All I Want For Christmas

“But—”

“Do you think we should tell her now? That we’ve picked her for our mom, I mean. Do you think she’ll be excited? I am!”

That was obvious. Feeling as though the situation was rapidly getting out of hand, Pip tried to calm his sister, who was tugging eagerly at his hand again. “We can’t just tell her that, Kels. We have to have a plan.”

Since Kelsey had great respect for Pip’s plans—after all, hadn’t it been one of his plans that had brought them to this mall in search of parents?—she grew still and nodded gravely. “What plan?”

Darned if he knew. “Let’s just watch her for a minute,” he suggested in a conspiratorial murmur. “We want to be sure.”

That seemed reasonable to Kelsey. They pretended great interest in the dolls while they crept closer to the sales desk, where the woman had gone to ring up a sale for the pregnant woman.

“Ryan, do we have any more of the red-and-green-plaid wrapping paper?” a tall, red-haired woman behind the counter asked. “I can’t find any.”

The dark-haired saleslady turned to answer.

“Ryan,” Kelsey whispered. “Her name is Ryan. Isn’t that pretty?”

Pip had always considered that a boy’s name himself, but he kept quiet, continuing to watch the woman who so fascinated his sister.

“It’s been a madhouse today, hasn’t it?” the redhead was asking, pretending to wipe her brow with one hand. “Why do I have the feeling we’re going to be here very late tonight restocking and doing paperwork?”

“You don’t have to stay very late,” Ryan assured her. “I know Jack will be impatient for you to get home. I can handle most of it myself.”

The redhead made a face. “You will not. I told you I’d help you get through the Christmas season and I will. Jack will understand. It’s you I’m worried about. You’re going to be so busy during the next month that you’ll be lucky to have any social life at all.”

Ryan shrugged. “What social life? It’s not as if I’m dating anyone right now. Face it, Lynn, I’m a single in a doubles’ season. I might as well be working instead of sitting at home watching old Christmas movies on cable.”

Several customers approached the desk, their arms loaded with purchases. Both Ryan and the woman she’d called Lynn snapped to attention.

So she was a single lady. Could be a problem.

Pip took Kelsey’s hand, figuring they’d lingered in the doll shop as long as they could without attracting undue attention. “C’mon,” he murmured. “Let’s go.”

“But—”

“The plan,” he reminded her when she hesitated. “We have to work out the plan.”

She nodded and followed him out, with only one last, wistful look over her shoulder. Pip wasn’t sure whether it was directed at the doll or the woman named Ryan. Maybe both.

Sratching his head, he looked around the crowded mall, as if in search of inspiration. He spotted the sporting-goods store across the way.

“There’s the other shop Santa told us to visit,” he exclaimed. “Maybe we’ll get an idea while we’re in there.”

“Maybe that’s where we’ll find our dad,” Kelsey agreed.

Pip wasn’t so sure it would be that easy, but at least visiting the sporting-goods store would buy him some time to think.

During the past week, it had occurred to him that he and Kelsey could find the parents they’d been longing for at the mall—didn’t the advertisements all say that you could find anything at the mall? Teeming with shoppers, the mall seemed a good place to look around, pick out some likely looking prospects.

He hadn’t expected Kelsey to pick out a single lady. He’d sort of hoped for a set.

Kelsey was more interested in the store employees than in the merchandise so artfully displayed for Christmas browsers. She frowned.

“I don’t think I like that one,” she said, pointing to a scowling clerk behind the sales desk. The unpleasant-looking man was arguing with a customer about a return, and there was a vein throbbing in his skinny neck, as though he was really angry. “I don’t want him for my dad,” she stated flatly.

“Me, either,” Pip agreed, eyeing the shopkeeper’s soft-looking hands. Sissy hands. Probably never held a football in his life.

His attention was suddenly caught by someone who obviously knew exactly what to do with a football. He was standing ten feet from Pip and Kelsey, tossing a ball from one hand to another as though testing its feel.

He was a tall man who seemed to loom over the other customers, at least from Pip’s viewpoint. He had dark blond hair—rather like Pip’s own—and eyes that might have been blue or gray. Pip couldn’t tell which.

He had a dark tan—he was the outdoors type, apparently—and a strong chin. He was wearing a thick green sweater and very faded jeans, with what looked to Pip like real Western boots. His nose was just a little crooked, but Pip liked it.

As though sensing that someone was watching him, the man suddenly looked up. His gaze met Pip’s. He smiled.

Kelsey’s fingers tightened around Pip’s hand. Pip squeezed absently, staring at the man’s smile. Like his nose, it was a little crooked. But again Pip approved.

This, he thought, looked like a guy a kid wouldn’t mind having for a dad.

The man tossed the ball into the air again, catching it neatly. “Looks like a good one, doesn’t it?”

Pip nodded politely in response to the friendly question. “Yes, sir. That looks like a great ball.”

“Glad to know you agree. I think I’ll buy it.”

Pip watched as the man made his way across the store to the unfriendly salesclerk.

“Well?” Kelsey whispered.

“Yeah,” Pip murmured. “Maybe.”

When the man left the sporting-goods store they were right on his heels, trying their best to blend into the shopping crowd so he wouldn’t notice them. He went into a nearby ice-cream parlor, and Pip dug into his pocket for the ten-dollar bill.

“Want an ice-cream cone?” he asked Kelsey, who nodded eagerly.

A bubbly blond waitress and a more somber-looking older woman stood behind the counter. The man the children had been following headed straight for the blonde.

Pip placed his order with the other woman, watching the man out of the corner of his eye, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

The man was leaning on the counter, smiling that crooked smile at the blonde, who seemed to find it as appealing as Pip had.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, sounding to Pip a bit breathless.

“What do you recommend?” the man asked, leaning closer.

“How about a hot-fudge brownie supreme?” she suggested, batting her long eyelashes.

Pip thought she looked kind of goofy hanging all over the guy like that. Personally, he preferred the dark-haired woman in the doll shop to this one. He didn’t think he’d care for a mom who giggled and twirled her hair.