Page 14 of One Night on the Naughty List

Samantha’s cheeks turned pink.

My cheeks might have turned a little pink, too. But I had more than a decade of uncle experience under my belt, so I knew deflection mingled with a bit of bribery was the best strategy for dealing with curious kids.

“Brace yourself,” I told Samantha under my breath. “They’ve got worse zingers than that at their disposal.”

I got out of the car and hunkered down so my head was at Ella’s level. In a stage whisper I said, “I’ll tell you what she is, but you have to keep it a secret.”

She nodded, her eyes darting from Samantha to me.

“One of Santa’s Helpers.”

“For real?”

“For real.” I straightened and shooed everyone toward the house. “First one inside gets to drink Mountain Dew for dinner.”

They tore off in a flurry of happy screams and flailing limbs, snow flying from their boots. Patrick scooped up Ella, her pigtails jostling up and down as he ran. When I turned back to the SUV, Samantha was climbing out, bag in hand.

“Let me,” I said, rounding the front and taking it from her.

“Santa’s Helper?” Her expression was equal parts exasperated and amused.

“Why not? Technically, you helped me when I played Santa for the ad campaign. And you help me all the time around the office.”

She shook her head, but a smile played around her mouth, doing all sorts of funny things to my heart rate. “I don’t know what’s going to get you into more trouble, pretending I’m Santa’s Helper or promising a bunch of kids Mountain Dew.”

Oh, I was in trouble all right, and it had nothing to do with soft drinks or telling little white lies to children.

I tipped my head toward the house. “What do you say, Santa’s Helper, want to go get into trouble with me?”

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