Christmas with Him. Jackie Braun

palm and taken his pizza with him. But…but he remembered the first time they’d met. He’d heard the Scooby-Doo theme music coming from inside her apartment and they’d discovered a mutual covert obsession with the cartoon character. He couldn’t afford cable and she got the cartoon channel, so there had been a few instances when he’d watched episodes with her. Okay, more than a few.

      “The car runs fine.” He gave her the keys, then held up the plastic bags. “I brought pizza and beer. How about dinner?”

      She blinked. “Is there a Scooby-Doo marathon on?”

      It was his turn to blink. “Not that I know of. I thought it would be…be nice to…” She thought he only wanted to eat with her so he could borrow her TV set. Had he been that much of a moocher?

      “To what?”

      “You know, eat dinner together.”

      They stared at each other amid an unaccustomed awkwardness. What had he done? They’d eaten dinner together before, and yes, they usually ended up watching Gwen’s TV. But this was different somehow. About the time Alec figured out it was because he’d never sought Gwen’s company just for the sake of being with her, and why hadn’t he, she pulled the pizza box out of the bag.

      “You need a distraction while you eat this, huh?”

      “Hey, that’s the premium store brand,” Alec shot back, relieved to fall into their usual pattern of mock insults and zingers.

      “Ooo, the premium brand.”

      “Sarcasm? After I make a genuine spontaneous gesture of friendship and sharing—”

      “All right, all right. I’ll heat up the oven.” Laughing, she took the pizza into the kitchen.

      Back to normal. He exhaled and wandered over to the sofa, noting her open laptop and the papers beside it. “Gwen?”

      She looked at him through the kitchen bar.

      “If you’re busy—”

      “Actually, you can help me. I’d like a man’s opinion.”

      “Oh?” He held up one of the beers and she nodded. Twisting off the top, he set the bottle beside her laptop, careful to keep it away from the keyboard. He didn’t mean to pry, but with the words Plan Of Attack written in eighteen-point type, he could hardly avoid reading. She’d made a column of words like “weakness, strength, objective, timeline, ammunition” and so forth. “What’s up?”

      “Just a minute.”

      He heard a buzz indicating that the oven had reached the baking temperature and then watched Gwen bend down to put the pizza in. Yeah, she was all right. Great female friend material. Twisting off the top of the second bottle, he took a swallow of beer and hoped again she wasn’t too insulted by his pitiful offering.

      He thought of her friend Lisa. No—Laurie. Whatever. That wasn’t going anywhere. For a while there Linda—Laurie?—was sending all the right signals and under other circumstances…under other circumstances, Gwen wouldn’t have been standing right beside them.

      Why hadn’t she ever looked at him like that?

      Gwen threw away the pizza wrappings and came out of the kitchen. “This is really nice of you.” Her smile was maybe a little too wide to be real.

      Hell. “Look, Gwen, I know it’s not much, especially after I—”

      “You big doofus, you spent all your money, didn’t you?”

      Doofus? “Well, yeah.”

      She put a hand to her chest. “I’m flattered.”

      “Seriously? You are?”

      “Yes. Now sit down and quit fussing.”

      “Fussing?” He never fussed. But he sat down.

      Instead of being insulted, she was flattered. Women. He’d never understand them.

      GWEN SAT beside him and handed him a brown foam insulator with the Kwik Koffee logo on it. Just when she’d given up on men, one of them had to go and do something sweet. Trying not to make a big deal out of Alec’s gesture, Gwen nodded to her laptop screen as she fit her bottle into the foam rubber. “I’m going after a promotion,” she said. “And I’ve been trying to think like a man.”

      “So you thought military instead of sports?”

      “Yes.” She hesitated. “I’m off sports.”

      “Works for me.” He tilted back his head and swallowed, yet kept his eyes on her computer screen.

      Gwen ruthlessly smothered a sigh and erased the mental image of Alec’s jawline.

      He tilted the bottle toward her list. “You haven’t got very far.”

      “I know. That’s where you come in. I’m currently on the staff of one of the regional directors. Kwik Koffee’s got seven, but two of the largest regions need to be split and I think that’ll be my best shot for a promotion. Now, visualize the regional directors holed up in a fort under siege. I want in.”

      “I’m visualizing and I’m not seeing any women. Are there any women directors—is that the problem?”

      “No women.” Gwen shook her head. “But I think that’s coincidence.”

      “Maybe. Maybe not.”

      “There are two assistant regional directors. Both women.”

      “And the fact that women are assistants is just coincidence?”

      Gwen frowned. “I don’t want to go there. The assistants are in the biggest regions, so logically, if the regions are split, they should get the promotion. I want you to tell me what an ambitious man would do in my position.”

      Alec sat back. “There’s the time-honored, yet slimy, method of joining the same club and bonding in the steam room, a couple of rounds of golf a month, that kind of thing.”

      “I don’t play golf.”

      “You should learn.”

      “I don’t steam, either.”

      Alec laughed. “Put ‘find something in common’ on your list. Maybe the guy in charge collects wines or model trains. Or, I know—nothing beats a plate of warm brownies.”

      Only the wicked flash in his eye saved him.

      “There is a huge difference between a plate of brownies and time in a steam room.”

      “That’s a plate of warm brownies—okay!” he conceded when she opened her mouth. “But find out what he likes and give it to him.”

      Gwen raised her eyebrow.

      He waved his beer bottle impatiently. “You know what I mean. Also, figure out who makes the promotion decisions. You have to make your boss look good to him.”

      “Why shouldn’t I make myself look good to him?”

      “You will be.”

      Gwen dutifully typed his suggestions. “I also know to analyze the work and find something that needs to be done, then volunteer to do it, but I can’t figure out anything that needs to be done that I’m capable of doing. Kwik Koffee seems to run an efficient operation.”

      “Think small, but visible. Oh, yeah.” Alec gestured for her to continue typing. “Think cost-cutting. Companies love it when you save money.”

      Gwen knew that, but she added it to the list to humor him. He was really getting into this corporate competitiveness.

      “Reprice supplies or something. Then you can send a memo detailing what you found. Don’t forget to print out your e-mail.”

      “Right, a paper trail.” Gwen made a note to check prices on environmentally friendly