Lone Star Santa (3 page)

Mitch gritted his teeth. “Work faster.”

“Hey, this is a busy time. And now that you aren’t here to take up the slack—”

“Slack? I’m the one who spent the entire weekend working while you were the one who went to the Cowboys game.”

“With
clients
. I was with clients. I was working. You know how you hate that part of the business.”

This was true, Mitch grudgingly admitted to himself. And yet, it didn’t seem to be quite the same.

“Mitch, I’ve got to go. I want to do damage control before anyone realizes there’s been damage.” Mitch heard him tapping his computer keyboard. “You’ve got
the corporate card. Check into a hotel. Try that new spa one downtown. Knock yourself out. And keep in touch.” Jeremy disconnected.

Keep in touch
. But from a distance.

Mitch gave his head a hard shake. Check into a spa hotel? Was Jeremy nuts?

His phone rang. He answered without looking at Caller ID. “Donner.”

“Mr. Donner, this is Carson Rentals. There’s a problem with your credit card. You are no longer an authorized user.”

The corporate card. “I was an authorized user an hour ago when you rented me the car.”

“We’ve received updated information—”

“Never mind.” Mitch gave them Jeremy’s cell number. “Tell him he can authorize the rental, or I’ll drive his car. His choice.”

“If you could come back to sign—”

“No. Mr. Sloane will take care of any paper work.”

He clicked off and before the car rental girl could call him back, he pressed “1” on his speed dial and closed his eyes. In a situation like this, there was only one thing to do. One place to go. Two people who believed in him, which were two more than believed in him here.

“Mitch!”

At the delight in her voice, he relaxed for the first time in hours. “Hey, Mom, guess what? I’m coming home for the holidays.”

Chapter Two

After Thanksgiving. At least a week. The leftovers have been eaten and those who’ve arrived for a “holiday visit” should have long since departed. But they haven’t. They’re hanging around making their parents nervous
.

S
HE WAS GETTING FAT
. Fat, fat, fat. Wearing a retro full black slip, Kristen twisted and turned in front of the full-length mirror and vainly tried to find her hip bones, but they were hiding in the shadow made by her new stomach pooch. And if she needed more proof of fatness, Kristen had caught herself lingering on the television shopping channels when they advertised anything with elastic waists.

She couldn’t even blame her mother’s cooking. Oh, sure, her mother, Barbara, had cooked a turkey with trimmings for Thanksgiving. Okay, technically, she’d heated up a takeout bird along with the prepackaged side dishes, but the mashed potatoes had been made from scratch with Kristen’s very own two hands.

Ah, mashed potatoes. How long had it been since
she’d scarfed down their fluffy, buttery goodness? Well, breakfast, actually. Kristen pulled on her new black skirt and tried to work up some guilt. And failed.

Had no one noticed that while the other turkey dinner leftovers had disappeared at a proportional rate, the mashed potatoes had magically reappeared meal after meal?

Kristen closed her eyes and remembered the cheese and jalapeños she’d added to yesterday’s mashed-potato lunch, after which she’d drunk water all afternoon. It had been worth it. How could she have survived all that time in carbless Los Angeles without cheese and jalapeños?

And potatoes. Wonderful, glorious potatoes. They oozed warm comfort. Filled the belly. Relaxed the mind. Nature’s perfect food.

There was a time when her mother wouldn’t have let her eat three meals of mashed potatoes a day, but meals had been very casual since Kristen had come home. What had happened to the family dinners when they all gathered around the table and Kristen and her little sister Nicole would report on their days?

Okay, so Nicole was married now and Kristen was technically living in Los Angeles until… Oh. It was after December first, so she was technically living in her old room at her parents’ house. An old room she’d expected to see in the same condition she’d left it after coming back for Nicole’s wedding. Then it had been cleaned up some, but still had her furniture and curtains and her stuffed animals and trophies. It wasn’t a shrine, but it was an awfully familiar-looking guest room.

However, that was all gone. No more lilac-and-white
eyelet. Now the room was painted a soft sage green and held exercise equipment with a pullout sofa bed and a computer.

Because they were always working late, her parents weren’t around a whole lot in the evenings. No sitting in front of the TV eating Healthy Carbolyte frozen meals for them. And no apron-clad mother slaving over a hot microwave for Kristen. Dinner—and breakfast and lunch—was grab and eat, except for Friday nights, when she and her parents linked up over takeout food.

It wasn’t what Kristen had expected. But then again, the turn her life had taken wasn’t what she expected. In addition to being fat, she was bored and broke, so she’d officially gone to work for her father.

It sounded worse than it was.

She slipped the matching black suit jacket off the hanger and shrugged into it. Adjusting the mighty shoulder pads so they were actually on top of her shoulders and not horrible deformities on her back, Kristen buttoned the jacket.

Not so bad. She wasn’t really
fat
fat. She had put on weight, but it had smoothed the sharpness of her collarbones. Part of the extra weight had landed in her hips, of course, but some had lingered in her chest and for the first time since her Miss Sweetest days, Kristen had a hint—actually more like a strong suggestion—of cleavage.

Yes, she could actually be a salsa sushi girl without the tape.

In actuality, she was something just as bizarre. Incredibly, her father had retired doing whatever he’d done for an oil company, and had opened a private investigation
agency inspired by old film noir movies, the very ones Kristen had imagined her parents watching all the time. If that wasn’t a midlife crisis, then she didn’t know what was. She had to give him points for being more original than going the red-convertible route. Anyway, Kristen had accepted the role of femme fatale receptionist while the freelance investigator her dad used part-time worked on a case out of state.

As it happens, someone’s midlife crisis was someone else’s clever marketing ploy and the place was doing a lot of business.

“Don’t think about it,” she whispered on an exhale and stepped into suede round-toed pumps.

Okay. Good to go. She had seamed stockings, a replica vintage black suit, a hat with a tiny veil and bright red lips. The lipstick got on everything from her fingers to her teeth to the telephone, but that gave her a real reason to whip out that silver compact and check her face.

This was actually kind of fun. Certainly better than sitting around wondering what had happened to her parents.

“Kristen?” Her mother knocked twice on her door. “Are you ready to go?”

Her mother had to give her a ride to work every day since Kristen had no car and she was supposed to open up the agency by seven-thirty. That was seven-thirty
a.m
., so help her.

“Let me put on my gloves.” The gloves had been an inspired addition to her work costume. For some reason, the hat and gloves kept her effortlessly in character.

“You look fabulous,” her mother said. “Your waist
looks so tiny. I don’t know why we don’t go back to that look.”

“You did. It was called the eighties.” Kristen picked up her purse and looked her mother up and down. “You look pretty wow yourself.” In an incredible alternate-universe kind of way.

Kristen simply couldn’t accept that the chic woman with the streaked blond bob and professional make up was her mother. Her mother also wore a black suit. Kristen squinted. “Is that Prada?”

“Yes, but last season.”

Her jumper-wearing, aproned mother not only knew what Prada was, but also worried about last-year’s style?

Kristen couldn’t get used to this version of her parents. That and the shoes. “Manolos?”

“Jimmy Choo.”

Of course they were. “The real estate business must be good.” Kristen followed her mother down the stairs.

“If you have talent and work hard.” Barbara stopped abruptly at the bottom of the stairs. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“I know you didn’t.”

Kristen and her mother hadn’t had an official heart-to-heart about Kristen’s experiences in Hollywood, but then again, did they need to? It wasn’t as though Kristen had been able to call home to rave about more than those stupid orange juice commercials.

Actually, they hadn’t been that stupid. The residuals had supported her for many months. Had given her hope. It might have been better for her if she hadn’t had that quick, but minor, success.

Anyway, this job with her surprising father could be
considered acting. Kristen felt her skirt swish against her seamed stockings. Definitely acting.

Her mother locked the door and pressed the button to open the garage. “I need to stop at Patsy Donner’s and give her a check for the agency’s parade sponsorship before I drop you off.”

“Does Sugar Land still do that Christmas light parade?”

“Oh, my heavens, yes.” Her mother blipped the car. “It’s huge now. A real tourist draw, thanks to Patsy. She’s worked her tail off. Sugar Land ought to put her on the city payroll. You’ve met her—her daughter, Kiki, was a bridesmaid in Nicole’s wedding.”

“Hmm.” Kristen was only half listening as she got into her mother’s new car. It was huge and plush for ferrying around clients to potential real estate properties.

“Mitch is living at home now, too,” Barbara added.

“Who?”

“Kiki’s older brother. He was a couple of years ahead of you in school. Do you remember him?”

Kristen tried to summon up a face to go with the name. She remembered a Mitch from the debate team. “Uh…kinda geeky?”

Her mother checked the rearview and backed the car out of their driveway. “Maybe in school. Not the Mitch I saw at the wedding.”

Kristen shrugged elaborately. “He must not be my type or I would have remembered him.” Kristen was already getting into character and liked the ennui in her voice.

“Kristen, be nice if we see him at Patsy’s.”

“Mom!” So much for staying in character. “I don’t have to get out of the car, do I?”

“Kristen…” Barbara trailed off with a sigh.

Kristen’s interfering-parent antenna prickled. “Oh, Mom, please. You aren’t trying to fix me up with him, are you?”

“I merely thought—”

“No. No thinking. Besides, what kind of loser guy lives with his parents at his age, anyway?”

They’d come to a stoplight and Barbara gave one of those mother looks to Kristen. “He’s here for an extended holiday visit—rather like you.”

Ouch. “Guess we have more in common than I thought.”

“M
ITCH
?”

“Hang on. I’m about to beat the level forty-seven boss and then I can get the invisibility cloak.”

Mitch’s parents looked into his childhood room, now a cave lit only by the greenish hue of the computer monitor. He’d not only drawn the curtains, he’d put something over the windows to completely block all light. It smelled of stale Cheetos and burnt dust.

“Have you been up all night?” Patsy Donner asked, knowing that he had.

At first she didn’t think Mitch would answer.

“What time is it?” he asked, eyes still on the monitor.

“Nine o’clock.”

“In the morning?”

Patsy sighed. “Yes.”

“Guess so.”

She exchanged a look with Mitch’s father. “We
wanted you to know we’re going to be gone most of the day. We’re working on the Christmas Light Parade.”

“Mmm.”

“Come with us,” his father suggested. “The committee could use the help and you used to be pretty handy with Christmas lights.”

“I’m good.”

Robert and Patsy exchanged another look and Patsy signaled that they should confer downstairs. Clearly, something was wrong and she and Mitch’s dad were negotiating the fine line between interfering in their adult son’s life and parenting a child in need.

“Hey, Mom?” Mitch continued typing and stabbing the space bar.

Maybe he’d leave his den after all. “What?”

“Where did you put the laundry?”

Patsy gritted her teeth. At least he was interested in clean clothes. That could only be an improvement. “I put mine away.”

“Where’re my clothes?”

“Wherever you left them.”

Mitch turned his head and blinked at her. “Oh.” An explosion sounded and Mitch immediately began typing, showing more animation than Patsy had seen in three days. “No! Not there! Auuugh.” He pushed himself away from the keyboard and stretched his arms over his head as ominous music played. “I spent four hours getting that far and now—!”

“Mitch!” She didn’t want hear any computer game details. She’d heard enough about computer game conquests and battles and points and kills and levels and
raids when he was eighteen. “If you want food, there’s meat and cheese for sandwiches. We’re leaving.”

She and Mitch’s dad were silent all the way down the stairs.

“Robert,” Patsy began.

“I know.” His lips compressed in a grim line.

“What do you know?”

“I know that the end of the year and tax season are his busiest times. I know that now is not the time to take a vacation. I know that he doesn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon. I know that he’s taken over my office. I know that he’s acting like he’s eighteen again.”

“But do you know why?” Patsy asked.

“No.”

“He hasn’t said anything to me, either, and I’m afraid to ask him.”

“Oh, I hear that.”

They were silent for a moment. “Well, clearly something is wrong. I don’t want to interfere in his life because after all, he is an adult—”

“Supposedly.”

“Robert,” she said reprovingly.

“There should be a book telling us what to do.
Handling Your Adult Children
. Did you notice that the how-to books just stopped after the
Getting Your Child into the College of His Choice
ones?”