It Must Be Christmas Read online

  “—and you’re better off without him.”

  “But not without the MacGuffin!”

  “I’m working on that.” Trudy looked around the last toy store in town. How the hell am I going to get this year’s MacGuffin? “I’ll get it, Court.”

  “And two toxic wastes,” Courtney said, gulping.

  “Two toxic wastes. Got it.” Maybe if she just stuck the toxic-waste packets in the MacGuffin box, Leroy wouldn’t notice the doll didn’t actually spit it.

  “And wrapping paper,” Courtney said, sounding less frantic.

  “Right.” Trudy grabbed a package of red-and-white paper off the rack that came before the checkout counter and snagged a roll of Scotch tape while she was at it. “Got it. I gotta go. Go do something besides drink.”

  “This year’s MacGuffin,” Courtney said.

  “Your gingerbread is burning,” Trudy said, and clicked off the phone.

  “Trouble at home?” Nolan said, sounding sympathetic.

  “Absolutely not. Everything is fine.”

  He reached past her, nudging her gently with his shoulder as he pulled two bright green foil packages off the counter rack. “You’ll need these.”

  He dropped them on top of the MacGuffin box and she saw the words Toxic Waste! emblazoned on them in neon red.

  “Thank you,” she said, and then the woman in the bobble cap picked up her bags and left, and Trudy dumped everything onto the counter.

  The cashier looked at the MacGuffin box with something approaching awe. “Where’d you find this?”

  “On a shelf behind some other boxes,” Trudy said for what she sincerely hoped was the last time.

  “Man, did you ever get lucky,” the cashier said, and began to ring it up.

  “That’s me,” Trudy said, trying to forget that Nolan was about to leave her again, that the wrong MacGuffin was in front of her, and that Madonna was still lisping about greed overhead. “Nothing but luck, twenty-four-seven.”

  “A thousand,” Nolan said from behind her when she’d handed over her credit card and seen the MacGuffin go in one shopping bag and the Twinkletoes in another. “Come on; that’s a damn good offer.”

  “No,” Trudy said, picked up her bags, and left.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Trudy stood on the street corner, juggling her three shopping bags and signaling awkwardly for a cab. There was one around the corner that was stubbornly off duty, and every other one that went by had people in the backseat. They were probably just circling the block to annoy her. She shifted the bags again, her feet aching as the cold from the concrete permeated the thin soles of her boots, trying to think of a way to get a Mac Two short of breaking into Evil Nemesis Brandon’s house and stealing his.

  It started to snow.

  If I had some matches, I could strike them all and bask in the glow, Trudy thought, and then a cab pulled up in front of her and Reese opened the door.

  “I got a lead on this year’s MacGuffins,” he said as he got out to stand in front of her. “Get in and we’ll go get them.”

  Trudy gaped at him. “You’re kidding.”

  “No. I know this guy.”

  Trudy frowned at him in disbelief. “You know this guy. I’ve been to every toy store in town, but you know this guy.”

  “Not a toy store. A warehouse.”

  “A warehouse. No, thank you.” Trudy reached around him to signal for another cab, which passed her by, its tires crunching in the snow. She craned her neck to see around the corner, but the cab that had been there was gone. The streets were emptying out, stores starting to close. I am so screwed, she thought.

  “Oh, come on.” Reese held the cab door open for her and gestured her in. “This guy called around and found out about this warehouse where they got a shipment in, but the delivery people didn’t come back for them. He says there are dozens of them there.” Reese smiled at her, surfer cute. “So the warehouse guys are selling them out the back door. We’re gonna pay through the nose, but hey, they’ve got Mac Twos.”

  Trudy put her hand down and tried to be practical—getting in a cab and going to a warehouse with a virtual stranger would be stupid even if he had been her father’s research assistant—but the snow was falling faster, and the bags weren’t getting any lighter, and the stores were closing, and Leroy still didn’t have a MacGuffin. “My feet hurt.”

  Reese gestured to the cab again. “Sit.”

  Trudy sat down sideways on the backseat with her feet on the curb, balancing her three bags on her lap. “A warehouse.”

  “With a big shipment of Mac Twos.” Reese looked down at her, his patience obviously wearing thin. “And I’m betting we’re not the only ones who know about it, so we should get a move on.”

  Trudy put her forehead on her bags. The cab radio was playing some cheerful rap lite that Trudy liked until she heard the singer say, “Santa Baby.”

  Reese stepped closer, looming over her. “Scoot over so I can get in.”

  Trudy lifted her head. “For all I know you’re a rapist and a murderer.”

  “Hey.” Reese sounded wounded although he looked as clueless as ever.

  “It’s nothing personal. Ted Bundy was a very attractive man.”

  “Oh, come on. I worked for your dad. You’re in a cab. You can tell the driver to wait while we go inside.”

  A Mac Two. It was too good to be true. Much like Reese the surfer boy hitting on an older college librarian was too good to be true. And he had a cab, too. It strained belief, something she was pretty weak in to begin with. “How did you get a cab?”

  “I held out my hand and it pulled up.” Reese sounded exasperated. “Look, if you don’t want to go, I do. In or out.”

  “Oh, just hell,” Trudy said.

  Reese shook his head and went around to the street side of the cab and got in. “Make up your mind, Trudy,” he said from behind her as he closed his door. “It’s Christmas Eve and it’s getting later every minute.”

  Okay, he’d worked with her dad, and Nolan seemed to know him from the department, and he was probably not a psychotic killer, and he said he knew where there were Mac Twos. Did she really have a choice?

  She put one foot into the cab, dragging her packages with her, keeping the other foot on the curb.

  “So this warehouse,” she began, and then stopped, getting a good look at the inside of the cab. It was festooned with LED Christmas lights blinking red and green in time to the music, the song’s refrain whispering, “Gimme, gimme, gimme, Santa Baby.” She saw Reese look up at the ceiling and followed his eyes to a shriveled piece of mistletoe safety-pinned to the sagging fabric. “My God.”

  “Mistletoe,” Reese said.

  “Pretty limp,” Trudy said, squinting at it.

  “I’m not.”

  “I have Mace.”

  He ducked his head and kissed her, bumping her nose, and it was nice, being kissed in a warm cab by a younger man, even if there was snow drifting in through the open door and the foot she still had on the curb was freezing. Gimme, gimme, gimme, Trudy thought, and wished he were Nolan.

  Reese pulled back a little. “Thank you for not Macing me.”

  “I was thinking about it,” Trudy said, and he kissed her again, putting his arms around her and pulling her close, and this time she kissed him back, because it was Christmas Eve and he might be getting her a Mac II. And because he was a pretty good kisser even if he wasn’t Nolan, who was a grave disappointment anyway.

  Then Nolan leaned into the cab and scared the hell out of her.

  “So, where are we going?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Where did you come from?” she said, her heart hammering.

  “Looking for a cab.” Nolan smiled at her. “Can’t find one.” He nudged the leg she had stretched out to the curb. “Can I share yours?”

  “No,” Reese said, evidently not planning on taking any classes from Nolan in the future.

  “It’s polite to share a cab on Christmas