2

      MAX MONROE FELT more than a bit out of place in the doll shop. He tucked the new football more snugly beneath his arm and wandered through the crowded aisles, eyeing the rows of smiling plastic faces and wondering how a person went about selecting one. Should he just grab the first doll that caught his eye? Were certain dolls more appropriate than others for a girl of a certain age? How was a guy sup-posed to know these things?

      He looked around for help.

      A dark-haired, dark-eyed woman was already headed his way, wearing a plastic name tag with a doll’s face painted on it identifying her as a store employee. She smiled, and Max promptly forgot why he’d come in.

      Nice smile, he thought. Nice face. Great body. A particularly nice left hand. No rings.

      “May I help you find something?” she asked, and her voice was more musical than the Christmas carols that filled the air.

      He gave her his best helpless-male smile. “I could certainly use some assistance,” he assured her. Especially from you, he added silently.

      “Are you looking for a gift?”

      “A Christmas present for my niece.” He checked the woman’s name tag as he spoke. Ryan Clark. The word owner was printed in small letters beneath her name.

      “How old is your niece?” Ryan Clark asked him.

      Max had to think a minute. “Five? Six, maybe.”

      “You aren’t sure?”

      With a rueful shrug, he shook his head. “My sister and her family live in Hawaii. I don’t get to see them often, I’m afraid. But I’m pretty sure Jenny is five.”

      “I see. Well, maybe a baby doll would be most appropriate. Little girls of all ages love something they can cuddle.”

      Max liked the sound of that. He took a step closer. “Yeah. Something to cuddle sounds good to me.”

      Ryan Clark shot him a suspicious look and took a step backward.

      “For my niece, of course,” he added hastily.

      Oops. Wrong approach with this one. The blonde at the ice-cream parlor would have responded with a blush and a giggle. Max actually preferred the stern reproval in Ryan Clark’s dark eyes. He always enjoyed a challenge.

      “Of course,” she said, her voice now a bit chilly.

      “Ryan, could you give me a hand here for a minute?” a harried-looking redhead called out from the sales counter, which was surrounded by impatient shoppers.

      Ryan waved an acknowledgment. “Perhaps you’d like to look around a bit,” she suggested to Max. “The baby dolls are in that section. I’ll check back with you in a few minutes.”

      “Sure, take your time,” he said magnanimously. “I’m in no hurry.”

      He watched her full skirt sway around her very nice legs as she walked away. “No hurry at all,” he murmured.

      Without much interest, he roamed the shop, stopping occasionally to study one doll or another. Frankly, they all looked pretty much alike to him.

      He glanced at a few price tags and grew even more puzzled. Why were some of them ten bucks and others several hundred dollars? Who the hell could tell the difference?

      A dark-haired doll in a blue-and-white dress caught his eye, and he chuckled. Funny. The doll reminded him a bit of Ryan Clark.

      He bent to pick the doll up and found himself face-to-face with a little girl with white blond curls and enormous blue eyes. She was studying him so intently that he felt compelled to say something.

      “I’m buying a gift for my niece,” he said. “She’s about your age. Do you think she would like this doll?”

      “No,” the child answered positively, shaking her head. She pointed toward a round-faced baby doll dressed in frothy lace. “That one’s much better,” she said earnestly. “You should buy that one.”

      Amused, Max replaced the dark-haired doll and picked up the other one. “This one, huh?” he asked, noting that the prices were comparable.

      The tot nodded. “That’s a much better one for your niece.”

      “Then I’d better buy it, hadn’t I?”

      He grinned at the look of relief that crossed the child’s face when she glanced at the dark-haired doll. The little girl returned his smile with a particularly sweet one of her own and then disappeared into the crowds around her. Max assumed she’d returned to her mother’s side. He’d bet the kid would be urging her mom to hurry and buy the dark-haired doll for her before some other inconsiderate shopper snapped it up.

      Kids, Max thought with an indulgent shake of his head. They were cute, but weird. He would never figure them out.

      All in all, it was a good thing he’d long since decided he would never have any of his own.

      “HE’S GORGEOUS,” Lynn Patterson whispered as she and Ryan both finished ringing up their sales. “What does he want?”

      Ryan followed her assistant’s gaze to the tall, blond man in the green sweater, who was studying a display of clown dolls. “He said he wants a gift for his niece.”

      “Niece? Not daughter?”

      “Something tells me this guy doesn’t have any kids,” Ryan said wryly, remembering how blank he’d been when she’d asked his niece’s age.

      “Then he’s probably single. What are you waiting for, Ryan? Get over there and offer assistance to the man. Personal assistance.”

      “Lynn,” Ryan groaned.

      “C’mon, look at him. He’s amazing. That hair. Those eyes. Those shoulders. He looks like…like—”

      “Like a heartbreaker,” Ryan said flatly.

      “Well, yeah,” Lynn admitted. “But what a way to go.”

      Ryan’s attention had already wandered. “Lynn, do you see those two kids over there? The boy and girl?”

      “Hmm. Cute, aren’t they?”

      “They’ve been hanging around in here for quite a while. I don’t think they’re with anyone. Help me keep an eye on them, okay?”

      Lynn frowned. “You think they’d try to steal something? At their age?”

      Ryan sighed. “Unfortunately, it’s a possibility. They’re starting younger these days.”

      Her gaze wandered back to the children. They really were cute kids. The boy hovered protectively over his little sister, watching her so carefully. And the girl was an adorable moppet, curly haired, big eyed, pink cheeked. Their clothes were faded and worn, and there was something about them that made Ryan feel a bit sad.

      She couldn’t define it. But there was something…

      “I’ve decided to get this one.”

      The blond heartbreaker leaned against the counter, a lace-clad baby doll clutched in one hand and the football she’d noticed earlier in the other. He was giving her that