Caro's Gift (Small-Town Christmas Wishes Book 2)

by Jean C. Gordon

  “Ms. Caro.” Hope tugged her hand. “Come on.”

  Caro hadn’t realized she’d stopped walking. She pushed all thoughts of, and parallels to, work out of her head. Being in Snowflake was supposed to relieve her job burnout. She didn’t need to pick up new stress here to add to her life.

  “See.” Hope pointed at the Gifts N` More window display. “Don’t you love him? I do.”

  Caro took in the light brown Teddy bear dressed in a Santa suit, complete with a Santa hat, boots, and a curly white beard. “I definitely love him.”

  Hope’s grin turned serious. “If I wasn’t getting my Jesus people for Christmas, I’d ask for that Teddy bear.”

  Caro’s heart dropped. “How do you know you’re getting your Jesus people?”

  “Because I tell God I need them every night when I say my prayers with Mommy. I tell him that Mommy needs a teacher job, too, so I can go to school again.”

  “You seem pretty sure about that,” Caro said, taking care with her words.

  “Yep.” Hope nodded enthusiastically. “Ms. Gabriella at Sunday school said, ask God and he’ll give you what you ask for, as long as you’re not asking for something bad or mean. And I’m not.”

  No, only for something that may be impossible.

  “Hope.” Heather’s voice sounded behind them. “We need to get going to find Jake and go home.”

  The little girl dragged her gaze from the window display. “Okay.”

  “I’ll see you Sunday,” Caro said, as Hope took her mother’s hand to leave.

  “It looked like you and Hope were deep in discussion when we walked up.”

  “I was being reassured by four-year-old paraphrased Bible quotes concerning the nativity scene that Hope is dead sure she’s going to get for Christmas. Ask God and he’ll give you what you ask for.” Caro’s heart sank. If only it were that easy. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a nativity scene even close to the one Hope thinks she’s getting for Christmas.”

  Simon draped his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. “But I don’t know. Remember, in God all things are possible.”

  She drew a spark of optimism from his gesture, his being there for her, before she playfully slugged him in the gut.

  “What?” He removed his arm to face her. “They are.”

  “I can’t argue with that.” She slipped her arm through his and they started strolling up the street, with her oohing and aahing, and him placidly agreeing. Until they reached the This and That Shop. Caro stopped dead and stared at the display window. She rubbed her eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” Simon peered in the window. “Do they have another nativity?”

  “No. The snow globe.” She leaned closer to the window to see the details: a country church with its doors open in welcome, three deer pawing the ground next to it, and a single star shining above. My snow globe. Except she knew it wasn’t. Just one like it.

  Simon checked out the window again, a confused look on his face.

  Caro swallowed hard against the memories. “I had one just like it as a child. My father gave it to me. He’d gotten it when he was little.”

  “What happened to it? Did it break?”

  “No.” She blinked to dissuade the tears gathering in her eyes from rolling down her cheeks. “After Daddy died, Mom sold it to a thrift shop with some other stuff.”

  Simon looked at her.

  Thoughts ricocheted in her head as she worked to explain her mother and her actions. Not an easy task. “Mom went through a period of grieving when she wanted to change everything to have a new beginning. She gave away or sold lots of stuff, and we moved from the Topeka area where we’d always lived down to Florida.”

  “How old were you?”

  “First grade. A little older than Hope. I didn’t know the globe was gone until the next Christmas rolled around, and we’d moved again, in with my grandparents.”

  “I can see why you’re so determined to find Hope her nativity or a reasonable facsimile. I’ll do all I can to help.”

  “Thanks. We’d better get over to the Bistro to get Gram.” Caro looked out of the corner of her eye at Simon’s very masculine profile and his wide, strong shoulders as they passed by the displays they’d already seen. As a rule, outside of the ER, she rarely chose to depend on anyone else. Simon made her want to alter that rule.

  They strolled by one of the garland festooned lampposts, complete with Christmas wreath and red bow. Simon came to a stop in the shadow of the buildings halfway between that lamppost and the next one in front of the Bistro.

  Caro looked around for a reason. Most of the tree-lighting crowd had left and traffic was nearly nonexistent. “Why did you—”

  Simon put his fingertip to her lips, lowered his head, and replaced his finger with his lips. They were soft and warm against hers. He ended the kiss before she could react.

  He looked around, up and down the street, and a sheepish expression spread across his handsome face. “Sorry about being so public. “You just looked so beautiful, and I thought you might let me.”

  The impact of the kiss and his words thrummed through her. She pinned his gaze with hers. “Play your cards right, fella, and I just might let you again. Sometime.”

  Chapter Eight

  Caro rechecked her makeup in the mirror, touching her lips as had become her habit since their kiss. She smiled. After a week of disappointments, her spirits were higher than they’d been since the tree lighting. This evening, she and Simon were going on her secret angel Christmas tree mission, which they’d postponed earlier in the week when Simon had come down with a bug.

  The anticipation was almost enough to counter her disappointment when she’d gone back to the This and That Shop for the snow globe only to find it had already been sold and the frustration that neither she nor Simon had found any nativity scenes online like the one she was looking for.

  What she had found, though, was a job listing for a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant at the Snowflake Medical Center. It was a general practitioner position with daytime hours. The position was bound to be less stressful than her ER one. She hadn’t done anything about her job situation except pray for more guidance. She didn’t want to lose her life in Aurora for temporary factors rather than career factors. The temporary factor being Simon. Staying here just for him cut too close to her mother’s MO.

  “Caro, Simon’s here,” Gram called up the stairs.

  She’d been so absorbed in thought she hadn’t heard him come in. Caro bounded down the stairs, pausing on the last step to admire Simon. He looked like an LL Bean model in his ski jacket, jeans, and winter boots.

  “Hi, how was your second day back at school after being out sick?”

  “Busy, but not as insane as yesterday.”

  “Good. I’ll grab my coat, and we can go.”

  “Have fun,” her grandmother said as she saw them off. “I’ll be fine here for as long as it takes you.”

  “And you won’t do anything you’re not supposed to do,” Caro said.

  “I won’t.”

  “Promise?” Simon asked.

  “Promise,” she huffed. “You better get going or all the tree stands will be closed.”

  They drove down Main Street, past the town Christmas tree and all the decorated shops.

  “I can see how you and Gram can come year after year to see the town Christmas tree lighting and other decorations. It’s just as pretty tonight as it was after the lighting, and I’m seeing decorations I missed when we strolled the street.”

  “Yes, it never gets old to me, although once was enough for my ex-wife.”

  Caro heard a tinge of bitterness in his words. He hadn’t talked about his ex before. Her guess was that he didn’t talk about her like she didn’t talk about her mother, unless pressed. Except she’d talked to Simon about her mother, and more than once.

  “Uh,” Simon started.

  Was he going to say more about his ex? Or was he uncomfortable hav
ing mentioned her? Caro shifted in her seat.

  “Remember when I talked with Jake’s mother after the tree lighting?”

  “Yep. I figured it was something about Jake and school.”

  “It was about school. I told Heather about a long-term sub position at Pine Cone Elementary. The kindergarten teacher is going on maternity leave in January. I encouraged Heather to apply. I think she has a good chance, and it may lead to a full-time position once she finishes her bachelor’s degree.”

  At least Simon was seeing some secret angel success. “That sounds promising. But what about daycare for Hope? There’s an opening in Pre-K?

  “No, but I talked with some of the teachers who have kids. A couple of the daycare centers in town have a sliding payment scale for lower income parents.”

  “You’ve been busy for a guy who was feeling under the weather.”

  Simon grinned. “Without my students to entertain me, I had to do something to entertain myself.”

  “Thanks for everything you’ve done.” Without thinking, Caro patted his knee and quickly returned her hand to her lap. His grin widened and made Caro smile.

  He cleared his throat. “I came across something else you might be interested in.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “There’s a job opening for a nurse practitioner at the Snowflake Medical Center. Your grandmother said you were feeling burned out in Aurora.”

  Butterflies took flight in her stomach. Was Simon saying he wanted her to stay? “I saw that too. It would be a big move.”

  “Right.”

  Caro waited for him to say more. He didn’t. The fluttering stopped. She’d have to base her decision about applying on a lot more than one kiss and Simon, perhaps, wanting her to stay in Snowflake. She let the topic drop.

  “Here we are,” Simon said a couple minutes later, turning into what was usually an empty lot on the edge of town toward the Campbells’ house. “I checked around and this place still had a decent selection of trees, despite it being only a week until Christmas.”

  Caro took in the rows of evergreens. “We need to be fairly quick. The Sunday school pageant practice won’t last late.”

  “Hi, folks,” a man about Caro’s mother’s age said as they walked onto the lot. “Can I help you find anything special?”

  “I like blue spruce,” Caro said.

  The man looked from her to Simon for confirmation, raising a little ire in Caro.

  “Whatever the lady wants,” Simon said.

  “Follow me,” the man said. “Apartment? House? What size tree are you looking for?”

  “A small ranch house,” Simon answered. “About as tall as I am. The tree, that is.”

  They all laughed.

  “I’ve got the one right here.” The man righted a tree that did look like just what she wanted.

  “I like it,” she said.

  “We’ll take it.” Simon reached for his back pocket.

  “How much is it?” Caro asked, pulling out a few bills from her jacket pocket before Simon could get his wallet out.

  The man gave her the price, and she paid him. He laughed. “Is this your first Christmas together.”

  “Why, yes. Yes, it is.” Simon lifted the tree to carry it to his truck.

  “Enjoy!” the man said with another chuckle.

  Caro pulled the truck door closed harder than necessary. “You let that guy think that we’re together.”

  Simon started the vehicle. “We were together. Together buying a tree. The guy struck me as a talker, if we’d encouraged him. I figured agreeing was the quickest way out.”

  “If he’s a talker, what if he talks about us?”

  Simon turned the truck toward the Campbells’ road. “I don’t know him. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then, what does it matter?”

  She shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t.”

  But somehow people thinking they were together as a couple bothered her. Maybe because she didn’t know if that’s where they were headed. If that’s where she wanted to be headed. One minute she was appreciating all the help Simon was giving her, savoring their one kiss again, and considering a job in Snowflake. The next minute, she was begrudging him his success in her secret angel quest and telling herself one kiss wasn’t anything to base a relationship on.

  Caro stared down at her boots. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Where her uncertainty was coming from. She didn’t know anything anymore.

  * * *

  Well that had gone about as smooth as the Campbells’ unplowed road. He’d been excited about coming across the medical center job listing. Well, he hadn’t exactly come across it. He’d gone to the site to check the time of his appointment for his upcoming annual physical. While he was there, he’d clicked on jobs. Just in case. And there was the listing. Caro hadn’t showed half the enthusiasm he’d felt.

  Then, when he’d been going along with the tree salesman, she’d gotten irritated with him. He’d been having fun, pretending they were a couple. Because you’d like to be, dummy. But you have no clue if that’s anything Caro would be interested in. All he had was one stolen kiss that chaste as it had been, had rocked his world

  An ambulance came up behind them as they approached Beaver Pond Road. He pulled over to let it by and glanced sideways at Caro. She was the first woman who’d really piqued his interest since his divorce. The ambulance’s flashing lights when it pulled ahead of them interrupted his thoughts.

  He pulled back on the road and flicked on his directional to turn on Beaver Pond Road. Then, he turned it off. “Do you know what color Heather’s car is?” he asked.

  “Hope said they have a red car. Why?”

  An arctic chill ran through him. “Look.” He nodded toward a black SUV driving up Beaver Pond Road. “There’s a pen and pad in the center console. See if you can get the license plate number of the SUV while I drive by.”

  Simon checked out the people in the SUV—two men—while Caro wrote on the pad.

  “Got it,” she said. “What’s this about?”

  Simon continued driving. “Those two guys could simply be turning around, but I have a bad feeling about them.”

  “You think they could be the men who were threatening Heather?”

  “I could be totally wrong, but I don’t want to take chances.” He turned into the driveway of a house with no lights on as if it was his. The SUV flew by and was soon out of sight.

  Caro shuddered.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “I’m okay. I was thinking about Heather and the kids. If they were home …”

  “But they’re not.” They were at church. Or at least he prayed they were. Simon turned around and drove back toward the Campbells’ place. He muttered under his breath when they got close to the house and the truck’s headlights shown on the house.

  “Oh, no!” Caro said.

  Someone—the guys in the SUV he suspected—had broken the glass in the front storm door and sprayed profanities and we’ll be back for our $$$ in red spray paint. It didn’t appear they’d broken all the way into the house. Maybe the ambulance siren had scared them off. He took in the graffiti again. Or, given the time between the siren and the amount of vandalism, they’d planned all along to deface the house when the family wasn’t home to frighten Heather into meeting their demands.

  Caro pulled out her cell phone as he got his. “I’ll try to get ahold of Pastor Callahan to keep Heather and the kids at church.”

  “Good thinking,” Simon said while he punched in 911.

  “911 Operator. What’s your emergency?”

  Simon explained the situation to the operator, and she connected him to the sheriff’s dispatcher.

  “We’ll send someone right out,” the dispatcher said.

  “Great. And, the homeowner and kids are at the Snowflake Chapel Christmas pageant practice. You may want to send someone there, so she doesn’t come out here.”

  “And you are?” th
e dispatcher asked.

  “Simon Novak. I teach at Snowflake High. I’m a friend. I was driving by and saw what looked like suspicious activity.”

  “I’ll pass that along. You’re lucky our calls have been light tonight.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Stay there until a deputy arrives.”

  “I will.”

  The dispatcher clicked off.

  Caro looked at him expectantly.

  “A deputy should be right out. They’re sending one to the church, too.” Or I hope they are. No need to make Caro any more concerned than she already looked to be.

  “Good. Pastor said they’re still practicing. I’ll text him to try and delay Heather until the deputy gets there.”

  “We might as well get the tree out,” he said, dropping the tail gate.

  “I have a secret angel tag to tie on it.” Caro pulled a flat red card with from your Secret Angel scrolled on it from her coat pocket. She’d put an angel sticker below the writing.

  He held the tree up while she attached the tag to one of the branches with red ribbon that she tied in a big bow. “There. Hope, at least, may get some joy out of this evening. Where should we put it?”

  Simon surveyed the front of the house. “I was going to lean it against the front of the house by the steps. But that’s part of the crime scene now.”

  “How about leaning it against the snowbank between the driveway and the house. They should see it there.”

  Simon propped the tree against the snowbank. “That works. If you’re cold, we can get back in the truck and turn the heat on.”

  “No, I’m good.”

  She shivered, telling Simon the opposite.

  “I don’t think I can sit still. Besides, I see flashing lights through the trees.”

  Simon squinted toward Big Bear Road. “Me, too. They were as quick as they said.”

  The deputy pulled in beside Simon’s truck. “Deputies Foster and Kroger,” Foster introduced them as he got out from behind the steering wheel. “I need to see your IDs.”