Come Toy with Me. Cara Summers

caller ID had joy bubbling up inside of her. “Dino?”

      “You probably already know I’m not going to make it home for Christmas.”

      She’d sensed that much last night. She’d also sensed there was more, but the images she’d seen in her crystals hadn’t been clear. Except for the woman—tall with reddish hair and stunning green eyes. Turning, Cass moved to her desk and sat down. The client who was due any minute would have to wait. Cass could hear traffic noises in the background on the other end of the line.

      “I’m in Manhattan on a job. I couldn’t say no.”

      “I understand.” And Cass did in spite of the band of pain that tightened around her heart.

      For a moment, there was silence on the other end of the line, and Cass waited. Of all of her “children,” her son Dino had always been the most reserved.

      Twelve years ago when her husband Demetrius and her sister Penelope had been killed in a freak boating accident, Cass and Dino, her brother-in-law Spiro and his four children, Nik, Theo, Kit and Philly, had moved into the huge house Cass’s father had built. From that day on, Cass had raised her nephews and niece as her own, and Dino had come to regard them more as brothers and kid sister than cousins. Dino had been the only one who’d had a desire to see the world, the only one who’d moved away from San Francisco.

      “There’s a woman,” Dino finally said. “I sense that the Fates have put her in my path for a reason. And I had a vision about her.”

      The redhead, Cass knew. “You’ll figure it out.”

      Dino laughed then, and Cass’s mood suddenly lightened. “You’ve been saying that to me for as long as I can remember.”

      “A mother’s job,” Cass replied. “And I don’t recall that I was ever wrong.”

      “I’ll get home as soon as I possibly can. My discharge papers are coming through in a couple more weeks. That was supposed to be your Christmas present.”

      “Well.” She hadn’t seen that, hadn’t even allowed herself to hope for it. “I’ll have a surprise for you too—when you get here.” She wanted Dino to meet Mason Leone, the man she’d been dating, in person before she told him that after all these years, she’d fallen in love again.

      The traffic noises grew louder. “I have to go. I’ll try to keep in touch. Love you.”

      “Love you, too,” Cass said, but Dino had already disconnected.

      A quick glance at her watch told Cass that she still had a few minutes before she had to go down to her office. Crossing quickly to her desk, she took her crystals from a drawer. Midnight was usually the hour when she could see things more clearly. But she simply couldn’t wait.

      Sinking into her chair, she cleared her mind and waited. One by one the crystals began to glow in her hands. In their centers, mist blossomed, parted, then closed again. In one, she saw Dino in his full dress uniform dancing with the redheaded woman she’d seen before. Around them, lights twinkled. As the mists thickened in one crystal, they thinned in another.

      Cass glimpsed a doll this time, with a porcelain face and a red silk dress. When her attentionwas drawn to a third crystal, Cass felt fear knot in her stomach. She could see the redheaded woman again, but she was no longer with Dino. She was in a dark place, and she was facing the barrel of a gun. The shot that rang out nearly had Cass dropping her crystals.

      In spite of the client who was waiting for her, Cass sat where she was for a few more minutes while fear warred with joy inside of her.

      Dino and the woman would be facing serious danger, but Dino had been right. The Fates were making him an offer, and if he chose to accept it, he would find his true love.

      ON HER WAY DOWN from her office, Cat took a moment to breathe and glance around her store. A toddler clutching his mother’s hand had decided to sing along with the rendition of “Jingle Bells” pouring out of the sound system. Another child was busily plucking ornaments off the Christmas tree she’d set up in one of the corners. Cat grinned. She had to retrim that tree almost every night, but it was worth it.

      The bell over the Cheshire Cat’s door jingled. From her vantage point halfway up the spiral staircase in the center of her store, Cat spotted Mrs. Lassiter and Mrs. Palmer, two of her most loyal customers. No doubt they were here to pick up their dolls. She dashed down the rest of the stairs. Just as she reached the two women, the bell jingled again, and more customers pushed their way into the store. Cat briefly shifted her gaze to the newcomers, and she immediately recognized them as two sisters, Janey and Angela Carter. They had also ordered the dolls. Cat sent them what she hoped was a welcoming smile.

      “I came to pick up my granddaughter’s doll,” Mrs. Lassiter said in a voice that carried. “It’s one of the special ones you ordered from that place in Mexico.”

      “Yes. From Paxco, Mexico.” Cat did her best to project calm reassurance. “I’m sorry, but they haven’t arrived yet. I expect them—”

      “You said they’d be here today. What’s the problem?”

      Ignoring the nerves dancing in her stomach, Cat smiled. “No problem.”

      “When will they arrive?”

      Cat wished she knew. “I’m hoping tomorrow. Thursday at the latest.”

      The bell over the door jingled again, and a portly whitehaired man entered and looked around. Cat was sure she’d never seen him before, and yet there was something about him that was familiar. He crossed to Adelaide and cut rudely into the line in front of her counter. Someone voiced a protest, and for a moment Adelaide lost her usual pleasant expression. She even dropped a toy soldier she was about to ring up. Then she said something to the man and pointed in Cat’s direction. As he strode toward her, Cat suddenly figured out why he might look familiar. With his white hair and mustache, and the narrow unframed spectacles that sat nearly on the end of his nose, he reminded Cat a bit of Santa Claus.

      Oh, how she wished he were. Where was Santa when you needed him?

      “But you’re not sure?”

      Cat shifted her gaze back to Mrs. Lassiter. Worry outweighed the annoyance in the older woman’s voice now, and Cat could see the same concern reflected in Mrs. Palmer’s face, as well as in the Carter sisters’.

      The shop was packed. It was Christmas week in Manhattan and lunch hour—that time of day when both locals and tourists poured into stores with one purpose—to finish their Christmas shopping.

      And her father had wanted her to join him for lunch in midtown? Right. Her family didn’t really have a clue about the kind of pressures that built once you combined Christmas, children and toys.

      Cat met the worried gazes in front of her one at a time. “I’m confident that the dolls will arrive in the next two days.” They had to.

      Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that her assistant Adelaide had fully recovered from her encounter with the Santa Claus man and was ringing up a fairly hefty sale for a young couple. Tourists. The man had a camera slung over his shoulder and the woman was unfolding a street map.

      “So the bottom line is that you have no idea whether or not the doll I ordered will arrive by Christmas Eve.” This time it wasn’t Mrs. Lassiter who spoke. It was the Santa Claus man. His voice carried and several customers who’d been browsing nearby stopped to stare in his direction.

      “You said the dolls would be here no later than today,” Mrs. Lassiter chimed in. “Don’t we have a free trade agreement with Mexico? Would it help if I called my congressman?”

      Cat turned the full wattage of her smile on the small group gathered in front of her and kept her voice calm. “I don’t think it’s time to panic yet. I only learned yesterday afternoon that the delivery of the dolls might be delayed a day or so. Might be. They could be on their way right now. Each doll is handmade, and a few of them weren’t quite ready for