The Kid Who Stole Christmas (9 page)

Rick sighed and slumped in his chair. “It’s true. I lose sight of that fact sometimes,” he admitted. “Probably because what happened afterward was so traumatic. But it wasn’t a blissful eight years up until then, either.”

“How did you meet?”

“It was a real classic, that’s for sure. I wasn’t long out of college and between jobs, so I started this fly-by-night pool-cleaning service in Phoenix for some quick cash.”

“Hold on a second,” Shannon interrupted, doing some quick math in her head. “Not long out of college? Wouldn’t you have been almost thirty at the time?”

“Twenty-eight,” he corrected. “It was my second degree.”

Shannon’s eyes widened. “Oh, really?”

Rick seemed suddenly uncomfortable. He looked away, scanning the crowd for a server. When he spotted one, he motioned for another round.

“Science was my first interest,” he told her when at last he met her gaze again. “But I found I didn’t like the sort of jobs available. So I went back to school and got a business-related degree.”

“Uh-huh.”

Science? Business-related? It was all a bit vague. But she could tell by the way he was again avoiding her eyes that it was unlikely she would be able to pin him down any further. It was probably difficult for him to admit how far he had fallen after the divorce. Shannon decided to let it be.

“Let’s get back to the interesting part,” she said. “I think I can see this one coming. One day you were cleaning a pool, and there was this ravishing woman baking in the hot Arizona sun, her body glistening with oil. You looked at her, she looked at you, one thing led to another and about nine months later Chelsea was born. Am I close?”

Rick laughed, breaking the tension. “Very. I told you it was a classic. The details are that it was her rich daddy’s house and that he did not much like a twenty-eight-year-old professional student turned pool cleaner consorting with his eighteen-year-old debutante daughter. When she turned up pregnant, he tried to arrange an abortion. Angela and I ran off that same day and got married as soon as the law allowed.”

“And Daddy?”

“Ranted, raved and threatened. When Chelsea was born, and he finally realized Angela had done it all mainly to spite him, as well as to get out from under his roof and his thumb, he disinherited her,” Rick replied. “Since I had come to those same conclusions about her myself by then, in many ways that was the beginning of the end for Angela and me, too.”

It was indeed a classic tale, with the usual sort of ending such tales often had, a messy divorce. In the middle, however, there apparently was a twist.

“Yet you stayed together until Chelsea was eight?”

“It’s not that I didn’t see the writing on the wall,” Rick told her. “But I loved her, or thought I did, and I already told you I doted on Chelsea. Ironically, though, it was Angela who held us together in the beginning.”

“Angela?” Shannon asked, surprised.

“It’s not what you think,” Rick replied. “Since there wasn’t going to be any money coming from her father, she knew I was her only meal ticket, and I did have prospects. We hardly saw each other, anyway. By this time, my company had grown, and my employees and I were selling and installing pools as well as cleaning them. The business was starting to turn a good profit. In fact, we put in a pool of our own for Chelsea’s sixth birthday.”

At last, the server brought their refills. Since Shannon was a regular, the drinks were going on her tab, for which she was grateful. It had been her idea to come here and so this was her treat. For a moment, it occurred to her that Rick might not see it that way.

“Sounds like your business-school education paid off,” she noted.

“I was making good money.” Rick was shaking his head. “But Angela had been born and raised to spend money, and compared to what she was used to, what I made was chump change. However, it did enable her to start hanging out with some of her old crowd again, doing the Scottsdale circuit. That’s how she met Nathan Bayer.” He chuckled. “I never knew for certain just how it happened, but I’ll bet she was sunning herself by a pool when he first saw her. Poor sucker.”

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d like to nail Nathan Bayer’s hide to the wall for his part in what Angela proceeded to do to me. And this business with Leo and the shipment might just give me that opportunity,” Rick said with obvious anticipation. “But a part of me feels sorry for the guy. I know what Angela is like. She’ll do anything to get her own way. Absolutely anything.”

Having pity for an enemy was the sign of a fairly well-evolved person, Shannon thought. Rick’s high level of education combined with his common sense, made him the sort of man unlikely to quit the game of life easily. And yet, he apparently had done just that for a time, though it looked as if he might be on the mend now.

“I don’t know what she did to you,” Shannon said, “but I get the feeling it was more of a massacre than a divorce.”

“Massacre is a pretty good description,” Rick agreed. “Take Nathan Bayer’s money and power, combine it with Angela’s greed and total self-interest and add one highly paid lawyer.”

“Sounds like a recipe for disaster, all right.”

“I got the best representation I could afford, but it wasn’t enough. They creamed me. Half of everything and then some. The house was gone, as well as part of the business. I was down, but good. So naturally they started kicking me.”

Rick sipped his stout, but its alcohol content wasn’t nearly high enough to blunt the memory. Not that he wanted it blunted. He wanted to remember, so that when payback time came, his victory would be all the sweeter.

“My visitation rights were the first to start eroding,” Rick continued. “I tried to fight, but I didn’t get much sympathy in Angela’s carefully chosen legal arenas. It was already costing me quite a bit, traveling between Phoenix and Denver to visit Chelsea—when Angela let me see her, that is—and these little skirmishes just cost me more. Naturally, my business was suffering from my absence, too.”

Shannon knew what was coming. She reached for his hand and he gladly let her take it in hers. “Then came the adoption proceedings?”

He sighed deeply and nodded. “It was Chelsea’s idea.”

“Oh, Rick! Your own daughter asked Nathan to adopt her?”

“Yes. I know Angela was behind it, manipulating her, as only Angela can. But it still came as quite a blow.”

Rick looked away from her caring gaze for a moment. He was treading on dangerous ground now, and had to be careful. Still, he wanted, even needed to tell Shannon what he could.

“I went through the motions of objecting, but my heart wasn’t in it. My own daughter didn’t want me. Still, I felt I had to fight for her.” He laughed bitterly. “A lot of good that did me. Nathan and his deep pockets made it viciously expensive. I took out a loan, using what was left of my business as collateral. Little did I know good old Nathan had an in at my bank. So when the dust settled, he bought the note, and I wasn’t even given good-faith time to recuperate from the beating I’d taken. He and Angela offered to let me stay on, though. As a pool cleaner.”

“Oh, Rick.”

“I just walked out with the clothes on my back.” Rick took a big gulp of stout, then put his glass on the table and pushed the rest away. “But I refused to give up all rights to my daughter. I never signed the papers to let him adopt her. Still, they managed to have her name changed, anyway, somehow. I doubt it was legal, but by then that was the least of my problems.” He looked at her again. “Now you know why I’m at war with the Bayers.”

Shannon thought she knew a lot more than that. “And you’ve been wandering around lost ever since, haven’t you?”

He shrugged. “I told you it took three people to do this to me. I just stopped giving a damn about anything, except keeping a low profile in case Angela got bored and decided she wanted to punish me some more.”

“But you
do
have a direction now,” she said firmly.

“Yes, I do. And it almost seems like fate took a hand in this game,” he told her thoughtfully. “I was working on the shipping dock of a toy company back East when I stumbled onto this Arnie thing. Intercepting Nathan’s shady inquiries into the whereabouts of the shipments was also just a fluke. But now that I’m here, I don’t care what Pop Lyon or anyone else says. If I can pin something on them, I will.”

“And try to use it as leverage against them?”

“Exactly,” Rick confirmed.

Shannon touched his hand. “Even if you can manage it, that won’t undo the damage, Rick. At least not all of it. As I did about my father, Chelsea will have to come to her own conclusions about you. All you can do is let her know you’re there for her, no matter what.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t like to get the Bayers for this?” Rick asked. “If so, we’ll be working at cross-purposes.”

“What I want is Leo back, first and foremost,” Shannon said pointedly. “My second priority is the shipment—it will bring a lot of money into the company, especially my department, and Lyon’s has a very nice profit-sharing plan. But if I can accomplish both those things, then yes, I’d like to help you get the Bayers. I don’t even know Angela and I dislike her.”

“Good.”

Shannon grinned. “That’s why I followed you down here this evening, remember?”

“And I thought it was for the pleasure of my company.”

“It
has
been nice,” she told him.

They settled into a comfortable silence. A glow surrounded Shannon. It was Christmas time, she was warm, cozy and among happy people in a festive atmosphere. It was almost enough to make her forget Leo was missing.

“How would you like to come to my place tomorrow night for a late supper?” Shannon asked him suddenly.

The invitation gave Rick pause. There was no doubt they were attracted to each other. But what Shannon undoubtedly wanted, and deserved, was a relationship, not a one-night stand. And Rick had been through too much to enter something like that lightly.

“Well?” she prompted.

“A home-cooked meal sounds great,” he said at last. “Of course, we have no idea what we’ll be doing tomorrow, do we?”

“No. But whatever it is, we’ll still have to eat.”

“True,” Rick agreed.

“Then it’s a date?”

Rick smiled uneasily. “Right. A date.”

Shannon could sense his reluctance, and understood it. Life had battered him around quite a bit. It hadn’t been all that kind to her, either. All they could do was take things one step at a time.

“Where do you think we should start tomorrow?” she asked.

“I suppose we should make sure we’re not missing anything obvious first,” Rick replied, glad to move on to a different subject. “I assume there were employees around earlier in the day who you didn’t get a chance to question this evening?”

“Good idea. I can do that in the morning,” Shannon said. “I’ll also have Paul check over the store again.” She thought for a moment. “I’ll have him talk to the cleaning crew, as well. You never know, something unusual might show up.”

Rick shrugged. “And if nothing does, I guess we’ll have to find a way to shake the Bayers’ tree, in hopes that something or someone falls out that can give us a lead to Leo.”

“We could go undercover!” Shannon exclaimed. “You know, snoop around their department store as customers.” She snapped her fingers. “Or maybe even try to get hired on. The employees at Bayer’s are notoriously unhappy. One of them might turn snitch.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Shannon...”

“We’ll talk to Pop,” she continued, clearly excited about the idea. “He said no interference, but I’ll bet if we tell him your side of the story, he’ll come around. Pop is just pretending to go along with this quietly for Leo’s sake. Inside, I know he’s seething. The rivalry between the Lyons and Bayers goes way back. I’ve even heard that he once accused Nathan’s father, Joe, of putting the moves on Sissy.”

“Sissy?” Rick asked.

“Pop’s late wife.”

Rick could tell that Shannon was determined to go through with this. In fact, it might not be such a bad idea, at that. But it would put him at great risk to be in a place where Angela or Chelsea might show up, so he would have to be very careful.

“I suppose I could see if they need a Santa,” he said, thinking that if he stayed in costume, he’d be fine. “But I hate to leave Hans in a bind.”

“It’s been a dry year for Santas, so I’m sure Bayer’s will need one,” Shannon said. “As for Hans, we’ll round up someone. Another employee, probably. They haven’t been very cooperative so far, but we can have Pop ask them in person.”

“Okay, then. I’m game.”

She glanced at her watch. “If we’re going to be asking Pop for favors in the morning, we should probably try to be on time, and that means getting an early start. I can’t replace myself quite so easily.”

Rick stood up. “I’ll walk you to your car. Did you park in Lyon’s lot?”

“Yes, but I think I’ll just grab a taxi. It’s been quite a long day for me, and that stout went right to my head.”

Since it was getting near closing time, there were already a few cabs waiting outside. Rick hailed one and it pulled up to meet them, its tires scrunching in the fresh-fallen snow.

Shannon moved toward it. “Good night, Rick,” she said. “See you tomorrow. Eight sharp.”

“I’ll be there.” Rick touched her arm. “Shannon?”

She turned back toward him. “Yes?”

“Thanks. You were right. We
can
help each other.”

Smiling, Shannon stepped up to him, her head tilted to look into his eyes. “I’m right about a lot of things. Hiring you, for instance. Even if it wasn’t my head I was listening to when I made the decision.”

“Then what?”

“Guess.” She leaned close and kissed his cheek, slowly, savoring his warmth and the rich masculine smell of his skin. She whispered into his ear, adopting a sexy tone. “Didn’t Leo tell you? I still believe in Santa Claus.”

With that, she quickly turned to the cab, got in and gave the driver her address. Rick just stood on the curb and watched her go, wearing a stunned expression.

Chapter Eight