Mistletoe Over Manhattan

Sure enough, there was a message from Macon: 'dear malloryi'm not in new york right now i'm in Pennsylvania sorry we'll get together another time,' it said.

No caps, no punctuation and he didn't sign it. He didn't feel a need to sign an e-mail when his entire name was in his address.

So Macon wouldn't be around to provide her with a reason for going out at night, or a means to compete with Carter for the 'Most Active Nightlife' award. She stabbed at the reply key. 'Dearest and only brother Macon: Where in Pennsylvania? What are you doing in Pennsylvania? Has it ever occurred to you that the country might use up its entire energy supply and without electricity you would simply vanish from our lives? Our cherished son and brother, lost in cyberspace. We would miss your e-mails, Macon, we truly would. Much love, your sister Mallory.'

It would make him crazy-if he even saw the irony. She was in the middle of a deep sigh when Carter's voice boomed out of nowhere. 'Mallory!' he shouted through her closed door.

'What!'

'I forgot to pack any socks.'

She stared at the door for a minute. 'I don't knit.'

She heard a sound not unlike the snort of a bull as he paws the soil of the ring. Tough. If he'd read her mother's books he wouldn't have forgotten socks. She'd lend him her autographed copy.

'This is your excuse to do the loafers-no-socks thing. Of course-' she looked out the window at the bleak, gray day, at the smattering of snowflakes whitening the air, then opened the door so they wouldn't have to keep yelling at each other '-you might get frostbite and your toes would turn black and fall off. But that would cut down on your shoe size, although walking without toes might feel really odd-'

'I'm going up to Bloomingdale's to buy socks.' His mouth already looked frostbitten. 'I was just wondering if you'd forgotten anything and wanted to go with me.'

It was her turn to be stopped cold, but she wasn't cold, she was a little bit too warm all of a sudden. 'Oh. Thanks. I-' Of course I haven't forgotten anything. I never forget anything. When you've made a proper list… 'Sure,' she said. 'I'll come along. I might find a Christmas present or two in the men's department.' A present a day keeps the panic away.

No longer simply warm, she was burning up. Actually panting. Carter had asked her out.

He asked you to go to Bloomingdale's. Chill.

For the first time, it occurred to her that she was no less socially impaired than her brother was. Must have been some influence from their childhood. On the other hand, they had a handle on organization and efficiency few people could claim to have. Except that she was beginning to wonder if it was anything to boast about.

Fifteen minutes later Carter was randomly collecting socks from the sizeable collection in Bloomingdale's Men's First Floor Shop. Calf-length wool, patterned, whatever seemed to strike his fancy. Not a thought to matching socks which could be paired up later as they began to wear out. Mallory kept an eye on him while she chose between a black cashmere turtleneck sweater and a beige V-necked for Macon.

When she glanced back at Carter, he had built a wobbly tower of socks near the cash register. She couldn't stand it anymore. To give herself a legitimate reason to go to the cash register herself, she grabbed a sweater without looking at it and scurried over to plead her case.

'Carter?'

'Hmm? Seven, eight, nine…'

'Will that be all, miss?' A nattily dressed young clerk materialized and took the sweater from her grasp.

'Yes. Thanks,' she said absently, and slid her single credit card out of its special slot in her handbag.

'Carter,' she said again, 'if I may make a suggestion, you really only need one more pair.' As he wrestled for control of his sock pile, she imagined him saying, 'Gosh, I never thought of that,' and his smile would warm as he saw her in a whole new light-a womanly caretaker.

Socks clenched in his fist, he paused, turned, gazed at her. His smile didn't warm, though, and the salesman who was helping him looked positively venomous when he looked at her, 'As I see it, I need a dozen.'

'No, you don't, not if you wash out a pair every night.'

His gaze intensified and his words slowed. 'Why would I want to do that?'

'Because it's-' She floundered. 'It's more efficient. You won't have to take all those socks back in your suitcase. You won't have to store all those extra socks at home. And if you'd buy matching socks, you could make up new pairs when one sock gets a hole in it.'

'But I'd have to wash socks every night.' He seemed closer to her than he had been a second ago, and the words were puffs of breath against her cheek.

She had to force herself to maintain eye contact. 'Yes, you would.'

'If I buy a dozen, when I get down to four pairs I'll send out to the hotel laundry.'

His voice vibrated down her spine as he moved another half step closer. It wasn't the direction she'd intended the conversation to take, but she didn't want it to end. 'Compare the cost,' she said after a deep, hard swallow, 'of a dozen pairs of socks plus laundry fees against one pair you have to wash out.' She felt like a sock in the wash herself, agitating in the dark blue of his eyes.

'I change when I go out at night. That means I'd have to wash two pairs every night.'

'Well, yes.'

'What if they don't get dry by morning?'

Now his face loomed directly over hers. A compelling face, a face she was afraid she would begin to see in her dreams, a face she'd like to simply reach up and kiss. Even as she felt her lips swell in anticipation, she heard herself say, 'They will if you wring them out properly and pat most of the moisture out of them by wrapping them in a towel, but if you're that worried about it, maybe you need three pairs.'

He stared at her for a long, long moment, his eyes melting her, his mouth an easily bridgeable inch from hers- then turned away. 'Ring 'em up,' he said to the salesman.

The kiss-op had ended and might never come back again. Mallory's spine felt like a single strand of angel-hair pasta. Carter's salesman gave Mallory a triumphant sneer. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her own salesman placing a burnt-orange sweater with blue diagonal stripes into a gift box. The sight of it stunned her. How had she managed to pick up that sweater? It looked like a University of Illinois pep squad uniform. Macon had been an undergraduate there, but he'd practically lived in the computer lab. He probably didn't know what a pep squad was. Had he even been aware there was a football team? He'd think she'd lost her mind.

Which was too true. Not only that, she'd blown it again with Carter. She didn't have a clue how to make him see her as a woman.

While she signed the sales slip for Macon's Amazing Christmas Surprise, Carter strolled off with his Big Brown Bag of socks. She wondered why his mother hadn't taught him a few basic things about packing for trips. Maybe he had a mother who knew other things, like which aria belonged to which opera. Still, sometime before Christmas she'd definitely slip him her copy of her mother's book.

Somehow she couldn't imagine Carter reading her mother's book. She couldn't imagine Carter going out with a woman who read her mother's books. This… this Athena person probably read-labels.

She could feel her mood darkening as rapidly as the afternoon sky. When she caught up with Carter at a display of hideously expensive shirts, his liveliness depressed her.

'My God, can you believe what people pay for stuff?' His gaze returned briefly to a last look at a navy-and- white-striped shirt with white collar and cuffs. 'I did, too, once. I was twenty-five before I found out you could order a shirt from Lands' End for forty bucks that looks exactly like this one.' He glanced at her. 'All through here?'

'Yes,' Mallory said, wondering if he knew the stripes in the shirt matched his eyes. He'd look great in it.

'What about a little Christmas cheer before we leave?'

'A drink?' At this hour?

'No, I meant go up to the Christmas floor. I like Christmas. You like Christmas?'

'Yes, of course.' She felt embarrassed. Just because Carter forgot socks didn't mean he'd drink before five o'clock Central Standard Time.

She would have taken the elevator. He whisked her onto the escalator. 'This will take longer,' she couldn't help saying.

'We'll see more.'

He was clearly not trainable. Just gorgeous, warm, utterly desirable…