Naughty Santa

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Joe quickly hitched his pants up, fastening them when the sleeping brunette woke up. She had a small dog—though it wasn’t much bigger than a rabbit—crouched on her chest, teeth bared, growling threateningly. Which was laughable considering the tiny creature was dressed in a sweater.

Who put clothes on a dog?

He jerked his head toward the animal. “Wanna call off the well-dressed guard dog?”

The woman smiled and stroked the dog’s head.

Damn. Joe was glad he’d had the foresight to pull his pants up. His cock had gone hard the second she’d asked if he had a big package for her. So at the moment, the answer was yes. And she was more than welcome to unwrap it if she wanted.

She petted the tiny creature, cooing, “It’s okay, Louis. It’s only Santa Claus.”

Joe glanced down at himself and sighed. He’d come back here to try on the new Santa suit his mother had made. The one he had donned for the annual Christmas party more years than he cared to admit had been ruined last year when little Tommy Clarkson threw up on him while informing Joe—Santa—that he wanted some stunt plane rocket thing that would soar a million miles into space when he stomped on it. Unfortunately, he’d decided to demonstrate, and that was when things took a bad turn. Rather than attempt to scrub out the sticky candy cane, sugar cookie, hot cocoa mess that covered every inch of Joe—Santa—Mom declared it was time for a new suit.

At the time, he’d told her to find another Santa because he’d more than done his part. He should have known that wouldn’t stick. His mother was incapable of hearing the word no.

So when she said the suit was ready, and she needed him to try it on in case it needed alterations, Joe didn’t even waste his breath reiterating his desire to hang up his Santa hat.

He was in the middle of changing when he’d heard a low growl. When he turned around and stepped closer to investigate, he hadn’t expected to find a woman sacked out on the couch under some animal print jacket, and he hadn’t seen the dog at all until he’d gotten close. Not that that was surprising. Joe had seen bigger bugs than this little mutt.

Joe didn’t get people with small dogs. If they wanted a pet to sit on their lap and play dress-up, why didn’t they just get a cat? As for him, give him a black lab or German shepherd any day of the week. Now those were real dogs.

“You’re Paris?” Joe asked, though he already knew who he was talking to. His mom had gone to pick up Lydia’s niece this morning, though why the woman had chosen to nap in the back workroom rather than sleep in the comfortable bed waiting for her in Lydia’s house was beyond him.

“Yes.” She sat up sluggishly and ran a hand through her long dark hair.

She placed the dog on the floor, and he instantly came over to sniff his boots. Joe eyeballed him for a second in case the little bastard decided to lift his leg and treat him like a fire hydrant.

Paris tugged one bare foot under her, drawing his attention to her long legs in her skinny jeans. He was a sucker for a girl with long legs. “I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised to run into Santa. It is the North Pole after all,” she joked.

Joe chuckled, glad she wasn’t the type to spook easy. After all, she’d just woken up to find a stranger in his boxer briefs standing over her. “I’m Joe.”

“Oh yeah. Sandy said you’d be stopping by.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder, then stretched, arching her back and drawing his attention to her breasts.

Damn. He was a sucker for nice tits too.

Lydia’s niece was hot. Fucking gorgeous.

And Joe... Well, he was goddamn Santa Claus sporting a boner.

He reached for the red jacket with white trim and held it in front of himself when her eyes drifted to the South Pole, her smile growing as she winked at him.

“Aren’t you a little young to be Santa?” she asked.

“The kids around here aren’t fussy as long as they can rattle off their long lists of dream toys to someone. Plus, the fake white beard and wig help age me enough to fool the youngest ones. The rest probably know it’s me, but they play along anyway. You realize Lydia’s house is close, right? You could have gone there to rest.”

Paris shrugged. “Sandy was in a hurry to get to the dentist, and I got the sense she needed someone to run the store while she was gone. I took the red-eye flight here. Got a little woozy, so I thought I’d grab a quick power nap.” She glanced at her watch, her eyes widening. “Holy shit. Three hours ago.” She hopped up quickly, somewhat disoriented and panicked.

“It’s okay. Mom called me a little while ago to say it was taking longer than she thought. She asked me to come check up on you.”

“But what if someone needed to come in?”

Joe shrugged. “The world’s not going to stop spinning just because the Holly Jolly Feed and Seed was closed for a few hours. Though I suspect the afternoon business is going to pick up because of the snowstorm coming.”

“Yeah, your mom told me about that. Ten inches.”

As if on cue, there was a loud banging on the front door of the store. The Holly Jolly wasn’t usually closed this time of day, and if someone had driven into town to pick up an order, they’d sit out front for hours if needed until someone opened.

Joe looked at his watch. “That’ll probably be Roger. Mom said he’d be stopping by this afternoon to pick up his order.”

Paris sighed, her smile fading as she stood. “Duty calls then, I guess.”

Her resigned tone caught him by surprise. His mother had assured him Lydia’s niece was coming to North Pole to take over the store. Now, as Paris stood and pulled her jacket back on, he took a good look at her. She really was beautiful, but it only took him two seconds to see the California girl did not fit in here with her high-heeled boots that no sane person would walk on ice in and that tiny cheetah coat that wouldn’t cover enough to keep her warm.

“I’m going to finish trying this on. Mom should be back soon. Once she gets here, we can get your bags, and I’ll take you over to Lydia’s house.”

Paris took two steps toward him, and Joe was surprised when she stopped right in front of him. With only a few inches between them, he could see the green specks in her rich-brown eyes and the pink spots of color on her cheeks that darkened when she reached up and played with the white ball at the end of his Santa cap. “You still owe me a big package,” she teased before turning and walking out front.

Joe dropped down on the couch, trying to shake some sense into his head. Paris was going to be trouble with a capital T. Women like her didn’t stay in North Pole.

Hell, it wasn’t just women like her. Apparently, it was any woman he was interested in.

He’d dated two women in his life, just two. Most of his friends who’d remained in North Pole after graduation had married their high school sweethearts, and Joe had expected to do the same.

Rose. Sweet Rose. His first love. They’d started dating during their sophomore year, and he constantly talked about their future, about marriage and kids, and Rose had been right there with him, dreaming the same dreams. It wasn’t until after they graduated that he realized Rose intended to live out those dreams somewhere—anywhere—else. He’d been blindsided, then devastated when he told her he intended to stay in North Pole, and she said she didn’t. She broke things off and moved to Chicago.

Joe had a rough few years after that, constantly questioning whether he’d been right to let Rose leave town without him. The problem was while Rose knew North Pole wasn’t where she belonged, he knew it was the only place he’d ever be happy. Besides, who the hell chose to live in Chicago?

Then he met Anna, who’d left her big city life in Indianapolis to set down roots in North Pole. She’d left a successful career in an HR department of a large corporation to open her own flower shop on Main Street because she longed for a simpler life.

Joe fell head over ass in love with her, and for one year, they were inseparable. Then he made the mistake of proposing to her at the holiday party.

Imagine his surprise when Anna broke down in tears and told him she was closing her shop and moving back to Indianapolis. She’d gotten her old job back because—and this was the part that really hurt—she could feel herself shriveling up in this dusty, nowhere town.

He’d come to life during the year they’d spent together, happier than he’d ever been, and she was “shriveling up.”

Leaning his head back against the couch, Joe closed his eyes, blew out a long breath, and willed his erection to go away.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t had sex in two years, so his dick wasn’t going down without a fight. Finally, he stood up, forcing himself to think about the Colts’s lousy season and the death of his beloved dog, Trixie.

Boner gone, he traded out the Santa suit for his jeans and flannel shirt and went out to resist the temptation of a petite brunette who had no idea just how big his package could get.

Paris closed the door to the backroom to give Joe some privacy as he changed clothes, though that was the last thing she wanted to do. She’d seen some well-built, sexy-as-sin men in her life. After all, she lived in Los Angeles, where beauty was practically a prerequisite, but Joe was something else.

He was earthy and masculine, and he reminded her of a lumberjack. And while she wouldn’t have expected to find that so incredibly arousing, the truth was her nipples were tight, her stomach was twittery, and it took every ounce of strength she had not to turn around and go sit on Santa’s lap.

No.

Not sit.

Straddle.

She actually made a half turn to do just that when the man standing at the counter said, “I’m here to pick up my order.”

Paris walked toward the counter, surprised to find a little boy, who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, chowing down on a Lunchable.

She was even more surprised when she realized the man—Roger, Joe had called him—was talking to the kid, not her.

“Sure thing, Roger,” the little boy said, hopping down from the stool where he’d been perched. He looked up at her when she didn’t step aside, and she realized she was in his way.

“Oh, sorry,” Paris said, taking one step to the right to allow him to pass.

The little boy led Roger to two bags of feed. “These are yours.”

So Lydia’s staff consisted of Sandy and a small child? What the hell had Paris gotten herself into? Was she going to get sued for child labor law violations?

For God’s sake, the kid was wearing a name tag, though she couldn’t read what it said.

Roger stepped back to the counter and looked at her like she was six eggs short of a dozen when she failed to move.

“Oh, sorry,” Paris said again, feeling like an idiot. She opened the notebook and marked off Roger’s order, taking his money.

“Thanks for shopping here,” she said, trying to recover from her previous missteps.

Roger wrinkled his nose, shaking his head as if confused. “Where else would I buy my feed?”

Clearly, he didn’t need an answer to that as he slung the two bags over his shoulders and walked out.

The little boy slid behind her and reclaimed his stool and his Lunchable.

“And who might you be?” she asked.

“I’m Jaden.”

Ooookay. That answered nothing.

“Do you work here, Jaden?”

Jaden giggled. “No. I get off the bus here. My grandma Sandy works here.” He tapped his name badge. “But I help out because I know where everything is, and I’m super strong.”

And now it all made sense. “I see. You’ve got all kinds of muscles there.” He was scrawny and lanky, but Paris didn’t want to burst his bubble. Living in California had taught her how fragile the male ego was.

Then she put the rest of the pieces together. If Sandy was Jaden’s grandmother, then Jaden must be… She glanced toward the back room.

Damn. Was Joe married with a kid? She’d been so distracted by the man’s six-pack abs, she had made the rookie mistake of not looking for a wedding ring.

Jaden finished his after-school snack and hopped back down from the stool. “Are you Paris?”

She nodded. “Yes. I am.”

“Miss Lydia told me about you. She said you were coming to run the store when she was gone.” From the sad expression on Jaden’s face, it was clear he’d loved Aunt Lydia as much as his grandmother had. Paris briefly considered asking him if he’d gotten the same birthday cards with five dollars in them as well.

Jaden walked over to the middle of the building, his feet straddling the line between the Christmas shop and the Feed and Seed. He started swaying slightly. What an odd kid.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Jaden waved her over. “This is the best spot in the whole store.”

Paris moved until she was next to him, glancing around, wondering what made it so special. “Looks the same here as it does over there.”

Jaden shook his head. “No. You have to listen.”

She focused on the music and realized there were two different stations playing. “Deck the Halls” was ringing out on the Christmas side, while Kenny Rogers’s voice filled the Feed and Seed side with the sad tale of “The Gambler.”

Incredibly enough, Aunt Lydia had somehow fixed the volume on both so that unless she was standing where Jaden was, Paris only heard one or the other, not both. It seemed almost magical.

“That’s incredible,” she murmured, finding herself charmed by it.

“Did you meet the reindeer yet?” Jaden asked.

She shook her head. She didn’t do farm animals, so she wasn’t touching anything that had antlers, alive or dead.

“They’re the second-best thing in the store,” the little boy informed her.

She was relieved. If they were in the store, they were probably decorations, not living animals. As they crossed into the Christmas shop, Paris started to feel guilty about her plans to sell the store. It was obvious Sandy and Jaden loved it. She wondered if she could find buyers who would agree to let Sandy continue working here. Or maybe Sandy could afford to buy it herself.

They passed a wide array of blow-up yard decorations. It appeared Lydia had been the one supplying her neighbors. Then Jaden stopped in front of a display of life-size reindeer statues.

Wow. They were all there. Rudolph and Donner and Blitzen and...

Jaden patted the nose of the lead one. “Hiya, Clint.”

“Clint?”

Jaden looked at her and nodded earnestly. “Yeah. This one is Clint Black. He’s the leader.”

She pointed to the red-nosed reindeer. “Rudolph isn’t the leader?”

Jaden rolled his eyes as if she’d lost her mind. “That’s not Rudolph. That’s Tim McGraw. He’s got a cold.”

“Did you name the reindeer?” Paris was amused by his departure from the traditional reindeer stories.

“Me and Miss Lydia did. She said we could call our reindeer whatever we wanted. That one back there with the red lights around her antlers is Shania Twain. And that one with the chipped hoof is Alan Jackson.”

She followed the direction of his finger and spotted the damaged reindeer. There was a sign around its neck proclaiming it was sold as is with a large discount due to the damage.

“Poor Alan. How did he get hurt?”

Jaden pointed to the lone shopping cart in the Christmas shop. “Millie and Max ran into it with that cart.”

“And Miss Lydia didn’t make them buy it since they damaged it?”

Jaden giggled. “No. On account they don’t got no money. They’re only four.”

Paris grinned. “I see.”

“Anyway, this one next to Tim is Faith and that one is—” Jaden stopped mid-sentence, his eyes going wide. “What’s that?”

She glanced down and noticed Louis had made his way over to us from the Feed and Seed side. “Oh.” Bending down, Paris picked up her sweet bichon. “This is my dog. Louis Vuitton.”

Jaden frowned. “Is he named after a singer too?”

She shook her head. “No. After a fashion designer. He made purses and wallets and watches.”

Jaden was wholly unimpressed. “That’s a weird thing to name your dog.”

She laughed, considering this was coming from a kid who’d tossed a two-hundred-year-old poem to the curb in favor of naming his reindeer after country singers. He basically had the entire Grand Ole Opry roster in the Holly Jolly.

“So who are the others?” she asked.

Jaden petted Faith on the nose, then introduced her to Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, Martina McBride, and Taylor Swift. Taylor was obviously the little boy’s favorite, which pleased her because Paris was a diehard Swiftie herself. “The Tortured Poet’s Department” had been playing on repeat on her Spotify since the day it dropped.

Paris said hello to each of the reindeer, amused by Jaden’s affection for the statues.

“I see you’ve met everyone.”

She turned at the sound of Joe’s voice. He’d shed the Santa hat, boots, and pants in favor of his real clothes. Sadly, that included a flannel shirt that hid the pecs she still had a strong desire to run her fingers over just to see if they were as hard as they looked.

“Uncle Joe.” Jaden raced across the floor, grasping Joe’s hand. “This is Paris, the one Miss Lydia said was going to run the store now.”

“We’ve met,” Joe said.

She looked down at his— thank you, Jesus —nephew.

Then, she checked off the second concern because Joe’s ring finger was bare.

No.

No.

No.

She could not fraternize with a local. That would be a very bad idea. She was leaving.

Or…

Maybe that was the perfect way to fraternize with a local.

They could have a little fun, and then she’d just hop on a plane, back to her real life.

She had a pretty good idea that if anyone could keep her warm in this frozen hellscape, it was Joe.

It would make these few weeks in North Pole tolerable.

Between the unintentional humor of Jaden, the Holly Jolly Seed and Feed, the kindness of Sandy, and the potential for sitting on Santa Joe’s lap, maybe Indiana wouldn’t be so bad after all.