“Please don’t report me,” Santa said. “I shouldn’t have said ‘dish.’ I know better. Santa Claus is politically correct.”

“Oh, think nothing of it,” Mallory assured him, realizing he was a New York Santa, not a Midwestern Santa, and she should be sophisticated enough to adjust to slight differences in mannerisms. “I meant I’m not beautiful or sexy or any of the things I need to be to attract him.” She crooked her neck in Carter’s direction.

“Who says?” Santa’s eyes got very big behind his silver-rimmed spectacles.

“I says. I mean, I know I’m not.” The more whispering she and Santa did, the deeper Carter’s frown became. “My boss says I’m not. He-” this time she sent her thumb in Carter’s direction “-treats me like I’m not. So I’m not. I’m frumpy and dull and when he looks at me, he sees a-a law book.”

“Sounds like Santa needs to give him glasses for Christmas,” Santa muttered.

“No, Santa needs to give me-” she stopped and thought for a second “-a whole new image,” she finally got out. “I want to turn into a sex goddess.”

“By Christmas.”

“That’s my target date.”

“This is so serendipitous,” Santa breathed. “If it were in a book, nobody would believe it.”

“Believe what?” He wasn’t merely a New York Santa. He was truly a very odd Santa.

“That you need help and I know exactly where to send you to get it.” He darted a glance at the growing crowd, and apparently motivated by Carter’s thunderous expression, almost knocked Mallory off his lap with his next hearty “Ho-ho-ho.” Then he dug into his pocket and pulled out a peppermint and a card. “Call this number,” he whispered, then shouted enthusiastically, “Merry Christmas.”

Deafened by the sound, Mallory tucked the card into the breast pocket of her jacket and slid off his padded lap. If a department store Santa Claus had just referred her to a psychiatrist, that would be absolutely the last straw.

On the way back to the hotel, Carter was unusually silent. Not that Mallory could have heard him if he’d been chatting companionably away. They’d emerged from Bloomingdale’s to find the streets jammed with honking cars and the sidewalks packed with shoppers. Their Brown Bags jostled with Saks Fifth Avenue red ones, Bergdorf Goodman’s handsome navy totes, Lord & Taylor white ones printed in red script, Gucci, FAO Schwartz and Sony bags.

Through narrowed eyes she caught the glances women sent toward Carter as he effortlessly cut a path through the crowd, snowflakes dusting his navy overcoat and dark hair, while Mallory struggled to keep up with him. From time to time she peeked into her own Medium Brown Bag at the gift box that held Macon’s sweater. Burnt orange. Blue stripes. A shudder passed through her. While she’d inherited her mother’s Nordic blondness, Macon took after their father, a symphony in browns, chestnut hair, interesting amber eyes, olive skin. The pale beige V-necked sweater would have been perfect for him. What was he going to do with a-Save receipts at least three months. File them under Appliances, Gifts, Services and Personal. You never know when you may have to return an inappropriate gift or faulty appliance, or demand that a job done poorly be done over.

Ellen Trent again. One of her major rules for a well-run life. Until that thought popped into Mallory’s mind, her first priority had been to look at the business card Santa had slipped her. Now the worry that she might have forgotten her receipt took precedence.

Surreptitiously she began to grope around in the bag. When Carter cast a glance in her direction, she suspended her search, then resumed it when he wasn’t looking. She didn’t want him to know she was obsessing over a receipt, didn’t want him to know she’d been rattled enough to buy a sweater she was already thinking of returning.

At last she thrust her hand all the way down to the bottom of the bag where her gloved fingertips snagged a loose corner of paper and tugged on it.

The receipt. She glanced at it, gasped and came to a dead halt at the corner of Fifty-ninth Street. The crowd rear-ended her, righted itself, then divided like the Red Sea, casting nasty looks at her as they swarmed around her. Carter, who’d been turning the coiner, cut himself out of the pack and fought his way back in her direction.

“What happened? Whoa. Where are you going?” he said as she whirled.

“Back to Bloomingdale’s,” she said.

He contemplated her for a moment. “You have a thing for Santa Claus, huh?”

The snowflakes that whirled through the air swarmed on her eyelashes, and she blinked hard to clear them. When she saw his gaze riveted on them, she batted them again, more deliberately this time. “Maybe,” she said.

His jaw tightened. “I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

“You may have gone out with Athena by the time I get back, so-”

“Who? Oh. Athena.”

“So we should decide now on a time to meet in the morning.”

“We’re due at Phoebe Angell’s office at nine. What about going down to breakfast at seven-thirty.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’ll be ready. You’ll be home by then?” she said, and it was a question.

He gazed at her for a moment before he said, “Maybe,” and with a slight wave, joined the lemmings swimming east toward the St. Regis on Fifth Avenue.

Jostled by the annoyed shoppers who stepped around her, she watched him go, standing tall in the crowd, the wind rustling his crisp, dark hair, his step sure and purposeful. No wonder she’d just paid $425-plus tax, when she could have saved the tax by having it shipped-for the ugliest sweater in the universe. Proximity to Carter made it difficult to remember anything, even how to spend money wisely.

Everyone should have a budget and stick to it. Financial worries reduce one’s efficiency and-

“Shut up, Mother,” Mallory muttered, and charged through the crowd toward Bloomie’s.

“My faith in mankind is restored,” said the clerk when she returned the sweater. She watched him pluck it up with two fingers and put it aside, a look of distaste on his face. “Good decision.” Stepping out of the men’s department, her pace slowed. She really didn’t want to go back to the suite. Listening through a closed door to Carter getting ready for his date with Athena would be depressing. Pretending to get ready for an imaginary date of her own would be even more depressing.

Slowly she pulled the card Santa had given her out of her pocket. “M. Ewing,” it said. “ImageMakers.” Below that, in both quotes and italics, it said, “A new you in no time flat.”

Mallory drew her brows together. The words were engraved on heavy, expensive card stock. The address was one on the Upper East Side, a high-rent district. “A new you in no time flat” was a jarring addition to the otherwise elegant presentation of the card. “Be the person you want to be,” maybe, or “Realize your personal potential.” Something like that would have sounded more appropriate.

Still, this person claimed to be an imagemaker and came personally recommended by Santa Claus himself. Mallory knew what an imagemaker did. Was that what she needed? Somebody to help her show the world outside she was a woman-a passionate woman?

Forget the world outside. Her sights were fixed on one person in the world. She had her target date and her target victim. Damn straight an overnight imagemaker was what she needed. If M. Ewing turned out to be a charlatan, she’d be out-what? A few hundred dollars? Which she’d just saved by returning the sweater. Without another minute’s consideration, she darted into a small nook devoted to a display of Chanel handbags in their leathery, unaffordable splendor. Ignoring the scornful gaze of the woman behind the counter-an armed guard, probably, given the cost of these handbags-she dialed the number listed on the card.

“ImageMakers,” purred a smooth male voice. “Richard Gifford speaking. May I help you?”