All They Want for Christmas

by M. K. Stelmack

  Bridget swallowed. “Yeah, but who needs that?”

  “When we’ve got bigger problems,” Jack concluded. “Look, the bottom line is that I’m not ruling out getting a job elsewhere, but it also makes sense to invest time into stabilizing Penny’s. I studied the books tonight, laid it out on a spreadsheet, did some projections and we just might squeak through this.”

  Classic Jack. “So Penny’s is your personal humanitarian relief project?”

  He gave a short, hard huff. “Hardly. There’s a chance this plan will succeed. I’m thinking of what’s good for the girls. I have the flexibility to fit their schedule, they can come to my workplace and feel safe and warm and fed. Get a little older, they can walk back and forth between here and the restaurant.”

  “A little older? Wait.” She raised herself onto her elbow. “Are you saying you’re not interested in selling your share of the house? You want to live here forever?”

  “That’s what I mean. There’s room for the girls to grow, a backyard. I won’t get a better deal.”

  “Then I’ll have to move.”

  He shifted from the arm down to the bed. When he sat beside her like that last time, she’d touched him voluntarily for the first time since their breakup. She wiggled away. “You can stay, Bridge,” he said softly. “It’s your house, too.”

  He was making plans and they included her. Like he had wrapped a huge Christmas gift for her that she wasn’t sure she wanted to open.

  “All I’m asking for now,” he said, “is that you trust me.”

  Thanks to Auntie Penny, she didn’t have a choice. Still, she couldn’t deny the thread of eager hope in Jack’s voice. He wanted her to believe in him.

  “But what will we do about Christmas Crates?”

  “As much as I hate that Penny stole the money, she did it for me, so it’s my responsibility.”

  “It’s not just your responsibility.”

  “Yes, it is. I took the money. From a charity. There is no one on earth who can better understand what it’s like to be taken advantage of, so I will see to it that the money is replaced.”

  “How?”

  “Trust me.”

  She had no reason to. Then again, if she agreed to forgive him, then she couldn’t sabotage it by not giving him a chance.

  “Okay. I trust you because I’m too tired to come up with a reason not to.”

  She felt the quilt loosen as he rose. “Good enough for me,” he said. “Good night, Bridge.”

  Jack wanting to make things right for her and for their future? Yeah, plenty good enough for her, too.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SATURDAY NIGHT AND Penny’s was full again. Good news for the restaurant, not so great for Jack’s chance to win his bet. Bridget was on fire tonight, and the clientele seemed to bask in her glow. It had started on Friday, when workers had come in for happy hour, and Bridget had worked the bar—and every guy. Tonight was no different. When he saw one customer, whose idea of cleaning up was to wet-comb his hair, slide Bridget a fifty for a seventeen-dollar tab, Jack decided that if he couldn’t win fair and square, he could at least try to cut her off. Forget the good fortunes of Penny’s. He had a date to win.

  He shouldered her aside. “Cover tables for me. I got this.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, then they both clocked who walked in. Four, all men, all sounding as if they’d already washed down a few drinks.

  Bridget swept by him so fast he could feel the wake of her vanilla-scented wind. “Good evening, gentlemen,” she said, “Thank you for coming to my home away from home.” She clicked on her high-beam smile, the one that had propelled him to ask her out on their first date.

  “I’m so going to lose the bet,” he said when she came to the bar with their drink orders.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Remember, it’s over the week. You were leading going into tonight.” A fact he found hard to believe. She settled the serving tray onto her arm and made for her table of men, shooting him a grin over her other shoulder.

  Her smile foretold his doom.

  Three hours later, the two of them sat alone at the bar counter, Jack’s laptop open to a spreadsheet. The debit numbers put Bridget in a slight lead, but he knew that the cash count would blow him out of the water. Bridget finished with hers, while Jack was still counting. It meant nothing—she could’ve had larger bills.

  “Okay,” he said. “How much?”

  She named the figure.

  “No way,” he said. “No way could it have been that low. You made that much tonight.”

  “I made most of this tonight. My week wasn’t as brilliant as you seem to think it was.” She pushed the pile toward him. “Count it yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  Like he’d look a gift horse in the mouth. “Looks as if we’re going skating.”

  “Do you even have skates?”

  “I will by our date.”

  “It’s not a—Forget it, I’m not arguing. When?”

  “Wednesday night.”

  “Make it Tuesday. Cold front coming in Wednesday. Temperatures go down to minus twenty-five.” She fussed with the money, head down. “I might have tried to guilt-trip you into giving your money to Christmas Crates.” She looked downright guilty herself.

  “Are you saying you deliberately underreported your earnings in order to give me a pity date because you feel guilty?”

  She snapped an elastic around their bills, still not meeting his eye. “I might have.”

  The honorable thing to do was to let her off the hook, but then he’d miss out on their date. “Double or nothing.”

  That challenge lifted her brown eyes to his. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I win, we go on two dates. You win and no dates.”

  She thumbed the bills thoughtfully. “Agreed.”

  “And no holding back because you secretly want to date me.”

  She gave him a full eye roll. “Agreed.”

  That was quick. “And second dates usually end in a kiss, so it would have to be a full-fledged date, no holding back.”

  “If that’s all it takes to clear up my guilt,” Bridget said, “I could throw one your way.”

  To demonstrate, she blew him a kiss before departing to the back with the money.

  He was so cleaning up on tips next week.

  * * *

  “BRIDGIE! LOOK, we’re in the paper!” Sofia waved the local newspaper and dashed headlong to where Bridget was set up in the living room, ironing.

  “Careful of the cord,” Bridget said, holding the iron just in case. Sofia had no sense of danger whatsoever. It drove Isabella and Bridget crazy. She reached for the paper.

  There on page three of the twenty-four-page newspaper was a full-color picture of Jack with Sofia and Isabella. It was taken at one of the viewing points of the snow-covered lake. The girls, bundled up, were tucked close to Jack. The headline read, Son of Deceased Philanthropist Appeals to Lakers.

  What? She skimmed the article, reading in black-and-white, as everyone in Spirit Lake could, about how Jack discovered that his biological mother was the founder of Penny’s, and how she’d drained the Christmas Crates fund to expedite his return to Canada from the tumult in Venezuela.

  “No, no, no. What have you done, Jack?”

  She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Deidre called from the kitchen island. “What? What’s going on?”

  “This,” Bridget said, thrusting the paper at Deidre. She couldn’t read any more.

  But Deidre could. “‘There’s no excuse for what she did, but if she hadn’t, then I don’t know where the three of us would be right now,’” she read. “‘I owe people and businesses a total of ten thousand dollars that I’m in no position to pay. But if people find it in their hearts to give again this year, I’d be most grateful.’

&
nbsp; “‘Needless to say, my New Year’s resolution is to repay the money in time for next year’s Christmas Crates program.’”

  If Jack had been home and not out with Isabella at the dentist, Bridget would’ve killed him in cold blood.

  “How dare he tell the town that Auntie Penny was a thief?” Bridget blurted out. “That’s all people will believe about her now.”

  “It couldn’t have been easy for Jack to admit to the world that his own mother wasn’t all that everyone thought her cracked up to be.”

  “He told me he was going to fix this. Told me not to worry. Told me to trust him. And here he goes again. Off with another cause, and not caring how it’ll affect me.”

  Deidre’s face softened. “Is that the real problem?”

  Bridget looked away. Sofia stared at her with a shocked expression. How much had she understood?

  There was a thump of boots on the steps outside, and in came Jack and Isabella with shopping bags.

  “Look!” Isabella said. “Napkins. Christmas napkins.” She produced a thick package of them. White with red trim. “For now and for Canada Day.”

  Canada Day? Optimistic of Jack to think Penny’s would still be around on the first of July. Sofia tugged on Jack’s coat and chatted to him in Spanish. Jack spotted Deidre holding the newspaper and then glanced Bridget’s way. Her expression must’ve clued him in to her raging feelings because he took his time shaking off his outdoor gear.

  She could barely contain her temper. It rose inside her like nausea. She yanked out the cord for the iron—she was not having the girls physically injured—and headed to the back closet. “I’m going to Gord’s next door. I said I’d help him put up his tree lights.” She was throwing on her gear like a firefighter on a three-alarm call.

  “But you haven’t had supper,” Deidre said.

  “I’ll eat later.” Bridget flipped back the lock.

  For someone who seemed to spend her entire day sipping drinks and composing haikus, Deidre moved like a bullet. She snapped shut the lock before Bridget could open the door.

  “Listen.” She had a mother’s edge to her voice that had Bridget doing what she was told. “My sister has left us with a problem to solve. Not for you alone, or Jack alone, to deal with. For all of us. Understood?”

  “Christmas Crates is my project,” Bridget said.

  “There was no mention of it in her will.”

  “Why would there be?”

  “Exactly. It wasn’t hers to give, so I guess it belongs to whoever claims it, which in this case is Jack and the rest of us Montgomerys.”

  Deidre’s logic had loose wiring.

  “Krista! Mara! Get up here right now,” Deidre called past Bridget. “You sit down. We’ll sort this out over supper.”

  Bridget didn’t think she could swallow a mouthful in Jack’s presence, but neither could she stand to have the brainchild of her and her aunt snatched from her care.

  She sat there, picking away at her casserole while the others bandied about ideas to somehow conjure up ten thousand dollars. Jack stayed quiet and avoided eye contact with her. Wise move, Jack Holdstrom.

  With berry crumble set to be served and still no solution in sight, Bridget pushed away from the table. “Let me know how this turns out. I’m off to Gord’s.”

  “Why does he need help?” Deidre asked. “He looks capable enough to me.”

  “He has a tremor. He can’t steady his hands enough to snap the lights on the tree, and he won’t give up on the tree because his wife bought it their last Christmas together.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Bridge,” Mara said.

  “Kind, very kind,” Deidre said absently. Her expression turned faraway. “You know, that just might work.”

  Boots on, one sleeve in her jacket, Bridget listened.

  “Everybody’s putting up their Christmas decorations or their lights, or trying to get their house cleaned for guests or get a bit of shopping done.”

  “And we could do it for them,” Mara said, understanding.

  “For a small donation,” Krista added.

  “With one hundred percent of the proceeds going to the Christmas Crates program,” Deidre finished.

  For the first time since discovering Auntie Penny’s theft, Bridget felt she’d been handed a solid break. “This way people will feel they’re getting something for giving. We earn the money back.”

  Krista beelined for the living room to her laptop on the sofa. “I’ll start a Facebook page and get something on Instagram, okay, Bridget?”

  “Link it to a GoFundMe page,” Mara called after her.

  “Can I join, too?” Isabella said.

  “Me, too,” Sofia said.

  Krista was typing on her laptop one-handed as she carried it back to the table. “So what do we call ourselves?”

  “Christmas Crates... Craters... Crates ’R’ Us?” Mara improvised.

  Krista tapped her lower lips. “Hmm...something to do with Bridget, maybe, too. We could capitalize on her name. I dunno... Bridget and her sisters... The Three Sisters... Three Wise Sisters.”

  Jack waved his hand. “The lone male here requests recognition.”

  “I’m part of it, too,” Deidre said. “I helped repair the crates.”

  “And I bet a couple of my coworkers would help out,” Krista said. “I could definitely promote it at the Christmas store. It would help sell stuff there if people knew that we did installations by donation.”

  Bridget had gone from being alone to part of a committee of five. A very vocal five. Bridget’s Christmas Brigade was born. A social-media campaign was hatched, a target launched, goals shared.

  All because Jack had gone ahead and told the town that his mother—her aunt—had stolen from them. That was the silver lining to the dark, humiliating cloud of how donors like Mel and Marlene and Penny’s customers would look at her tomorrow morning. They’d see the niece of a thief, maybe even a coconspirator.

  If they bothered to come.

  * * *

  JACK WAS CLIMBING the stairs to the school doors when his phone sounded. The principal, Melanie Lever.

  “I wanted to catch you before you went to Isabella’s classroom. She’s here in my office. With Sofia.”

  What now?

  Isabella wasn’t adjusting as well as Sofia. Nobody adjusted like Sofia. Isabella resisted speaking English and her perpetual frowns weren’t winning her friends.

  The principal was frowning, too, when Jack walked in. He closed the door and itched to close the blinds on the windows facing the administration side. This didn’t look good. Isabella had the same vacant, stony expression as she’d had at the orphanage.

  Bridget would take one look at Isabella and know how to smooth out matters. She could get Isabella to do anything.

  As if to emphasize the point, Isabella looked out the glass partition into the larger school office, her mouth twisting when she didn’t see Bridget.

  “There was an incident,” Melanie Lever began.

  Another girl in the class had asked Isabella for a piece of her cinnamon bun. Jack knew the bun very well. A dental appointment immediately after school yesterday meant she’d missed out on her cinnamon-bun routine. Instead, Isabella’s share was added to her lunch today.

  Not surprisingly, Isabella had refused the girl. “Which was her right,” Ms. Lever added.

  But the girl didn’t listen and made a grab for it. Isabella had shoved her to the floor. The girl was shaken, but unharmed.

  All over a cinnamon bun. This part of Isabella he understood. How to explain that for Isabella it was more than a sugary baked good? It was everything good about being here. It was security. It was packaged love. It was...Bridget.

  “The other student apologized for her part, and has gone home,” Ms. Lever said. “Our counselor worked with Isabella
this afternoon about how to handle anger, but with the language barrier, she wasn’t sure how much Isabella understood.”

  From her fixed stare at the door, Isabella understood she was in trouble. Jack stepped in front and crossed his arms for good measure. The last thing he needed was a repeat of two weeks ago.

  “Seven, eight is socially a difficult age. Girls especially start forming best friends, hierarchies of friends, and it shifts from day to day. Isabella as the new girl in a new school in a new land with a new language faces special challenges but—”

  “But that’s no excuse,” Jack said. “I will speak to her about the matter tonight.”

  Ms. Lever leveled him a look that Jack felt sure would make sociopaths apologize. “The other girl apologized for her part, but Isabella has so far refused to.”

  Jack began to feel for Isabella. He wanted to peel out of the office, too. Find a quiet place to regroup. Find Bridget.

  He should have put aside his hope for the girls to start fresh, unburdened by others being privy to their painful and damaged past, and advised the school, asked for their cooperation. He might have plenty to prove to Bridget and the people of Spirit Lake. His girls had proved their worth simply by being there.

  “You should know, Ms. Lever, that my daughter comes from a place that was once one of the wealthiest in the world and now where kids fight over a loaf of bread. I personally know someone—very dear to me—in this town who has never forgotten her hunger pains from when she was a kid. I’m not sure that the pains will ever go away for Isabella. But you should also know that she will only return to the school when she’s prepared to believe that she doesn’t have to defend her right to her food while at your school. Fair enough?”

  Ms. Lever’s severity eased into a more thoughtful expression, and Jack hustled Isabella and Sofia to Penny’s, not wanting to disrupt their routine. Isabella walked in first, straight past the kitchen to the front and to her table. Bridget had already set it with glasses of milk and minicinnis. The girls went to the bathroom to wash her hands.

  The door had barely closed before Jack filled Bridget in about the incident.