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  “Thank you,” C.J. said, the relief so clear she could almost see the weight of stress lift from his shoulders. “You’ve just—”

  “Don’t thank me yet.” She held up a finger. “Because if I do stay, and that’s a big if, there’s one other thing Riverbend is going to need to make this Christmas perfect.”

  “If it’s a reindeer, I have one on its way. If you want a twelve-foot tree, I’ll call the arborist tomorrow. A giant—”

  “No, none of those.” Jessica drew in a breath. It was about time she quit the solo act. And besides, she had no doubt Mr. Get-Out-of-Town-Fast C. J. Hamilton would turn her down before the first snowflake fell on Riverbend. “What we really need in this town is a new Mr. Claus.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE WIDE BLUE EYES regarded C.J. with suspicion. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Of course I do. Done it a hundred times.” He picked up one of the—what the heck were they called anyway?—multicolored doohickeys on the table and hoped his daughter couldn’t tell he was lying through his teeth.

  Normally he wasn’t a man given to lying, but then again, he wasn’t normally a man used to being a father, either. He’d hoped to show up in town, get Jessica Patterson’s help and then wham-bam, win over his daughter, thereby starting his new vocation off on the right foot, making the rest a piece of cake.

  Clearly, he’d seen Little Orphan Annie one too many times.

  Thus far, Jessica had refused to cooperate—okay maybe his idea had been a little crazy—and had thrown out her own crazy idea about him playing the big jolly Mr. to her Mrs., then herded him out of her house, telling him to go see his daughter.

  Which he was doing. Unsuccessfully.

  “I don’t think you do,” Sarah said, shaking her head. They were standing in the guest room LuAnn Rivers had set up as a temporary bedroom for Sarah—a bedroom which was quickly becoming permanent, mainly because his daughter still refused to go back to Kiki’s apartment with C.J., clearly regarding him more as a kidnapper than a father. LuAnn had left the two of them here alone, saying she figured they would bond while Sarah got ready for a birthday party.

  So far they’d bonded about as well as two pieces of wet tape.

  Sarah had started talking to him—sort of—but only after a stern lecture from LuAnn, and only in monosyllabic words and eye rolls.

  “I tied the bow on your dress for you, didn’t I?” C.J. chanced a glance at the lopsided, twisted mess he’d made of the pink satin ribbon. Maybe not the best testament to his fashion skills. Good thing Sarah didn’t have eyes at the back of her head. If she could see what he’d done to the sash, she’d never let him wield a brush near her curly locks.

  Sarah gave him another dubious look. “I want Kiki to do it.”

  Kiki. Her mother. C.J. didn’t find it in the least surprising that Kiki wouldn’t have wanted to be called Mommy.

  “Kiki can’t do it, honey,” C.J. said, bending down to Sarah’s level. As he did, the movement brought back another conversation, a memory of his own, slamming into him with a tidal force, nearly rocking him back on his heels. Someone telling him that he was about to be let down again—by the one person who was supposed to always be there. C.J. swiped the image away, focused again on Sarah’s wide blue eyes. “She’s…gone.”

  Sarah pouted, arms tight against her chest. “Everyone keeps telling me that. But I don’t want her to be gone.”

  C.J. bit back a sigh. So far he was striking out as a father. He needed a “Dummies” manual. A crash course. A miracle. “Listen, Sarah, why don’t I—”

  “No! I don’t want you to do it. Kiki does it right. You’re a boy. Boys don’t know how to do girl hair.”

  She had a point.

  “We could wait for LuAnn to come back,” C.J. said. Why had LuAnn left? What was she thinking? He had no clue how to handle this. And what if Sarah started crying? Or pitched a fit?

  He was so far over his head, it was a wonder he could see daylight.

  “She’s at the hairdresser’s.” When Sarah said the word, it came out hare-testers. “That takes lots of time ’cuz they gotta put the colors in it and make it all curly again.”

  C.J. cursed himself for ever telling LuAnn he could do this on his own. Clearly, the visit to Jessica Patterson’s house had left him on edge. With that feeling of unfinished business between them.

  But she’d been right, damn it. He was hoping for the quick fix, so that he could just add Sarah into his life, like she was a potted plant.

  It wasn’t going to work that way. And the sooner C.J. figured out a way to muddle through this new “normal,” the better. He’d start with the hair doohickeys and move forward from there.

  Sarah glared at him. “I’m gonna be late. And then Cassidy will never talk to me again ’cuz I missed her party and it’s all your fault. And Kiki’s.” She plopped onto her bed and turned away. One of her dozen stuffed unicorns fell off the twin and tumbled to the floor, little sparkles dusting the dark-blue carpet.

  C.J. fumbled for the brush, but the doohickey ponytail things caught on his fingers, the little round balls click-clacking together, giving him an extra quartet of thumbs. The brush slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor, bonking Mr. Unicorn on the head.

  He looked at Sarah, hoping she would laugh at his hapless attempt. He even held up his multicolored thumbs. She ignored him, instead bending to pick up the brush and then putting it on her nightstand. She gave him an I-told-you-so sigh and retreated to her pillows again.

  Beside him, he heard a sniffle, then a catch, then a full-out sob. Oh, damn. Now she was crying. C.J. hadn’t the foggiest idea what to do.

  Give him a knot in a piece of wood, and he could coax the best side out of the hard oak. Throw him together with an ego-driven director, a penny-pinching producer and a movie star terrified the lighting might show her true age and latest face-lift, and he’d find a way to make everyone happy with a slight shifting of a plant here, a building there, a wall here. Put a complicated set design in front him with an insane deadline, and he’d thrive under the pressure, rise to the challenge, and never break a sweat, while his crew would fret and pace, sure the impossible could not be accomplished.

  But a crying first-grader?

  There wasn’t any course in film school for that. And nothing he’d seen in the books he’d read in the past few days to cover ponytails, birthday party emergencies and clueless dads.

  Should he get her a tissue? Tell her to stop? Call for backup?

  LuAnn was gone, probably for hours. That left one other female solution.

  “I know who can do this hair stuff, Sarah,” C.J. said. “And she’ll probably throw in a Slinky for all your trouble, too.”

  Sarah rolled over, and C.J. could see the stain of tears running down her cheeks, doubling his guilt and feelings of inadequacy. Oh, man, he really needed a better parenting manual. “Who?”

  Another tear brimmed in the corner of Sarah’s eye, and C.J. reached forward, plucked tissues one-two-three-four from the box on her nightstand and handed them to her in a big wad. “You know the toy shop downtown? The one owned by—”

  “Mrs. Claus?”

  “How do you know that?”

  Sarah rolled her eyes at him. “Everyone knows that, even though it’s s’pposed to be a secret, ’cuz she works at Santa’s toy store. Only she doesn’t have her suit on.” Sarah’s eyes brightened, then dimmed. She looked down at the ball of white in her palms and started shredding the paper. “Only I hear she won’t be Mrs. Claus this year, ’cuz she’s going to Florida or something. Maybe she doesn’t like kids anymore.”

  “Oh, no, she likes kids. Loves ’em. She told me so.” She hadn’t said any such thing, but heck, C.J. was already on a lying streak, might as well keep it up. Besides, the mention of Jessica—Mrs. Claus—seemed to have opened up a direct line to Sarah’s voice box, increasing C.J.’s reasons for getting the woman involved. He handed Sarah more tissues, hoping it would hea
d off any subsequent tears. “And she’s really good at doing hair, too.”

  Liar, liar.

  “She can do my hair ’fore I have to go to Cassidy’s party?”

  “Certainly.” If she hasn’t left for her flight yet. If she’s still talking to me. If a hundred other ifs haven’t gone wrong. He put out his hand, but Sarah didn’t take it. “Do you want to see if she can fix your hair?”

  “Okay.” Sarah still looked unconvinced, but she slipped down off her bed and grabbed her party shoes off the floor, dropping the tissues into a puffy white pile in their place.

  She did a half turn, then caught her reflection in the mirror that hung over her dresser. She put one hand on her hip and cast another I-told-you-so glance at her newly minted father. “I sure hope Mrs. Claus knows how to tie a bow, too, ’cuz you’re making a mess of things.”

  Sarah didn’t how right she was.

  C. J. Hamilton was on her doorstep for the second time in the space of a day. Jessica didn’t know whether to be flattered or to take out a restraining order.

  She glanced at her suitcase, sitting beside the door. Soon enough she’d be on her way, far from Riverbend. Christmas and all the memories that holiday conjured would be out of mind and out of sight.

  Less than forty-eight hours. That was all, and she’d be gone. She’d purposely booked the trip for the night of the Winterfest, to give her an excuse to miss the event and get out of her Mrs. Claus duties. And yet, here was C. J. Hamilton like a rebounding ball, determined to get her into that silly red suit.

  “Mr. Hamilton,” she said as she pulled open the door. “Again.”

  “I have a problem.” He held up his hand, gaily decorated with ponytail holders, then gestured toward Sarah, who Jessica now noticed was standing next to him, arms crossed over her chest, face screwed up in disapproval. Her hair was a jumble of curls on her head, her dress a crinkled mess, the bow haphazardly tied and tilted at an odd angle. The gift in her hands had been wrapped either by C.J. himself or by a barrel of monkeys.

  Jessica bit back a laugh. “I can see that.”

  “He tried to help me,” Sarah said, her tone grumpy, face sullen. “He’s not very good at it.”

  Jessica bent down, a burst of sympathy running through her for the motherless girl. How she wanted to just pull Sarah into her arms and fill her with cookies and hugs. But Sarah wasn’t her daughter and Jessica reminded herself to keep her distance, guard her emotions. “I can see that,” she repeated, softly, just for Sarah.

  “Hey, I’m new at this.” C.J. took Jessica’s hand and dumped the ponytail holders into her palm. “Here. You do it.”

  Jessica stared at the multicolored elastics with their jaunty rainbow of balls. He expected her to just know how to do this? “What about LuAnn?”

  “She had an appointment. And Sarah has a birthday party to get to.”

  Jessica thought a second. “Cassidy Rendell’s seventh birthday, am I right?”

  “Yeah,” Sarah said, surprise arching her brows. “How’d you know?” Her expression perked up when Bandit wriggled his body between them and inserted a friendly doggy nose against her hip.

  Jessica put a finger beside her nose, the familiar gesture she and Dennis had used to imply a Santa-only secret. Only she wasn’t playing Mrs. Claus this year. So she couldn’t very well pretend she had any secrets or magic. She lowered her hand and tried to ignore the whisper of wistfulness that ran through her. “Mrs. Klein and Tammy were in the store yesterday, talking about it,” she said, naming one of the other first-graders in Sarah and Cassidy’s class.

  “Did they buy her a doctor Barbie? ’Cuz that’s what I got her and I told Cassidy nobody else better bring one, ’cuz I want my present to be the most special one.”

  “No, they didn’t. I think your gift—” she gestured toward the badly taped and wrapped box, then looked at C.J., who gave her another what-do-I-know, hands-up gesture “—is going to be perfect.”

  Sarah beamed and gave Bandit extra pats.

  “I told Sarah you’d know how to do her hair. Tie her bow. That kind of girl stuff.”

  “Because I’m a girl, is that it? I must come prewired to do all this?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  She grabbed his palm and put the ponytails back into his grasp. “I hate to disappoint you, Mr. Hamilton, but my personal résumé doesn’t include small children.”

  “But you’re ah, you know, her,” C.J. said, the implied meaning, that Santa’s wife should know all things child related. “You own a toy store. You work with small children every day.”

  “That doesn’t mean I know how to—” She cut off her words when she noticed Sarah watching the entire exchange. “I thought someone said something about not wanting any help?”

  “I didn’t know that meant being Bill Blass and Vidal Sassoon at the same time.” He gestured to Sarah’s mess of a bow and unkempt hair. “Will you please help me?”

  She should say no. Be firm with C. J. Hamilton, wish him well and get back to—

  To what? She had nothing to occupy her evening. She could go back to the toy shop, put in a few more hours, but she had a capable staff running the operation—a staff that would be surprised to see the boss back right after she’d left for the day.

  There was no one waiting for her in the kitchen, no one expecting a dinner, a conversation by the fireplace. Nothing but an empty house, a dog whose affections were easily swayed and a packed suitcase.

  And here was a child, a motherless child, who needed help.

  Jessica bent down to Sarah’s level. The little girl’s face was tearstained, her eyes red rimmed. Whatever temper tantrums Sarah might have pitched in the toy store before were forgotten, as Jessica’s heart opened up to this near-orphaned girl who just wanted to get to a party, see her friends and pretend her upside-down life was normal.

  That Jessica could understand. And was powerless to close her door against. “Why don’t you come in,” she said, to Sarah and then to C.J. “And we’ll see what we can do about getting you ready for Cassidy’s party.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jessica had managed to corral Sarah’s curly locks into two neat ponytails, then straighten the bow on her dress. “Thank you,” Sarah said, spinning on the kitchen floor, admiring what she could see of her sash from over her shoulder. “I was starting to get a little worried, there.”

  “You were?” Jessica said, biting back laughter at the nearly adult tone in Sarah’s voice. “Why?”

  Sarah paused in her twirling and leaned to whisper in Jessica’s ear. “Because he—” at that, she thumbed toward C.J. “—doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  Jessica bit back another laugh, and saw C.J. doing the same. “I think he’ll figure it out as you two go along, don’t you?”

  Sarah shrugged. “Maybe.” She grabbed her present off the table and clutched it to her chest, like a shield, as if she was trying to keep her distance. To keep from warming up to this stranger who was her father. “Can I go to my party now?”

  “Sure, sure,” C.J. said. “Cassidy’s house, right?” He fished his keys out of his pocket but stayed where he was in the kitchen, another lost, blank look on his face.

  A second wave of sympathy ran through Jessica. At this rate, she’d be writing greeting cards for the man. She needed to quit being such a softie. “Do you know where Cassidy lives?”

  “I didn’t think to ask,” C.J. said. “I guess I thought…”

  “A six-year-old could give you directions?”

  “I know where Cassidy lives,” Sarah put in. “She’s got a big green house and a small blue car and she has a flag in her yard. And a dog named Boo and a cat named Wink. And her street is really pretty, and it has this big yellow house next door that looks kinda scary but isn’t ’cuz I trick-or-treated there one time and the lady was nice and gave me a Snickers. A big one, too. Not those baby candies.”

  C.J. rocked back on his heels. “Wow, that’s more than I’ve heard in the last twenty-f
our hours.”

  “That’s ’cuz I like talking to her.” Sarah pointed at Jessica. “’Cuz she’s Mrs. Santa and she gave me an extra toy one time ’cuz I was sad.” Sarah looked at Jessica. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anybody ’bout who you are. I guessed it all by myself, even though Kylie said she knew before I did.”

  “Oh, I’m not Mrs. Claus,” Jessica replied, telling Sarah the same thing she’d told hundreds of kids over the years. They all tried to guess, and she and Dennis had always denied their identities, to keep up the charade. “The real Mrs. Claus lives at the North Pole with Santa.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sarah said, grinning, and not believing a word.