be here for Christmas, or even the Winterfest. I can’t help you.” She started to shut the door.
He was already digging in his back pocket, pulling out a leather billfold, flipping it open. His foot wedged in the door, preventing her from shutting him out. “I’ll pay you. Name your price, Mrs. Patterson.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Name a charity you want me to support. A home for retired Santas you want me to build. Anything.”
The laughter burst out of Jessica before she could stop it. “There’s no such thing.”
He answered her with a grin that took over his face, lighting his blue eyes, taking them from the color of a sluggish river to a sparkling ocean on a sunny day.
Oh, damn. She always had been a sucker for eyes like that. And especially a pair surrounded by deep lines of worry, shoulders hunched with the heaviness of sorrow and responsibility. Sarah Hamilton had, indeed, been through a lot, and so had her father, Jessica was sure.
She sighed. “Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee? I won’t be your Mrs. Claus—” at that she felt her face color, and saw him arch a brow, reading the slight innuendo, too “—but maybe I can help you find a solution to your…problem.”
Some of the weight seemed to lift from him. “A cup of coffee would be great. Really great.”
She invited him in, all the while wondering what she was thinking. She wanted to get away from reminders of Christmas, not open up her house to the season—or to a man who made her pulse race and clearly came attached to a whole set of problems.
C.J. stepped inside and glanced around her house. “Guess you weren’t kidding about the no-Christmas thing. You don’t have so much as a pine branch on your mantel.”
“I didn’t see the point in decorating if I was going to be out of town.” Jessica chastised herself. The man could be a serial killer, a burglar or a Frosty thief. And she’d just broadcast that her house would be empty over the holidays.
Bandit had already warmed up to the newcomer, his wiry body pressed to C.J.’s jeans, tail wagging so hard it beat a pattern against Bandit’s rump, his head under C.J.’s palm for a little TLC. C.J. had apparently passed Bandit’s criminal background check.
“Bandit, leave him alone.”
“He’s fine,” C.J. said, stroking Bandit’s ears and sending the dog into hyper-puppy joy. “I work with a lot of animals on the set, too, and don’t mind a dog. In fact, I’d have a dog myself if—”
He cut off the sentence. Jessica was intrigued—but not enough to ask. Her sole purpose of inviting C.J. Hamilton into the house was to make it clear she had no intentions of being part of a Christmas celebration—not the town’s and not his.
The kitchen was right off the entryway, all in keeping with the small cottage-style house she had lived in since she’d married Dennis. Five rooms for two people. More than enough space.
Yet, somehow with C. J. Hamilton behind her as she led the way to the coffeepot, it seemed as if the house had shrunk, making her all too aware of the stranger in town.
“Cream or sugar?” she asked, crossing to the counter to pour coffee into a plain white mug. On any other year, she’d have the special Santa mugs out, with the dancing reindeer ringing the base. But not this year.
“Nothing,