Dear Santa

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, earning her a puzzled glare. Interesting combination. “Just sign a check for the food and we’ll call it square.”

Another nod. Then he said, “I know it’s probably nuts, asking people to trek all the way out here after the service. But I thought it might help Haley. If she could say goodbye here.”

“Makes sense to me,” Mia said, and his shoulders seemed to relax, just a fraction, and it hit her how hard this was on him, navigating these completely uncharted waters with nothing to guide him except, she supposed, a basic desire to do the right thing by his daughter. Well, that, and the best therapy money could buy.

“I also shouldn’t have strong-armed you into this,” he said suddenly.

“This?”

“Coming back,” he said, not looking at her as he slowly ground his knuckles into the palm of his other hand. “You’ve got that pained look people get when they’re forced to be someplace they don’t want to be. It’s just I was so desperate the other day, I reacted without thinking…. I apologize.”

Mia blinked, then laughed softly. “Believe me, Grant—if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be. No apology necessary.”

Under hooded lids, his eyes slid back to hers…and her stomach flipped. Nothing had prepared her for the full force of that probing gaze, riddled with concern. It was almost as if…

Never mind, she told herself as, knocked flat on her mental butt, she looked away until she could right herself again. When she didn’t reply fast enough to suit him, he probed further.

“Then what’s wrong?” he probed further. “Is it work?”

“No!” she said, a knee-jerk reaction to the presumption implicit in the question. “Business is great, O ye of little faith.”

“Then what?”

She messed with a thread dangling from the hem of her sweater, then crossed her arms. “Not that you’d care, but…my building’s going co-op.” Her mouth pulled down at the corners. “I have to either move or buy when my lease is up. In two weeks.”

“They can’t give you only two weeks’ notice, for God’s sake!”

“They didn’t. It’s been in the plans for more than a year. But I’ve been so busy with work…and I kept holding out this tiny hope that we’d win the battle and the landlord would back down.”

“Never mind that that almost never happens.”

“I know,” she said on a stream of air.

“I take it you can’t afford to buy?”

She let out a dry little laugh. “Everything I have—had—is tied up in the business.”

“You used personal capital as seed money?”

“It’s not unheard of, Grant. Especially since I couldn’t get a loan to save myself. So you can stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some dumb cluck who had no idea what she was getting into.”

“Did you even have a contingency plan?”

Tamping down the urge to slug the man, she said, “I left Hinkley-Cohen on very good terms. I could have gone back anytime.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Okay, Grant? Hard as this might be for you to believe, I did know the risks going in. I also knew, given time and a long enough lever, I could make it. And I did. Am. But I was already in up to my eyeballs when the whole co-op ball started to roll. Moving then wasn’t an option. So I took another risk, that the landlord’s plan would fall through. Since it didn’t,” she said, turning back, “I suppose I’ll figure something out.”

“In two weeks.”

“Twelve days, actually…. Hey, cookie,” she said softly as Haley approached. “What’s up?”

As much as it warmed Mia’s heart when the little girl wriggled up into her lap, she didn’t miss Grant’s scowl at having not been chosen. Well, bud, she thought, wrapping her arms around Haley’s waist, you’re the only one who can fix that.

“How’s Henry doing today?” she asked, her lips close to the little girl’s ear.

A shrug. “His mommy still hasn’t come back.” A pause. “He’s getting scared,” she said, ruffling the thing’s increasingly matted mane. “He says everybody keeps telling him she’s gone to heaven and she can’t come back, ever. That makes his heart hurt.”

As it did Mia’s. She hugged Haley more tightly. “I know,” she whispered, laying her cheek against the soft curls. “I know it does. So you have to hug Henry lots and lots to make him feel better.”

“I am. But he said it doesn’t help.”

“It will, lamb chop,” Mia said, her eyes burning, not caring if Grant’s were boring holes in the side of her face. “Eventually, it will.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. You just have to keep reminding Henry how much you love him.”

“Like you love me?”

Mia thought her own heart would break. “Yep. Like I love you. And Etta and your daddy and your grandma—we’re all going to love you and love you until it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

A moment later, Haley cocked her head, as if listening to the stuffed toy. Then she slid off Mia’s lap and turned to her. “Henry wants to know if you’d push us on the swing.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Mia said, getting up and holding out her hand.

“Mia.”

Grant’s low voice brought her head back around. He’d stood, his hands in his pockets, his mouth a straight line.

“If you want to buy your apartment, I’d be happy to cosign for your loan.”

Her eyes popped open. As did her mouth. When the buzzing stopped, however, she leaned over to Haley and said, “Go on back to the swing, I’ll be there in a sec.” When she was sure the little girl was out of earshot, she looked back up at Grant, standing there looking like the Daddy of all Immovable Objects.

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“To say thank you?”

“Then you can send me flowers. Or give me a gift certificate to Bloomie’s. But I wouldn’t dream of letting you take that risk. Or myself. I really can’t predict my cash flow right now—”

“Not a problem.”

“For you, maybe not. For me, yes. Thank you,” she said softly, when he blew an obviously frustrated breath through his nose. “That’s incredibly generous. But no.” A piece of hair blew into her face; she pushed it back, angling her head. “My mommy always told me never to take financial favors from strangers.”

“We’re not strangers, Mia.”

Man, this dude did not give an inch, did he? “Uh, yeah. We are.”

Apparently accepting that they’d reached a stalemate, he said, “Then I suppose you’ll be looking for another apartment when you get back to the city.”

“That’s the plan, yep.”

“In less than ten days.”

“Rub it in, why doncha?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “There is one more option. If push comes to shove.” He nodded toward the guesthouse. “It’s sitting empty, anyway.”

“Oh! Oh, no, I couldn’t—”

“Think about it,” he said, then turned and strode back inside.

“I take it we’re not talking some rickety old shack you wouldn’t keep your dog in?”

Mia could count on Venus not to mince words, about this or anything else.

“Uh, no.” After Haley went down for her nap, Mia got the key from Etta to check out the guesthouse. Not that she was even remotely considering taking Grant up on his offer, but she figured she might as well know what she was turning down. “Two bedrooms,” she said into her cell. “Wood floors—well, carpet in the bedrooms—a kitchen big enough for a table and more than half a person in it at once—”

“Get out.”

“I know, I know. Of course, compared with the main house, it is a shack. Compared with what I’m likely to be able to afford in Manhattan, however, it’s a palace. But come on—it’s in Connecticut!”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you’re in Washington Heights?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And what’s with the ‘uh-huhs’?”

“Think back. Way back. To the way you nearly broke something trying to get a better look when Grant walked by your office on his way to his appointment with that tax attorney—what was his name again?”

“I did not!” At yet another “uh-huh,” Mia sighed. “Okay, but that was temporary insanity by reason of immaturity. And anyway, my reservations have nothing to do with… that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Venus. I’ve met warmer cadavers.”

“Girl, you have got to get out more.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Unfortunately, I do. But may I remind you that particular cadaver just offered to co-sign a sizable loan for you? Not to mention save your sorry butt so you don’t end up out on the street?”

“Oh, please…this is a man who invests millions without batting an eye. And what skin would it be off his nose to let me live in this house?” Her gaze skimmed over the skuzz-free stove, the gleaming stainless steel refrigerator with a freezer large enough to hold more than a two frozen dinners, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a single ice cube tray.

“You’re tempted, I can tell,” Venus said.

“Of course, I’m tempted. I’m not made of stone.”

“We’re both still talking about the house, right?”

“And you so don’t want to give me a reason to rethink the raise I was going to give you.”

“He didn’t have to offer,” Venus said, completely unconcerned. “But he did anyway. And it’s been more than a year since that dirtwad dumped you and as far as I know you haven’t even looked at a man since, and here’s this good-looking dude being all generous and kind—”

“Kind might be stretching it,” Mia said. “And it’s not as if there’s no ulterior motive. And besides…”

“Yeah, I know—after what happened between him and Justine, blah, blah, blah. And a girlfriend doesn’t mess around another girlfriend’s man, never mind that they’d been divorced for more than a year and it’s not like she’s gonna know, anyway. And you know something else? It takes two, baby. Meaning I know you’re being loyal to Justine and all, but maybe she had something to do with the marriage falling apart, too. I’m just saying. Because you do have a problem with letting friendship blind you to who somebody really is. Take ours, for instance—you probably think I’m actually nice.”

“In general or at the moment?”

Venus snorted, then said, “But as far as the you-in-Connecticut-me-still-in-Manhattan thing…first off, seeing as half your clients are already up there, anyway, I’m not sure what difference it makes whether you’re schlepping up there from Manhattan, or down to Manhattan from there. And think of how much you’ll save in garage fees.”

She had a point there. Mia needed the van for her work, but she could support a medium-size developing country for what she paid to berth her car every month. Hey, maybe she could live in her car, skip paying rent altogether…?

“I don’t know, Venus. It sounds good on paper, but…I don’t know. Look, I need to get back. Etta and I have to figure out what we’re doing for this reception, since I seriously doubt people are going to show up with funeral food. As far as I know, I’ll be back in the city on Friday.”

“Yeah, but for how long?” Venus said, then hung up.

Leaving Mia standing in the middle of a puddle of brilliant fall sunshine gilding the living room’s polished oak floor, feeling very conflicted indeed.

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