A Proposal for Christmas: State SecretsThe Five Days of Christmas Read online

  Holly paused, feeling oddly shaken, and gave her nephew a lopsided grin. “You’ve been watching Dr. Phil again,” she teased.

  Toby looked puzzled. “Huh?”

  “Never mind. How was school today?”

  The little boy sighed. “I didn’t get any orange paper.”

  “I remember,” Holly replied, putting the finished sandwich on a plate and carrying it to the table. “How come that happened, anyway? Were you late for art class or something?”

  Toby was gathering up the sandwich in eager hands. “I had to talk to the principal.”

  “Toby Llewellyn! Did you get into trouble?”

  “No,” Toby said through a mouthful. “He wanted me to talk about the new president next week at assembly.”

  A jolt of mingled alarm and fury raced through Holly; she had to take a deep breath before she could speak calmly. “What? How did he know—”

  Toby shrugged. “Maybe there was something in the paper. Mr. Richardson was pretty disappointed when I told him I didn’t know the president.”

  Holly was pacing the floor, her hands tucked into the hip pockets of her jeans. The celebrity of being a cookbook author was one thing—only a select group of people cared one way or the other, of course—but this shirttail relationship to the future president could get to be a real problem. Suppose reporters started taking an interest? Suppose what Craig had done got talked about? Toby could be hurt or even put in real danger!

  “Did you see any newspaper people, Toby? Did anybody ask you questions?”

  Toby shook his head. “Can I watch TV?”

  Holly nodded somewhat impatiently. “You’ll tell me if anyone you don’t know tries to talk to you, won’t you, Toby?”

  “Sure. Is there any lemonade?”

  Agitated, Holly forced herself to stop pacing. There was no reason to panic, no reason. After all, she and Craig were only distantly related to the new president.

  “Mom?”

  “Cocoa. I’ll make you a cup of cocoa. It’s too cold for lemonade.”

  “Okay,” Toby agreed amiably, on his way out of the kitchen. A moment later, as she searched the cupboard for a saucepan in which to prepare the cocoa, Holly heard the television set in the next room blaring. Her hands trembled as she collected the milk, salt, sugar and chocolate.

  Oh, my God, she thought. Craig, what have you done to us? What have you done to all of us?

  She reflected on her brother’s problems as she made the cocoa and carried it into the family room to Toby. The telephone shrilled and Holly jumped, startled out of her skin. She raced back into the kitchen and grabbed up the receiver. “H-hello?”

  “Hello, kitten,” said the familiar masculine voice on the other end.

  Holly sank into the chair at her small desk, her knees wobbly. Skyler. It was only Skyler. She was so glad that she didn’t even ask him not to call her by that silly, condescending nickname. “Hi,” she said.

  Skyler cleared his throat. Skyler always cleared his throat when he was about to suggest something he expected Holly to oppose. “Listen, Holl, I was wondering—why don’t you and I and the kid just drive up to my folks’ place tonight, instead of waiting until tomorrow? I could close the shop early.”

  Holly bit her lower lip, considering. She hated the way Skyler always referred to Toby as “the kid,” as though he didn’t have a name. But confronting him about it had about as much effect as asking him not to call her “kitten.” Which was none at all.

  “Holly?” Skyler prompted when the silence grew too long. “Are you still there?”

  “I was just—I was just thinking.”

  “Is it that hard to decide?” he snapped, impatient now.

  Holly drew a deep breath and let it out slowly before answering. “No, Skyler, of course not. But, well—”

  Skyler made an exasperated sound. “I suppose you’re afraid I’ll want you to sleep with me. In my parents’ house, Holly? Give me some credit, will you?”

  He was being unusually defensive, Holly thought, but then sex was an issue between them. While Holly was certainly no innocent, she wasn’t ready for that kind of intimacy, not with Skyler Hollis at any rate. “Sky.”

  “Well? That is what you were thinking, isn’t it?”

  Holly sighed as she rubbed her aching temples with a thumb and forefinger. “Yes. And I refuse to discuss it over the telephone.”

  Skyler’s struggle for equanimity was almost audible. “Right,” he said presently. “Do I pick you up tonight or not, Holly?”

  “What time would we leave?”

  “I can be ready in about an hour and a half. We could eat dinner on the way if you’d like.”

  Holly found herself smiling in spite of the odd tension Skyler always managed to inspire in her. “That sounds like a good idea. I really don’t feel like cooking.”

  Skyler chuckled. “Little wonder.”

  “On the other hand, I’ve got a freezer full of experimental ka-bobs. Test run from yesterday.”

  “I’m in no mood to be a guinea pig,” Skyler retorted quickly, and there was a disturbing note of conviction in his voice. “I’ll see you at—” he paused and Holly could imagine him looking at his thin gold watch “—six-thirty.”

  “Six-thirty,” Holly confirmed, and after a few perfunctory words of parting, they both hung up.

  Somebody should have said, “I love you,” Holly thought as she left the kitchen.

  * * *

  Skyler stood before the mantelpiece, frowning at the invitation to the Inaugural Ball. He was a tall man with sleek, fair hair, an altar-boy face and elegant, long-fingered hands. The owner of a very successful stereo-and-television dealership, Skyler was prosperous, and his tailored gray slacks and tasteful cashmere sweater were meant to convey that to even the most casual onlooker.

  Holly stood watching him, waiting, her hands in the pockets of her black corduroy skirt. With it she wore high leather boots, a burgundy blouse and her black velvet blazer. Her hair, cut in a layered, easy-care style, glistened, and her makeup was perfect.

  “You didn’t tell me you knew—” Skyler began, pensively, turning to frown at her.

  “I know lots of famous people, Skyler.”

  “Yes,” Skyler mused, one perfect golden eyebrow arched in speculation, “but shaking somebody’s hand on The Today Show and getting invited to an Inaugural Ball are two different things.”

  Holly folded her arms and allowed herself a wry smile, though inside she felt shaky. She always did with Skyler; his very presence seemed to evaporate her self-confidence. “Howard is a distant cousin, Skyler. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “Howard! You call the next president of the United States ‘Howard’?”

  Holly shrugged. “It’s his name, Skyler.”

  “Still—”

  Suddenly Holly was impatient. “I’m not going to the ball anyway,” she said, reaching for her purse, which sat on the corner of her desk. “Shall we go? The traffic will be horrendous and it’s still snowing.”

  Skyler nodded distractedly, but even as they left the kitchen, he kept casting his eyes back to the invitation. “Right,” he said.

  Once Toby and his suitcase, which also contained Holly’s things, had been tucked into the tiny back seat of Skyler’s sleek, sporty car, and the boy had been carefully buckled in by a seat belt, Holly glanced quickly at her old-fashioned brick house and felt a sweeping, dismal sort of loneliness.

  Mentally, she shook herself. Good heavens, she was acting as though she would never see her cozy home again.

  The traffic, as Holly had predicted, was terrible. The number of cars leaving the city was equaled only by the number of cars coming in, and the snow swirled and spiraled in front of the windshield, making it almost impossible to see.

  “We’re in hyperspace!” Toby cried in delight. Out of the corner of her eye, Holly saw Skyler grimace and tighten his grasp on the steering wheel.

  She let her head rest aga
inst the back of the seat and closed her eyes. Skyler Hollis was what her mother might have called a “catch,” with his good looks and his flourishing business, but his antipathy toward Toby, carefully hidden though it was, disturbed Holly. She wondered if he felt that way about all children or just her nephew in particular.

  An hour and a half later, when they had eaten at a roadside restaurant and were again on their way, Toby asleep in the back seat, she broached the subject. “Do you want children, Skyler?”

  He glanced at her and then turned his attention back to the hazardous road. “Of my own? Most men do, Holly.”

  Holly sat up a little straighter. “Of my own,” he’d said. “In other words, you wouldn’t accept Toby?”

  Skyler’s clean-shaven jaw worked for a moment, and his narrow shoulders grew tense. “Your brother will probably come back for him one day, Holly. You told me that yourself.”

  Holly sighed and looked out the window at the fierce flurries of snow. She had told Skyler that, it was true. But now she had grave doubts that her brother would ever actually reclaim his son or be in a position to take care of him. After all, Toby’s mother was dead, and though few people knew it, Craig was a wanted man, suspected of espionage. It was possible, in fact, that he wasn’t even in the country.

  “Craig won’t come back,” she said quietly, after a long silence.

  “How could he not come back?” Skyler demanded angrily. “You’ve got his kid!”

  His kid. When Skyler said that, used those simple, everyday words, it always sounded inhumane. “And I want to keep him, Skyler. Craig is in no position to be a real father and besides, I love Toby. I love him very, very much.”

  There seemed to be nothing to say after that. Skyler shoved a classical CD into the slot on the dashboard and the car was filled with thunderous Beethoven.

  * * *

  Chris’s kitchen was a bright, warm, cluttered place. The walls were graced with shining copper utensils and a fire crackled in the huge wood-burning stove in one corner of the room. Two long shelves held the largest collection of cookbooks David had ever seen.

  Frowning, he took down a copy of Fun With Tacos and studied the colored photograph of the author on the back cover. Tousled, honey-colored hair, enormous blue-green eyes. Holly Llewellyn.

  “Taking up the culinary arts?” Chris asked mischievously, standing beside him.

  Startled, David thrust the thin volume back into its place on the shelf and shook his head.

  Chris, a lovely woman with dark hair and eyes, laughed warmly and hugged her brother. “We live in a new age, you know. Men are actually cooking, among other things.”

  A new age. David’s mind caught on those words—he was uneasy, even jumpy. He had the strangest feeling that he was on the edge of something momentous, something that would change his life forever. He took Holly Llewellyn’s cookbook down from the shelf again, turned it over and studied the captivating face on the back.

  Llewellyn, he thought, if you turn out to be a fink, I’m not going to be able to take it.

  2

  Holly looked with a jaundiced eye at the mechanical department-store Santa Claus nodding beside the escalator. Thanksgiving is over, she thought ruefully, so bring on Christmas.

  In the toy section to her left, a horde of shoppers were engaged in a good-natured battle of some sort.

  Reaching the next floor and the cookware section of the large store, Holly found Elaine already there, her hair pinned to the top of her head, a clipboard in hand.

  “What’s going on downstairs?” Holly asked irritably. The weekend with Skyler and his parents had been a disaster.

  Elaine chuckled but did not look up from the list she was going over. “They got in a shipment of Webkinz.”

  Shrugging out of her winter coat, Holly assessed the room. The store had done a good job of setting up; there were tables, aprons and even chefs’ hats for all the students. In the cooking area, where Holly would demonstrate the fine art of baking fruitcake, an assortment of copper utensils had been set out on the counter.

  She peered at Elaine’s clipboard. Normally, twelve students were accepted for her popular cooking classes, but this time the list showed thirteen names. “David Goddard? Who the devil is that?”

  Elaine gave her friend and employer an understanding, patient look. “There’s always room for one more, right?” She grinned. “The guy was so eager....”

  Holly was annoyed and tired. All she wanted to do was spend the night at home, in front of the TV or better yet, in a hot bath with a book. Anywhere but in this posh downtown department store, teaching thirteen people how to bake fruitcake. “Elaine,” she began stiffly, “this is a popular class. There is a waiting list several months long, in case you’ve forgotten. So where do you get off letting some bozo walk in and sign up just because he’s eager?”

  Elaine colored prettily. “Actually, he’s better than eager. He’s a hunk.”

  “Great! You let him in because he was good-looking!”

  Elaine shrugged. “What can I tell you? I looked up into those navy blue eyes and I could not deny the man ten lessons and a chef’s hat.”

  Holly muttered an expletive and flung down her purse and coat. “I’ll be glad to deny him for you,” she snapped, washing her hands at the gleaming steel sink that was part of the store’s fully equipped kitchen. “Where is he?”

  “Downstairs, I think, in the toy department,” Elaine replied, unruffled, as she checked the supplies of flour, sugar and assorted other ingredients against another list on her clipboard. “He said something about buying a couple Webkinz for his nieces.”

  Holly found an apron and put it on over her jeans and cotton shirt. Despite repeated pleas from the store’s publicity director, she refused to wear a chef’s hat. “I don’t know why I agree to do these cooking classes, anyway,” she muttered.

  “You have a contract with the store,” came the blithe reply from her secretary. “And they pay you big bucks.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  Elaine looked up from her clipboard and made a face. “Anytime, boss.”

  Holly couldn’t help it; she had to grin. “I don’t know how you put up with me. I’ve been a grouch all day and I’m sorry.”

  Elaine sighed. “A weekend with Skyler Hollis would do that to anybody. Everything checks out, Holly. Could I go now? Roy and I are going to have dinner out and then do some early shopping.”

  “Go. Leave me here to tell the hunk that he can’t learn to bake fruitcake.” Holly paused and assumed a pose of mock despondency. “The help you get these days.”

  Elaine laughed. “When you see him, you’ll let him stay. Believe me, God was in a good mood the day He threw this dude together. Everything is definitely in the right place.”

  “Elaine Bateman, you are a happily married woman!”

  The pretty brunette was pulling on her coat. “Yeah. But I’m not blind,” she twinkled, before taking up her purse and starting off toward the escalators.

  Holly was alone for about five minutes, and then a heavy, earnest-looking man arrived. She asked his name—it was Alvin Parkins—and checked it off on Elaine’s list. One by one, the other students came, some of them bringing copies of Holly’s books to be autographed.

  And then he showed up. Number Thirteen. The intruder. At the very first sight of him, Holly’s stomach did a nervous flip.

  He was tall and his hair was very dark, neatly cut, and his eyes were a piercing navy blue, just as Elaine had said. He wore blue jeans, a soft white sweater and a brown leather jacket and under each of his powerful arms, he carried a plush toy.

  Holly lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and approached him. “Mr. Goddard?”

  He tilted his head slightly, in acknowledgment or greeting or both. His cologne was musky and Holly found herself trying to identify it by name.

  Holly glanced at the toys, trying to delay the moment when she must tell this man that there simply wasn’t room for him in the fru
itcake class. “Mr. Goddard—I—” Holly cleared her throat. “The fact is, Mr. Goddard, that there just isn’t...there just isn’t room in this class for another person. I’m sorry.”

  He set the toys down on one of the tables and calmly removed his jacket. He didn’t look as though he planned to go anywhere. “I’m sorry, too. That it’s a problem, I mean. But your secretary took my money and told me I had a place in good old Fruitcake 101 and I’m staying.”

  Holly felt the color rising in her face. “You’re going to be difficult, aren’t you?”

  David Goddard smiled and folded his arms, stirring that appealing musky scent and touching something deep inside Holly. “If necessary,” came the simple reply.

  To hide her annoyance, Holly looked down at her watch. It was time to start the class and all the other students were there, ready to begin. It wouldn’t do to make a scene in front of them and besides, Elaine had told the man he could participate. “All right, then,” she muttered, “you can stay.”

  “Thank you,” he replied, and the deep warmth in his voice soothed Holly somehow, taking away the anger that had arisen at his stubbornness.

  David Goddard proved to be an attentive student, listening closely to every word Holly said, watching every move she made. She could almost feel the steel-trap agility of his mind.

  When the class was over and Holly was cleaning up, he stayed behind to help. Without a word he rolled up his sleeves and began running hot water into the sink.

  Holly gathered mixing bowls and spatulas and bread pans and brought them to the counter. It was odd, the feeling she had—as though they were old friends instead of strangers, washing dishes together in a homey kitchen instead of a busy department store.

  “This is quite a setup,” he remarked, up to his elbows in hot, soapy water.

  Holly found herself smiling. “I know. I was impressed the first time I saw it, too.” And the first time I saw you, Number Thirteen.

  “Did they put all this in just for you?”

  She shook her head and took a dish towel from a top drawer. “I think it was a demonstration kitchen at first—you know, so people could see how the appliances would look in a home setting. When I started to become well-known, Cookware and Books put their heads together and came up with the idea that I should teach classes here.”