Santa's Posse (20 page)

“Really?” Keith
said approvingly.  “Good.  Maybe I
won’t
have to worry so much if she
gets involved with this guy.”  He pinned her with a gaze.  “You plan on getting
involved, right?  I could really use a break from the worry.  And Mom,” he
added, “she needs a break too.  She’s tired of fending off questions from her
friends about your lack of a husband.  You really owe Mom, and us, some peace
of mind.”

“This is my life,
guys,” she reminded them.

Keith gave no more
notice to her words than a gnat buzzing around his head and addressed his
brothers instead.  “Mom will be glad to hear she’s dating.”

“I’m … not …
dating!”

Ignoring her, he
continued, “She could do worse.  The guy’s a cop—a commander.  He makes a good
living.  If she marries him, with their combined incomes, she’d do just fine.”

“And he’s not
too
ugly,” Kyle observed.  “Hopefully, the kids will take after us.  Besides, looks
aren’t everything.”

“He’s gorgeous!”
Kellie cried, but reddened when she realized she’d spoken out loud.

The boys glanced
at one another around the circular table, communicating without words. 

“Stop that!” she
insisted.  “And I need to get home.  Miles is sick and I promised I’d bring him
chicken soup.”

“Well, there you
go,” Keith declared.  “She likes him.  She’s willing to risk her own health nursing
him back to health.  Now there’s a foundation for true love,” he said with a
crisp shake of his head.  “Commendable,” he added. 

“Oh, good grief,” she
said.  “I’m the one who got him sick in the first place.”

After a heated
discussion about how she’d gotten Miles sick, and with assurances it hadn’t
involved any bodily contact with the commander from which either had garnered
any pleasure, Kellie bid a farewell to her brothers.  On one hand, she was
thrilled to see them go, and on the other, she wished they could stay longer. 
She supposed it was like that with most families.

At the restaurant,
she had ordered chicken soup for Miles, figuring the restaurant-made variety
would have more taste than canned.   She arrived at his door, tapped lightly,
and entered.  He was dozing on the couch.

She hated to wake
him.  She crossed the room and stood silently by, grappling with whether or not
to disturb him.  The decision was made for her.  He apparently sensed her
presence, since he woke up. 

“Hey, how are you
feeling?” she asked.

“Terrible,” he
croaked.

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“Well, it kind of
is,” she said, wincing.  “Are you hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Too bad for you,”
she said cheerily.  “You made me eat soup, and now it’s your turn.”

She hurried into
his kitchen, found a bowl, and dumped the soup from the container.  After
heating it in the microwave, she carried it to him.  “Eat as much as you can.”

He tasted the
soup.  “It’s good.”

When she reached
to check his forehead for fever, he nearly dropped a spoonful of the soup. 
“Oh, sorry,” she said.  “You’re burning up.”

He sighed.  “I’m
afraid I don’t have anything in the medicine cabinet for fever—or pain.”

“I’ll be right
back,” she said, and dashed across the parking lot to her condo.  On the way
there, she caught sight of movement to her left.  She turned, spotted a figure
behind a column, but ignored it in her haste to get to her medicine cabinet.           

Inside her condo,
she found a bottle of ibuprofen and dashed back outside.  She paused long
enough to assure her door was locked, and then hurried back to Miles’ place. 
Once again, she caught sight of a man, but this time, she spotted a second
figure hastily duck behind a column as well.  He wore a cap that reminded her
of a one she’d seen before.  There was something familiar about both men,
though she couldn’t readily make out their faces in the muted light cast by the
street lamps.

She paused
briefly, but dismissed the men again and entered Miles’ condo.  She found he’d
eaten about half the soup, but had left the bowl on the coffee table.  Picking
it up, she asked him if he’d finished. 

“It was good,
thank you,” he said.

She picked up the
bowl, dropped it into the kitchen sink, and then grabbed a cup for water.  She
gave him the medicine with the water and then sat down beside him on the couch,
drawing her feet up beneath her.  “Anything I can do for you?” she asked, and
then remembered the hot lemon he had served her when she was sick.  “Would you
like some hot lemon?”

He shook his
head.  “No thanks.”

“It helped me,”
she told him.

He shook his head
again.  “No, my throat hurts too much to drink anything else.”  He tipped his
head back and closed his eyes briefly before opening them and catching her
gaze.  “I’m pretty sure I’m dying,” he told her with a wan grin.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I’m pretty
sure this is the end,” he said, moving his head up and down in measured
intervals.

“Keep your eyes
peeled for the bright light,” she said, biting back a chuckle.

“Turn on a lamp. 
I’ll hurl myself at it,” he said drolly.

She took his hand
and gave it a squeeze.  “Do you want me to go so you can sleep?”

“No.”

“You want me to
stay then?”

He nodded.  “I’d
hate to die alone.”

“So you said you
don’t get sick often?”

“Never.  Well,
rarely.”

“Good thing,” she
murmured.  “Good thing.”

***

The next morning,
as Kellie was leaving for work, she spotted Miles walking slowly from his condo
and to his unmarked patrol car.  He was dressed in his uniform.  Was he really going
to work?  He was still sick.

She hurriedly
parked her car back in her space, climbed out, and moved at a clipped pace
across the parking lot.  He was now in the patrol car and about to start it
up.  She rapped on the window and he rolled it down.  He glanced up with watery
eyes.  “Hey,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“Hey yourself. 
What are you doing?”

“Just heading to
work,” he told her, checking his watch.  “I’m running a little late.  I’ll see
you at the mall…?”

“No, you won’t see
me at the mall.”

He cleared his throat
and coughed.  “Oh, you’re not going in today?”  

“No, actually,
you’re
not going in today.”

He gave a rueful
smile.  “I have to.”

“No, you don’t.  I’m
sure they can get along without you for a day or two,” she said, folding her
arms across her chest. 

He shook his
head.  “I don’t think so.  I got a call first thing from dispatch.  Apparently
they tried to reach me last night but I slept through the phone ringing. 
Anyway, several cars were hit by burglars in the mall lot a few hours before
closing.”

She gasped. 
“Great, just great.  With the extended holiday hours, I guess it’s par for the
course.”

He nodded,
reaching as if to start the car.  “I’ll see you.  Maybe, if things aren’t too
hectic today, we can have lunch.”  He watched her, a hopeful expression in his
eyes. 

She shook her head
and reached a hand through the open window and took the keys from him.  “Get
out of the car, Commander.”

“I have to go to…”

“No, you don’t. 
If you don’t get yourself back into your condo and make the call to work, I’ll
do it for you.  Do you really think your coworkers need to catch this?  Or the
public at large?  Well?”

“Hey, you went
into work when you were…”

She waved off his
objections.  “Those were extenuating circumstances.  Black Friday happens once
a year, crime never stops.” 

Perhaps he read
the firmness to her tone and realized she wouldn’t be deterred, or more likely
he remembered forcing her to leave work and return home when she was ill. 
Regardless, he complied, climbing out of the patrol car and locking the door
behind him.

He paused, giving
her a chagrined smile.  “You’re kind of bossy.”

After ushering him
into his apartment and insisting he change out of his uniform—she wasn’t
leaving until he did—she took stock of the contents of his refrigerator.  “You
need groceries,” she said, when he came out of his bedroom dressed in sweats
and a t-shirt.  “Have you had breakfast?”

He nodded.  “I’m
fine.”

She closed the
refrigerator door.  “I’ll bring you lunch around noon.  Go to sleep until
then,” she advised.

“I’m fine,” he
told her, smiling patiently.

“No, I’m afraid
you’re not.  This is Day Two of this particular plague.”  She made a face.  “Today
is the worst of it, tomorrow not much better, but after that, you’ll feel a bit
better.”

“It gets worse?”
he asked, horrified at the prospect.

“Oh, yeah,” she
said, giving him a shoring smile.  “Anyway, go to bed.  Sleep.  Trust me. 
Sleep if the very best thing.”

He dropped onto
the couch, watching her with a bemused grin. 

“Oh, before I go,
call in to work.”

He gave a
dismissive wave.  “I will after you leave.”

“No, you’ll do it
now.  I know you.”

“Oh, yeah?  You
know me?” he said in a teasing voice.

She chose to
ignore the remark.  “Call in now, so
I’ll
know that you’re excusing
yourself for the whole day.  Heck, you may as well tell them you won’t be in
tomorrow either.”

He laughed, and
then coughed.  “Who knows?  I might wake up tomorrow, fully restored to good
health.”  He gave a shrug of his broad shoulders.

“Yeah, okay, we’ll
see, but make the call now.”  She checked her watch.  When he made no move to
pick up the phone, she pinned him with a look.  “Make the call.  I have to get
to work.”

“Okay, okay,” he
said, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture.  “I think I get why the mall
folks hired you.”

After he’d made
the call, she glanced around the apartment, and then to the couch.  “You’re
going to need blankets if you stay there,” she told him.

He gave her a
perplexed look. 

“Chills are on the
agenda,” she assured him.

“Oh, they’ve
already arrived,” he said with a wince.  “I thought I was going to freeze to
death last night.”

“I’m sorry,” she
said, meaning it.

He waved off the
apology, but shivered dramatically.  She wasn’t sure if it was a legitimate
case of the chills or if he was teasing her.  She watched him with concern. 
“Where do you keep your extra blankets?”

“Linen closet.”

“In the hallway,
by the guest bathroom?”

He nodded.

She hurried to
grab him several blankets and then returned, tucking one and then another
around him.  She stood back.  “Okay, that should keep you warm.  Anything you
need before I go?”

He grinned cheekily
and shivered again.  “Sure
you
don’t want to stick around to keep me
warm?”

She gave a mock
shudder.  “And risk getting sick again?  I think not.”

With a final,
assessing glance, she turned to go. 

“What, no kiss?”
he called.

She turned back,
took stock of his face, and shook her head.  “No way.  I’ll be dousing myself
with hand sanitizer post haste, and driving with my windows open.  Maybe any
germs that might have landed on me will blow off.”

***

Kellie arrived at
work a few minutes late and found Jill standing in the doorway to the executive
offices.  By the expression on her assistant’s face, she could see something
was wrong.

“What is it, Jill? 
You look upset.”

She sighed.  “Uh,
first, you have a message from Mr. Barnes.  He wants a meeting this morning.  He’s
frantic about something.  Secondly, uh…” 

Kellie noted her
assistant looked extremely uncomfortable.  “What is it?”

“Okay, look, so
you know, I don’t believe a word of what I’m about to tell you.”

“Okaaay…”

“Okay, here goes. 
A little bird told me…”

“A little bird…”
she said with a swift shake of her head.  “As in, ‘birdy the big mouth?’” she
added.

“Yeah, that one,”
Jill said dismissively.  “Anyway, there’s a rumor going around the mall that
you and Miles, uh…”

“Miles and I…  What?”
she prompted.

She winced
dramatically.  “Okay, like I said, I know it can’t be true…”

“What can’t be
true?  Jill, spill it.”

“People are saying
that you and Miles sort of, well, had a rendezvous behind one of the circular
clothing racks in one of the stores—I forget which one.”

“What?”  She was
aghast.  “A rendezvous?  Define ‘rendezvous’.”

“I … don’t want
to,” Jill said, glancing away with embarrassment.

“Oh, heaven help
us!” Kellie cried, remembering the day before when Miles had pulled her behind
the clothing rack, in hopes of escaping detection by Dolores.  “Nothing
happened.”

“You mean…”  She
gulped.  “You two did have a rendezvous?”

“Of course not! 
We were walking together.  He spotted Dolores and tried to pull an evade and
hide maneuver.”

“That doesn’t sound
like him,” she mused.  “He has the patience of a saint.”

“You haven’t been
around him when he’s sick,” she muttered.

“Miles is sick?” 
Jill gave her a suspicious glance.  “Wonder how that happened?”

Kellie glared at
her.  “Not the way you’re imagining,” she assured her.  “If you’ll remember, he
and I were together, within the close confines of his truck, and on the way to
your house…”  Her words trailed off and she gave Jill a dirty look.  “Technically,
it’s your fault he’s sick.”

“You mean, because
I invited you to Thanksgiving…”

“Yeah,” she said,
knowing her argument was weak at best.

“Okay, like I
said, I didn’t believe the rumor, but, I have to admit, hearing that the two of
you were hiding together behind a clothes rack, well, it doesn’t look good.”