Page 5 of Saint Nick
“So,” Sandy said, flipping open her notebook. “You ready to tell me why a man who hates Christmas volunteered to play Santa?”
He arched a brow. “Didn’t you hear?” he asked. “I guess you weren’t paying attention back at the Road Reapers. My Prez gave me no option.”
“Yes, but why you?” she pressed. “You said it yourself—you hate Christmas. Wouldn’t that make you the worst Santa ever? Why wouldn’t Mace just pick someone else in your club? You do have other bikers in your club, right?” she teased.
“Of course, we have other bikers in the club,” he insisted. “Mace said that the other guys would be bringing their kids to the party, and as one of the only single guys, with no kids, I guess that made me his only option.” Sandy was wondering how she’d work in her question about his dating status, but he’d answer that question for her. She tried not to seem too giddy hearing that he had no wife or kids waiting at home for him. Not that it mattered since he was a story for her, and not a conquest.
“So, Mace chose you because you’re single and childless?” she asked, noting Nick’s wince at her word choice. “His choice had nothing to do with you being a good Santa, or anything like that?”
“Aren’t these all questions that you should be asking Mace?” he grumbled. “Or even the kids? Honestly, I guess it all depends on the kids,” he said, leaning back in the booth. “Maybe I’ll be the kind of Santa that doesn’t sugarcoat things. I’ll teach them that life’s not all snowflakes and candy canes. Sometimes, life throws a grinch into your Christmas plans, and I guess this year, I’m the grinch.”
She scribbled something down on her notepad and looked back up at him when she was finished. “Wow—how inspirational,” she teased.
Nick laughed—a deep, rumbling sound that made her pulse jump. “You got a smart mouth, you know that?”
She smiled back at him, not sure if she thought he was funny or insulting. “I’ve been told,” she grumbled, deciding that she found his honesty refreshingly funny. Their coffees arrived, and for a few moments, silence filled the space between them. She usually found silence to be uncomfortable, but for some reason, she found the quiet with him to be comfortable—almost.
“Why’d you really come to this town, Sandy?” he asked suddenly, his tone softer. “Doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”
She looked down at her cup, tracing her finger along the rim, and smiled back over at him. “I thought that I was the one who was asking the questions here,” she teased, trying to avoid his question. She never liked to answer questions about herself. Maybe that’s why she liked journalism—she got to be the one to ask all the questions and never had to answer any herself.
“Well, fair is fair,” he insisted. “If I have to answer your questions, you should have to answer a few of mine.”
“Well, I rode on the back of your death trap, and you said that you’d answer my questions if I did, so I feel as though I’m being very fair here, Nick.” He sat back in the booth and crossed his arms over his chest, taking up most of his half of the booth. She could tell that he was settling in to wait her out, but she could do the same with him. Her mother used to tell her that she was the most stubborn person on the planet.
When she realized that she was playing at a losing game,she sighed and sat back. “Fine,” she grumbled. “I guess I was just looking for a fresh start. I wanted to live somewhere quiet. Somewhere I could stop feeling like my past was waiting for me around every corner.”
Nick nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. “Yeah,” he said. “I know that feeling.” When their food came, they ate in companionable silence, though every so often, she’d catch him looking at her, like he was trying to figure her out. And maybe she was doing the same as him. She couldn’t help wondering what had really made him hate Christmas so much—or why a man who pretended not to care looked at her like he might want to. And for the first time in a long while, Sandy felt something spark in her chest to follow this story until the bitter end.
Maybe it was her undeniable hope that everyone had good in them, or maybe it was the fact that she was curious and couldn’t let a sleeping dog lie. Or maybe it was just Nick—gruff, broken, and far too tempting for her own good.
Sandy shoved her half-eaten plate of chicken potpie that Nick had ordered for her, away from herself, and sighed. “What do you do for a living—you know, besides playing Santa?” she asked. If she was going to get to the bottom of why Nick hated Christmas, she was going to need to start asking questions. Not just any questions, but the right ones. Sooner or later, she was going to get lucky and land on the right combination of questions, and she’d finally have her news story. At least, that was what she was hoping for.
NICK
He knew that his reprieve from questioning wasn’t going to be long-lived. As soon as Sandy finished her dinner, she was back at work, asking him question after question. She was fishing, and if he let his guard down, she’d catch what she was looking for. There was no way that she’d get the story that she was looking for—the fact that he hated Christmas because he never really had one. That was no one’s business, not even the nosey reporter that he was ordered to talk to.
“I’m a forensic scientist,” he said. There—that was a simple question that he could answer. “I work on crime scenes to help solve the question of, ‘Who did it?’.”
Sandy leaned forward, chin propped on her palm, eyes bright with curiosity, and he knew that he was in deep trouble. If he had to guess, she was just getting started questioning him. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have guessed that about you in a million years,” she admitted. So, you spend your days looking at bloodspatters and evidence, but why does Christmas make you want to crawl under a rock?”
Nick pushed his fork through the mashed potatoes on his plate, more interested in avoiding her gaze than finishing his food. “It doesn’t make me want to crawl under a rock,” he muttered.
“Then why tell people that you hate Christmas?” she pressed. “Mace told me that you’ve avoided your club, you avoid going to church, whatever that means, and if Mace hadn’t cornered you at work, I’m guessing you’d have avoided Santa duty, too.” Shit—his Prez had told her a little bit more than he had let on. Damn, she was relentless.
“If Mace has all the answers, why not just go back to the club and question him?” Nick asked.
“Because Mace isn’t playing Santa—you are. So, my story is about you. Mace was just helping me fill in a few blanks,” she said.
He signed, “Christmas is just not my thing,” he said, his tone short, clipped. He’d learned over the years that if you gave people enough silence, they usually filled it themselves and eventually gave up—but Sandy seemed to be different from most people. Sandy didn’t seem to be built that way. She leaned in even closer, elbows on the table, that stubborn little tilt to her chin as though daring him to shut her down again.
“Not your thing,” she repeated slowly, like she was tasting the words and finding them bland. “You know what’s not my thing? Cold weather. But I didn’t move halfway across the country to sit in some tiny town that gets buried in snow just to give up. So why do you hate Christmas?” He glanced up then—just long enough to see that she wasn’t teasing. She wanted to understand him and his reasoning behind his dislike of Christmas.
Nick sighed and set his fork down. “You’re not going to drop it, are you?”
She shook her head. “Not a chance, Santa.”
He almost smiled at that, but the weight in his chest was heavier than her playful tone could lift. “Some things are better left alone, Sandy.”
