The Thief Who Saved Christmas

Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ANABELLE

Wednesday, December 10, 15 days until Christmas

Lovestruck fools: several

Work completed: minimal

Happiness achieved: great

We have a quiet day at the B&B, with no word from the building inspector. I’m trying not to worry, and I’m mostly succeeding, because my mind is full of Ryan. His hands, which I can hardly look at now without having a dirty thought—even if he’s just eating or packing up a box. His lips, which are extraordinarily talented. And especially his heart.

He’s helped all of my friends now.

Cynthia and Jeremy, who needed a push.

Joe, who is ecstatic, because Craig sent him a frankly scandalous text about missing his…well...

My friend is much too wise to seek a reconciliation, but it’s better to be missed than to be forgotten. Or so he says. I would rather be forgotten by Weston. He’s the source of the sense of foreboding that lurks beneath my happiness. Because Ryan is right: Weston is not a man who gives up. He wouldn’t have sent an inspector to the inn and then failed to follow up. He has a plan, and he will pursue it.

But Ryan insists it’s time for what he calls “The Great Santa Moveout.” Joe and I photograph the Santas that will be used for the scavenger hunt and release them into Ryan’s custody. Even though he barely slept last night, he’s practically bouncing on his heels as he spirits them away to hide them throughout the inn’s common spaces.

He is, in a word, adorable.

Joe and I sit at the computer in our new office, the retired smoking room, and he eyes me as we put together the form for the scavenger hunt, our computer chairs pressed close together. It’s still stunning to me that a few days ago I thought Joe was a woman. If I hadn’t taken a chance and agreed to meet him in person, then he wouldn’t be sitting here with me right now. He wouldn’t be my real-life friend and business partner.

I’m so much less alone than I was two weeks ago.

“So you’re kissing Ryan now?” he asks point-blank.

Ryan kissed me on the cheek before he gathered up the Santas for his project.

I could claim it was a friendly cheek kiss, but I’d like Joe’s advice. “I am.”

He grins. “Look at you, stealing my boyfriend twenty-four hours after we went Facebook official.”

“That’s me. I’m a ho-ho-ho.” But I give it more thought and frown. “Are you worried about people finding out?”

Laughing, he says, “You’re not even on Facebook, Anabelle.”

I’m not. There’s a page for the B&B, which will need to be updated with our new theme, but I’m nearly as negligent as my grandmother was at maintaining the inn’s online presence. Perhaps Joe or Ryan will be willing to take over.

“No,” I say. “But if it’ll cause trouble for you—”

He turns in his chair to face me. “I’m not going to give you any excuse not to be with that fine man. He may throw his dirty socks on the floor and work out more than any sensible person should, but he’s a good one, Anabelle. You deserve that.”

I glance at the door, my pulse thrumming. “I suspect he’s done bad things, Joe. Criminal things. He won’t talk about his past, but he basically told me as much.”

“Like what?” he asks, his eyes widening. “Did he kill someone?”

“I asked, and he said no.”

“So drugs?”

“I don’t know,” I say, wringing my hands together. I’ve thought about this a lot, of course—if he didn’t kill anyone, and he’s not an actual sexual deviant, what’s left? Drugs, theft, and white-collar crime. Based on everything he’s told me, he was not a white-collar criminal…

“Oh, this is bad, isn’t it?”

“But he says he’s not involved in whatever it was anymore?”

“That’s what he says,” I start, then add more firmly, “and I believe him.”

Joe grabs a candy cane from the old pencil cup behind my laptop and starts to unwrap it.

“I wouldn’t eat that one if I were you,” I say. “It was in here when I moved into the room, and Grandma Edith used to store candy canes with her other Christmas decorations. For all we know, it could be several years old.”

“I don’t care, this conversation calls for sugar.” He sticks it in his mouth and makes a face. “Okay, maybe I care. It tastes like a frankincense and myrrh candle smells.”

The candy cane goes into the trash.

Joe pushes out his lips, then says, “I still like Ryan.”

I sigh. “I do too. A lot. I’ve never liked a man this much.”

“Good to know,” he says with a glimmer of dry humor.

I give his shoulder a gentle shove. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. And I don’t think you should let his past hold you back. You know, we all have our faults. I used to watch Full House reruns as an adult.”

“Well…it was wholesome, I guess.”

“It made me cry.”

“Oh, Joe,” I say, thinking of his family, who threw him out because they couldn’t accept him. How awful that must have been. My parents have never really accepted me, but they didn’t throw me out or disown me, and I always had my grandmother to give me the warmth they never offered. “You have a family here. We’ll be your family.”

He pulls me into a hug, and I feel tears pressing the backs of my eyes. “Maybe Ryan needs a family too,” he says.

I think of his twin brother. Of his parents, who abandoned him, and his boss, who left him with a scar and made him do things he’s ashamed of.

Some of the tears start falling, and I say, “I think maybe you’re right.”

That afternoon, I drive Ryan to the toy shop. Joe tags along and the two of us do our best to build him up, even though he doesn’t seem nearly as nervous as we are for him. He’s wearing the Santa costume I bought him, and seeing him in it makes me feel…possessive. I like that he’s dressed in something I got for him. I like that I placed a mark on his neck too. It’s hidden, thankfully, by the collar of his Santa suit, but I know it’s there.

About halfway there, Ryan, who is the front passenger, since I mistakenly thought he’d be the anxious one and thus should not drive, looks out the back window and says, “Is that car following us?”

Okay, so maybe he’s more nervous than he’s letting on.

“Which one?” I ask, checking my mirrors. There’s a large white van that promises whiter smiles from The Dental Warehouse, followed by a black Kia and then a little silver Honda Fit.

“The Fit.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe they’re just going the same way.”

He grunts, but his gaze doesn’t stray from the window until we take a turn and the Fit doesn’t follow us.

“I can tell you’re nervous,” I say. “But you’re going to do great. Word will spread far and wide about Hot Santa.”

“Will you be jealous?” he asks, giving me a sidelong look.

“Horribly.”

When we arrive, we are greeted by the toy shop owner, Ada, who doesn’t look at all like I’d imagined her. She has a harsh voice, an all-denim pantsuit, and is chewing an enormous wad of bubble gum. There is a clapboard sign set up outside of the shop reading: Santa visit, 3 p.m.

“You brought adult friends,” she says. “Fantastic. Do you have any children in your lives?”

I don’t know whether she’s being sarcastic and actually wants us to leave or is just teasing. Either way, I’m sticking around.

“No,” I say. “But a lot of people think I’m childlike, so there’s every possibility I’ll want to buy something.”

“Nothing better than being young at heart,” she says, then blows a bright-pink bubble and winks at me. I’m so taken aback, I nearly trip. “Well, come in, come in. No point in getting frozen.”

As soon as the four of us step inside, children start clustering around Ryan, so Ada herds him into the back of the shop to give him instructions.

Joe and I wander around the shelves until we find a plastic throne set up at the rear, in a nook created in the middle of three long, low bookshelves. It’s decorated with fake pine garlands and tiny ornaments. Seeing it makes me overly warm, as I’m certain Ryan is going to look incredibly sexy in that chair.

Joe gives me a wry look. “Do you feel like we just dropped our kid off for his first day of school?”

“No,” I say with a sigh. “That’s not what I feel like at all, but I am worried. He hasn’t been getting a lot of callbacks, and I think it’ll shake his confidence if this doesn’t work out.”

A sigh gusts out of him. “I don’t think anything could shake his confidence.”

I can understand why he thinks so—Ryan oozes confidence in everything he does. He wears his clothes confidently, works out confidently, cooks confidently, and talks confidently. But that doesn’t mean he’s never anxious. His anxiety is buried deep inside.

Children crowd around the throne as the time approaches, a few parents gathered behind them, and then Christmas music starts playing over the shop’s loudspeakers. Anticipation tingles in my fingers and toes. I’m excited and nervous, and it’s all a bit much. I’ll probably need to go upstairs and reset after we get home, even though it’ll only be early evening.

“This is it,” Joe whispers to me, reaching for my hand and pressing it lightly before releasing it. “It’s the big show.”

Ryan emerges from around a corner, and a little girl calls out, “That’s Santa!”

I beam at him, because he looks impossibly handsome, even though I can tell Ada shoved another pillow under his shirt. This costume is much better than the other, the beard fuller, and although it’s obvious he’s no old man, he will at least not be in danger of ruining anyone’s childhood today.

Ryan grins back at me and then winks, and again, the butterflies in my stomach best the snakes. Then he launches into a spirited, “Ho ho ho!”

“Still sexy,” Joe mutters beside me, and he is entirely correct. But the children don’t seem to care. They’re so eager to get to Ryan, they’re practically tripping over each other’s feet.

Even though I’m overwhelmed, I sense a chance to restore order, so I help the kids line up as the first child approaches Ryan. Then I step back and watch him while children whisper their heart’s wishes to him and their mothers eagerly take his photograph. My heart grows several sizes in my chest.

He’s good at this.

He may not look like Santa or act like Santa, but he’s effortlessly charming, so very Ryan, and I start to think the afternoon is going well enough that he will certainly be given the job.

Until a little boy rips off his beard and screams.