Read A Fairytale Christmas for Free Online Page B

newspaper from a table where a battered coffee urn stood. He shook it open tothe society pages. “Check it out,” he said, shoving the paper under Jack’s nose.
    Jack stared. He felt a slow red burn creep up his face. There they were, Madeleine Langston and her Prince Charming, spit-polished and posed as if for the cover of a romance novel. She gazed up at him, her Grace Kelly profile limned by candlelight. The man, his face in shadow, bent slightly to whisper in her ear. His
GQ
-style tux and valet grooming screamed wealth and breeding.
    Yet despite the posed look of the picture, he sensed a strange warmth in the shot. The way her slim hand rested in the crook of his arm, the way his entire attention was riveted on her … The overall impression was that the man and woman were fascinated by each other. Somehow it was all there—the yearning, the hesitation, the part-bashful, part-eager sense of inevitability that these people were going to fall in love.
    “A picture’s worth a thousand words, eh?” Derek asked.
    “Yeah, right.” Jack dropped the paper negligently on the desk and picked up the Macy’s bag. “I know just the guy to fix this.” He left the room with Derek in tow. “Best tailor in Manhattan. A gentleman’s clothier, as a matter of fact. He’ll make you look like a million bucks.”
    “Sure, Riley.”
    “I mean it.” Jack thought ruefully of the photo in the
Courier
. “The guy makes magic.”
    Before going into the city, Jack showed Derek around the youth center. It wasn’t much to look at, but it had a heart as big as the Dakota. A rambling converted tenement, it had housed the Santiago Center for the past five years.
    Five years of triumph and failure. Jack supposed it would always be that way. For every kid they kept outof trouble and in school, another slipped through the cracks.
    “I just don’t get enough time to spend with them,” he said to Derek, opening the metal door to the courtyard.
    “I can’t figure you out, Riley,” Derek declared, trotting out onto the basketball court.
    Jack went out, too, smoothly stealing the ball from a lanky boy called André, then passing it to Derek, who made a decent layup and scored. They fooled around for another few minutes, their laughter chasing away the cold.
    “You’re with the pros now, me lads,” Derek declared only seconds before a boy knocked him on his butt and stole a rebound. Laughing, Jack left them playing and squabbling. He sobered instantly when he crossed the yard and entered the director’s office.
    A girl sat alone there on a metal chair, a crumpled handkerchief crushed in her hand and her unseeing gaze fixed on a wall map of the boroughs. A livid bruise stood out on her right cheekbone, and her lower lip was swollen.
    She was so pregnant she looked as if she would give birth any minute.
    “Uh,” Jack said, clearing his throat, “is someone helping you?”
    The girl turned her gaze up to him and blinked slowly, twice. “Hi, Mr. Riley.”
    His heart flopped over in his chest. They were the biggest, brownest eyes he had ever seen—and he hadn’t seen them in months. “Maria,” he said. He knelt beside her and took her hands in his. “Where’ve you been, girl?”
    “I never should have stopped coming here.” Her swollen lip trembled. “I’m in trouble, Mr. Riley.”
    “Ah, Maria.” He squeezed her hand. “It’ll be okay.Promise. Everything will be fine. Tell me what happened.”
    “Nothing will ever be fine again,” she said softly, with the sense of drama Jack had noticed about her right from the start. “But I thought it would be. José said he’d get a steady job and a place to live, but he went off and never came back.”
    Jack knew the boy; liked him, even. José had been a decent student, a hard worker, more down-to-earth than most. He’d finished school the summer before. Jack touched Maria’s bruised cheek, very lightly. “What about your family?”
    The girl’s eyes flashed with anger.