Do You Believe in Santa?

by Sierra Donovan

  Mandy looked stricken. “That’s terrible.”

  “It’s what brothers do to each other. Although the youngest one never quite catches up. Tony has still hit me more times than I ever hit him. But we love each other.”

  “But he told you there was no Santa Claus. That’s brutal.”

  “You’re dealing with Mr. Practical, remember? After Tony talked to me, I did some independent research on my own. I finished my Christmas list that year. But then I made another one.”

  She frowned.

  “One, I put on the refrigerator for my parents. The other one, I addressed to the North Pole and mailed it off without telling anyone.” He shrugged. “Guess which list my presents came from.”

  “You tested Santa Claus?” She looked as if she wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or amused.

  “Scientific method.”

  This really was a little bit like a religious difference. He thought they’d better move on to a new topic.

  Mandy persisted, “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Okay,” he said cautiously.

  “You’re saying you got the presents you asked your parents for, right?”

  “Right. I mean, not everything. But there was nothing from the Santa list.”

  “And which presents did you want more?”

  “The ones on the fridge. I admit, I hedged my bets. But if you’re saying Santa Claus had anything to do with what my parents bought me . . .”

  She shrugged and smiled, amazingly placid. So Jake ventured one more step out on that thin ice.

  “Then I should have gotten a lump of coal in my stocking, right? For testing Santa Claus.”

  “I never said he punishes bad kids. I don’t know how it all works. I just know what I saw.”

  He’d made his peace with this, he reminded himself, and logic had nothing to do with it.

  “Anyway,” she said, “Christmas isn’t about what’s under the tree.”

  “You’re right about that.” He put his arm around her, his cheek resting on top of her head as he gazed over the lake. The evening sky was turning gray, and the wind was picking up, sending a bitter bite through his pullover. Winter would be here soon, and with it, Christmas.

  A Christmas hotel. And suddenly he remembered an old Bing Crosby movie. “Mandy?”

  “Hmm?” She sounded relaxed, contented.

  “Were you by any chance thinking of Holiday Inn when you thought that up?”

  “Maybe a little.” He could hear the smile in her voice.

  Yes, it could work. Regal Hotels wouldn’t lose out on what they’d invested to send him out here. The other hotels wouldn’t be threatened, the town would see more tourists, and he certainly had an expert consultant by his side. Plus, overseeing the opening of a themed hotel would undoubtedly take months longer, so Jake would be able to stay longer in Tall Pine.

  Maybe even for good. He knew other Regal representatives who’d moved on to hotel management.

  He pulled Mandy closer. One step at a time, he reminded himself. He had to get Tall Pine to say yes first, before he let himself think about . . .

  The ducks and geese on the water had gotten subdued, their quacking silent, their movements lazy. Maybe because Jake and Mandy had stopped throwing food out on the water. Or maybe because it was darn cold out here.

  Jake said, “This is a dangerous time of year for ducks, you know.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sometimes it freezes when they’re not ready for it. If the water turns to ice too fast, their legs get stuck under the surface—”

  “Forget it.” Mandy jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, not too sharply. “I saw Fried Green Tomatoes, too.”

  For Mandy, November passed in a blur.

  While she trained the three part-timers they’d hired for the Christmas rush, Jake met with the town council’s hotel committee and kept Regal Hotels up-to-date on his progress. At last the committee held a meeting with the proprietors of the two local hotels. The hotel owners agreed that a holiday hotel wouldn’t be likely to pull much of their existing business away. Jake spoke to Mark, his regional manager at Regal, who agreed the concept sounded promising. At Mark’s recommendation, Jake started on a detailed proposal for the executive board.

  And Mandy started on her first-ever yarn craft project: a needlepoint Christmas stocking for Jake.

  The artwork in the predesigned kit actually included Santa Claus. With his face crafted in stitches, details were scant, so accuracy wasn’t an issue. It showed Santa on top of a roof, the traditional pack on his back. Below the picture, just before the foot of the stocking began, needlepoint letters spelled out the word, Believe.

  She hoped the message wouldn’t seem heavy-handed. After all, she hadn’t designed it.

  The town council meeting the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving was very lightly attended, and Jake’s time at the podium was short.

  The council voted six to zero in favor of the proposed hotel, based on the holiday theme Jake described. Sitting alongside Jake in the same seat for the third time, Mandy saw his shoulders relax almost imperceptibly. And Mandy felt the butterflies in her stomach subside.

  The next day, Mandy cooked Thanksgiving dinner at her house for Jake, Mrs. Swanson, and the three Christmas staffers. It was the first holiday meal she’d ever prepared. She was eternally grateful when Mrs. Swanson rescued her in her struggles to make gravy—and that only Jake saw the bag of gizzards she accidentally left inside the bird while it was cooking.

  Before she cleared the table, Mandy took a moment to sit back and look around her. How had this happened?

  A year ago she’d rarely had a guest in this house. Now she’d just cooked Thanksgiving dinner for six people, and all of it had been edible. Okay, the temps had brought canned cranberry sauce and store-bought pie. But still.

  “The sweet potatoes were amazing,” Jake said. He sat at the end of the table across from Mandy. Like her, he seemed reluctant to move.

  “It was my mom’s recipe. The ingredients are really simple, but I’ve always loved it.”

  “Maybe next time I’ll show you the family recipe for peppered baby carrots,” Jake said.

  Mandy slid an accusing stare his way. “You didn’t tell me you could cook.”

  “You didn’t ask.” He winked across the table at her. “Remember, I’m the one who carved the turkey.”

  And that sounded a little like blackmail, because that was when he’d discovered the bag of giblets. Mandy glared at him, deeply content.

  “Starting tomorrow, this house explodes,” she said.

  Jake lifted his eyebrows. “I thought that was what happened in your kitchen today.”

  She glanced toward the doorway that separated the dining room from the kitchen, loathe to think about the cleanup job that waited for her in there.

  “She means the Christmas decorations,” Mrs. Swanson said. “As I recall, that’s a two-day project, isn’t it?”

  “Two and a half days if you count getting all the boxes put away again,” Mandy admitted. She glanced at Jake, wondering how he’d react.

  He said, “Need help with the lights outside?”

  It was all so domestic that an errant thought winked into her mind. Starting the holiday season with Jake felt so natural, so right. She wondered, briefly, what it would be like to do it every year. But it was way too soon to think about a future with Jake. Wasn’t it? Especially when his permanent home was on the other side of the country.

  Enjoy what you have, she told herself. As she’d learned with her mother, you could never be sure how long you were going to have it.

  She finished her glass of sparkling cider and stood. “I’ll start coffee,” she announced, “and if everybody can give me a hand clearing the table . . . by the time I’m done straightening the kitchen, I think we’ll all be ready for pie.”

  Chapter 17

  How did they do it? Jake wondered.

  The morning after Thanksgiving, the town of Tall Pine
had turned into a holiday wonderland. Arches of Christmas lights stretched across Evergreen Lane from one side to the other, and the lamp posts were wrapped in pine garland and red velvet bows. The sidewalks were clustered with shoppers, and Phyllis’s hotel was full to the seams.

  The only thing missing was snow. Jake hadn’t seen any since that night on Mandy’s front porch. He’d never talked to anyone else in town who’d seen that snow, either.

  It still wasn’t dark yet by the time he went to pick up Mandy at the store at the end of the day. The arches of Christmas lights couldn’t be seen to their full advantage, but they were turned on anyway. Inside the store, he found Mandy and Mrs. Swanson coaching two of the teen holiday workers as they straightened the chaos of the store shelves.

  Mandy was flushed, as if she’d just come in from a snowstorm. Obviously it had been a busy day. But unlike the fatigue she’d shown the day of the sidewalk sale, tonight she seemed exhilarated. He noticed her earrings: round red Christmas ornaments.

  She greeted him with a bright smile. “It’s going to be a little longer tonight,” she said. “There’s a lot of straightening up to do for tomorrow, and the register might take a little longer.”

  “Busy day?” he said unnecessarily.

  “And how.” The store speakers were still playing as Andy Williams sang about the most wonderful time of the year. “The day after Thanksgiving is always insane. It’ll calm down a little tomorrow. What did you do today?”

  “Finished up on a proposal to make a Christmas hotel glow.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “When you’re done, let’s get a bite, and I can help you with those decorations at your house.”

  A shadow crossed her face. “You can’t see the house yet. To look upon it is to go mad.”

  He frowned. “When did you start?”

  “After you left last night, and a little this morning. When you work at a store during Christmas, you’ve got to grab the time whenever you can.”

  “So where do we go?”

  If it was possible, her smile got brighter. “I’ve got just the place.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Jake stood in a crowd of people singing Christmas songs in front of a big pine tree outside the town hall. He’d passed the tree a dozen times in his dealings with the council. He’d never realized it was the tall pine of Tall Pine.

  Was it the tallest one in town? It was hard to tell. Secretly, he suspected it had been the tallest tree conveniently located when the town was being planned. But he wouldn’t have dreamed of saying that out loud, especially not in front of the enthusiastic group curved around the tree now for Tall Pine’s sixty-eighth annual Christmas tree lighting.

  “Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!”

  Funny how many Christmas songs revolved around snow, especially in an area where snow was so sporadic. When he’d talked to his parents yesterday, they said they’d had an inch and a half last week. A mountain town that didn’t get enough snow to support a ski resort must struggle to compete for its share of the tourist trade. A reminder to Jake that this hotel could really do some good.

  He’d spent too much time in front of his laptop today, he thought, as Mandy’s voice reached his ears:

  “Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!”

  Her voice pulled Jake back to the scene unfolding around him, and he pushed his internal accountant to the back of his brain. This was the world Mandy loved, and she never got tired of it. And the tree wasn’t even lit yet.

  Ten minutes later, the town officials took turns giving speeches, mercifully short, before deeming it was time to turn on the lights of the tree. Winston Frazier himself led the countdown, sporting a wider smile than Jake had ever seen on the man.

  When the tree lights came on, the results were so bright Jake had to squint for a moment after so long standing in the dimness. A collective “ahh” rose up from the crowd, and Jake found himself drawing in his breath. The blended glow of red, green, blue, orange and white lights washed over the crowd, and the scene became timeless. The coats, knit caps and scarves the people around him wore could easily have been seen at the town’s first tree-lighting sixty-eight years ago. The tree even looked bigger.

  Without any apparent prompting, the crowd started to sing “Silent Night.”

  Mandy’s voice stood out to him above the others, not just because she was standing next to him, and not because her voice was better than anyone else’s, although it did have a sweet timbre. Just because it was Mandy’s.

  Jake looked down at her, and the glow on her face was more than the soft, colored light cast by the tree. It was a look of pure joy and contentment. She does this every year, he thought. And every year, she loves it just as much.

  Was it because she’d lived her entire life in the same town and didn’t have anything to compare it to? If that were the case, you’d think the brightness in her eyes would have gotten dimmer by now. She’d stayed in Tall Pine, taken a ton of ribbing about her vision of Santa Claus, and still she glowed. Maybe that was because this was where she truly belonged. Maybe Mandy’s roots in this town ran as deep as the roots of the Tall Pine tree.

  Up to now, Jake reflected, he’d been content to move from place to place. It had been convenient, he supposed, to avoid any reminders of past mistakes, to start over again in a new place and make a fresh impression.

  Maybe it was time for him to put down some roots, too.

  After “Silent Night,” the crowd dispersed. Most of them split off to choose between two rapidly forming lines: one for hot chocolate from a kiosk outside, the other to see Santa Claus in the gazebo at the heart of the town square. Mandy watched the line of children for Santa, holding their parents’ hands or, unable to contain their energy, jumping up and down in excitement. The figure seated in the large chair at the top of the gazebo wore a bright red suit.

  She thought of Kris Kringle’s line in Miracle on 34th Street: “I am not in the habit of substituting for spurious Santa Clauses.”

  Mandy looked away. She knew there was no harm in it. After all, she’d been to see Santa—or one of his numerous “helpers”—in the department store several times before she was eight. She wondered if Jake had done it too, but decided not to ask. They’d hit some ticklish territory the night they talked about the Christmas hotel, and neither one of them had brought up Santa Claus since. They’d tacitly agreed to disagree, and for the moment it seemed best to leave it that way.

  Maybe Jake had the same thought, because when she turned to him, his attention was on the line for hot chocolate, every bit as long as the Santa line.

  “Looks pretty daunting,” he said. “Want to get some dinner?”

  “Sure.”

  Jake seemed quieter than usual as they walked to the car, fingers intertwined.

  “What did you think?” she asked him. “Too corny?”

  “I didn’t think there was such a thing as ‘too corny’ with something like this.” He squeezed her hand. “I thought it was great.”

  “I’m glad. I haven’t missed it since I was thirteen, and I’ve been sorry about that year ever since.”

  “What happened when you were thirteen?”

  She grinned. “What part of ‘thirteen’ don’t you understand? I was in a bad mood about something. I don’t even remember what. So we stayed home and had dinner, and I felt sorry for myself.”

  She tried to remember that year. Trying to redefine herself, be one of the cool kids, or at least to blend in. She hadn’t even played much Christmas music that year. Almost as if she’d been trying to make herself as miserable as possible.

  “Speaking of dinner,” Jake said, “what sounds good to you?” They reached the truck, and he leaned against it, taking both of her hands in his. “Is there any place in town you’ve never been to?”

  What a strange question. “Let me think.” She didn’t have to think long. “No.”

  “Come to think of it, I’m not sure there’s any place I haven’t been by now.”

  “Is t
hat a bad thing?”

  “No. In fact, it’s kind of nice.”

  It had to be the most nerve-wracking purchase of Jake’s life.

  Not just because he was standing at the counter of Tall Pine Jewelers, where a wide window offered anyone passing by a perfect view of the customer inside the store. Not just because he was buying something that represented a major lifetime decision.

  As he stared down at the array of diamond rings in the glass case, it was the multitude of little decisions, the number of choices, that overwhelmed him. Which ring was the right ring? They sparkled in front of him on their bed of black velvet like so many stars in the night sky.

  Once upon a time, not so long ago, he would have been practical and taken the girl with him to pick out the ring. But the girl was Mandy. Taking her shopping for her own engagement ring would be contrary to everything about her.

  If he’d gone to an out-of-town jeweler to choose the ring, at least he could have been sure of keeping it a secret. But that ran contrary to everything Jake believed about loyalty and business ethics. He wanted to support the town he’d struggled, and eventually reached an understanding, with. He had to buy the ring in Tall Pine.

  “See anything you like?” the woman behind the counter prompted him. Fortyish, a little heavyset, with a patient smile, she’d stood back quietly while Jake surveyed the rings for the last ten minutes. Or was it twenty? It felt like he’d been taking up the woman’s time for hours.

  Jake rested his elbow on the glass and leaned on his right hand, hoping the hand would obscure his face from any curious passersby.

  White gold or yellow gold, round or square, marquis-shaped or pear-shaped . . . Jake stared into the case, bewildered and intimidated, trying to focus on one ring at a time. And then he knew.

  “That one,” he said, pointing.

  It wouldn’t beat most of the others for carat weight. But the diamond in the center had a circle of smaller diamonds clustered around it, giving the ring a warmth that shimmered. It reminded him, suitably enough, of a Christmas tree. Or fresh snow.