A Lot Like Christmas

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Sylvie looked as puzzled as he felt. “Hi, Fletcher,” she said hesitantly. “I’m fine. How about yourself…? So far, so good. I’d say I’m giving him just as hard a time as he’s giving me.” She shot Chase a look. “Would I want to what…? Oh, I’d be intruding…. If you think so, I’d be happy to… All right. Sounds delicious. Sixish it is.”

Sylvie shut the phone looking bewildered. “Fletcher invited me to your homecoming supper. Nadia’s making pierogies.”

“So that’s my favorite. Hmm.”

“He said it’s been too long since I’ve been at the McCann table.” She frowned. “What’s this about, Chase?”

Uh-oh. Had their talk convinced Fletcher to fire up that torch for Sylvie again? “Your name came up when we were talking about the mall and he mentioned he hadn’t seen you in a while.”

“And…?” She held his gaze. “I can see in your face there’s more to it.”

“And…well, I sort of jerked his chain about being into you.”

“You what?” Her eyes went wide.

“From years back.”

“You knew about that?” Her cheeks colored.

“He let it slip once, yeah. Yesterday, he told me you turned him down, though.”

“It sounds like you two had quite the heart-to-heart. The whole McCann family seems to be entirely too interested in my love life. First you think I’m moving to Seattle to marry Steve and then you goad Fletcher into asking me out.”

“I was just joking around.”

“I’m not amused.”

“I don’t blame you, but my intentions were innocent, I swear. I wanted him to get a life. I told him to move on, find someone else.”

“He’s not going to ask me out, is he?”

“I can’t imagine he would, but I’ll make sure.”

“And how exactly will you do that?” She planted her hands on her hips, irritated as hell at him, he could tell.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll play it by ear. Trust me. He won’t ask you out.”

“Whatever you do, don’t make this worse. I don’t need another embarrassing moment with your brother.”

Chase was dying to ask what had happened back then, but he didn’t dare when she was this riled at him.

“I’ll be subtle.”

“Before tomorrow night at dinner?” she demanded.

“I swear.” He crossed his heart.

He was startled to realize he was glad that Sylvie didn’t want to date Fletcher. Which was completely nuts. It wasn’t like Chase was going to swoop in on her now.

Would she even want that? She’d felt something, he knew. He’d noticed the flicker in her eye, the softening of her body when they were close, a huskiness in her voice when the vibe zinged between them.

But Sylvie had discipline and restraint and had practiced self-denial since she was eight, calculating the best candy value instead of gobbling up whatever looked good. So even if she did want him, she wouldn’t act on it.

“Good, then. I haven’t been to supper at your house in a long time. Four years, I guess.”

“You used to come for holidays. I remember the first one. Thanksgiving, I think, with your grandparents?”

“Yeah. The year I moved in with them.”

“You sat so straight in your chair.” Her eyes had been wide with wonder at all the utensils, china and crystal. “Your grandma showed you what fork to use and how to scoop your soup.”

“And you shot a rubber band at me!”

“I wanted to see what you’d do. You gasped. It was perfect. Why’d you stop coming anyway?”

“When Desiree came back, I thought she and I needed to start some holiday traditions of our own.”

“It’ll be nice to have you back.” He smiled at her. “Maybe having you there will help the rest of us behave better.”

“Good grief. How bad can it be?”

He shrugged. “Hard to say.”

“Great. You forgot to ask Fletcher about being an elf.”

“Let’s save that for dinner and you can ask him and the General yourself.”

“You want me to do it?”

“They could turn me down, but you? One shot of those big green eyes and they won’t be able to climb into their costumes fast enough.”

“Oh, please.”

“What do you mean? It worked on me, didn’t it?” He couldn’t wait to see it happen. Way more fun than shooting rubber bands.

THE NEXT MORNING, Sylvie was pretty darn happy. She was more or less in charge of the mall. Chase had promised to support her and she could hire an assistant to fill in the gaps. She’d bet it wouldn’t be long before Chase stepped out of the picture altogether and she’d have what she wanted after all, just a little later than she’d expected.

Maybe it was better to have to fight for the job. A battle made the reward sweeter. That could only make her a better manager, right? Oh, she was feeling good this morning.

Parking her sturdy Volvo, she climbed out, clicked the key to lock it, then turned for the mall.

And stopped dead, staring with horror. All up and down one of the gold-painted turrets were the words F**K this mall. Over and over and over.

Again. It had happened again. Someone hated Starlight Desert enough to vandalize it twice.

Dread poured through her like ice water, followed by hot waves of anger. She fisted her hands, wanting to punch whoever had done this. She could hardly breathe.

Randolph and Betty rounded the corner with Chase, who was putting away his phone. Sylvie marched to meet them at the damaged columns, decorative pebbles crunching beneath each step.

“Looks like we’ll need that graffiti buster again, Betty,” she said.

“Not until the police see this,” Chase said. “I called them out here so we can make a report. Maybe there are vandals working the area they know about.”

“It’s those delinquents at Free Arts,” Randolph said. “They have too much time on their hands and plenty of art supplies.”

“They’re not allowed aerosol paints,” Sylvie said. “And they love the mall. Whoever did this has a grudge against us.”

“We did what we could with the manpower we have,” Randolph said. “Leo and his crew doubled their rounds and changed up the schedule. We need more guards to catch these creeps.”

Sylvie surveyed the damage more closely. “This looks different than the first message. It’s all capital letters and they used the F word. No toilet paper or dumped trash, either.”

“Different kid on the trigger is all,” Randolph said, “and they ran out of time to toss trash. Maybe they saw Leo coming.”

Chase joined her at the wall, studying the letters. “There are lots of blots and drips here.”

“I had that problem when I stenciled the umbrellas. It takes a while to get the spray right.”

“So maybe they’re new to graffiti?”

Chase bent down to the nearby hedge and pushed back the branches. “Looks like they left something.” It was a spray-paint can and when Sylvie got closer she noticed black thumbprints forming a perfect heart on the yellow label. She gasped. “I think that’s my can.”