Excerpt of It Happened One Christmas by Leslie Kelly

Her jaw unhinged. "You'vegot to be kidding! You seriously
want to go into the biggest toy store in theuniverse today?"

"Come on, it'll be fun."

She took a step back. "It'll be insane. There will be
agazillion kids in there."

"Nah. Just their frenzied parents."

"Who are worse than the kids!"

"You'll like this, I promise. Come on, Miss Cranky Ass."

She gaped.

"Look, I need to get for a present for my nephew. I know
he'dlove this walking, roaring dinosaur toy I've seen
commercials for. My sistertold me he's spent the last month
with his arms hidden inside his shirt, wavinghis little
hands and roaring at all his preschool classmates."

"Velociraptor?"

"Yup."

"Okay, at least he's gotgood taste in dinosaurs. They're my
favorite, too."

"I always preferred theT-rex, myself."

"Not bad," she said with ashrug. "So I guess that means
we're a couple of carnivores."

He nodded, liking thebanter, especially liking that the bad
mood her ex had caused appeared to havecompletely
disappeared. "I guess so. Though, I don't suspect it would
take awhole pack of you to bring me to my knees." No,
indeed, he suspected Lucy wouldbe quite capable of that all
on her own.

He didn't elaborate,letting her figure out what he meant.
When she lowered her lashes and lookedaway, he figured she
had.

What could he say? He wasaffected by her, had been at first
sight. The feelings had grown every minutethey'd spent
together. Not that she was probably ready to hear that from
a guyshe'd met a few hours ago. Nor, honestly, was he ready
to say it. Knowing shewas amazing, fantastic—and that
he wanted her, badly—was one thing. Admittingit this
soon was another.

So he went back to saferground. "Anyway, that store's
probably the only place I'm going to find thedino-toy I'm
looking for today. It walks, it roars, he'll love it!"

"Preschool-ageappropriate?" she asked, sounding dubious.

"Hell, no." He grinned."But that's for his parents to deal
with. I'm just the cool uncle who buys it."

Considering the presentmight be late, he wanted to make it
a good one. No Internet gift card couldever satisfy a four-
year-old, and since Ross was the boy's godfather, and
hisonly uncle, he had to do right by him.

"So, what do you say?"

"I dunno..."

"We're talking about goinginto F.A.O. Schwarz, not Mt. Doom
and the fires of Mordor."

She rolled her eyes. "Atleast there are no screaming little
ones on Mt. Doom, unless you count theHobbits."

He liked that she got thereference. He wasn't a total geek
but couldn't deny being a LOTR fan. "None inthere either.
They're all home being extra-good, hoping Santa will
notice."

"How about I wait outside?"she offered, looking horrified
by the idea of going in, but also a bit saddenedby it.

Lucy was obviously seriousabout that not-liking-Christmas
thing. Though, he wondered if it was theholiday she didn't
like, or some sad memories that were attached to it. Given
thefew things she'd said about her parents, and the happy
childhood she'd hadbefore she'd lost them, he suspected
that might be it.

Well, bad memories nevertruly went away, but they could
certainly be smacked into the background bygood ones.

"Your call," he replied,tsking. "But remember, you don't
have to shop. Don't you think you'd have funwatching the
crazed parents fighting over the last Suzy Pees Herself
doll, orthe My Kid Ain't Gonna Be Gay Monster Truck
playset?"

Lucy laughed out loud, ashe'd hoped she would. "When you
put it that way, how could I possibly refuse?"

"You can't. Anyone with anounce of schaudenfreude in their
soul—which I suspect you have, at least whenit comes
to Christmas and oddly-penised exes—would race me to
the door."

Mischiefdanced on her face and a dimple appeared in her
cheek as she offered aself-deprecating grin. She didn't
deny it. That was something else he likedabout her. Most
other women he knew kept up thatI'm-sweet-and-love-puppies-
and-kitties-and- everyone front, at least at thebeginning
of any relationship. Lucy hadn't bothered. Hell, she freely
admittedshe hated Christmas, and had been fantasizing about
cutting off a guy's dickwhen they'd met. Talk about not
putting on some kind of nice-girl act. Was itany wonder he
already liked her so much?

"Okay, Mt. Doom, here we come," she said, taking his hand.