Every Little Kiss (6 page)

C
asey trotted down Main Street, past cheery wreaths and evergreen roping along light posts, while carols played from speakers outside shop windows. She clutched her shopping bag, trying to enjoy the fact that it was Christmas and lights were twinkling and snowflakes were falling, but frustration weighted her. She'd just spent her lunch hour rushing from store to store, trying to find the perfect holiday gift for Audrey, but all she'd managed to secure was an eggnog-scented candle.

It was worse than lame. It was
terrible
.

Casey puffed up the street toward Robot Lit, feeling like she had no idea what to get her sister anymore. Audrey had everything—a great career, a wonderful husband, a happy home. What could she possibly need from Casey?

In the past, Casey had felt she always knew what to get her sibling. Maybe because she'd been fooling herself into thinking she always knew what Audrey needed. That she knew best. She grimaced. This year, she was lost.

She took a deep breath and told herself maybe this wasn't such a flop. It meant she was approaching things differently, and wasn't that a good thing? She needed to keep trying was all. She'd go online tonight and see if she couldn't find something on one of those cute crafter sites where everything was handmade.

She climbed the stairs to her Robot Lit office, grateful to be warm again, and decided the eggnog candle could go to this afternoon's white elephant party.

A white elephant was an entirely new concept for Casey, but she'd adored it from the second Ingrid explained it the week before. The idea of giving silly gifts to your co-workers in a game-like atmosphere had her laughing to herself as she hung up her coat and got to work wrapping the candle and a Chia Pet in the shape of Elmer Fudd.

Outside her office, she could hear the giggles of the Robot Lit kids. They were hanging out in the great room, the wide space with tables and couches and books where the tutoring took place. Robot Lit had invited whatever kids and volunteers were around that day to participate in the white elephant, making sure to bring extra gifts so everyone had a chance to go home with something.

Pulling a lid off a nearby box, Casey sifted through it, looking for the perfect bow for her Chia Pet and eggnog candle packages. There were hundreds to choose from, and this wasn't even half of it. Casey had been frugal all her life about most things, but when it came to holiday wrapping, she was excessive to a degree that might put the North Pole on notice. In her new home, she'd filled two closets with wrapping supplies, and she had another big plastic bin full of odds and ends she had yet to organize.

That very morning she'd brought in several of her supplies so her colleagues could help themselves to whatever they needed. It had become an impromptu wrapping station of sorts in the great room. Ingrid had asked whether they could keep the station going for a couple more weeks, so they could wrap thank-you gifts for the tutors and interns and even a couple packages for the neediest of their kids. Casey had happily agreed.

Exiting her office, she walked through the warehouse's high-ceilinged hallway toward the great room, where she joined Rolf. He was helping a nine-year-old girl with stick-straight brown hair put massive amounts of tape on a red-and-gold package.

“You guys are going to seal that up better than King Tut's tomb,” Casey said.

“As I recall, the archaeologists got in pretty easily,” Rolf replied, smiling as he pushed his stylish tortoiseshell glasses farther up his nose.

“There's a curse on everybody who dug up King Tut,” the little girl said, covering the wrapping paper with more tape. “They all died.”

“All of them?” Rolf asked.

The girl nodded. “Yep. They got snake bites and some of them drowned. One even fell off an elephant.”

“That's not true.” This was from a pale kid sitting nearby, around the same age. His cheekbones were sharp and his right hand was a claw around a pen—he looked to be scribbling intensely in a journal.

Rolf turned to the boy. “Carter, tell us what you know.” He addressed him like an adult, an equal.

“Curses weren't found in King Tut's tomb. Not on the walls or anything, I mean. And most of the people who dug up King Tut lived a long time. One of them died right after, Lord Something or other, but it was because of an infected mosquito bite. Not a stupid curse.”

“The curse isn't stupid,” the girl shot back, “it's real.”

Carter glared at her. His gray eyes were flinty with intensity.

“You know, you guys,” Rolf said calmly, “I bet we have a book on King Tut around here somewhere. How about we find it and read it after the white elephant? We can see if the curse is true.”

Carter shrugged. “Whatever.”

The girl grinned. “Awesome.”

Casey marveled at Rolf's easy way with the kids. He was the head of programming, but more often than not you could find him in the great room during their normal tutoring hours—two o'clock to six o'clock every day—just hanging out. Some kids came by for homework help, others came for workshops on storytelling and writing. Some, like Carter, just used the time to put down their thoughts and stories in a journal. The goal of Robot Lit was to foster reading and get kids excited about writing. “Stories change lives,” was the motto in the organization's charter. And “Teaching machines to read,” was the unofficial adage that the founders had developed years ago. They'd fostered the idea that reading and writing were so important that robots deserved the chance to do it, too, just like humans. So when kids walked in, it looked less like a tutoring center and more like a scientific workshop where the hardest job was to teach robots to read. Kids were easy by comparison.

To that end, there were drawings of robots everywhere, as well as robot “parts” and robot manuals that the staff had written. The walls were painted bright colors with stencils of gears and lights and electronics. The whole point of the unofficial motto and the name was to ensure kids didn't feel like they were hanging out in an intimidating adult space where they didn't belong. Or someplace where they felt stupid because they needed tutoring, or help with homework. “Our work is serious, but that doesn't mean we have to be,” Ingrid had said during one of Casey's interviews. The statement made Casey want to work there immediately.
This is just the place I need
, she thought, inwardly doing cartwheels when Ingrid had offered her the job a few days later. Casey had accepted on the spot. And even though she'd been here only a few weeks, she already felt like the nonprofit was home.

Now, with a table full of white elephant presents nearby, plus holiday music playing and a tippy jack pine in the corner draped with an odd assortment of tinsel and robot parts, Casey couldn't imagine being anywhere else at this exact moment.

“What's that grin about?” Ingrid asked, sliding into the chair next to her. She pulled the number-two pencil from behind her ear and gnawed on the tip—her habit since quitting smoking just a few months earlier. Casey smiled bigger, thinking of the package of pencils she'd gotten her boss, already wrapped and waiting in Casey's office.

“Just thinking about how great this place is. How lucky I am to be here.”

The lines around Ingrid's eyes crinkled. She was older than Casey by at least a few years. Her daughter, Heidi, was a handful of a ten-year-old, but even so, there were often days when Ingrid's energy outpaced Casey's by half.

“That's quite a statement, considering you were trapped in our elevator earlier in the week.”

“Will everyone please stop reminding me of that already? It's all you people want to talk about.”

Ingrid grinned. “Well, you were in there with Abe Cameron, Robot Lit alumnus and supporter, and hunky White Pine firefighter.”

Casey pushed away the memory of being close to him, of her frame fitting against his in the dark elevator. “You keep acting like you want there to be something between us. Look, he's a nice guy. Perfectly fine. But not for me.”

“You can't possibly know that after a few minutes in an elevator, can you?”

It was more like she'd discovered it in the minutes before and after the elevator incident. In the elevator itself, Abe had been…wonderful, really.

“You saw the way he marched off when it was all over. He wants nothing to do with me. And, I'm sorry to say, I feel the same way about him.”

“Because you know him so well after twenty minutes,” Ingrid said dryly.

“Are you pushing him on me because he's a donor and you want me to get another gift from him?” she said, waggling her eyebrows.

Ingrid's eyes widened. “What? No. I just know what I saw between you guys the other day. It was a little bit magical.”

Casey scoffed. “In that case, let's just say Abe is the Easter Bunny and I go for more of a Santa type.”

Ingrid's pale blue eyes grew suddenly wide.

“What?” Casey asked. “What is it?”

Ingrid could barely swallow back laughter. “I think you'd better get out your basket and some Peeps, then,” she said in a low, conspiratorial voice. “The Easter Bunny's here, and I think he's looking for your candy.”

Casey stared past Ingrid, disbelieving, as Abe Cameron walked into the great room carrying a poinsettia in his massive hands. Instead of his fireman's uniform, he was wearing dark jeans and a dark wool coat that stood in stark contrast to his golden blond hair. Around his neck was a brick-red scarf she swore might be cashmere, and on it was a small American flag pin that glinted in the light. A lovely detail, actually.

His hazel eyes locked on hers immediately. Purposefully.

Casey was frozen in his stare. When she didn't move, Ingrid stood. “Hi, Abe. Good to see you out of uniform. I take it this means we don't have another carbon monoxide emergency?”

Abe's mouth twitched. “Not today. No elevator emergencies, either.”

“Then you came to have
Goodnight Moon
read to you?”

This time Abe smiled fully. It was like someone flipped on stadium lights in Casey's insides. “I'm a
Cat in the Hat
man myself. Old-school all the way. I was actually wondering if I might have a word with Casey?”

“Sure, of course.” Ingrid fixed her with a pointed look. “Why don't you guys go into my office? It'll be a little farther away from the white elephant madness that's about to start.”

“Oh, I really can't,” Casey replied. “I said I'd be here for the gift exchange, and the wrapping station needs manning.…” She trailed off, knowing she sounded ridiculous.

“Rolf and I have it all under control,” Ingrid said. She practically hauled Casey to her feet. “Go on. It's all good.”

Casey could feel her palms sweating as she and Abe walked toward Ingrid's corner office. Being this near him again brought back a rush of memories from the elevator. She glanced at his hands, wrapped around the base of the poinsettia, and recalled the warmth of his skin as he held her close.

“This is for you,” Abe said, as if he'd caught her look. He handed her the poinsettia when they were in Ingrid's office. The flowers were bright crimson, and the pot was covered in shiny green foil wrapped with a plaid bow. “Don't eat the leaves, though. I hear they're poisonous.”

Casey blinked. Had Abe Cameron just made a
joke
?

“That's too bad,” she said, setting the plant on Ingrid's desk, “because I love the taste. Mom used to bake poinsettia bread on Christmas morning.”

“My grandma had a recipe for poinsettia pudding. She spooned it past her dentures every year until it killed her.”

Casey laughed—big and loud. The sound surprised her.

“It's too bad I couldn't get you to laugh like that in the elevator. We could have had a lot more fun.”

Was it her imagination, or was there a playful glint in his eye? She felt a rush of excitement.

“You were amazing in that elevator. I would have freaked out without you.”

“I feel badly. You wouldn't have even
been
in there if it wasn't for me.” He stepped closer. Casey could see the gnarled bridge of his nose, mysterious and sexy at the same time. What had happened there? She noted that his coffee-colored lashes were thick like his hair.

“Is that why you came by with a potted plant? To tell me the elevator was all a big mistake?”

She asked the question teasingly, even though deep down there was part of her that didn't want Abe to say any such thing. In fact, she wanted him to say the opposite—that he'd been replaying their time together in the elevator over and over, same as Casey had.

“I don't make mistakes,” Abe said. “I make calculations, and then I correct them when needed.”

Was he joking again? “So you're saying you made a measured decision to go into the elevator and bring me along. Meaning the poinsettia is correcting for the fact that the elevator stalled and your crew had to get us out? Do I have that math about right?”

There was a flash of laughter in his hazel eyes. “You're a quick study.”

Casey wanted to smile back, but the equation left her stomach churning. It was too close to her own way of thinking—calculating every decision instead of being more free spirited, letting her emotions have more of a say than her brain. She wanted to get away from all that. Even if Abe was joking, the conversation was a reminder that he was offering her more of everything she wanted to be rid of.

“Thanks for the plant, but I should get back,” she said, glancing toward the open door. “To the white elephant.”

“Wait.” Abe's hand reached out and grasped her shoulder. She stilled under his touch. His eyes held hers with an intensity that froze her feet in place.

“They're lighting the town tree this Sunday night. Let's go together, and then I'll buy you a hot chocolate afterward.”