Page 3 of Wait a HO HO HO Second!

“Did you say dead?” Joy asked, her heart pounding against her ribs while she waited for Marci to say ‘gotcha!’ and then beg her to get coffee before the mall opened. Cruel to joke about someone dying, and that definitely wasn’t like Marci, so the worry returned.

“Yes. She died during emergency surgery for a ruptured aortic aneurysm. It all happened so fast, Joy,” her friend cried. “She was feeling poorly when I went to bed, so I made her promise to call me if she needed anything. I checked on her at 4 a.m. and found her nearly unconscious, moaning on the bathroom floor. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital, thinking it was a heart attack, but it was so much worse. She’s gone. I can’t believe she’s gone,” Marci moaned.

Realizing that her best friend wasn’t kidding and that her mentor, the only woman who had ever treated her like a daughter, was dead, sent tears streaming down her cheeks in an uncontrollable gully of pain and grief.

“Where are you, Marci?” Joy asked through her tears. “Are you still at the hospital?”

“Yes, I’m waiting for Kian to arrive.”

Kian Van Adler. Her high school nemesis. Look up the word bully in the dictionary and his picture sat proudly beside it. He wasn’t just a bully. He was downright cruel. Joy had been the brunt of every mean joke or prank he could come up with for years. Even on their graduation night, but that was a story for a different day.

“Kian is coming?” Joy asked, wiping her face with the sheet.

“Of course,” Marci said. “He’s Lorelei’s son. Turns out he was over at Silver Lakes Outlet this week, so he’s on his way here. Shouldn’t be much longer. You’re coming too, right? You have to come, Joy. I need you. Lorelei needs you.”

Had she gone to the hospital? Yes, but she wasn’t proud of how she behaved that morning. Some would chalk it up to grief, but Joy knew better. Her behavior that morning had everything to do with Kian Van Adler being within two feet of her again for the first time in twelve years. Whenever Kian came to Snowcap Ridge to visit Lorelei, he stayed at their sprawling estate and steered clear of the mall. Joy was all too happy he preferred to be hands-off. The last thing she wanted was his dirty, mean, manipulative hands on her mall. The Snowcap Ridge Outlet Mall was a happy, positive place. If he put his signature stamp on it, it would go downhill faster than a teen on a snowboard.

Rolling her eyes at herself, she tucked the dusting rag into her back pocket and headed back down the lane toward her office. If she didn’t get out of the lane soon, she’d be in the janitors’ way as they cleaned and dried the floor. That was not a place she wanted to be while wearing two ankle-foot orthoses and using a crutch. Slippery floors were the bane of her existence.

When Joy walked through the mall in the mornings, she used only one crutch, leaving one hand free for everything else she needed to do. Once the mall was full of people, she always used both crutches to avoid being knocked down. Her slow gait, caused by Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, made walking through crowds harder, so she tried to avoid the floor during the busiest hours. Thankfully, once she returned to her office, did a sound system check, and made sure none of the store managers had any early-morning issues, she was off duty.

A new sugar cookie recipe was waiting for her in the kitchen, and a new Hallmark movie was queued up on her streaming app. Not to mention the book she picked up the other day at Sanderson Books and Novelties on Lane Three. Niles Sanderson often asked her to read books and tell him whether they’d sell. He knew she was, as he put it, ‘a scary fast reader’ and that she’d give him her honest opinion. Thus far, she’d only been wrong about one book. She said it would sell like hotcakes, but instead it lingered on the shelves until he returned them all to the publisher. But, as they say, 1 out of 100 ain’t bad.

Dumping her empty coffee cup in the garbage can, Joy strolled along the lane, looking for anything that might need adjusting before the day began. Their busiest season was upon them, leaving precious little time to relax with a book and a fresh plate of cookies. For Joy, the Christmas season at Snowcap Ridge Outlet Mall was a well-choreographed dance on a balance beam while using two crutches. To say she fell a lot would be an understatement, but most of the issues were minor and easy to fix. Once Santa arrived to hear the little ones' wishes, it was all worth it.

Joy’s fervent prayer every night was that no major issues would come up this holiday season. This was the first season she wouldn’t have Lorelei to fall back on, and she was terrified. Everything had to stay status quo until Christmas was over; then, if need be, all hell could break loose.

Arriving at the office, Joy grasped the handle just as her brain registered someone sitting where they shouldn’t be. When she turned, she laid eyes on one of the most handsome men she’d ever known. Tall. Dark. Incredibly handsome. Hatred filled her at the sight of his perfectly coiffed sandy-brown hair that drew out the brown in his eyes. Those eyes were framed by lashes any woman would kill for. But those glasses? Yeah, they did him all the favors, perched atop his perfectly sculpted nose. His chin had a tiny cleft that grew a little bigger when he smiled, almost as if that was the artist’s vision. Don’t ask her how she knew that. He was clean-shaven and the picture of professionalism.

Kian Van Adler had arrived in Snowcap Ridge, and his presence told Joy that her prayers would go unanswered this holiday season.

All hell just broke loose.

3

#Guiltyascharged

Kian sat, enjoying the warmth of the wall-mounted heaters that brushed his face. A hint of cinnamon hung in the air, telling him the bakers at CinnaPOP were hard at work preparing for the Monday morning crowd. Soon, the mall would bustle with shoppers carrying bags, and kids tugging at their parents’ hands to visit the puzzle shop Go Figure or The Fun Foundry, two places that let kids play with toys before buying.

The building was alive with an underlying vein of vibrancy and joyfulness that was missing from the other malls in their portfolio. The realization jolted him. He’d been to all six, and none had the vibe of Snowcap Ridge Outlet Mall.

If he were honest, he hated how impressed he was. Even though it was early, everything ticked along like a finely tuned machine. One woman was responsible for that, and he still had to figure out how to approach her without her starting the conversation with her claws out. Not that he could blame her. Kian had been brutal to her for years, yet she had sat back and taken every insult without a word. Regretful wasn’t a strong enough word for his self-hatred over how he had treated Joy Brady.

Then he saw her.

Joy stood at the office door, one forearm crutch braced on the floor and a polishing rag hanging from the back pocket of her tight black jeans. Oh yes, Joy had skipped over curvy and skyrocketed straight to voluptuous. She wore a deep green sweater that hugged her curves and probably brought out the green in her eyes. She had pulled her auburn hair back into a loose braid that hung nearly to her waist, and it looked impeccably perfect even at barely 7 a.m. The leg braces she’d started wearing in high school peeked out from beneath her pants, tucked into a pair of sequined tennis shoes. There was no question she was in charge of this space. She moved with practiced confidence, showing the other employees she was capable and completely at home.

Kian finally admitted to himself that she was beautiful. In the past, he’d never let himself admit it. Not in high school, and not six months ago, when he’d seen her at the hospital, tears streaming down her face as she held his mother’s hand. In his grief, he’d pushed her away from the bedside instead of taking his mother’s other hand and sitting together. Joy had told him exactly what he deserved to hear in that moment. They hadn’t spoken since. Not at the visitation. Not at the funeral. Not even by email. Coward that he was, he had assigned day-to-day communication for Snowcap Ridge Mall to August. It was easier than reliving the look on Joy’s face when he’d pushed her aside, unable to share his mother even in death.

Joy froze, turning slowly toward the bench where he sat. Her eyes widened for a moment before her expression settled into something cool and unreadable. Always the professional, she kept every movement controlled. As he stood and walked toward her, he saw a flicker of fear, then hurt, beneath the control. He’d put that there years ago, and he deserved every scathing word that was about to leave her lips.

“Kian,” she said, her voice steady. “What are you doing here so early?”

Kian opened his mouth, but the words tangled. He’d rehearsed it in the car all the way here. He’d planned an extended stay to see how the mall runs, to go over the books, and to pick her brain, but now that he was gazing into those green eyes again, he forgot all about business.

“Joy,” he managed. “It’s good to see you.”

Then her green eyes rolled, and her lips wore no smile. “I bet. You really seemed to enjoy seeing me six months ago, too. How did you get in here?”