The Elf and the Ice Princess (3 page)

She regretfully
began sticking her shoes back on—the dress quest must be vanquished,
despite the awful crowd—and noticed the boy had quit crying. Looking up, she
found the calm was due not to the usual candy or toy bribes but to an elf
animatedly telling a story.

She froze,
right foot only half in her boot. Not just any elf—the one who owed her a
sweater. That peppermint stain was
not
coming out.

Even in the same
goofy green and red getup, Brett looked more dignified than he had last night.
Probably due to not being schnockered. His story made the child laugh. The mom
tried to use the distraction to drag the kid into the queue, but he started
screaming again. It was a different sound, though, like he was in pain. How
hard was she squeezing his arm?

Brett held a restraining
hand out toward her without losing his merry grin. She ignored him, instead
getting in the kid’s face with one hand gripping his arm and the other waving
in harsh accusation. A little
too
harsh.

Discomfort
squeezed Carrie’s gut. There was nothing she could do. If yelling at your kid
in the mall was an offense, half the American population would be in prison,
and she couldn’t call 911 on a bad feeling. Maybe she was overreacting, but
reality showed time and again that people who didn’t want or didn’t deserve
kids had no trouble whatsoever popping them out.

Unlike her.
Reality was violently unfair—sometimes in all-too-literal ways.

The set of
Brett’s jaw said he was getting a similar vibe from the situation. That must be
awful to observe and be powerless. She wondered how often he had to see this
kind of thing. Her elf-man seemed to give a damn about the kid’s welfare, but
he was in the wrong line of work for someone with feelings.

The mother
stood, and the child’s cries grew more frantic. Brett stepped into her path and
caught her gaze. She stopped, looking irritated. Then stilled. Brett’s
presence, the way he held himself upright and firm but still relaxed, radiated
strength. His eyes hardened and shined, and though the smile never lessened, there
was an authority to it that was less “slacker with a mall job” and
more…President of the United States. It was incongruous with the setting and
costume, almost Twilight Zone.

Though Carrie
couldn’t hear what he was saying, she had a sense that she, like that mother,
might agree to whatever was being demanded. Apparently Brett was a Christmas
elf with chutzpah.

Sure enough, the
woman kneeled down to eye level with her son and ran a shaking hand through his
hair, like she was apologizing. The kid immediately calmed down. Even cracked a
smile. When he pointed away from Santa, fear filling his eyes as he looked at
his own mother, the woman nodded her head, took his hand and they started away.

Carrie gaped at
them, wondering. The change was superficial—it had to be; a guy at the mall
didn’t alter lives with a few words and a firm stare. But despite knowing that
logically, the way the woman’s fingers entwined with her son’s and her stride
slowed so his little legs could keep up felt like more.

Admiration warmed
Carrie’s skin. Was she biting her lip? Embarrassed, she released her lower lip
from between her teeth and buried the unwanted interest. She was not attracted
to a friggin’ mall elf. Was she? Then why couldn’t she take her eyes off of
him?

A blush still
rode high on her cheeks when he looked up. Their eye contact was brief before
Brett turned to watch the mother and son go, but the recognition was clear.

Crap
. Carrie had
to get out of there. She was, indeed, attracted to a mall elf, and that was not
okay. Not because of his job, but because he was a man, and she was not doing
this again. She didn’t do Christmas or any other winter holiday, and she didn’t
do love or any other form of relationship. All of it was pointless hokum that
got people’s hopes up for nothing. Or at least they were for her. Other people
could do as they pleased.

She began
gathering her packages. Despite the lack of a dress, Festivus shopping had been
plentiful. A bag tipped, spilling the package of Legos she’d picked up for her
nephew. She lunged forward to fix that, tripped on her shoe—which still wasn’t
on right—and stepped on her purse.

Her phone!

She jerked her
foot up to keep from breaking it and tumbled backward.

Solid arms
caught her before she landed rump-first on the tile. “Huh,” Brett said. “I
think I like catching you even better than being caught.”

B
rett’s voice was
bemused and friendly-like, all traces of his earlier alpha display gone. He
cradled her easily, as if she didn’t weigh a thing. Amusement fit naturally on
his face, as if joy was the default expression.

Carrie tensed,
even as the kindness in his demeanor and confidence in his smile soothed her.
It was an awfully nice smile. He smelled of winter, snow and pine, clean and
distinct but not overpowering. She couldn’t remember a cologne like it.

“It’s okay,” he
reassured. “I gotcha.” He steadied her on her feet and slowly, reluctantly it
seemed, let her go.

Carrie forced a
smile as unwelcome butterflies toured her insides. “Thanks. I appreciate the
catch.”

“It was the
least I could do.”

She shook
her head, chagrinned. “After my friend and I were so rude yesterday? You
could’ve laughed while I landed on my ass.
That’s
the least you could do.”

He grinned
sheepishly and cocked his head, the bells on his hat jingling with the motion. 
“If I remember correctly, I spilled a drink all over you and then fell into
your lap. I don’t consider myself the offended party here.”

The sweater
was disappointing, but his stumble into her lap had brightened up a bleak
evening. If she said that, though, he might ask about her bad day, and that would lead
to a personal conversation. Instead she waved the whole thing off. “Don’t worry
about it. We’re even.”

Past Brett, the
crowded North Pole display loomed large and bright. With overeager glee,
several men and women dressed like him entertained parents and children queued
up to enter a cave of Styrofoam snow, plastic trees and enough twinkle lights
to power a small town. Animatronic reindeer lifted and lowered their heads to
the beat of “Jingle Bell Rock,” and a toddler-sized red and green train blasted
its mini-horn as it chugged into view, carrying the smaller set of Santa’s
visitors.

“So…you
really are an elf.” It was one thing to be in college making a paycheck, but
Brett, whose nametag said “Toymaker General,” looked more like he was in his
early thirties, just a few years older than her. Carrie tried not to let her
face display any disdain; God knew she’d taken a few gigs well beneath her
while getting back on her feet after the divorce.

Plus she was
going to hell-house next weekend and hadn’t found a dress yet. All the good
karma she could earn was desperately needed. This time she’d be nice to the
elf-man, and Lora wasn’t there to stop her.

“Indeed I
am. And I’m glad you’re here. This way.” He scooped up her packages in one arm,
grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the snowy monstrosity, a frightening
twinkle in his eye.

Nice had
its limits. “Wait! I didn’t come to see—”

The
mini-train blasted, cutting her off. Brett practically pranced back to the hill
with her in tow, her packages held hostage for her compliance. Where was he taking
her? She should dig her heels in and demand her stuff back, and yet her feet
were following after him.

They hit the
crowd of families, and he yelled, “Emergency elf business! Coming through!” The
children squealed in delight as he danced her through a sea of them, saying,
“’Scuse me! ’Scuse me!” and “’Scuse
me
, ma’am!” when he bumped into a family
whose muscles bespoke extreme devotion to the CrossFit way.

The family
laughed, and he jingled his cap bells at them.

Carrie tried to
shrink to as small as her curvy 5’9” frame would allow, but she was being
dragged by the tallest elf of the bunch, and he was making
such
a racket. Her
bad karma hadn’t let up. Her cheeks burned as she prayed nobody she’d ever met
in her entire life was anywhere near the mall.

The closest
way out of the spotlight was into the hill, so she let him pull her inside.
Instead of heading for Santa—thank God—he took her through a side door into a
tiny break-room.

Carrie rounded on
him as he set her packages down on the coffee stand. “What the hell are you
doing?” She jerked her hand from his grip and looked around the unoccupied
space. Even the employee area was not free of “the spirit,” with its bedecked
pink tree and posters of Christmas movies.

He cocked
his head yet again, pondering her as if her anger confounded him. “We were
cutting. I didn’t want them to get upset.”

“We weren’t
cutting. I’m not going to see Santa.”

“They don’t
know that. Besides, it made the kids happy, so why not?” He dismissed her glare
with another goofy grin and shrug of his shoulders. From under the break room
tree, he retrieved a beautifully wrapped package. He shook it, listening, then
thrust it at her.

“What’s
that?”

“Open it.”

Her glare
softened to a frown as she shook her hands at him. “It’s okay. You don’t have
to…” do whatever it was he was doing. Had he gotten her a present? Why?

He continued
holding the box at her. With a startled kick to the gut, she realized it was
wrapped in the same dancing Christmas cats paper her mother had used for
“Santa’s” presents when she was a kid. Where on earth had he found that?

Her mom had
wrapped a few gifts that way every year, tagged from Santa, even after all the
kids in the family knew the truth, even after Carrie was old enough and
teenaged enough to tease her mother about being silly. The year they quit
printing the pattern, Carrie’s sophomore year of high school, her mom had
sighed with regret and given up the tradition, admitting there was no point
anymore when nobody believed in Santa Claus. But despite pretending she was too
cool for such things, Carrie had missed it. No more presents from Santa.

And somehow, here
those silly cats were again, grinning maniacally at her as they cha-cha-ed
across the box. It was absolutely ridiculous paper. Still, she couldn’t help
running a finger along the package as nostalgia for a more innocent Christmas
welled inside her.

A green bow
took up almost a quarter of Brett’s package with gold netting and pine cones
stuck into it, far more extravagant than her mother’s usual plain wrap. He
couldn’t possibly know, but the coincidence was staggering.

She looked into
his eyes, willing him to offer her a serious answer. “Why are you giving me a
present?”

His eyes
stayed wide, guileless, as his shoulders shrugged lightly. “Because I owe it to
you.”

“Is this
about the sweater? We were in a bar, and accidents happen. It’s okay. And why
would you buy me something on the off-chance that I might
happen
to come to
this particular shopping mall, and you might
happen
to see me?”

He smiled,
a little of that smug confidence coming back into his nearly indigo eyes and
the curl of his lips. Once again she felt it in her gut, a twist of gravitation
toward his unexpected pull. “I had a feeling it would work out,” he said
simply. He shook the gift at her. “Take it.”

Curiosity
beat good sense. She sat in a metal folding chair and carefully pulled off the
bow, trying to preserve it as best she could. Then she slit the tape on either
side. She didn’t really want whatever was inside, but she wanted the paper.
She’d wrap her mother’s present in it this year, which would mean far more to the
woman than the jewelry set inside.

Carrie wasn’t
sure exactly how she was going to do that, return the present to Brett yet keep
the wrapping. But she’d figure it out. Maybe she should just ask where he found
it.

Before she could,
Brett snorted. “You’re one of those.”

“Huh?” She
ran a hand under the tape on the back, carefully slitting that, too.

“Do you
trash it after you neatly fold it? I always marvel at people who go through the
trouble of carefully unwrapping so they can wad up and throw away the paper.
Why not just rip it up? That’s part of the fun.”

“I…” She
flushed. Even without the incentive of her mother’s delight, Carrie had always
meticulously unwrapped her packages. “I’m going to reuse it.” She cleared her
throat, unwilling to tell such a personal story to a stranger. “Better for the
environment and all.” The box inside was unmarked.

“How
conscientious of you.”

She
couldn’t tell if his voice was mocking or not, but it didn’t matter. Smiling
with an anticipation she couldn’t stop and hadn’t felt in years, she pulled the
top off the box.