Page 1 of Baby It's Cold Outside

Chapter One

“You want me to be Santa.” Mitch stared at his boss in disbelief. Was C.J. temporarily insane? Or had he eaten way too many candy canes from the box one of their clients had sent and was on the sugar rush to end all sugar rushes?

Mitch wasn’t Santa material. No way. No how. Hadn’t his last girlfriend even nicknamed him Ebenezer? Not that Mitch was ever mean with gifts; he just hated Christmas. For him, Christmas wasn’t the season of joy and goodwill. It was a season of misery, and he’d learned that the hard way. Nowadays, he always worked between Christmas and New Year so his colleagues who had kids could take time off and enjoy the holiday season with their families. It came with the bonus of being the perfect excuse for not being able to join his own family on the other side of the country for the seasonal fights.

Being Santa at a Christmas party for children just wasn’t him, Mitch knew. He was more than happy to give a donation to the party—a donation large enough to give the kids a great time—but actually being Santa, turning up and taking part…

“You can say no,” C.J. said idly.

But Mitch could read the subtext: if he said no, there would be consequences. Because this was most definitely a test.

He waited, hoping that his face looked a lot more inscrutable than it felt.

“I’m looking at retiring next year,” C.J. said.

Which was why Mitch had worked stupid hours for the last six months, proving that he was good enough to step into C.J.’s shoes.

“I need to be sure that whoever heads up the firm after me can keep all the balls in the air. So we run the best campaigns, for the best clients, with the best staff.”

“Uh-huh.” Mitch did all that already. And he knew C.J. knew it.

“But it’s not just about business. Holford’s has a heart,” C.J. said softly.

So that was what C.J. wanted him to prove? Being Santa would show that Mitch had a heart, too. That he’d lead from the front. And in C.J.’s book it was clear that leading meant having a heart.

Mitch didn’t agree. To make a business a success, you had to keep emotion out of it. As far as he was concerned, keeping emotion out of everything was the way to go.

Santa—or not Santa.

No. That wasn’t the real choice. Santa—or watch someone else take the job he’d worked for. And it irked him that he was being held to account like this.

“So you want me to wear a ridiculous costume and dole out presents to kids who probably won’t even get to play with them before their parents either break them in a fight or sell them to get money for their next bottle of booze,” Mitch said.

He regretted the words the second they were out of his mouth. Because it shed way, way too much light on his past. A past he’d kept from everyone in Philly.

But to his relief, C.J. didn’t seem to be focusing on what he’d just said. Luckily. “It’s at a hospice.”

Oh, hell.

Being Santa for terminally sick kids.

Mitch definitely didn’t have a choice. Not without seeming like the meanest-spirited person on the planet. “Okay. So I dress up as Santa and take a present to every bed? Is that it?”

C.J. shook his head. “It’s not for the kids in the hospice. It’s for their brothers and sisters. So just for an hour the focus is on them and they get to enjoy a little bit of Christmas. Even if the rest of the holidays turn out rough.”

In other words, if their siblings don’t make it through Christmas.

Mitch blew out a breath. C.J. might have a heart, but Mitch also knew that his boss was a hardheaded businessman. If C.J. did something, it was for a reason. And Mitch couldn’t quite work out the connection with the hospice. “May I ask, why the hospice?”

“This stays with you,” C.J. said. “Just as it stays with me that your parents drank, fought, and broke your toys every Christmas.”

Ah. So C.J. had been listening. And he’d worked out the rest of it for himself. Mitch wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating his boss again. “Agreed. And, um, thanks.”

C.J. didn’t smile. “Twenty-five years ago, Stella and I spent Christmas at that hospice. Watching our son die and not being able to do a damn thing about it.”

Mitch couldn’t imagine what that was like. He had no terms of reference, except maybe the time his new brother-in-law broke his sister’s arm. He’d been twelve, too young to do anything about it other than beg Barbara to leave the guy.

She hadn’t, convinced that her husband wasn’t all bad and she could change him. She’d been proven wrong, on both counts. And she’d made the same mistake with husband number two, who’d eventually left her with a pile of debts, a black eye, and three children under the age of three.

“And what I noticed when I went to grab us a coffee,” C.J. continued, “were the other kids. The ones who sat quietly and never asked for anything. The ones who’d lost their belief in Christmas because they knew their brother or sister wasn’t coming home. That’s when I decided to hold a Christmas party for them, in Billy’s memory. There was another woman there, a woman who ran a bakery. Her boy…” His breath caught. “Well. Same as Billy. When she found out what Stella and I were planning, she offered to help. So Betty does the food for the party, while I buy the gifts and play Santa.”

“Okay. I’m in,” Mitch said.

It was the first time he’d felt guilty in the near twenty years since he’d walked out of his family’s front door and never looked back. He’d always assumed his boss had simply chosen not to have kids, putting his business before his family. Obviously not. The older man clearly still longed for a family. He hurt every day that he hadn’t seen his son grow up. He missed the grandkids he and Stella hadn’t had a chance to have. Whereas Mitch… He had the next best thing to what C.J. had lost. Parents. Three sisters. A horde of nieces and nephews he hadn’t seen for years, other than in photographs. A family he’d walked away from without looking back.

He pushed the thought away. “When, and what time?”

“Christmas Eve, from three until four. The presents will be there waiting for you—the Friends of the Hospice wrap them for me and label them.” C.J. handed him a bag. “Here’s the costume.”

One hour. That was all he had to do. One little hour. Mitch could manage to grin and bear it for an hour. He’d borne a hell of a lot worse over Christmases past.

“I’ll e-mail you the address of the hospice,” C.J. said.

Mitch nodded. “Right.” He paused. “Can I, um, contribute t

o the cost of the gifts?”

“No. They’re already bought. It’s not about the money,” C.J. said.

No. It was about time. About giving something that couldn’t be bought. Helping children forget their worries for just a little while.

How many times as a kid had Mitch wanted that? To forget, just for a little while? To pretend that he was like all the other kids, with a family who loved one another and a dad who didn’t drink and a mom who never “walked into a door”?

“I won’t let you down,” he said.

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