Christmas Every Day by unknown.

To Mary Ann Jolqnston, a one of a kind lady

Chapter 1.

What Sara Santangelo liked about life was that if you looked hard enough, there were usually choices. She had one now as she deplaned at John Wayne Airport. She could either drive up to Eagle Rock, a development within Newport

Beach, and see her father, or she could go to meet the man who was going to be her employer during her temporary stay in Southern California. It never even occurred to Sara that the man might not give her the position. To her it was a foregone conclusion.

As was her choice. She'd face her father later.

Depositing her suitcases in the car she had just rented, Sara decided to drive to Sinclair's, the restaurant co-owned by her new cousin-in-law, Julia.

By nature Sara was not a coward. But it was just that, almost fifteen years after her parents' breakup, there was still too much emotional baggage for her to unpack. This close to seeing her father for the first time in over a decade, and suddenly the tips of her fingers felt icy and the pit of her stomach had contracted into a tight, angry knot.

Perhaps after she managed to get things in gear at Sinclair 's, Sara reasoned, she'd feel more like facing the man who had broken her heart and walked away from her and her mother when they had needed him most.

After all this time, it still hurt.

Raymond Santangelo hadn't just divorced his wife, he had divoqrced his daughter, as well. There had been a handful of visits in the first year and perhaps a dozen cards and notes. And then nothing. A stark, empty nothing.

It was hard for Sara to feel charitable toward him after that.

With the address memorized, Sara easily found her way to Sinclair's.

Pacific Coast Highway's serpentine route hadn't changed all that much in the past fourteen years, and she was blessed with a photographic memory that absorbed everything around her, cataloging it all away for future use.

It was a nice-looking restaurant, Sara decided as she pulled up in the parking lot. She would have expected nothing less from something that Brom was involved with. Her cousin had begun by wanting to remodel the restaurant at his Tahoe casino and had wound up remodeling his life by marrying Julia Sinclair, the woman who had taken on the task of bringing a touch of cla.s.s to a heretofore drab restaurant

Sara had been duly impressed with both Casino Camelot and Sinclair's/Tahoe when Brom and Julia had shown her around yesterday afternoon. Impulsively stopping at Brom's house en route to staying with her father, she had left as emotionally fortified as she could for the long-delayed meeting ahead.

Her father had called a week ago, having tracked her down through relatives who kept tabs on the nomadic life she led. Sara spent six months in one place, a year with another firm, nine months with a third. She left when things threatened to turn stale. Or serious. She always stayed clear of anything serious. It was a war wound, left over from her parents' divorce. That was the way she had thought of her parents' divorce. As a war.

The conversation between them on the telephone had been painfully awkward. Raymond Santangelo had been diagnosed as having a clogged left artery. He faced the posChristmas

Every Day 9 sibility of intensive heart surgery. And he was facing it alone. He'd asked that Sara come to stay with him until he recuperated. She had wanted to say no, but the word that had come out of her mouth had been yes.

So here she was, dealing with ghosts after all these years.

Sara sat for a moment in the rented tan Mazda, thinking. Beyond the building the ocean peacefully communed with the sh.o.r.e less than a half mile away. She could see Catalina in the distance, its form distinct against the horizon like that of a proud whale sunning itself beneath the golden rays. It was one of those perfect days that Californians liked to brag about.

But Sara wasn't really thinking about Californians or the weather. She was thinking about her life. And her cousin's.

Brom had it all. A tiny spark of envy flickered within her soul before it went out again. A home, a family and a lucrative business. Sara laughed softly to herself as she thought of it. She'd never have guessed that he would turn out this way. Out of the a.s.sorted collection of cousins who huddled beneath the giant family umbrella, Brom had always been thought of as the black sheep. But his roots went deep.

Why shouldn't they? A touch of uncharacteristic bitterness framed the question in her mind. His parents had never divorced. He had been one of the lucky ones. His world hadn't dissolved right before his eyes.

Sara took a deep, cleansing breath, then consciously shrugged off her mood as if it was a physical thing, like a heavy sweater being shed as the day warmed. There was no reason to feel this way. She liked her life. She had toured the country in the past six years.

h.e.l.l, she'd toured the world and enjoyed it all to the hilt. She spoke two foreign languages and could order dinner in three more. For some people, roots were good. For ochers, herself included, they just tended to tangle things up. She liked living out of a suitcase. That way, nothing owned her and she was free to come and go whenever she pleased.

Freedom meant a lot. Freedom to do. Freedom not to be hurt.

She tried not to think about what had brought her to Southern California in the first place.

Time to meet the man who was going to be her boss for as long as she let him. Sara got out of the car and absorbed her idyllic surroundings for a long moment. Composed, she crossed the parking lot and pulled open the heavy oak door that led into Sinclair's.

There seemed to be almost a hush as the door drifted back into its frame. Sara felt as if she had entered a church.

No, a dwelling out of the pages of time was more like it , she decided, looking around. Crossing the threshold of Sinclair's/Tahoe had instantly catapulted her into Arthurian

England. This restaurant didn't go back quite that far.

The journey stopped at the brink of Queen Victoria's time. The ambience was pleasantly old-fashioned, but not stiflingly so.

"How many in your party?" the woman at the reception podium asked.

Sara turned, startled. For a moment she had been so lost in her reverie, she hadn't noticed that there was someone else here. She felt no embarra.s.sment at having been caught daydreaming.

"Just one," she said with a smile.

And it's been that way for a long, long time.

She had no idea why that made her feel momentarily sad. She decided that her father's call had set everything temporarily on its ear. It was going to take some effort on her part to get everything back on line again.

But she had done it before, she thought cryptically. No reason to suppose she couldn't do it again. Practice made perfect.

Jennifer Sinclair Madigan picked up a tall, dark green menu. For a change there were no catering arrangements to see to. Which was fortunate, because Ginger had called in sick this morning, leaving the hostess podium unattended. Once this had been Julia's position, until her sister married Brom and moved away. Now Jennifer manned it when she wasn't busy trying to juggle several other responsibilities, as well.

She glanced down at her small waist. There was no sign yet. But with the new baby coming, Nik was definitely going to have to hire someone to help out around here.

Jennifer offered the dark-haired woman a genial smile and turned. "This way, please."

Sara laid her hand on Jennifer's arm before she could go any farther.

"Oh, I'm not here to eat."

Jennifer looked at the attractive woman quizzically. "

" Excuse me? "

Sara scanned the dim room as her eyes acclimated. She could discern more details now, and tried to decide which restaurant she liked better, the one in Tahoe or this one. It was a hard choice.

"I'm here to work," she replied, preoccupied. "Maybe."

She tossed in the qualifying word as an afterthought. Better not to sound too confident. Employers hated an overconfident employee. She didn't mind playing a part in the beginning.

Jennifer studied the pet.i.te woman more closely. She had short black hair and animated dark eyes. She looked like a cross between a dark-haired Tinker Bell and a gypsy.

The description immediately struck a chord. Those had ,