Astrid pointed up.
Eve spotted an explosion of bright colors, big bag, small bag, hooked together. And a pair with a sparkly unicorn dancing over each.
“Oh yeah, that’s Mavis and Bella. The unicorn set.”
“Let me get the hook.”
While Astrid did just that, Eve looked down at Tiko. “I bet you’ve got a scarf that’ll go with it.”
“I got a scarf for the mama be perfect, and I got a baby girl cap, a pink one shaped like that horse with the horn.”
“Jesus, Tiko, you’re killing me. Sold.”
Forty minutes after she’d parked, Eve loaded shopping bags in her car, then got behind the wheel.
Then just sat there until her head stopped spinning.
God, she wanted a drink. Two drinks.
Telling herself to be grateful Christmas only hit once a year, she pulled back into traffic and fought the holiday rage of it all the way to the gates of home.
Diamond white lights twinkled in the trees along the drive, lending a fanciful air to the grounds. And the house rose, all gorgeous gray stone and shining glass, a fancy itself with its towers and turrets.
Lights glimmered, gleamed, outlining home against the night sky. Greenery draped and dripped, adding warmth to elegance. Candles glowed in every window, and that was welcome.
She, the lost child, had grown used to its beauty—that was love. But she would never take a single inch of it for granted. That was gratitude.
At the moment, some eighteen hours after she’d walked out its doors, the prospect of walking in again mainly brought relief.
She got out of the car, into the cold where the wind kicked at her like a bad-tempered child. She dragged the shopping bags out of the back. How had she bought so damn much? The entire event seemed like some kind of fever dream now, leaving her exhausted and with a low-level headache.
She dragged, pulled, lifted. How did she even know so many people in the first damn place? How had it happened?
Tissue flicked, threatened to fly, boxes clunked. She told herself if the bags ripped she’d leave the whole stupid lot wherever it fell.
With bags thumping against her legs she hauled everything to the door, fought it open, staggered in.
He was there, of course, lurking—the scarecrow in a black suit that was Summerset. Roarke’s majordomo stood in the brilliantly lit foyer, a smirk on his pale, bony face, and the fat cat Galahad squatting like a furry Buddha at his feet.
“Is this the Ghost of Christmas Present?” Summerset wondered aloud.
Eve narrowed her eyes. She wanted to fling something back, some sharp-edged retort about cadavers on holiday, but . . .
She dumped everything where she stood. “I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to wrap everything in here.”
His stone-gray eyebrows winged up. “I can’t be bought. However,” he said as the cat padded over to sniff at bags and tissue. “I could be persuaded.”
“What do you want?”
“You’re hosting a party night after next.”
“I know that. Of course I know that.” Night after next took it down to one day, didn’t it? She didn’t want to think about it.
“Preparations for welcoming two hundred and fifty-six people into your home begin at eight A.M.”
She thought: Two hundred and fifty-six people? Jesus Christ. Why? But she said, “Okay.”
“Participate.”