Ginger (Marrying Miss Kringle)

by Lucy McConnell

  “Ready for what?” asked Joseph.

  “Baking cookies.” Layla clapped her gloves together.

  “I’m not sure today is the best day for baking cookies.” Joseph scratched at his beard. A beard looked good on Joseph. Some men just couldn’t pull them off, but his was thick, not scraggly, and a dark chestnut brown. And soft. For one disturbing second, Ginger wondered what it would feel like to have it brush against her cheek.

  Shaking off her daze, Ginger pulled out her most innocent voice. “No?”

  “I’ve got work to do in the shop, and it sounds like you’ve got something going on.” He pointed to her phone.

  Lux was singing “Jungle Bells” in an attempt to get her attention. Ginger had to smile. “If she knew you could hear her, she’d turn redder than Rudolf’s nose.”

  Layla giggled.

  “I can come by tomorrow.”

  “You’re baking at my—my house?” Joseph’s eyes widened in fear.

  Ginger considered the fact that a bachelor may not have the best housekeeping skills. She could mosey on into a disaster. However, Lux had converted their kitchen and dining room into a command center/science lab. There was no way to explain all that away. “Yep. I need to see the tree so I know how many cookies to make.”

  Joseph took in Ginger’s coat and pants, which were thinner than most people’s winter gear. “We live a ways out of town, and it’s cold.”

  Ginger knew he was making excuses, trying to give her a way out if she wanted it. The thing was, she didn’t want it. She wanted to spend time with Layla. And she’d made a promise to a child. Santa, or the future Santa, couldn’t break promises—it was part of the Santa code. “I’ll be fine,” she stated curtly, hoping to cut off any more arguments before they began.

  “Please, Uncle Joseph,” begged Layla.

  Joseph sighed in resignation.

  Ginger tried not to take his reluctance to be around her personally. Maybe homemade cookies would mend things between them and give her a chance to smooth things over. Then again … “See you around noon tomorrow?”

  He put his arm on Layla’s back and ushered her towards the Trading Post without confirmation. Layla smiled and waved goodbye.

  Ginger waved back. “See you soon.” No answer was as good as a yes in her book.

  She watched Joseph hold Layla’s hand as they clambered inside the Trading Post and out of the cold. His big, broad shoulders and strong frame were a contrast to Layla’s puffy coat and thin legs. Layla’s presence gave Ginger the oomph she needed. She wouldn’t normally head off to a stranger’s house alone—unless it was to deliver presents. In fact, when she and her sisters were on excursion, they always stuck to the buddy system.

  Except for today. Lux had been too caught up in her work. She’d gone to bed early and risen with a determination to figure out this Christmas Magic business so they could leave. She was probably working on a love potion at this very moment.

  The one thing Lux hadn’t thought of was that the heart couldn’t tell time. As much as Ginger would like to have all this figured out—she thought so, anyway—she couldn’t force Dr. Patrick Greggory Scott to appear. The man had a job, a life, and for all she knew a girlfriend. Although with the scarcity of women in these parts, a girlfriend was unlikely.

  At least she’d met Quik. Though, that meeting hadn’t produced a husband, or even a spark. And yet, her red ruffled purse had produced a scarf with the Kringle crest on it for him. She’d been specific in her mental wish before she pulled it out—even calling him by name. And then he’d withdrawn his offer, somehow knowing that the life he led wasn’t for her. But the scarf had her wondering if the life he led wasn’t for him either. Even knowing all that, Ginger still didn’t feel inclined to seek him out. The general consensus of the meeting was that they weren’t for each other, and that was fine with Ginger.

  “In a one-horse open sleighhhhhh!” Lux gave the song a big finish.

  Ginger chuckled. “Okay. Okay. I’m on my way.”

  “Good.” Lux hung up.

  Shaking her head, Ginger stored the phone in her pocket. Her gaze wandered up and down the dark Main Street. There weren’t any children. There had to be other children besides Layla nearby, because Ginger felt an odd sense of hunger for them. A hunger to be with them, to see their smiles, to make them smile, and to spread the joy of Christmas into their hearts. If she couldn’t figure that out soon, she’d have to take the sleigh for a ride down south. The need to be Santa was pulling mightily, and Ginger strained against it in an effort to focus on finding true love.

  In fact, if it weren’t for the need to find Doctor Patrick Greggory Scott, fall deeply in love, and get married, she’d have taken off today and found a mall full of kids. With a sigh, she flipped her scarf over her shoulder and marched towards her snowmobile, parked at the top of the street near the church steps. There were naught/nice reports waiting at the lake house. At least her time here in town wasn’t a complete waste. She had a cookie date with Layla tomorrow to look forward to and had crossed one potential groom off her list.

  Chapter Eight

  Joseph parked the snowmobile in the woodshop, scowling at the tree in the corner. Picturing Layla and Ginger hanging gingerbread men and chatting while Christmas music played in the background was far too easy. “We should move the tree into the house.” And get it out of here so I can concentrate.

  Layla jumped off the snowmobile. Her cheeks were bright red. He pulled off her gloves and inspected her hands. Warm and soft. He had no idea where Ginger had gotten the gloves for Layla. He’d scoured Main Street, but everyone was out of children’s winter gear. Not to say he wasn’t thankful for the gift, because it had truly been a gift for both of them. Joseph had wrapped his knuckles in old socks for the ride into town, thinking the snowmobile’s heated handles would keep him warm, but he was wrong. Oh so wrong. By the time they’d made it into Clearview, his skin had cracked open in several places. Splaying his hand open, he inspected the damage only to find that there wasn’t any. Huh.

  “Can we put it in my room?” Layla bounced next to the tree.

  Having it in Layla’s room would keep the drying pine away from the woodstove and out of his sight. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about having the holiday decoration in his house in the first place, so tucking it away sounded like a good idea. “Sure.” Joseph carefully picked up the tree. Layla had worked hard to place the ornaments just so, and he didn’t want to ruin her hard work. As much as he disliked Christmas, he loved his niece.

  For Layla, he would do anything. Including have a strange, albeit beautiful woman bake in his kitchen.

  Ginger was everything Joseph was not. She was bright and cheerful to his perpetually dour moods. A smile came easily to her rose-colored lips, while Joseph smiled so rarely he felt goofy when he did. Her story about the letter-reading process at the North Pole was entertaining. Layla recounted the whole thing as they moved the tree into the corner of her room.

  Once the tree was situated to her liking, he and Layla headed back out to the shop. One thing he was learning quickly was that with Layla around, everything took longer. Even leaving the house was an effort as he helped her squeeze her feet into her snow boots and zip up her coat. He hadn’t found one of those in town either. At least the gloves were long and covered her forearms.

  Their steps crunched through the freshly falling snow, and they had to shake off the flakes that accumulated on their shoulders before entering the shop. Layla settled in at the corner desk with the crayons and paper they’d purchased today.

  Joseph handed her a pair of noise blockers for her ears. “Remember, you have to stay out of my work area. I can’t hear you coming, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  She put on the headphones. “I know!” she yelled because her ears were covered.

  Joseph pulled one side away from her head. “If you need me, turn the lights on and off.”

  “Okay.”

  Satisfied that she knew the r
ules and would follow them, Joseph cruised to his worktable, where he checked the oil and fuel levels in the chainsaw. He was planning to carve a turtle out of a stump of wood he’d found several months ago. The trip had been fruitful when it came to harvesting firewood, and the stump was an added bonus. He started up the saw and felt the familiar tug of creativity.

  He’d been working with wood for as long as he could remember. Whittling was a cheap interest for a kid in Alaska. All he needed was a pocketknife, which he always carried in his pocket, and Mother Nature provided the rest. Even when he was far from home, he could carve. The activity held his interest and kept him quiet, so no one ever made a fuss. Now his carvings sold for prices even he had a hard time believing.

  The noise from the saw and wood chips flew through the air as he removed some large chunks quickly, letting his creative muse. He still thought that was the dumbest expression he’d ever heard, but there was really no other way to explain the part of him that came alive when he worked.

  He couldn’t help but think of Quik and his stupidly brave move to ask Ginger to homestead with him. It wasn’t unheard of for near strangers to jump into a homesteading project together up here. A man or a woman might be able to make it a few seasons on their own, but they soon found that the lifestyle was lonely and difficult. Pairing up and dividing the work had several advantages, a couple of which he wouldn’t mind sharing with Ginger.

  Grunting, he leaned into the saw, encouraging the blades to gouge deeply into the wood. Why he let his mind travel to Ginger was beyond him. She was pushy and incorrigible and disgustingly jolly, as if she didn’t know any better than to be happy. Joseph had little patience for people like that. The ones who coasted through life with few real problems and tried to shove their cheer in everyone’s face.

  And what was with her, anyway? Encouraging Layla’s belief in Santa Claus. Filling the child’s head with stories of a magical Kringle family who all worked together to fulfill every child’s Christmas wish. Where was this family when he was a kid? Well now, Ginger had to be about his age, maybe a few years younger. It was hard to tell, because she had this whole timeless beauty thing going for her. At fifty, she’d probably still look thirty-two, and he’d look seventy standing next to her. Not that they’d be together when they were that age. And not like they were together now.

  Feeling the muse withdraw, Joseph switched off the saw and set it back on the table. He faced his latest piece, all covered in sawdust, ready to get started on the finer details with a chisel and some sandpaper. Using a rag, he brushed the sawdust away to come face to face with a smiling gingerbread man leaning on a candy cane.

  “For the love!” He threw down his rag.

  Chapter Nine

  Ginger tapped her pen against the table, beating out the rhythm to “Carol of the Bells.” Da-da-dee-dum. Da-da-dee-dum.

  The view through the giant window in the living room was stunning. The skies never got fully bright. In fact, they spent twenty-two of the twenty-four hours in the day admiring the stars. But there was a dawn—more like a haze of light—that spread over the sky. Like Alaska was nature’s cold hands and she blew on them to warm them up, giving a short but needed reprieve from the perpetual nighttime. The frozen lake was dotted with ice fishing tents and shacks, where fishermen and women hoped for a bite. Their windows were pinpricks of yellow light against the rosy-colored ice. Mounds of puffy snow dolloped along the banks, and the mountains in the distance rose majestically against the orange and pink sky.

  Lux hummed along with Ginger’s tapping. A Superman T-shirt peeked out from under her boyfriend cardigan. Her red hair was piled high on her head in a messy knot, with tendrils framing her face.

  Ginger studied the arrangement. She could spend hours working on her hair, and it would never turn out as absentmindedly adorable as Lux’s.

  “Quit staring at me and put these into the spreadsheet.” Lux tossed a paper across the table.

  Ginger rolled her eyes. “Why am I doing this again?”

  Lux talked around the pen between her teeth. “I need all the data from this morning entered so I can analyze it.”

  “Analyze it for what?”

  “I want to pair up the information with what you did this afternoon. There were spikes and lows in the energy back home. Robyn said the power surge blew out one of the ovens, and Frost complained of the dim lights in the reading room. I’m not sure what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong.”

  “Oh joy.”

  “If I can find a way to maintain power levels, then not only will things run smoother all year long, I might be able to store power for future use. We could put it into batteries in toys. Imagine toys running on Christmas Magic. It’s revolutionary.” Lux caught her sticking her tongue out. “What did I do?” she asked.

  Instantly contrite for taking out her frustrations on her sister—even if her sister was part of them—Ginger slumped. “Tell me how you’d feel if your flirting ability were being recorded, analyzed, and ruining dinners back home.” Ginger’s phone buzzed, and Stella’s picture appeared onscreen.

  “That would …” Lux’s eyes bugged out. “That would be horrible.”

  “Welcome to my life.” Ginger hit answer and tucked her phone between her cheek and her shoulder. “Hey, Stella,” she said, allowing Lux to go back to her computer program.

  “Ginger, you won’t believe this,” Stella whispered into the phone.

  Ginger used a highlighter to mark the first line of numbers to enter into the spreadsheet. The future Santa doing data entry. “Try me.”

  “Okay, so I was online with Rhett—”

  “Rhett?” Ginger set down the highlighter.

  “The cowboy guy.”

  “From the dating site?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wasn’t it Mitch?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Okaaaaay. I thought you quit online dating?”

  Lux cleared her throat and pointed to the paper. Ginger got back to work.

  “Why did you think that?” asked Stella.

  Shrugging, even though Stella couldn’t see it, she replied, “I just assumed that Mom had scared you off.”

  “Pft. Anyway! I was chatting with Rhett, and I got winked at by this new guy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He’s totally cute in an I-harvest-hay kind of way.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means he’s handsomer than he thinks.”

  Ginger continued down the list. “You’re still not making sense.”

  “The point is … he’s not far from you right now, and I was thinking that I’d like to come visit—maybe spend some time with my favorite sisters.”

  An alarm blasted from a laptop set up on the kitchen counter. Lux scrambled over there. Ginger covered her one ear to block the crazy whir-whir noise.

  “What are you doing right now?” Lux demanded.

  “I’m talking to Stella.” Ginger held back her annoyance. If this continued, Lux would have her logging how long she brushed her teeth and if she polished her boots.

  “About what?” Lux pressed.

  “About her coming to visit.”

  Lux leaned closer to the screen, the light bouncing off her glasses. Ginger turned back to her computer and to Stella. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Between Lux’s obsession with data and Ginger’s whereabouts and her worry over meeting the local doctor, Ginger was stretched far enough. “Besides, you’re the one who said you couldn’t get away this time of year. What about the production schedule?”

  “There has been a lull.”

  “Fudge sticks!” Ginger smacked her forehead. “I forgot to go over incomings from Frost this morning.”

  “Oooooh, you are in trouble,” teased Stella.

  “Yeah, well, your lull is about to become an overload.” Ginger added the last few numbers to Lux’s spreadsheet and jumped to her feet. She’d work in her bedroom, where there wasn’t as much … st
uff everywhere.

  Lux studied the screen. “Talking to me … talking to Stella … hmmm.” She continued to mutter as she made notes on a legal pad.

  Stella sighed into the phone. “It’s probably for the best. They’re never as cute in person as they are in their profile pictures.”

  “And you know this, how?” Ginger sat on her bed with her laptop in front of her.

  Stella giggled. “You’re not the only one who knows how to fly a sleigh, sis.”

  “My naughty list radar is going nuts.”

  “Maybe you should try being on the list sometime.”

  “What?! I’m the future Santa Claus. I can’t be on the naughty list.”

  “Your loss.”

  Ginger logged into the system and checked incoming letters. “I’m sending you enough work to keep you out of trouble until New Year’s.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Love you.”

  “Yeah—you too.”

  Ginger pressed end, set her phone aside, and pulled the computer onto her lap. She clicked on the first name and two boxes appeared, one labeled naughty and one labeled nice. With each name, her radar tipped an internal scale one direction or the other. It wasn’t very often that the scale tipped to naughty—most kids had good hearts—but there were always a few that set her pounding away at the left box.

  She hadn’t been at it long when Lux burst through her door. “We have to fly home—now.” She grabbed Ginger’s hand and pulled her off the bed.

  Barely keeping herself from falling on the floor, Ginger pulled back. “Why?”

  Lux shoved her glasses up. “There was a spike this afternoon when you were on the phone with me, and there was a huge one when you were on with Stella. I think the magic is stronger when we’re all together, but I need to test it out, which means we need to fly home—now.”