Once Upon a Christmas (41 page)

What was she, crazy?

No,
she answered herself.
Just a girl who wants to
keep her best friend.

In the bedroom, Moe issued a feline yowl.

“Uh, Chloe?” yelled Nick. “Can you call off
your psychotic cat, please? I think he’s trying to mate with my shoe.”

Chapter Two

Six weeks later

He was almost there. He could feel it.

Frowning with concentration, Nick Steadman typed a few more
variables in the inventor’s journal he kept on his computer, then rolled his
office chair across the pitted oak floor of his
spare-bedroom-turned-laboratory. He examined the long table arrayed with precisely
arranged test tubes and beakers, computer printouts and heat lamps, wires and
solution bottles and the varying plants that were the focus of his current
research.

God, what he wouldn’t give to see the results of his
research put in production. Just once to know that someone believed in him
enough to invest cold cash in his ideas.

Just invent a pet rock, or something
, his sisters
said.
You’ll make millions in no time
. They didn’t understand it wasn’t
the money that mattered to him.

Still with the dreaming, Nicky
? his mother always
asked.
You’ve got a good job. Stick with that
. But she didn’t
understand, either. His engineering work at BrylCorp kept him busy and kept him
in supplies for his inventions, but it wasn’t security he was looking for.

You want to sell that thing
? his brothers-in-law
said.
Finance it yourself! You’ve got the cash
. But they didn’t
understand that having the money wasn’t the real goal. Interesting a bona fide
investor was. Once Nick did that, once he’d set his work into production, then
he’d know he’d really done it.

Somehow, he’d convince his old man that all those years of
taking apart every appliance, every clock, every TV in the house had paid off.
He’d prove himself, to himself, and finally make his dad proud of his only son.

Three generations of Steadman men had put their dreams last
and their families first. They’d traded their hopes and plans, abandoned their
talents, for the sake of mouths to feed and growing kids to clothe and
mortgages to pay.

That particular family tradition was about to crumble. Nick
meant to be the first to bring it down.

With one last glance at his computer screen, Nick picked up
the next ingredient in the solution he was preparing and measured it in the
nearest beaker. He had to get busy. One of the investors he’d approached for
past projects was interested in his current research. He wanted a working
prototype to present to his board of directors—in California—at their next
meeting in December.

Just nine months away.

It wasn’t much time to check the variables, to run tests, to
re-formulate if necessary. Especially when Nick’s inventing happened at night
and on the weekends, sandwiched between cubicle-cramped stints at BrylCorp and
what remained of his social life. But that didn’t matter.

Come hell or high water, this time he meant to see one of
his inventions in production. If he handled it right, this could be a very
merry Christmas.

“Ho, ho, ho,” he muttered, holding the beaker to
the light.

“It’s not even Easter yet, Uncle Nick.”

“I know, Danny.” He looked up at his houseguest
for the day—his seven-year-old, sticky-fingered nephew. “I’m planning
ahead.”

“Oh. Is that how come you’re not gonna hunt Easter eggs
with us this year? ‘Cause you’re already starting on Christmas?”

A pang shot through Nick. He’d missed so many Easter egg
hunts, so many birthdays and Halloween pumpkin-carvings and Fourth of July
picnics. Danny was just a kid. Commitment was only a word on a second-grade
spelling test to him.

Once this invention is off the ground, Nick promised himself,
all that will change.

“Maybe I can make it this year.” His own
father—not to mention numerous Steadman uncles and aunts—had crowded into every
track meet, school play, basketball game and science fair Nick had ever taken
part in. Now, as an uncle himself, didn’t he owe the same things to his nephew?
“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”

“You can do it, Uncle Nick!” Danny grinned, all
gap-toothed innocence and enthusiasm. “My mom says you’re always trying to
do stuff. Even totally impossible stuff.”

Impossible stuff—like his inventions, he assumed.
Nice
job, Naomi
. If she wasn’t his sister, he’d invent a way to keep her
opinions to herself.

On the other hand, he did have three other sisters waiting
in the wings….

Nick returned his nephew’s smile. “Somebody’s got to
try the impossible stuff, Danny. It might as well be me.”

“Or me!”

“When you’re older, hotshot. For now, you probably
ought to concentrate on not landing a permanent place on the Timeout Stool.”

Danny made a face and squirmed atop his stool near the
window. It was, his nephew had informed him, Uncle Nick’s Timeout Stool.

Nick wasn’t quite sure what that was. Until today, he hadn’t
even known he owned one. But his sister Naomi had apparently established them
all over town, and Danny knew how to use one. He’d sent himself there after
nearly singeing off his eyebrows with the Bunsen burner while conducting a
melting experiment on one of Nick’s Charlie Parker CDs.

Danny nodded at the beaker in Nick’s hand. “So, what’s
that stuff?”

“It’s my best shot at getting a big pile of moola for
inventing stuff.” Nick waved him closer to watch. “Wanna see?”

Danny took the bait and scuttled down from kiddie Siberia.
He edged up to Nick’s elbow and poked him. “You mean somebody’s gonna give
you money just for mixing up goop?” he asked, wide-eyed. “Cool!”

Nick grinned, feeling his uncle stock soar up a few points.

Danny frowned. “But Uncle Nick, my dad says your
inventions never work.”

His uncle stock plummeted.

“That’s the nature of inventing.” He swirled the
solution and peered inside the beaker. “You keep trying out ideas until
one of them works.”

“Oh.” Danny backed up, eyeballing the solution as
though it might blow him out of his Converses any second. “Sure. Whatever
you say, Uncle Nick.”

“That’s what I say.” Nick held up the beaker and
got ready to pour. “Cross your fingers, Danny. This is it.”

Danny covered his ears and closed his eyes instead.

The element eased into the solution in a swirl of blue.
Perfect. Not an explosion in sight.

“Booorring,” Danny muttered. “I’m going
outside.”

“I’ll be out in a couple of minutes. We can play catch
or something.”

“Cool.”

After the back door closed behind Danny, Nick pulled a
potted ivy closer and held the beaker of finished solution aloft. Time to test
his theory.

Time to…duck! Something squawked and beat its way into the
room on a blur of wings and a flash of green.
What the hell was that
?

Dodging reflexively, Nick almost spilled his solution. The
winged creature shrieked like something straight out of a Hitchcock movie, then
arrowed to the top of the fluorescent fixture he’d hung from the ceiling. It
perched there, making the light sway and flash over his equipment.

A bird. A big, ugly, lab-destroying bird.

He had a pretty good idea which animal-loving, pet-store-managing
softie next door it belonged to.

“Where’s your keeper, Igor?” Nick asked it.

The bird cocked its head at him and shuffled with tiny
click-clicks of its claws across the metal fixture. It looked at him the way it
probably eyed a bowl of bird kibble. Great. A bird evil
and
stupid
enough to think it might snack on something twenty times its size.

At least he’d saved the solution. Trying to ignore the bird,
which seemed happy enough cha-cha-ing across his light fixture for the time
being, Nick raised the beaker. He checked his calculations again, started to
pour…and from the front of the house, his screen door slammed shut. His hand
jerked sideways, nearly spilling his morning’s work.

“Nick? You home?”

Chloe’s warm, husky voice came toward him, followed by a
clunk and slide down his hallway. A second later, her head popped in view
around the doorjamb. Her green-gloved hands came next as she grabbed hold and
arced into the room without letting go, dressed in short denim overalls, a very
Chloe-worthy hot pink tank top, and enough silver bangle bracelets to make his
eyes hurt.

If her pet store customers could see her now, they’d never
recognize her as the same no-nonsense woman who dished out kibble and flea
spray from nine to five. Nick couldn’t understand having a Chloe-style
dichotomy between professional and personal lives. But for her, somehow, it
seemed to work.

“Hi! Sorry I couldn’t get here quicker. I had a little
trouble getting over the living room rug in these things.”

She lifted her foot in explanation, showing him the in-line
skates she’d used to zoom into his house and down the hall. His gaze traveled
from her purple and turquoise skates to her green protective knee pads, slid
upward past her shapely thighs and vibrant clothes, then settled on her head.
Among her jumble of artfully cropped blond hair, she’d knotted a twisted
headband of purple and turquoise bandana.

Nick nodded toward it. “Nice bandage. Nobody would ever
guess about the lobotomy.”

She made a face. “Nice try, genius, but I don’t have
time to sling insults today. Have you seen—”

“Igor?” He jerked his chin toward the bird. A
mistake, he realized as the bird interpreted the gesture as an invitation to
dive toward his head like a miniature hawk on the prowl.

“That’s not Igor.” Chloe smiled, as though the
little beast had done something especially bright and worth about a hundred
points on the bird SATs. “It’s Shemp.”

“Sure.” The bird landed on Nick’s head. He held
himself still, trying not to shudder as it dug its claws in his scalp and
tromped around through his hair looking for the best spot to take a bite. Or a
peck. Or worse.

“He’s a lovebird.”

“Literally?”

“Mmmm-hmmm.” She gave the bird a fond look. “They
make good pets, because they’re very smart. Affectionate, too.”

“Super.” Nick put down his beaker for safekeeping
and pointed toward Shemp. “Would you, uh, lasso him or something? I’ve got
work to do.”

“Spoilsport. When in this millennium
don’t
you
have work to do?” Grinning, Chloe raised her slender be-bangled arm and
made kiss noises toward Shemp. Obediently, the bird flew to her forearm and
walked placidly up to her shoulder.

“Nice work, Snow White.”

“Thanks. You really ought to get over your fear of
birds, Nick. They won’t hurt any—”

“Fear?” He raised his eyebrows and gave her his
best incredulous glance. “What’s to be afraid of? I could squash the
little bugger like a—”

Chloe sucked in a strangled breath. “You wouldn’t!”
she cried, cuddling Shemp to her cheek.

He thought he heard the damn thing actually coo at her.

She cooed back. “He’s had a hard life already.”

Nick examined Shemp more closely. “He looks okay to me,”
he said dubiously. “A little raggedy around the feathers, maybe. Sort of
down in the beak—”

“Be serious. You’d be raggedy, too, if you’d been
through what he has. Luckily, I was there to rescue him.”

“Just what you need. Some other poor, defenseless
creature depending on you.”

With a smooth whoosh of her skate wheels, she rolled closer.
She turned her hazel-eyed gaze on him. “Something you want to tell me,
Nick? Feeling especially defenseless today? Or did one of your creations just
go kaput on you?”

“My inventions never go kaput.” What was she
getting at, anyway? “And I’m not one of your…projects.”

She shrugged. “Have it your way.”

“Now wait a min—”

“Friends depend on each other, that’s all.” She
petted the bird. “Anyhow, somebody brought Shemp in to work last night.
They were moving away and couldn’t keep him.”

“Somebody brought a bird to Red’s pet shop last night?
I didn’t know you took that kind of—”

“We don’t. Especially now that Red’s looking to sell
the place and retire to Sun City with her husband. That’s why I had to rescue
him.”

“You had to rescue Red’s husband? From what?”

“Kibble overload, actually. Red thought a little Gravy
Train might up Jerry’s fiber intake, like the doctor suggested.”

Nick grinned. Chloe rolled her eyes. “Be serious! I
rescued Shemp, here, of course.”

She raised her finger for a new perch and smiled like an
approving mama as she watched Shemp walk onto it. She lifted him chest-high and
petted him with her other hand. He cooed some more, giving Nick a beady stare
that suggested some birds had all the luck.

And some human guys didn’t know what they were missing.

Nick blinked and adjusted his eyeglasses at his temples,
frowning at the wayward thought. Chloe smiled up at him, still smoothing her
fingers over Shemp’s feathers, and suddenly he imagined her fingers stroking
over him. He could actually see her caress in his mind, gentle and crazymaking
and accented with nails painted one of those wild nail polish colors she
favored, like metallic blue or tangerine.

Dizziness walloped him.
This guy doesn’t know what he’s
missing
, he thought.

She gazed over his array of test tubes and beakers. “So
whatcha working on?”

Magically, she morphed into his old pal Chloe again. Good
old late-late-movie watching, Kahlúa-brewing, pour-out-your-troubles-to-me
Chloe.

Whew
. The last thing he needed was a distraction like
dating the girl next door. Not after all this time, and not when he had his
best chance in three years of licensing one of his inventions. Especially,
particularly,
definitely
not when the clock was ticking on putting
together the prototype and proposal he needed.