She gave a calm nod and told the waiting crowd, “Sorry, kids, but Santa needs to check in with his elves to make sure all the toys are being made just right.” She smiled brilliantly at the children and their parents. “We’ll be back in ten minutes.”
As expected, moans and groans greeted them from the families in the long line. Despite Dirk’s obvious need for a reprieve, she sensed his hesitation, liked him all the more for it. Still, he’d said he needed a break and she’d seen in his eyes that he really did.
“Come on, Santa.” Smiling brightly, Abby looped her arm in a red-velvet-covered one and spoke loudly. “Follow me, and I’ll take you to where you can use your special Santa phone to call the North Pole and put in the requests for presents you’ve heard so far. There’s only two more weeks until Christmas, so they need to get started filling the orders right away.”
Gratitude shining in his eyes, Dirk nodded, pasted on a fake smile, and waved at the crowd.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he mumbled under his breath while allowing her to lead him away from the masses gathered at the community center just to meet him. “This is madness. Pure commercialized madness.”
She still couldn’t believe he’d said yes, either. Sure, he was the one man capable of delivering her Christmas wish, but long and lean Dr. Dirk Kelley playing the role of Santa to dozens of children was another matter altogether. They’d worked together long enough for her to realize kids made him uncomfortable, that he was quiet and kept to himself. Her friend and fellow nurse Danielle called him Dr. Dreamboat. Abby called him what she most wanted for Christmas, but had never said the words out loud, not even to her tabby cat, Mistletoe.
Regardless, Dirk was doing her a huge favor and she was grateful. Smiling, she quirked a brow in his direction. “Ah, Santa, where’s your Christmas spirit?”
He snorted. “I lost it somewhere between demands for a new computer and the kid who wanted a Mercedes-Benz.” He shook his red and white hat and white wig topped head in dismay. “What happened to kids wanting Tinkertoys and tricycles?”
Although he pretty much echoed her earlier thoughts, Abby just shrugged. “Now, Santa, stay with the times. It’s high tech and electronics these days. You’ll have to get your elves with the program.”
“Apparently,” he said wryly. The moment they stepped out of the main walkway of the community center and into the privacy of the employee break room where they’d left their things earlier, his broad shoulders sagged. “I’m not sure I’m going to last another hour. Christmas just isn’t my thing, Abs.”
“Bah, humbug, Mr. Scrooge.” While trying to decide if he was serious about the Christmas comment, she gave an internal sigh at his use of his pet name for her. Did he have any idea how that sent shivers through her? That every time she heard it she was instantly taken back to being in his arms, to the first time he’d whispered the name when they’d been tangled together beneath her bedsheets? “Surely you can make it another hour.” She sighed theatrically. “Guess men of endurance are a thing of the past, too.”
“Don’t you believe it,” he warned, grinning for real for the first time in over an hour, his eyes taking on a dangerous gleam despite his costume and obvious dislike of his role. “My endurance is just fine. Better than fine.”
She raked her gaze over his red fur-covered body. The padding beneath the suit didn’t begin to hide the wide shoulders and abundant male charisma. Not really. Abby had caught more than one mom in line eyeing Santa as if they’d like to sit on his knee and ask for him in their Christmas stockings… If they knew Santa was none other than scrumptious Dr. Dirk Kelley, Santa would have had to beat the women off with a giant candy cane.
Besides, thanks to the particularly rough night they’d first worked together, Abby did know all about Dirk’s endurance. If only she could forget what amazing stamina the man wielded at the tips of those magical fingers. What stamina the rest of him had delivered. Twice.
Dirk Kelley didn’t need a sleigh and flying reindeer to take a woman to soaring heights.
Maybe somebody should thwack her with a giant candy cane for even letting memories of that morning creep into her thoughts. Hadn’t they agreed they’d made a mistake? Memories like those could only cause her to want to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what she’d like to find under her tree on Christmas morning.
And that was a family.
Kids anxiously waiting to rip into brightly colored packages.
Aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and grandparents to fuss and carry on about everything from setting the table for Christmas morning breakfast to who was the most surprised by their gift.
A man to share her life with, to love her, and surprise her with something special just for her. Not necessarily something expensive, just something with meaning, something from his heart.
Like the beloved Christmas village pieces her father used to give to her mother before they’d been killed in a house fire when Abby had been seven. She wanted to experience what her parents had shared, to open a package and glance up with excitement, not at the physical gift but with the love with which it had been chosen. She wanted to see that love reflected back at her in the glow of twinkling Christmas morning lights.
But on top of all that, she wanted Dirk.
Abby sighed.
Other than her very busy volunteer schedule and long work hours, Abby led a lonely life. Oh, she had friends, lots of friends, amazing friends like Danielle, but she didn’t have someone to come home to, someone to whom she was the most important person in their life, someone to love and be loved by. Only her tabby cat Mistletoe cared whether or not she came home in the mornings after working the emergency department night shift.
Oblivious to her onset of melancholy, Dirk adjusted his belly padding, scratched at his glued-on beard. “I’ll never complain about a monkey suit again. After this getup, wearing a tuxedo will feel like a real treat.”
Pulling herself from her unwanted self-pitying thoughts and trying not to think about how handsome Dirk would look in a tux, out of a tux, Abby focused on the here and now. She had a great life, a great job and great friends. She was a needed, productive member of society. At the moment she was needed to give downtown Philadelphia children a magical visit with Santa.
Abby wasn’t the kind of woman to disappoint. Not when she had any say in the matter and never when it came to children and Christmas.
“Better let me adjust your beard there, Santa.” She tugged on Dirk’s fake white beard, soothing down the coarse lifelike hair he’d ruffled with his scratching.
Just touching him prickled her skin with goose bumps.
Glancing everywhere but at her, he fanned his face. “Man, this thing is hot.”