Santa's Posse Read Online Free PDF Page A

go.”
    “Are you sure?” He
cocked his head, studying her with concern.  “You seem a little…”
    She laughed and
gave a dismissive wave.  “No brain injury,” she assured him.  “I’m just
preoccupied.”
    “I see that. 
Anything I can do?”
    “Nope.”  She
roused herself.  “Hey, what are you doing here?”
    The instant she
said the words, she realized they didn’t sound particularly friendly, and might
even be construed as suspicion on her part—as if she might be thinking he was
some kind of a stalker.
    He finally
released her, but kept his hands poised in front of her for a brief few
seconds, apparently in case she toppled over.  He hitched a thumb at the door
just across from her front door.  “I was just dropping Daniel off,” he told her,
and then glanced at her open door.  “Do you live here?”
    “Just moved in. 
So Daniel and his mother are my neighbors?”
    He nodded.  “Yes,
they are.”
    “I was just on my
way to my car to grab my tool box,” she said.
    He weighed the
declaration with a nod.  “So your plans for the evening involve a tool
box.”
    She gave him a
curious look, unsure what he meant by the remark, but suddenly, his meaning hit
her like a mallet upside her head.  “Oh.”  She chuckled ruefully.  “Okay, so my plans aren’t particularly exciting, since they do involve my toolbox,
but…”  She raised a finger for emphasis.  “If I’m going to get off my air
mattress and onto a real mattress tonight…”
    “No need to
explain,” he assured her.  “Need any help?”
    “I don’t want to
impose…” she said, letting the words hang in the air. 
    “It’s not a
problem.  Why don’t I have a look and then we’ll assess which tools we need.”
    She turned to
enter her condo, when he spun on his heel and began jogging away.  He turned
back briefly and called out, “Be right back.”
    She watched after
him, and her eyes widened when he crossed the street and entered the condo
directly across from her own.  He was gone all of two minutes.  When he retuned
to find her waiting in her doorway, he grinned.  “By the way, I’m your neighbor
too.”
    She wasn’t sure
how to respond.  So he was her neighbor?  Talk about a coincidence.  But then,
she realized the condominiums were ideally located, being so close to the
mall. 
    Her unit’s close
proximity had been the reason she had selected it.  If need be, she could
easily walk to work.  Perhaps its nearness to his workplace was the same reason
he had chosen to live in this particular condominium community, she speculated. 
    “Well, this is a
surprise,” she said with a smile.  “We’re … neighbors.”
    He nodded.  “I
think you’ll like it here,” he told her.  “The community has great amenities,
and my squad car parked across the way serves as a handy, dandy deterrent to
would-be burglars.”
    “Good to know,” she
said, nodding her head up and down in measured intervals.  “Does that mean, in
the event of an emergency, I can call you rather than 911?” 
    Kellie immediately
regretted the question.  It sounded like a flirtatious question, and she truly
hadn’t intended it to.  She felt her cheeks flame with embarrassment.
    She suspected he
noticed, since he smiled.  “I’m at your disposal,” he said agreeably, meeting
her gaze.    
    She gulped.  Since
he was standing so close to her, she realized his proximity was doing
strange things to her pulse rate.  What was wrong with her? she wondered.  It
wasn’t as if she hadn’t met attractive men before.  She met them all the time
in her line of work. 
    But as far as
serious romantic entanglements, she’d avoided them like the plague.  Career
came first—always had.  Much to her mother’s chagrin, her single-minded
devotion to her job had assured her success and she had, at the age of
twenty-nine, achieved her lifelong goal—to be a mall manager before the dawn of
her thirtieth birthday.   
    She was