“Why are you doing this?” she asked, aware she sounded far from grateful.

“You asked me to. Fifty coats. I haven’t been able to locate an elf yet.”

“Did they give them to you?”

“Give them to me? The coats?” he sounded genuinely baffled. “No.”

“That’s the why,” she said tenaciously. “Why would you buy coats for a complete stranger?”

“Well, I didn’t buy them for you,” he said, which put her in her place, a warning that it was only a matter of time before a guy like this put a girl like her in her place. “I bought them for kids who need them.”

She could see he simply didn’t intend to tell her the why that she wanted to know, which was what had motivated this astonishing show of generosity.

“You’re telling me you bought a coat that looked like this?” She glanced at the table, unfolded an arm to point at the princess jacket. “Three coats that look like this?”

He ducked his head, scratched the toe of his boot against the floor. “I was scraping the bottom of the barrel,” he said gruffly. “That’s all they had left when I reached forty-seven.”

How could she know he was lying? She barely knew him! She didn’t know him at all! She had no gift for telling when men were lying! She had believed in her brother-in-law long after her sister had given up. Didn’t she still sometimes wish Kent would come through? Be the man she knew he was? Chase down her sister, beg her forgiveness? Hadn’t she hoped, long after her parents’ breakup, that it was all a mistake and they would be reunited?

She shook off the thought roughly, recognizing her weakness for fantasy. A man like the one in front of her did that. Made a woman long for tradition, stability, and for men who did not lie.

And yet she knew that was a lie about the coats. How could there be such a thing as a nice lie? And how could she fight the monster of tenderness that threatened to swamp her as she thought about this big, self-assured intensely masculine man buying such adorable coats for three little girls he had never met and probably never would meet?

She turned back to the jackets to hide the tears that stung at her eyes at the total collapse of her defenses. That was the problem when you pulled out the lobster tank too early in the game.

“Brand-new,” she whispered. “Do you know how often these kids receive a brand-new jacket?” She caught sight of one of the price tags. The jacket was down-filled. That price times fifty?

So, she could add rich to his growing list of attractions. Except when she looked at him, she did not get the impression money gave him any joy. She did not get the impression anything gave him joy anymore.

A joyless liar. How could that possibly be so attractive?

“I don’t know what to say,” she stammered.

“How about that you’ll go have dinner with me.”

She shot him a look, looked away. It was obvious the invitation had taken him almost as much by surprise as it had her.

And she knew she couldn’t go have dinner with him.

Because he was the kind of man a girl like her could fall for, and fall hard, and it was all downhill from there. She would build a fairy tale around him, he would wreck the ending.

There is no happily-ever-after, she told herself angrily. Still, saying no was about the hardest thing she’d ever done, because a little voice inside her was saying, well, what about happy until?

“Oh,” she said, and each syllable was a torture. “I can’t. Sorry. Not possibly.” She waved vaguely at her stacks of toys. “Tricycles that need to be assembled.” Just this morning that had been on the bottom of her priority list! How a man like him could change things!

She thought of the catalog in her office, how she should be longing to get back to Harriet and Smedley, and wasn’t.

She glanced at him again and saw that she had astonished him. He was not accustomed to being on the receiving end of a no from anyone of the female persuasion obviously! It made her slightly glad she’d been able to spit out the rejection! So, she said it again, just to see his astonishment deepen.

“No,” she said. “I can’t. Santa does not date. Not until after Christmas.”

Shoot. Was she leaving a door open?

His mouth twitched. “I’m not sure I would have called it a date,” he said drily.

And her moment of pleasure at having surprised him disappeared. Of course he wouldn’t call it a date! Anyone looking at him could tell he didn’t need to go and buy fifty coats to get a date. Anyone looking at him could tell he didn’t date girls like her.

He dated girls who had pierced belly buttons and tiny diamond studs in their noses. He dated girls who were unselfconscious about rips in the derriere of their jeans. He dated girls who had gotten implants as their high school grad presents. He dated girls who were gorgeous, and self-assured, and who most definitely did not blush!

Even knowing she was the kind of girl he never dated, she felt the pull of the fantasy. What if she did say yes? What if over candlelight dinner she made him laugh and surprised him, and he found her so deep and rich in spirit that it made her totally irresistible despite the brown dress, worn sweater, lack of streaks?

What if he saw the princess under the Cinderella dressing?

As if.

Insane thoughts, a flare-up of the child she had been at nineteen, before her nephew had been injured, the first broken link in a chain of events that led to the breakup of her sister’s marriage. That breakup had left her stunned, confirming what her parents and James had already taught her, the lesson she had chosen to ignore. The very thing she had longed for most in the world—love—could turn back on you like a sharpened sword and pierce your heart.

Before that, despite evidence it was foolish, Kirsten had clung to the belief that she was a Cinderella of sorts, and that someday a prince would come who would see straight through the lack of breast implants and derriere-exposing jeans to who she really was.

“Well,” she said brusquely, “Thanks. It was an amazing thing for you to do. I’m not sure why you did it, but I appreciate it. Now, I have a ton of work to do, so goodbye, Mr. Brewster.”

He looked as if he hadn’t even heard her. He moved by her and took one of the trike boxes down from the stack. He studied the drawing on the side of the box.

“You’re telling me you know how to assemble this?” he asked.

She bristled! He was obviously used to a different kind of woman! One who worried about her fingernails and had never touched an Allen wrench or a crescent wrench in her life.

Of course, Kirsten had never actually assembled one of the trikes, though she had put together lots of other toys.

Still, honesty prevented her from claiming she knew how to assemble the trike.

“I can read directions,” she said regally.

He yanked open the box, rifled through it, handed her the directions.

There were two pages of incomprehensible drawings, all clearly explained…in Japanese.

Her lips twitched, then she snorted, and then she laughed. She looked up to see the faintest smile toying at the edges of his lips, probably because of the snort!

“How about if we order a pizza?” he said, “and work together on the trikes?”

“Mr. Brewster—”

“Michael.”

“I don’t even know you.”

He pondered that for a moment. “Are you scared of me?”

Terrified!

“Do you want me to fill out an application? You can do a security check. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

It was the coming back part that terrified her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said stiffly. She meant about him coming back tomorrow.

“It’s not ridiculous. You should be checking out people who come to work here, even volunteers.”

“I’ve been doing this for a long time without your help, thanks!”

“Hey, no need to get prickly! I was just trying to look out for you.”