Millionaire's Christmas Miracle

There wasn’t anything he couldn’t live without until tomorrow, but he should probably call her anyway. “Do you have a phone number for Mrs. Blake?”

“Oh, no sir. That’d be in personnel and I don’t have any access to that. But she’ll bring it in, and they’ll put it in the safe. Just ask at the front desk and they’ll tell you where to go.”

He wouldn’t have to see her again. He should be relieved by that, but instead he found himself muttering, “Thanks, that’s great,” hanging up and motioning to the bartender to refill his drink. He didn’t have a clue why he felt vaguely let down and restless. He’d put another drink on his tab, then he’d go up and work.

“MAMA,” the child’s voice, edged with a whine, said, getting Amy’s attention immediately. She was on her feet, hurrying into the bedroom where she found Taylor in her crib, standing, arms out to be picked up.

Amy scooped up the child and cuddled her to her chest as she walked back out into the living room of the tiny apartment. She avoided the only mirror in the room, a small square over the desk by the door. She didn’t need to see herself to know she looked like death warmed over. No makeup, her hair in a ponytail and dark circles under her eyes from being up half the night with a sick child. That night after her fiasco with Quint had been followed by a day of waiting in the pediatrician’s office, picking up medicine and trying to comfort Taylor.

“She’s fine, Mrs. Blake, just teething and a bit of a cold, but nothing serious,” the doctor had told her, a doctor who had been through this before with the two of them.

When Taylor got sick, Amy overreacted and she knew it. She sank down in the old rocking chair, felt Taylor snuggle in with her, and she rested her head on the back of the chair. As she closed her eyes, she caught a red flash out of the corner of her eye and turned to see the message light blinking on the answering machine.

She hadn’t even thought to check messages today. She maneuvered Taylor to her other arm and reached to press the Play button.

“Amy, it’s Jenn.” Jenn, Rob’s sister, was the only relative she or Taylor had, and Jenn worried about the two of them. “Thanks for letting me know what the doctor said. If you two aren’t up for Christmas tomorrow, we can postpone. Tay-bug won’t know the difference if we put it off for a day or two until she feels better. I’ll call or drop by later to check on you two. Love you both.” There was a beep, then a date/ time stamp that showed the message had been left almost four hours ago. Another message started.

“This is Quint Gallagher.” She must have started at the sound of that deep drawling voice, because Taylor whimpered slightly, then resettled in her arms.

“I was told you had my wallet and would be bringing it back to LynTech today, but I haven’t been able to track you down or find my wallet. Could you call and let me know what’s going on?” He left a number and an extension that she knew was on the top floor in the executive suites. “I’ve got a dinner appointment, and I’d appreciate a call before five. If not, call this number.” He gave another number, then there was a hesitation before he ended with, “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

The beep came, then a date/time stamp and she looked at the wall clock by the tiny kitchen alcove. Six o’clock now and he’d called about two hours ago. She should have checked the messages, but she seldom got any that were important. And she hadn’t called LynTech because this was normally vacation and anyone she might have talked to, was gone. The wallet was in the bottom of her purse and she hadn’t even thought about it.

She kept rocking, then knew that she had to try and contact Quint. She eased Taylor more onto her right arm, grabbed the phone with her left hand and caught the receiver between her ear and shoulder. Awkwardly, she dialed the company number, then the extension, but it clicked over, said that the person hadn’t set up a voice mail system yet, then it clicked off. She hung up, dialed the second number and it rang at the same time as her doorbell sounded.

“Great,” she muttered, trying to get to her feet, balance a now-sleeping Taylor on one arm and the phone with the other hand. “Just a minute,” she called out, wishing that Jenn would just use her key. “I’ll be right there,” she called again, as she crossed to the couch and gently put Taylor on it. The baby rolled onto her side and pulled her knees up to her tummy, then Amy reached for a juice bottle she’d put there earlier and gave it to her. Taylor held it, but didn’t drink it as she settled back into sleep.

The phone at her ear rang one more time, then was answered. “Gallagher.”

She hesitated with her hand on the coldness of the doorknob and had to swallow once to find her voice. “This is Amy Blake,” she began and tugged back the door.

“So it is,” Quint said, over the phone, but he was right in front of her in her doorway. Dressed in a dark blue business suit that set off his tanned skin and graying hair, he had a cell phone pressed to his ear and that shadow of a smile playing around his lips.

Startled, she lost her grip on her phone and it fell to the floor between them.

Chapter Four

Quint knew he was staring, that Amy was flustered as she scrambled to get the phone she had dropped. Then she was standing with it in her hand, and he didn’t move. He just took in the scene in front of him.

Amy looked for all the world like a teenager in an oversize gray sweatshirt with long sleeves that almost covered her hands. Her jeans were worn, her hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail, exposing freckles that he’d never even noticed the night before. She wasn’t wearing a hint of makeup, her dark eyes were shadowed, as if she was very tired, but that only emphasized the translucence of her skin and a type of beauty that didn’t owe a thing to artifice.

He lifted his phone slightly as he closed the front on it. “I guess I don’t need this anymore.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice breathless and low.

He slipped his phone in his jacket pocket, not about to tell her he didn’t have a clue why he’d finally driven here instead of sending a messenger or letting it go until she phoned him back. Wrong thing to do, he could admit now. If she’d been provocative the night before in her ruined dress and with the mistletoe overhead, she was downright disturbing right now. “My wallet?” he finally said.

The color in her face deepened, making the freckles stand out even more. Her tongue touched her lips quickly. “Oh, yeah, sure,” she muttered. “Shoot, I forgot. Let me get it for you.”

She turned and went back into the apartment, and he hesitated, then followed her. As Amy crossed the room, grabbing at toys and discarded clothes, gathering them in her arms on the way, he glanced around.

The inside was a lot more “homey” than the outside of the building. He’d circled the block twice before parking in front of a series of apartment buildings in a low-rent section of the city, buildings from the sixties, three stories, with flat roofs and not much landscaping except for a few shrubs here and there and narrow strips of what should have been green grass, but was just brown. The whole place had seemed depressing, old, poorly kept and reeking of disinterest, with just a few Christmas touches in sight.

But in here, despite the clutter, the tiny size and obvious lack of luxury, it seemed invitingly warm. Odd, unmatched furniture crowded the space, along with a stack of laundry on a side chair, a TV on top of a low bookshelf, and a small Christmas tree decorated with popcorn garlands and colored paper chains sitting in front of a window covered by shades. It had an angel at the top.

“Excuse the mess,” she was muttering as she dropped the things in her arms in a pile on the floor by the Christmas tree, then went into what looked like a kitchen alcove ahead and on the left. “I meant to bring the wallet to work today, but I didn’t go, and I just totally forgot about it,” she said disappearing from sight.

It was then that he noticed the child curled up in a ball on the sofa to the left. She was a tiny thing for a two-year-old, in pink sleepers lying with her back to him. Wisps of feathery dark hair were damp and clinging to her flushed skin. “She’s sick?” he asked.

“Teething and a bit of a cold,” Amy called from the kitchen. She appeared with a purse in her hands, setting it on a half wall between the kitchen and living area. She waved a hand at him as she opened the purse and started to rummage inside. “Sit down if you’d like,” she said as she went through her purse.

He looked at an overstuffed chair that faced the couch, alongside a wooden rocking chair. The upholstered chair was filled with what looked like clean laundry, so he crossed to the rocking chair, sat down and looked back at Amy, who was literally turning her purse upside down to let the contents fall on the divider. “It’s here,” she muttered. “I remember seeing it.”

He glanced from her to the child. “Is she why you didn’t come into work today?”

“Pretty much,” she muttered, then turned with his wallet in her hand. “Success,” she said and crossed to hand it to him.

“Thanks for finding it,” he said as he took it.

She stood over him, tucking a strand of hair that had worked its way out of her ponytail behind her ear. “Sure, no problem.” She glanced at the child, then back at him. “Go ahead,” she said, motioning to his wallet. “Look in it. Everything’s there, including the money.”