The Elf and the Ice Princess (2 page)

A startled,
handsome and utterly toasted face looked up from her lap.

She let out
her breath as Lora stifled a laugh into a snort. It probably had looked silly.
Practically slapstick between the spilling and the slipping. “Laugh. It’s
okay.” Somebody should.

The snort
became a guffaw.

With a
smile that felt more genuine than most, Carrie looked down at the instigator.
His wide blue eyes, framed by dark lashes, blinked up at her. His coal hair was
styled into disheveled spikes, and his graceful face, free of wrinkles or the
usual signs of worry, reminded her a bit of a kid in a man’s body. Not
innocent, exactly, but hopeful. Despite his obvious inebriation, it was
endearing. Just looking at him made the gloom a little lighter.

But
encouraging drunk strangers, no matter how cheerful or handsome they were, was
never a good idea. She turned to Lora and motioned at her sweater and the man
in her lap. “I hate Christmas.” To her pride, the words came out more snarky
than bitter.

The
elf—Brett, someone had called him—made a sound more like a giggle than a laugh.
“You hate Christmas?”

“Got a
problem with that, ye of the pointed ears?”

He still
hadn’t removed himself from her lap, so Carrie reached for his upper arm to
help him out. He caught her fingers and held them next to his chest.

“Dude—” she
started to protest, but the words dried up as his face went awestruck. As he
continued to stare, gaze darting across her face in fascinated approval, her
cheeks heated self-consciously. She was pretty enough, but not
that
pretty.

Then he
started talking.

“You have
skin the amber of dawn’s light on snow and eyes the green of early spring.”
Brett stood, his shoulders squaring and spine going straight, and she was
surprised by how tall he was—well over six feet of lean muscle even the silly
costume couldn’t hide. He cradled her hand in a strong but not forceful grip.

Carrie
couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her or not, but a drunk guy in an elf
suit was waxing poetic at her. She burst into laughter. It was exactly the kind
of what-the-effery she needed to break a foul mood.

He ran a
free hand over her cheek, and she batted him away, laughing harder. “Soft as
new fallen flakes.” Carrie had always been proud of her good complexion, but
“fallen flakes” was a new one. “And your laughter, the music of the forest.”

“Hey! Back
off!” Lora put a firm hand between them, pushing Brett back a few inches.

He glanced
at her, batting eyes in confusion. “Did I do something wrong?” He hiccupped and
sat on the bar stool beside them. “I’ve been drinking. I forget to behave when
I’m drinking. So I don’t normally drink. But I only told her she was pretty.”
He looked back at Carrie and shot her a goofy grin. “You don’t mind me telling
you how beautiful you are?”

He was a
drunk guy in a bar. Statistics said he was trying to score, and she wasn’t
interested in a hook-up. At least his tactics were original. She shouldn’t give
him the wrong idea by returning his grin, but one slipped through anyway. “No,
you’re fine.”

“Carrie,
hon, I know I told you to start dating again, but I was thinking lawyer, not
lunatic,” Lora said.

“Carrie…”
Brett muttered.

“Oh, man.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to tell him your name.”

Carrie
shook her head and grabbed napkins off the bar to try and sop up her blouse.
“It’s okay. I need to get going and see if I can salvage this.”

Brett stood
when she did, reminding her of movies set in a more polite day and age. Even if
he was swaying a little.  He put a hand out. “Wait. You have to let me get you
a new sweater. I ruined that one.”

He wanted
to see her again? She didn’t want to be mean, but that idea needed to be nipped
in the bud before Elf-man asked for her phone number. He looked pretty
determined, too, like he wouldn’t take a hint well. She should’ve stymied her
earlier smile.

“Where do you
work?” Lora cut in before she could decide what to say.

“Huh?” he
asked.

She picked
at the costume. “What do you do?”

“I’m an
elf!” He looked so proud of it. Carrie and Lora exchanged smirks.

“Yes. Where
at?” Lora continued.

“The mall!”

“Okay.
Sorry, not-so-little mall elf, but unless you know Santa personally, you and
your actor-wannabe job can’t afford her sweater. Got it?”

Carrie
cringed as Lora’s inner Mama Bear came roaring forth. “It’s cool. He’s fine.”

Her friend
gave her a withering frown. “No, I know you. You’ll be nice enough to
accidentally lead him on.” She turned to Shawn. “Close out our tab. We’ll take
it at the other end of the bar.”

As Lora
manhandled her down the row of seats, Carrie couldn’t help glancing back. Brett
slumped at the bar, looking confused. As if he sensed her watching him, he
looked up. His little smile and wave goodbye made her blush, partially from
embarrassment but mostly because she had the urge to go back and let him
compliment her some more. But that was silly.
He
was silly.

Reality wasn’t
elf-men spouting poetry in bars. It was a real man—a good, stable man—walking
out the door on the day she needed him the most.

If karma was
real—and Carrie doubted it, but if it was—this was what came back around for
letting her best friend be mean to a man in the unfortunate position of being
stuck with a mall job during the holidays. She stared at her editor with a
crazed expression that likely accentuated the dark eye circles and barely together look
of a morning hangover. She shouldn’t have invited Lora over last night for wine
and whining, but after the whackadoo day, she’d needed girl time. She shook her
head, trying to keep it slow enough to not bounce her brain around. “I’m not
reporting on that, no. I’m not. I can’t, I—”

“Carrie,
it’s a social event, not a guillotining. Eva’s on vacation until January. You
know that. I’m requesting, no
insisting
that you take her place.”

“I review
restaurants. I don’t do society events.”

Editor HardAss,
otherwise known as Beth when she wasn’t being a total bitch, shot her a
quelling glare. Carrie shut up.

One of the great
things about writing on the small staff of a local magazine was the opportunity
to work on a wide variety of things. One of the terrible things about working
on the small staff of a local magazine was the
necessity
of working on a wide
variety of things. Particularly when people used the holidays as an excuse to
foist their work onto other people.

Finally she
mustered, “I don’t have anything to wear.”

Editor HardAss’s
mouth twitched. “You’ve got a week. Get something.” Then she turned on her
Prada wedges and left, calling, “I expect a top-notch segment on the catering.”

“But—”

Her editor
slowly spun, and the ice in her gaze thawed a fraction. “I know, but I don’t
have anyone else to send. It was two years ago. You’re a tough-ass reporter.
Toughen up.”

Carrie held
her breath until her editor had rounded a corner, then gulped air like a
swimmer who’d been under too long. She glanced down at the information in her
hand. The annual benefit for Austin Arts was held in a different home—no, not
home,
mansion
—the Friday before each Christmas. The elite of central Texas came
to drink Dom, eat canapés, show off their latest gowns and feel proud of
themselves for dropping an average person’s weekly wages just to attend. And
that didn’t include the silent auction. Carrie hated these fetes, slinking
among people who, in her experience, smiled for the press, patronized artists and
ascribed the worst motivations to any other outsiders entering their elite
circle.

All of that
she could handle, though. What she couldn’t do was go to the home of software
genius Lincoln Bryant and his “charming” wife, Erica. Charming, hah. Erica had the
brains of a Dalmatian and the taste of a lemming.

But Lincoln, with
his platinum-blond hair, broad shoulders and chocolate-brown eyes, oh, Lincoln
was brilliant and charismatic and tragically weak willed from a lifetime of
wealth making everything easy. For two years now she’d avoided her ex—an easy
task, given their vastly different financial and social circumstances.

She opened
her file cabinet and with trembling fingers reached to the back for the cold
silver of a picture frame. Lora had helped her break every frame, burn every
photograph but these two. Carrie opened the hinge and saw Lincoln and herself,
beaming like cartoon characters from two photographs, one when they’d said
their vows and another when they’d cut their cake. She smoothed the pad of her
thumb down the happy faces. Beth knew this part, the marriage and the divorce,
but she didn’t know why.

They’d been
a glorious pair, Carrie and Lincoln Bryant, until they’d tried to be three. An
unsuccessful year of trying led to doctor visits, testing and more failure,
each barren month igniting fights and sucking the life from what they’d had.
But they’d soldiered on. Just over two years and an eternity of frustration
later, good news had saved their dissolving marriage.

That had been the
most joyous Thanksgiving of Carrie’s life. Another month passed of renewed
hope, of planning, renovating their home—now Erica’s house—painting the baby’s
room…

Christmas
Eve, the bleeding had started. By Christmas, they knew they’d lost the baby. By
New Year’s Day, Lincoln was gone, too, broken down by this final defeat after
three years of unfulfilled expectation.

Carrie
slapped the frame shut and tossed it roughly back into the desk. A shaky breath
escaped as the silver thudded dully against her files.

Well then,
Lincoln Bryant, one tough-ass reporter was coming home.

The mall was
packed with zombie shoppers humming to holiday music as they elbowed their way
through last-minute gift-hunting. No matter what the song proclaimed, this was
the most
horrible
time of the year in any commercial center. Carrie had been to
five stores already in her quest for an affordable dress that would make Erica
look like the unimaginative, status-grubbing whore that she was.

She’d met Erica
before the divorce; that was not pettiness speaking.

But she hadn’t
found
it
yet. At least not one she could pay for without going into debt for
the sake of her pride. A rare buzz of regret that she hadn’t accepted any of
Lincoln’s fortune dashed through her.

It had been
hard to turn down, her logic circuits pushing for her to take as much as she
could get. He’d been the one to walk, after all. But it was
his
money, from
family and from his software empire. Her freelance writing career, while
personally fulfilling, had brought in an income they’d made much good-natured
hilarity over. After the split, Lincoln had begged her to take a cushy
settlement, which, of course, had only made her dig in her heels. The ability
to throw cash at every problem had made Lincoln the way he was. Carrie had been
independent before him and had known she could be again without him. There was
no way she’d soothe his conscience by taking his money.

Of course, having
a few hundred extra bucks lying around did have its perks. Like now, when every
dress that came near the mark was well out of reach.

Carrie sat on a
bench near a plastic pine tree and slipped her feet out of winter-white boots
with soles worn too thin for marathon shopping. Where to go next?

A wail pierced
the air as a harried mother dragged her unwilling son toward the line creeping
to Santa. Carrie huffed an angry breath. Some people might carry on like her
holiday attitude was crazy, but it wasn’t just about her own bad memories. Here
was another example of how awful it really was, with this woman manhandling her
panicked child into a Santa extravaganza—“It’s all right. We can photoshop out
the tears and redness later!”—as she tried to live up to everyone’s
expectations of cookie-cutter seasonal bliss. Carrie would bet that woman
didn’t feel any happier than the wailing kid. She felt frantic and stressed and
secretly would be thrilled when the hullabaloo was over and life returned to
normal. Carrie was just one of the few people willing to admit it out loud.