Dreaming Of Christmas. Susan Mallery

as they turned to leave, she kept dancing, going a little more quickly, finding the rhythm of the tap dancers as they moved onto the stage.

      She paused the frame and wrote some more, then made a couple of quick drawings to capture the exact poses she imagined. She moved on to the next transition and made changes there. She was just starting the third when someone rang her doorbell.

      Her first thought was that it might be her mother. Dread coiled in her stomach. She wasn’t ready to face May, to deal with the family trauma again. Was hiding and ignoring the interruption too cowardly?

      Whoever was at the door rang the bell again. Reluctantly, she walked over and opened it.

      Relief was instant. Dante stood on her doorstep. He smiled at her.

      “You’re home. I didn’t hear any pounding above my head, so I thought maybe you’d finished early. Get your coat.”

      He looked good, she thought, studying his amused expression. He wore a leather jacket over jeans and a scarf. He had on boots. She could feel the cold of the rapidly darkening late afternoon.

      She put her hands on her hips. “Get my coat? Was that an order? Newsflash. I don’t work for you.”

      “Good. Because I don’t take anyone on my staff out.” He sighed. “Seriously, you’re going to be difficult?”

      “No. I’m going to ask where we’re going.”

      “Didn’t I say ‘out’? I would swear I did.”

      She laughed. “Out where?”

      “To the center of town. They’re decorating. Neither of us particularly likes the holiday season, so we need to be with people who are less corrupt. It will be good for us.”

      “Will it?” She stepped back to allow him inside. “When did you make this discovery?”

      “Earlier. So are you coming or what?”

      “Give me a second.”

      She turned off her TV and the laptop she’d hooked up for the DVDs, then stepped into boots and pulled them on. After shoving her house keys and a few dollars into her jeans pockets, she shrugged on her coat.

      “I’m ready.”

      Dante stared at her. “Impressive. Less than two minutes.”

      “You’ve never had to change costumes during a performance of Swan Lake.”

      “That’s true. How perceptive of you.”

      They walked outside. She locked the door, then followed him to the sidewalk.

      The couple across the street was putting up Christmas lights. Several other townhouses had wreathes on doors and lights twinkling from doors and rooftops.

      “We’re really going into town?” she asked.

      “Yes. The whole place has transformed.”

      “I noticed a few Christmas decorations being put up this morning,” she admitted, “but nothing that earth-shattering.”

      He took her hand in his. “You walked home the back way, didn’t you? Through the residential part of town.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      His fingers were warm and strong next to hers. His skin smooth without being too soft. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d held hands with a guy. This was nice, she told herself. She and Dante weren’t dating—she wasn’t that stupid. She knew better than to fall for her brother’s business partner. But some gentle flirting, a little handsome male company, wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

      “You’d be amazed what this town can do in a day,” he told her.

      “You sound impressed.”

      “You will be, too. How’s the dance prep coming? I heard the clog dancers earlier.”

      She laughed. “Sorry about that. I don’t know how to make it quiet.”

      “I’m getting used to the noise and they’re getting better.”

      “How can you tell?”

      “They’re more rhythmic.”

      “That’s true. At least most of the students are studying ballet. It’s quieter.”

      “Unless they fall.”

      She winced, remembering the mass tumble during her two o’clock class. “You heard that?”

      “It registered as a minor earthquake. The local seismology office called to see if we were okay.”

      She shoved him in the arm. “It wasn’t that bad.”

      “They didn’t do it on your head.”

      “Smug lawyer type,” she grumbled. “They’re learning. It doesn’t always go well.”

      “I didn’t say it had to stop. I’m looking forward to seeing the performance.”

      “You’ll be intimately familiar with the music.” She glanced at him. “Will you really come see the show? Won’t you be off visiting family?”

      “There’s just me.”

      “What about your dad?”

      “I never knew him.”

      “I didn’t know mine, either. But you probably guessed that from the slight altercation you witnessed yesterday.”

      He drew her close and kissed her cheek. “It sucks.”

      The blunt assessment was oddly comforting. “It does,” she admitted. “Hey, I don’t know anything about you.”

      “I like being mysterious. Sort of a James Bond of the lawyer set.”

      She laughed. “Hardly. So tell me something interesting.”

      “That’s too much pressure. Ask me a question.”

      “Have you ever been arrested?”

      “Yes.”

      She stopped on the sidewalk and stared at him. “Seriously?”

      “More than once.”

      “You went to jail?”

      “I served time.”

      “No way. You can’t have a criminal record and be a lawyer.”

      “Pretty and smart,” he told her. “That makes you irresistible. Okay, you’re right. I was a juvenile. My records were expunged.”

      “What did you do?”

      His normally open expression tightened. “Bad stuff. I was in a gang.”

      Evie tried to imagine the well-dressed, smooth man next to her as a kid in a gang. Her imagination wasn’t that good. Before she could figure out what else to ask, he tugged her along and they turned a corner, entering one of the main streets of Fool’s Gold.

      Just yesterday the stores and windows had featured turkeys and pumpkins. Any lights had been orange, and garlands had been made of leaves. In the space of a few hours, the transformation to the Christmas holidays had begun.

      Baskets of holiday greens with shiny silver and red decorations hung from the lampposts. The windows were now covered with painted holiday displays—pictures of wrapped packages or snowmen, a few nutcrackers. Morgan’s Books had stacks of popular children’s books on tables and a sign promising Santa would be coming to read ’Twas the Night Before Christmas next Saturday, after the town Christmas tree lighting.

      Up ahead, in the main square, a large crane was being attached to the biggest live Christmas tree Evie had ever seen in real life. It had to be twenty feet tall.

      “But it was Thanksgiving yesterday,” she said, feeling as if she was going