Mistletoe Over Manhattan. Barbara Daly

to end the night with Mallory in his bed, at least to hold that tall, slim woman in his arms and give her a kiss that said, “Thanks, and let’s get together sometime.” A kiss that would make her want to get together sometime.

      Why hadn’t he?

      He’d gotten himself together was what had happened, had gotten the second highest grade on that exam. Mallory, of course, had gotten the highest.

      Funny, he’d forgotten how pretty she was with her pale, blue-green eyes and that incredible silvery-blond hair.

      He realized he was worrying his pen between his index and middle fingers, a nervous habit he’d been trying to break. His time was too valuable to waste it like this. He’d been thinking about the case, which was all he could afford to think about until he negotiated a settlement. Sensuous had recalled that entire lot of dye upon getting the first complaint, of course, and had sent lawyers out to negotiate generous settlements to the first fifteen or twenty of those hundred plus complainants. Unfortunately, a couple of the complainants had found an ambitious lawyer—or she had found them, which happened sometimes—who got all of them together and filed suit. They weren’t going to settle for hair therapy, weekly manicures, new sinks, re-painted walls and regrouted tile floors anymore. They were after everything Sensuous was worth.

      And all because a bored assembly line man had decided it would be fun to add a permanent green dye to a batch of hair color in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

      Carter’s first priority was to keep the case from going to trial, which was one of the ironies of being a trial lawyer. He’d do his best to convince these pea-green plaintiffs that weekly manicures and new sinks were all the payback they needed.

      He hoped Sensuous had hired him for his professional reputation, not his personal one. He hoped they didn’t think he could seduce the plaintiffs and their lawyer—a woman—into settling.

      “Mr. Compton?” He looked up to see one of the department’s paralegals at the library door. “I know you have permission to access the Green case files on our network, but I made you a CD as backup in case you’re somewhere without a network connection.” The girl’s hands trembled as she handed him the packaged disk.

      “Thanks,” he said, standing up, giving her a smile. For a second he was afraid she was going to faint. Then what would he do? But she mustered up some poise, returned his smile, batted her lashes and swung her hips provocatively as she made her way out of the library. At the door she paused, struck a sexy pose, gave him some more eyelash action and said, “I’m Lisa, and if there’s anything else I can do to help, like if you need clerical or paralegal backup in New York…”

      It was the story of his life. He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t anything he did deliberately. Some chemical in his body—well, testosterone was what it was—must have sprung a leak at birth and had been oozing out of him ever since, attracting women like beer attracted slugs.

      If he intended to settle down, he had to plug that leak. He had to become irresistible to just one woman. And he had to stop attracting every unattached female who came into view. There was no better time than right now to give it a try. He wondered what he could say that would leave no doubt in Lisa’s mind that he wouldn’t be calling her for a wild weekend in New York. And while he wondered and Lisa waited, a bright idea popped into his mind.

      “Thanks, Lisa,” he said. “I’ll pass that on to Mallory Trent. She’s going to need plenty of support from the department.”

      He was relieved to hear the smoky tone clear from Lisa’s voice. “Of course,” she said, releasing her body from the arched-back position that made her breasts and butt stick out at the same time. “I’m happy to give Mallory any help she needs.”

      When she slammed the library door, Carter felt he’d made some progress. He’d discovered, he ruminated as he made his way back to his own handsome office at Rendell and Renfro, that it paid to have a woman on his team who could run interference for him with other women.

      While they were in New York, Mallory would make a great blocker.

      Of course, he didn’t want to be blocked completely. On his phone list were several women who lived in New York. This was his chance to go out with them, enjoy their company, treat them to a night on the town—and if he felt like it, a night in bed. Along the way, he’d determine if one of them might be someone he could settle down with forever. He’d make dates with a couple of them right now, tonight, before he forgot.

      He reached his building, signed in and went up to his office. Too bad the plaintiffs didn’t have Mallory’s hair. Nobody with hair like Mallory’s would want to dye it red.

      2

      MALLORY DIDN’T OPEN her office door again until she’d heard her suitemates leave for the day. By that time she felt she’d successfully compartmentalized every facet of her life, including Carter, who’d gone into a read-only-don’t-touch file. And there he would stay, at least until she had to face him in person at the airport in the morning. By morning, she’d be herself again. Under control.

      Dressed for the cold winter night, she caught a cab on LaSalle, which slipped and slid as it carried her through the velvety darkness. The streetlamps cast a golden glow on the snowflakes that misted the air and iced the streets. Christmas trees soared high within the lobbies of the commercial buildings she passed, and when she reached the more residential areas, glittered festively through the windows of brownstones and apartments.

      “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” the cab driver said.

      Resisting an alarming urge to sing, “everywhere you go,” back at him, Mallory said, “We just had Thanksgiving.”

      “That’s Chicago for you. Start on Christmas and Hanukkah while we’re still living on turkey leftovers.”

      “We are mere tools of the commercial establishment,” Mallory said, sighing even as her spirits rose in anticipation of her parents’ pleasure in the gifts she’d already gotten for them—a new, state-of-the-art laptop for her mother, which she’d asked her brother Macon to select and load with the most up-to-date software, and a fully accessorized riding lawnmower for her father, which would enable him to keep the lawn in Oak Park groomed to military standards.

      “You got that right,” her philosophical driver agreed, nodding. “No love in the presents anymore, just money.”

      Money. She’d spent a ton of money on those gifts. But, she argued with herself, she’d also spent a ton of time deciding what might please them most.

      Still, it was something to think about, and she had plenty of time to think while the taxi driver told her a heart-wrenching story about the Christmas his great-aunt gave him a sweater she’d knitted with her own two hands, and on the day after Christmas, had passed on, leaving her memory behind in perfect cable stitch.

      She gave him a generous tip when he dropped her at her high-rise in the Carl Sandburg Village in Old Town. When she stepped through the door, she found her apartment, as always, silent, warm, spotless and perfectly neat, just as it should be and would be, unless she drifted unknowingly into senility—still living in this apartment.

      A grim resignation came over her as that thought went through her mind, but this wasn’t the time to attack and disarm it. She put her black leather briefcase on the desk in her home office off the kitchen, lining it up precisely beside the desk pad. Today’s mail went beneath the mail that had arrived while she was stoically enduring her vacation. First in, first out. That was the rule.

      Go through mail.

      Pay bills. Respond to invitations and requests.

      Read and throw away or file everything else.

      This list, an excerpt from one of her mother’s books, popped into her mind. No wonder the surprise encounter with Carter had thrown her completely off balance. She’d gotten in too late the night before—and had been too traumatized by warmth, sand and the mandate