Mistletoe Over Manhattan

His voice warbled on. Carter actually looked at the place. He’d expected a living room in the middle and a bedroom on each side, a standard suite. Instead, there were hallways, arches and hidden entrances.

The porter, who had been in the small kitchen nervously flicking switches off and on, reappeared in the living room babbling, “…laundry service and shoe-shine service. Just put your shoes outside the door at night and they’ll be there in the morning, all shined up. Fitness center’s in the basement. Business center’s on the second floor…”

The suite was decorated in flowered stuff and velvet and Oriental rugs and crystal chandeliers. It was a home away from home—not as big as his home, but a hell of a lot neater without his stuff scattered all over it.

He was going to be shut up in here for a whole lot of nights with a woman he’d just discovered was a lot prettier and a lot sexier than he’d remembered. The stab of heat that inflamed his groin startled him. Respect was what he wanted from Mallory, and he sure wasn’t going to get it if he tried to jump her bones.

“…room service twenty-four hours a day,” the porter finished up. “Never have to leave the place if you don’t want to.”

At Carter’s sharp look, he said, “But of course you’ll want to, and the St. Regis offers the finest dining in New York. There’s the five-star restaurant on the…”

Carter whipped out a bill and thrust it toward him.

“Oh, no need, sir,” the man said, wiping sweat off his forehead. “It was my pleasure. May I get you some ice? Extra towels?”

Carter tucked the bill in the porter’s breast pocket. “Leaving would be a good idea,” he said.

With numerous muttered “yessirs” the man backed out of the room.

“What did you do to that poor man?” Mallory said, sticking her head out the door of her room.

“I threatened to shoot him with an unregistered gun,” Carter said.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just kidding.” He dusted his hands together. “Want some lunch?”

“No, thank you. I filled up on the plane.” She looked thoughtful. “It wasn’t good, but it was enough.”

“Yeah…” He was feeling thoughtful, too. “You won’t mind having dinner alone, will you? I made some dates, women I’ve known for a while, thought they’d be hurt if I didn’t give them a call. Athena tonight and Brie tomorrow night for starters.”

“And Calpurnia Thursday night? What’s your plan, to start with A and work through the alphabet?” She made herself smile as if she were teasing.

His face reddened. “Um, yes.”

“Maybe we’ll settle before you get to Zelda.” She might have known. Carter would spend his days working hard, but at night he’d be messing around with women named Athena and Brie. Had she actually been hoping he’d ask her to have dinner with him? Otherwise, where did this stab of disappointment come from? “Of course I don’t mind,” she lied. “This arrangement mustn’t make either of us feel we have to spend any time together socially.”

“I didn’t mean…I mean…I didn’t…”

“In fact, I have plans tonight, too,” she said. While you cavort with Athena, I’ll have weird food with my weird brother. The last time she saw Macon, he’d been into Tibetan cuisine. He’d read about it on the Internet.

“You’re going out?”

“Yes. And I’ll be going out other nights, too. So don’t think I’m going to cramp your style. We’re here to work together,” she summed up.

It seemed to stop him cold, which was fine with her, because she’d gone cold all over with a sudden sense of purpose that was building up inside her and had nothing whatever to do with the Green case.

She spun on one heel and went back into her room. Dialing Macon’s number netted her the same advice she’d gotten from his message the night before—send him an e-mail. Muttering under her breath, she opened her door, and as Carter was apparently in his room unpacking, she retrieved her laptop from the desk, plugged it into the phone line in her room and opened her e-mail.

Sure enough, there was a message from Macon: “dear mallory i’m not in new york right now i’m in pennsylvania sorry we’ll get together another time,” it said.

No caps, no punctuation and he didn’t sign it. He didn’t feel a need to sign an e-mail when his entire name was in his address.

So Macon wouldn’t be around to provide her with a reason for going out at night, or a means to compete with Carter for the “Most Active Nightlife” award. She stabbed at the reply key. “Dearest and only brother Macon: Where in Pennsylvania? What are you doing in Pennsylvania? Has it ever occurred to you that the country might use up its entire energy supply and without electricity you would simply vanish from our lives? Our cherished son and brother, lost in cyberspace. We would miss your e-mails, Macon, we truly would. Much love, your sister Mallory.”

It would make him crazy—if he even saw the irony. She was in the middle of a deep sigh when Carter’s voice boomed out of nowhere. “Mallory!” he shouted through her closed door.

“What!”

“I forgot to pack any socks.”

She stared at the door for a minute. “I don’t knit.”

She heard a sound not unlike the snort of a bull as he paws the soil of the ring. Tough. If he’d read her mother’s books he wouldn’t have forgotten socks. She’d lend him her autographed copy.

“This is your excuse to do the loafers-no-socks thing. Of course—” she looked out the window at the bleak, gray day, at the smattering of snowflakes whitening the air, then opened the door so they wouldn’t have to keep yelling at each other “—you might get frostbite and your toes would turn black and fall off. But that would cut down on your shoe size, although walking without toes might feel really odd—”

“I’m going up to Bloomingdale’s to buy socks.” His mouth already looked frostbitten. “I was just wondering if you’d forgotten anything and wanted to go with me.”

It was her turn to be stopped cold, but she wasn’t cold, she was a little bit too warm all of a sudden. “Oh. Thanks. I—” Of course I haven’t forgotten anything. I never forget anything. When you’ve made a proper list…“Sure,” she said. “I’ll come along. I might find a Christmas present or two in the men’s department.” A present a day keeps the panic away.

No longer simply warm, she was burning up. Actually panting. Carter had asked her out.

He asked you to go to Bloomingdale’s. Chill.

For the first time, it occurred to her that she was no less socially impaired than her brother was. Must have been some influence from their childhood. On the other hand, they had a handle on organization and efficiency few people could claim to have. Except that she was beginning to wonder if it was anything to boast about.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER Carter was randomly collecting socks from the sizeable collection in Bloomingdale’s Men’s First Floor Shop. Calf-length wool, patterned, whatever seemed to strike his fancy. Not a thought to matching socks which could be paired up later as they began to wear out. Mallory kept an eye on him while she chose between a black cashmere turtleneck sweater and a beige V-necked for Macon.

When she glanced back at Carter, he had built a wobbly tower of socks near the cash register. She couldn’t stand it anymore. To give herself a legitimate reason to go to the cash register herself, she grabbed a sweater without looking at it and scurried over to plead her case.

“Carter?”

“Hmm? Seven, eight, nine…”

“Will that be all, miss?” A nattily dressed young clerk materialized and took the sweater from her grasp.

“Yes. Thanks,” she said absently, and slid her single credit card out of its special slot in her handbag.

“Carter,” she said again, “if I may make a suggestion, you really only need one more pair.” As he wrestled for control of his sock pile, she imagined him saying, “Gosh, I never thought of that,” and his smile would warm as he saw her in a whole new light—a womanly caretaker.

Socks clenched in his fist, he paused, turned, gazed at her. His smile didn’t warm, though, and the salesman who was helping him looked positively venomous when he looked at her, “As I see it, I need a dozen.”

“No, you don’t, not if you wash out a pair every night.”

His gaze intensified and his words slowed. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because it’s—” She floundered. “It’s more efficient. You won’t have to take all those socks back in your suitcase. You won’t have to store all those extra socks at home. And if you’d buy matching socks, you could make up new pairs when one sock gets a hole in it.”