“I knew you’d come,” Beth whispered between chattering teeth into his ear. “I knew you’d come.”
Mandy dug the blankets and thermos from the backpacks while Jason radioed the sheriff. Shouts of rejoicing rang back over the radio waves.
A minute later the sheriff put Ellen on.
“We have a Christmas present here for you.” Jason held the radio up to Beth’s face.
“Merry Christmas, Mommy. Are you mad at me?”
“No, Sweetheart. Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
Jason moved the radio to Bonnie. “Hi, Mommy. I want to come home. I’m c–cold.”
A sob came clearly over the airwaves. “I know, Precious. Mandy and Jason will bring you home.”
While Mandy and Jason wrapped the girls in blankets, Bonnie reported on their adventure. “I was c–cold. I told Beth I wanted to go home, but she said we couldn’t until we found Jesus.”
“I didn’t think it was so far,” Beth justified herself. “It didn’t take very long in Tom’s truck or Mommy’s car.”
Bonnie broke in again. “When I got really cold, I cried. Then Beth saw that tree and said let’s pretend we were J. P. when he was little and crawl under it.”
“The snow couldn’t blow on us there,” Beth explained. “But it was still cold.”
Bonnie pulled the blanket closer about her throat, shivering. “I cried lots. I was afraid nobody would find us and we’d get lost like Hansel and Gretel.”
“That’s why I tied my scarf on the tree, so people would see it ’cause the tree hid us.”
“Very smart, Beth,” Jason commended, pouring a cup of hot chocolate and handing it to her.
Beth beamed.
“I wanted to pray and ask God to bring somebody to find us and take us home so I could be warm.” Bonnie glanced at Beth. “Beth didn’t want to pray. She said God didn’t care if anybody found us. I told her she was wrong because my Sunday school teacher says God loves us. And then I cried harder, so Beth prayed anyway. And then you came.”
Two snowmobiles pulled up, followed soon after by a red Jeep. Mandy and Jason quickly bundled the girls into the warm vehicle, where Mandy helped them change from wet tights to dry jeans and socks.
There was a knock at the window and Mandy opened it.
“I’m going back with the guys on the snowmobiles to get Tom,” Jason said.
Mandy frowned. “Must you? You should get out of the cold.”
“I’m fine. I don’t want to take a chance on the men missing Tom. I know just where to find him.”
Beth pushed her chin out from the blanket. “Where’s Tom?”
“At the nativity,” Jason told her. “He stayed in case you and Bonnie showed up.” He waved one hand. “See you all later.”
“Wait.” Beth struggled to sit up straighter.
Jason waited.
“My doll blanket. I think we forgot it under the tree.”
“I’ll get it for you.” Jason started to turn away.
“No.”
Jason turned back. “Don’t you want it?”
“Will you take it to the baby Jesus?”
Tears heated Mandy’s eyes. After all Beth had been through, her first thought was still to protect the baby Jesus from the cold. Her determination could have cost her life and Bonnie’s. One day, she’d tell her grandchildren about this adventure and laugh at what she’d perceive as her silliness. But Mandy suspected God would cherish the sweet, if misguided, desire in the little girl’s heart to protect His Son.
Jason nodded solemnly. “Yes, I’ll make sure your blanket covers the baby Jesus.”
Beth heaved a sigh of relief. “It’s a little wet. I carried it under my jacket to keep it dry, but we got cold, so when we were under the tree we put it over our legs.”
“I don’t think Jesus will mind that you used it first.” Mandy shared a smile with Jason before rolling up the window.
The volunteers took Mandy and the girls back to the farm in the Jeep. Ellen waited at the Christmas store. Mandy watched the emotional reunion with a teary but happy heart. She called Grandma Tillie and assured her and Grandpa Seth the girls were truly home at last.
The sheriff came down to check on the girls himself before dismissing the last of his deputies and volunteers and heading home.
The girls wanted to open their Christmas presents right away—even though their pleas came between yawns—but Ellen stood firm. “It’s late. You’re going to take baths to warm you up and then crawl into bed. Besides, we can’t open the gifts without Grandma Tillie and Grandpa Seth and Jason here. We’ll have our Christmas party tomorrow morning.”
Mandy was pleasantly surprised when Jason and Tom showed up half an hour after she and the girls arrived. “I thought you’d be out the rest of the night, finding your vehicles and driving them back.”
“I left the Jeep, and Tom left his truck. We’ll get them tomorrow. The volunteers brought us home on the snowmobiles. How are the girls doing?”
Mandy explained how the girls’ hopes to celebrate Christmas yet that night had been dashed by Ellen’s practical plans.
“Is Ellen holding up all right?” Tom’s brown eyes looked anxious.
“She’s doing fine,” Mandy assured him. “She didn’t even do the normal mother thing of throwing a tantrum once she realized the kids were safe. She just wants to get them warm and climb into their double bed and sleep with them.”
Jason walked over to the fireplace area, picked out from the family Christmas present stack two long rectangular packages wrapped in red paper, and handed them to Mandy. “Would you ask Ellen if the girls can open these before they go to bed?”
“What did you give them?”
“You’ll see.”
Ellen reluctantly agreed. She’d just gotten the girls out of the tub and into clean, warm flannel nightgowns. “I don’t want them getting excited over Christmas presents again and waking up. They need their sleep.”
She brought the girls downstairs, where they sat on the bottom loft step to open the packages. Gasps of delight greeted the gifts.
“A puppy!” Bonnie pulled a stuffed basset hound with ears almost as long as its body from the box and hugged it to her chest. “Thank you, J. P.”
Beth pulled out a matching puppy from her box. “Thanks. I’m going to call mine Old Butch.”
Jason grinned. “That’s a perfect name.”
Bonnie frowned. “I was going to call mine Old Butch.”
“Why don’t you call him Little Butch?” Mandy suggested. “After all, he is a puppy.”
Bonnie, with her usual compliant nature, agreed.
Ellen sent the girls off to bed. “I’ll be up in a few minutes.” She waited until the girls reached the top of the steps before turning to Mandy, Jason, and Tom. “There is no way I can sufficiently thank you for all you did tonight, but I promise there will always be a special place in my heart for each of you.”
“We didn’t do it all ourselves,” Jason reminded her.
She didn’t argue, just gave each of them a hug and headed up to join her daughters.
Jason took Tom up to the farmhouse to arrange sleeping arrangements for him until morning, when the storm would hopefully abate. “Will you wait up for me?” Jason asked Mandy. “I know it’s late, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep, and I’d like to talk to you.”
So she waited for him.
There was still hot chocolate in one of the thermoses. Mandy brought two mugs down from the loft and set them on a table in the fireside area. Ellen had lit a fire in the fireplace earlier. Only glowing embers remained.
Mandy plugged in the lights of a Christmas tree near the hearth. Crystal icicles which glittered in reflected light decorated the tree. Beneath the tree, the unopened gifts were still piled, stacked in their brightly colored wrapping.
The other tree lights weren’t turned on. The large, festive room felt unusually homey and comforting in the dim, mellow lighting, and the
quiet was broken only by shifting embers.
She wandered idly about in the fireside sitting area, adjusting the placement of a china angel on a table or a gnome atop the mantel. A rag doll Santa Claus and his wife, dressed in red felt, sat on one corner of the hearth. Mandy knelt before them for a moment, tracing Mrs. Claus’s red-stitched smile with a fingernail and running a hand over the soft white curls of the doll’s hair. She pinched Santa’s silky beard where it tumbled over the front of his red suit. These dolls always brought a smile to Mandy’s face. Such an eternally happy- looking couple.
What did Jason want to discuss so badly he wanted to come back tonight to do so?
Mandy sat on the floor beside the dolls and stared at the embers. So much had happened inside her, in her heart and spirit, during the last few hours.
She heard the door open. The bells jangled merrily, their sound clearer and louder than usual in the night quiet.
“Mandy?”
“Over here, by the fireplace.”
She could trace his movements by the sound of his footsteps on the wooden floor. In a minute he arrived at the fireside. He removed his jacket and hung it over one wing of the chair.
Mandy got up from the floor and sat down in the opposite wing chair. Only then did Jason sit down in the wing chair across from her. He rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the orange glow in the grate.
Mandy waited for him to choose his time to speak, studying his face and thinking about all the ways she loved him.
He sighed deeply. “Quite a night.”
“Yes.”
“Thanks for letting me come back tonight. I wanted to tell you—”
“There’s something I want to say first. Please. I’ve been gathering my courage while I waited for you. If I don’t say this right away, I might not say it all.” Her heart raced as she met his gaze.
“I’m listening.”
“Tonight when Ellen took the girls upstairs to bathe, I wandered through the shop. I love this store. I’ve loved Christmas stores from the very first moment I stepped into one.”
She stopped, her gaze drifting over the shadows of trees in the dimly lit room, wondering how to put into words what was so clear in her heart. “Eight years ago when you asked me to marry you, I knew I couldn’t. I knew God’s place for me was in these mountains, involved in work I love.”
“Mandy, I—”
She lifted a hand to silence him. If she didn’t get this out, she might always regret it. “You thought I didn’t love you if I wouldn’t sacrifice everything for you. I did love you, but I didn’t want us to end up like your parents. I only knew them through the stories you and Grandpa Seth and Grandma Tillie told me. But I know your father loved your mother so much he gave up his dreams to stay in the mountains she loved. Eventually, he grew bitter over his sacrifice. I don’t know what that did to their marriage, but I know bitter hearts grow self-pitying and poison other lives.”
“Our father images again.”
Mandy frowned. She wanted to finish her own thoughts.
“Broken father images influencing our understanding of God,” he clarified. “Remember?”
She nodded.
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. One of the messages from my father’s life was that perfect love sacrifices. And sacrifice entails giving up something we love. Suffering.” His somber gaze held hers. “I was selfish to ask you to leave what you love. I don’t want you to make that kind of sacrifice for me. I want you to be happy. You’ve been happy here, haven’t you?”
“Mostly. I’ve loved following my dreams. But I don’t need them or this place anymore to be happy.” She took a deep breath and plunged on. “I don’t know if there’s any chance you still want me in your life, but if you do, building us is more important to me than building mountain Christmas stores.”
“Mandy.” With a swift, smooth movement Jason slid from the chair to the hassock in front of Mandy and gently framed her face with his hands. She saw the joy her words caused reflected in his eyes, and wonder curled through her just before his lips touched hers in a kiss so soft and so sweet it filled her with awe.
He folded his hands over hers and pressed a kiss to her fingers. “I’ll never again ask you to give up your dreams for me, Mandy. But it means the world to me that you’ve offered.”
Confusion swirled through her. When he kissed her she’d felt certain he loved her, but now. . .
“My turn to talk.” He rubbed her hands gently between his. “The last couple months, seeing the way your life has played out because you stayed true to what you believe God called you to do has been a gift. You put love into your work, and that love multiplies. Following your path has allowed so many others doorways to following their own paths: Tom Berry and his mother, all the other craftspeople you’ve encouraged.” He grinned. “The women who knitted all those mittens. You certainly gave those people a way to contribute to the world.”
“You give me too much credit. People who want to contribute to the world always find places to do it.” She sat up straighter, eager to share with him. “I forgot to tell you. The knitters enjoyed making the mittens so much that they’ve decided to work on them all year for next Christmas’s mitten tree and make mufflers and hats to give away too. Isn’t that wonderful?”
He laughed. “You see? You don’t even realize the ways God works through your trust in the desires He puts in your heart.” The laughter died away from his voice and eyes. “I realized recently that I chose the career I did because I believed my father didn’t love and accept me for who I was. I fought with him until he died. Then, in a last-ditch attempt to gain his approval, I followed the example he gave me in life and sacrificed my dreams for his.”
Mandy leaned forward and touched her lips to his forehead, her heart aching for the boy he’d been.
“How could I believe God wanted me to follow the dreams He put in my heart, when I couldn’t believe my human father wanted me to follow those dreams? Then tonight—was it only tonight? It seems eons ago—out on the mountain in the storm, searching for the girls, everything became clear. I think my father did want me to be happy. He just couldn’t see that he and I were different. He thought if I stayed in the mountains on the Christmas tree farm, I’d eventually grow as bitter as he had. He believed his only happiness lay in the financial world in a large city, so he believed that’s the only place I could find happiness.”
“He died young, only a few years older than you are now. He was probably just starting to figure out life himself.”
“Yes.” Jason splayed his fingers, touching his palms against hers. “I feel God’s given me a second chance. He’s given me glimpses—through you, Gramps and Gram, the girls, and Zach—into what my life might become if I make different choices. I’m not going back to New York. I’m going to tell Gramps I want to work with him.”
“Jason, that’s wonderful. I mean, if it’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want.” He picked up the Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus dolls from the hearth and sat them on his knees facing Mandy. “These remind me of the Christmas ornament we gave Gram and Gramps, the old man and woman on the bench.”
Mandy smiled. “They do look similar.”
“Let’s get married, Mandy.”
She gasped, but he didn’t give her time to reply.
“Let’s raise a couple great kids like Beth and Bonnie. Let’s grow old together. And when we’re old and gray, young couples will walk past us and say to each other, ‘Will we love each other that much when we’re their age?’ ”
Joy engulfed her heart. He remembered almost word for word what she’d said that long-ago day when they’d bought the ornament for his grandparents. She rested her palms on his cheeks and smiled into his eyes. “If those young couples are very blessed, they will love each other that much when they’re old.”
This time she initiated their kiss, rejoicing in the freedom to do so.
When she pulled her lips from his, Jason ra
ised his eyebrows. “Is that a yes?”
“Oh, it’s a yes, Mister. It’s a yes and a promise.”
He drew her into his arms, and she snuggled her head against his shoulder.
“Deep in my heart, I think I always knew you’d come back, Jason.”
His arms tightened around her. “Me too.” Overwhelming gratitude for her love roughened his voice. In his mind Mandy’s words echoed in Beth’s voice—“I knew you’d come.” Thank God, I’m finally listening.
Epilogue
Jason sat on Gram’s rose-print sofa in the midst of Christmas Eve chaos. The tree with its memory-filled, humble ornaments stood as always in front of the window, pine scent filling the room. Beth and Bonnie played with new Barbie dolls, sitting on the floor surrounded by colorful, crumpled Christmas papers. A lump thickened in Jason’s throat at the remembrance of Christmas Eve two years ago, when he’d wondered whether he’d ever see those two sweet girls alive again.
A slender golden retriever lay with its head touching Beth’s leg. Butch seldom let the girls out of his sight. Tom had given the dog—only a wiggly puppy then—to the girls as a belated Christmas present two days after they were rescued. It took only a gentle reminder of the dog that played such an important part in saving Jason’s life as a boy to convince Ellen to let the girls keep the dog.
His gaze roamed the room. Gramps and Mandy’s father played chess on the small chess table that Gram had given Gramps for Christmas. Ellen and Gram sat on the floor with the girls, their own gifts stacked nearby.
There was a stir in Jason’s arms, and he looked down at his son wrapped in a pale blue blanket. The bald, skinny boy, eyes closed, yawned and stretched a two-month-old arm. Then Abe nestled in again, his head resting against Jason’s chest in perfect trust.
Jason’s heart caught. Don’t let me ever give Abe a reason not to trust me, Lord.
Jason realized he’d break that trust someday. It was inevitable. It was the way of humans to be imperfect. But he meant to love his children the best he knew how every day and strive to be an example of the kind of father God is.
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