Chapter Twelve

“Nick, could I see you for a minute?”

Here we go again. He looked up from the magazine he’d been reading.

After their conversation here in the living room, Lyssa had returned to the kitchen to help the kids clean up the counters from the craft project. When she was done, the kids had come out to join him and she had gone upstairs for a while. Quite a while.

He had begun to wonder if she planned to avoid him for the rest of their time at the lodge.

He already knew she was never going to forgive him for what she saw as all his mistakes.

But dammit, he’d only wanted to make her happy. Isn’t that what you did for someone you…someone you were dating? When it came to her job, he’d just wanted her to see her potential and to give her his support. When it came to their dates, he’d wanted to take her to nice restaurants and give her even nicer gifts. None of which she had seemed overjoyed about accepting. He’d never met a woman like her, that was for certain.

“Now would be a good time,” she prompted him.

He shot a glance across the room. Brent sat at one end of the couch with his earbuds in. Mollie sat at the other end, cutting something out of another magazine. Shrugging, he rose and followed Lyssa into the kitchen. “What did I do wrong this time?” he asked, only half-jokingly.

“Nothing.”

“Well, that’s a switch.”

“Nick, please.”

Now he heard the tension in her tone. A closer look at her showed the lines creasing her forehead and crinkling the corners of her eyes. Instantly, he sobered. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t want to tell you in front of Brent and Mollie, but I can’t find Tommy.”

She locked her gaze with his. He nodded slowly, reassuringly. “I hadn’t even realized he’d left the living room. But it’s a big house, Lyssa. You probably just missed him.”

“I checked everywhere. Twice. You don’t think he could have gone outside, do you?” she said, barely pausing for breath, then rushing on. “It’s snowing again, so if he has gone out, we might not be able to see his footprints. We won’t be able to—”

“Hey, hey.” He rested his hand on her shoulder. “He was rubbing his eyes and yawning out by the fire earlier. He’s probably just crawled into a quiet corner and gone to sleep. Kids do that.” How would he know? But he’d say anything to calm Lyssa and give her a chance to recover her usual control.

Even as he finished the thought, she took a deep breath and nodded more steadily. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I guess being cooped up for so long here has me a little jumpy.”

“That’s understandable.” Or maybe having to talk to him again upset her. He couldn’t think about that now. “Did you look everywhere?”

“Yes, I told you—”

“I mean, did you only scan rooms from the doorways, or did you go inside and check closets and under the beds?”

“Well, no.” She shook her head. “I guess I’m overreacting, aren’t I?”

“You go back into the living room with the kids—”

“I don’t think we should tell them. If I am just jumping the gun—and I’m sure I am…I hope I am—”

“We won’t tell them,” he said evenly. “At least, not Mollie. No sense worrying her when Tommy will most likely turn up any minute now. You keep her occupied. Send Brent in here, tell him I want his help shoveling the back porch. Just in case, I’ll get him to do a check of the perimeter of the house while I take a good look inside.” He squeezed her shoulder lightly. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

As soon as she left the kitchen, he checked the door off to one side of the room. Locked on the kitchen side. No chance of Tommy being in the basement.

He went through the cabinets. The boy could hardly have climbed inside one while everyone had been in the room, but they had to be searched.

Nothing.

The pantry and the space behind the door were all clear.

He headed across to the back door. Despite what he had said to Lyssa about Tommy curling up for a nap and the fact he believed the boy would be inside the house, not outdoors, it would be foolish not to check to make sure he hadn’t left.

He flung open the door. A blast of cold air whooshed past him and into the kitchen.

The back porch was covered by a smooth, unbroken drift of snow. The walkway leading from the lodge was a flat sheet of crusted white. If the boy had gone outside, it hadn’t been by way of this door.

Brent could concentrate on the front of the building.

He would go upstairs and do just what he had mentioned to Lyssa—start checking under beds and in closets and anywhere else a small boy could find a comfortable sleeping spot. With luck, he’d have Tommy downstairs again in just a few minutes.

Without luck… There were options. There were always options. Troubleshooting had taught him that. But they weren’t always options people wanted to face. Right now, he didn’t want to face his, either.

Ambling through the living room so as not to draw Mollie’s attention, Nick detoured on his way upstairs to check out the first floor bathroom. With only a pedestal sink and a small wall cabinet, there was nowhere to look but behind the shower door, a pointless effort since he could see through the frosted glass that no little boy slept in the bathtub.

Upstairs, he went systematically through the rooms, trying not to let the tension get to him as, one by one, he eliminated each bedroom, closet, and bathroom.

In the hall, he ran his gaze over the ceiling and the trapdoor to an attic or crawlspace. But there was no furniture or anything else set beneath the door and no way anyone, let alone a five-year-old, could have reached the ceiling without standing on something.

Not a sign of the kid. Where the hell was he?

When he ran out of places to look, he did what Lyssa had done and began going through everything again—like Santa, making a list and checking it twice.

And still, he was coming up empty-handed.

Finally, he made his second sweep through the largest space, the bedroom and bathroom of Michael’s master suite. He checked every drawer in the freestanding armoire and the space below all the racks of hanging clothes in the closet. He even checked the clothes hamper, as he had done in the other bathrooms. No little boy.

His directions to Brent included tracking him down immediately if he discovered any sign that Tommy had been outside. By this point, he knew the teen had nothing to report. A glance through the bay window overlooking the front of the property confirmed it. Outside, weak sunshine fell across the front lawn, revealing snow as unbroken as that at the back door.

The sunshine, even paler as it filtered into the room through the window, showed him the cushion on the window seat below was slightly crooked. One edge of the cushion hung slightly over the seat.

He raised the cushion and saw the space, like a wide crack, that ran horizontally just beneath the lip of the wooden seat. Slowly, he raised the seat… And found the boy he was seeking.

He swallowed a sigh of relief.

Tommy jumped up from his hiding place like a jack-in-the-box. He was grinning broadly and didn’t look as though he was suffering from his time spent inside the seat. In fact, the space looked large enough for him to have stretched out comfortably while he waited for his hiding place to be discovered. A decorative carved inset across the front panel of the window seat had allowed him plenty of air.

“I knew you would find me, Mr. Nick!” Tommy laughed and clapped his hands.

“And so I did. But what are you doing up here?” A lecture on the dangers of small hiding places would wait for another time. “Didn’t you know Miss Lyssa and I would be worrying about you?”

“I hided—but I had to,” Tommy said quickly. “Because I told Mollie you’re Santa, and she said no.”

He frowned. “Mollie knew you were hiding?”

“Huh-uh.” Tommy shook his head vigorously. “I hided all by myself. And now I know you are Santa, ’cause Santa knows everything. Only Santa could find me. And you did.”

Not bad logic for a five-year-old. Despite his concern, Nick had to swallow a smile. But he was going to have to give the kid a taste of reality. Keeping the boy’s belief in Santa intact was one thing. Letting him believe he was the Jolly Old Elf was another thing altogether.

He could just imagine Tommy sharing that news with Lyssa. She didn’t want him buying gifts for the kids’ parents, for crying out loud. How would she take learning he had passed himself off as Santa Claus?

“I’m sorry to tell you, Tommy, but I’m not Santa.”

“But you were at the party. You wore Santa’s suit.”

“That, I did, yes. But I was… I am Santa’s helper, like Miss Elf.” Lyssa could hardly object to that, could she? “I fill in for Santa when he’s busy somewhere else. You’re right in a way, though,” he had to admit, maybe because his recent conversation with her was still fresh in his mind. “I am a little like Santa Claus, too.”

“How?”

“Because, like Santa, I love giving gifts to people.” Well, buying gifts to give to people.

“Why?”

“Well…” Maybe Tommy would believe in the sentiments. Lyssa sure hadn’t. “Because when you buy someone a gift, it shows how much you care about them. Also because gifts make people happy.”

“Like my mommy?”

“Exactly.”

“D’you think my mommy will like the orman— the ormer— the Christmas star I made her?”

“Sure, she will. It’s the best Christmas star I’ve ever seen.”

Tommy grinned again.

“Okay, kid.” He ruffled the boy’s hair, then reached down to lift him out of the window seat and set him on the floor. “We’d better get downstairs and join the rest of the musketeers.”

“All for one,” Tommy chanted.

“And one for all,” he agreed. He turned to leave the room.

Lyssa stood in the doorway.

Tommy noticed her then, too. “Hi, Miss Lyssa. I was hiding but Mr. Nick finded me.”

“Yes, I see that.” She smiled at him. “Why don’t you go downstairs with Mollie and Brent? They’re in the kitchen. Brent’s making hot chocolate, and I’m sure you’d like some, too, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes!” He ran across the room and past her into the hallway.

In the quiet, his shoes slapped loudly against the bare wood floor. Seconds later, his footsteps pounded down the stairs.

“Thanks for coming to the rescue,” Lyssa said.

“No problem. It’s what I do.” He smiled. “‘All’s well that ends well,’” he quoted.

“I hope so.” For a moment, she looked steadily at him, her expression unreadable. Then she turned and left the room.

Abruptly, he stopped smiling. Her borrowed bedroom slippers didn’t make any noise on the floor, but just like Tommy, she seemed eager to get back downstairs.

To get away from him?

He shook his head. Obviously, even being the hero of the hour again didn’t make him look like much in her eyes.