Page 4 of The Christmas Keeper

“Santa?”

Dark eyes flickered upward. Lush lips, wet from melted snow, twisted at the corners before his sight dropped back to me. His dark gaze stayed on me for ages before he nodded, just once. I could not begin to explain how happy seeing him bob all those curls made me. Obviously, I was suffering from some sort of alcohol-induced mental slip. What other reason would I have to do what I’d just done?

“Thank you. I guess the Christmas spirit isn’t as dead as people say it is.”

Oh right, Christmas spirit. Yeah, that was me. I was just full of holiday cheer. So not.

Chapter Two

He held out a hand.

“My name is Kenan Gardet.”

I grasped his cold fingers. “Brann Argraves, owner of the famous Whiteham Alehouse in scenic Whiteham, Pennsylvania.”

“Sounds…scenic.”

He gently tugged his hand from mine. I mentally slapped myself. “It can be at certain times of the year. Winter is not one of them. Let’s get to my car, then I can take you to yours and you can follow me. Feel free to peel off at any exit if you reconsider.”

“Okay, thanks.” He pulled up his dancing scarf to cover his nose and mouth. I just ducked my head, snot frozen on my upper lip now, and forced my way through the barrage of wind, snow, and cold. Thankfully, my car wasn’t far. This wasn’t JFK after all. Kenan, which was a unique and pleasant name, stood by the passenger side until it was unlocked. He placed his guitar case into the back of my badly used Nissan Rogue, then folded himself into the front seat. Those long legs were tucked under his chin, so after a moment he pushed the sticky seat back asfar as it would go, and we were settled. No, not settled. Neither of us was calm nor situated. We were both nervous and cold—so damn cold.

“Heat will take a minute, but we’re out of the wind,” I said as the engine coughed and then caught, blowing cold air on the windshield. The wipers were frozen. “I have to scrape.”

He nodded, deep brown eyes with thick wet lashes watching me above his damp scarf as I grabbed the ice scraper, took a breath, and exited back out into winter’s embrace. While I chipped at the ice built up on the windshield, I asked myself over and over why I had done something so ridiculously out of character. Was it merely because of my sister’s little barb? Nora had called me names before, some much nastier when we were in our teen years and fighting like feral cats over everything. Scrooge. What about that name was so hurtful? I’d not ripped off any of my workers. Granted, I only had one, Larry, and he was part-time on weekends and holidays, but I paid him well. I didn’t kick dogs or shake my walking stick at orphans or spit at nuns. My mother would have my balls if I even glanced at a nun sideways.

So why was I all caught up in that one dumb comment from a woman newlywed who had been hitting the bubbly all afternoon? Why was I now caught in this situation?

A chunk of ice broke free, and Kenan’s face stared at me through the hole. He smiled a funny sort of awkward smile that pulled a dorky grin from me.

Something warm, like a brazier on a lovely patio in Rome, flared to life in my belly. The ice scraper slid from my cold fingers to the snowy blacktop.

“Nope, nope, nopeity-nope,” I muttered to that long dead area of Brann that I’d buried after Paulie had ripped the nice, trusting, loving part of Brann out then served it to the man he’d cheated on me with as a side with fava beans and a nicechianti. “Nope, nope, nope.” Each nope was accompanied by a gouge at the snow/ice/sleet sheet on my windows. This was not a romantical situation, not at all. I was merely trying to break out of my bah-humbug during the holidays. Was it a crime to be nice? No. No, it was not. It was also not a crime to offer a man who was having a rough go of life a lift. Even if he only spent one night in my office then split for parts unknown, and hopefully warmer, I’d been a good Joe. I could then tell my sister that I’d performed a gracious act out of nothing other than human kindness and caring for my fellow humanoids.

Yes. That was it. And my fingers were so cold I couldn’t feel them, so I dove back into the car, which was now warming nicely. I glanced at Kenan.

My stomach performed a swoop that made our recent descent from forty-thousand feet feel like a sunny day landing. My dick, which had been disinclined to find any man worthy of a boner in over four years, suddenly decided it was going to wake up. Why the hell not?

So yeah, about the only reason we’re being Mr. Congeniality is out of basic human kindness? Better tell our nether regions about that.

“It’s cold out there,” I offered. Mr. Brilliant Dialog was in the house. Whoop-whoop.

“Sure is,” Kenan replied through his scarf.

I rubbed my hands together in front of the heater vent, praying my brain would engage soon. “So you sound southern…”

“I am, yes, sir. Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. My grandparents emigrated from Yemen to the United States in the ?60s. My grandmother wanted to live where the blue grass she read about in various books was, so they settled in Kentucky where, much to her sadness, the grass was green and not blue.”

I chuckled. He seemed to relax a bit, his long skilled fingers coming up to untie and lower his scarf from his face. He certainly was a pretty man.

“She must have liked it there anyway, even if the grass was plain old green,” I said and shifted us into reverse.

“Oh she did. They both found a nice shop to buy and filled it with my grandfather’s oils and her sculptures,” he boasted as we crept up to the self-service parking kiosk. I paid with my debit card, hurried to put up the window, and pulled out onto a small two-lane road. “My car is over there in the flea market parking area. They’re closed in the winter, so no one cares if you stay there for a few days, other than the cops.”

“Seems the cops would have better things to do than roust someone just sleeping in his car,” I replied and got a grunt as we eased into the unplowed lot of what used to be a drive-in movie.

“They have laws against vagrancy in most of the books.” He shrugged. “I mean, I get it. They see me and think the worst.”

“Laws are stupid,” I grumbled. He chuckled softly. “Well, not all laws, obviously, but laws that give people a hard time over just trying to survive are stupid.”

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