The 24 Days of Christmas

by Linda Lael Miller

  “What happened in California?” Frank asked bluntly, when they were alone.

  Addie looked out into the square, watching the firemen and the passersby, and her hand trembled a little as she raised the cup to her mouth. “I made a mistake,” she said, after a long time, when she could meet his eyes again. “A really stupid one.”

  “You’ve never done anything stupid in your life,” Frank said.

  Except when I gave back your engagement ring, Addie thought, and immediately backed away from that memory. “That’s debatable.” She sighed. “I got a tip on a big scandal brewing in the city attorney’s office,” she said miserably. “I checked and rechecked the facts, but I should have triple-checked them. I wrote an article that shook the courthouse from top to bottom. I was nearly jailed when I wouldn’t reveal my source—and then that source turned out to be a master liar. People’s reputations and careers were damaged. My newspaper was sued, and I was fired.”

  Frank shook his head. “Must have been rough.”

  Addie bit her lower lip, then squared her shoulders. “It was,” she admitted solemnly. “Thanks to you, I have a job and a place to live.” She leaned forward. “We have to talk about rent, Frank.”

  He leaned forward, too. “That whole place should have been yours. I’m not going to charge you rent.”

  “It should have been Eliza’s, and she left it to you,” Addie insisted. “And I am going to pay rent. If you refuse, I’ll move.”

  He grinned. “Good luck finding anything in Pine Crossing,” he said.

  She slumped back in her seat. “I’m paying. You need the money. You can’t possibly be making very much.”

  He lifted his cup to his mouth, chuckled. “Still stubborn as hell, I see,” he observed. “And it just so happens that I do all right, from a financial standpoint anyway.” He set the mug down again, regarded her thoughtfully. “Tell me about the boy,” he said.

  She smiled at the mention of Henry. For all the problems, it was a blessing having him with her, a gift. She loved him desperately—he was the child she might never have. She was thirty-five, after all, and her life was a train wreck. “Henry is my stepson. His father and I were badly matched, and the marriage came crashing down under its own weight a couple of years ago. I fell out of love with Toby, but Henry is still my man.”

  “He seems troubled,” Frank remarked. The diner’s overhead lights shimmered in his dark hair and on the broad shoulders of his jacket. Danced along the upper half of his badge.

  “My ex-husband isn’t the most responsible father in the world. He remarried recently, and evidently, the new Mrs. Springer is not inclined to raise another woman’s child. Toby brought him as far as Denver by plane, then put him on a bus, like so much freight. Henry came all that way alone. He must have been so scared.”

  Frank’s jawline tightened, and a flush climbed his neck. “Tell your ex-husband,” he muttered, “never to break the speed limit in my town.”

  * * *

  While Floyd the beagle galloped around the snowman in ever-widening circles, barking joyously at falling flakes, Henry and Lissie pressed small stones into Frosty’s chest, and Addie added the finishing touch: one of Frank’s old baseball caps.

  The moment was so perfect that it worried Frank a little.

  He was telling himself not to be a fool when Almira Pidgett’s vintage Desoto ground up to the curb. She leaned across the seat, rolled down the passenger window, and glowered through the snowfall.

  “Well,” she called, raising her voice several decibels above shrill to be heard over the happy beagle, “it’s nice to see our chief of police hard at work, making our community safe from crime.”

  Lissie and Henry went still, and some of the delight drained from Addie’s face. Out of the corner of his eye, Frank saw Lissie straighten her halo.

  You old bat, Frank thought, but he smiled as he strolled toward the Desoto, his hands in the pockets of his uniform jacket. “Hello, Miss Pidgett,” he said affably, bending to look through the open window. “Care to help us finish our snowman?”

  “Hmmph,” she said. “Is that Addie Hutton over there? I must say, she doesn’t look much the worse for wear, for someone who almost went to prison.”

  Frank’s smile didn’t waver, even though he would have liked to reach across that seat and close both hands around Almira’s neck. “You ought to work up a little Christmas spirit, Miss Pidgett,” he said. “If you don’t, you might just be visited by three spirits one of these nights, like old Ebenezer Scrooge.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “It’s a Christmas tree,” Henry announced importantly, the following morning, after opening the fourth box. Frank had lifted him onto the counter for the unveiling. “Are we going to get a Christmas tree, Addie?”

  “Sure,” Addie said, a little too quickly. Her smile felt wobbly on her face. There had still been no call from Toby, no response to her barrage of e-mails and phone messages. And every day that Henry stayed with her would make it that much more difficult, when the time came, to give him up.

  “It’s too early for a tree,” Lissie said practically, watching as Henry scrambled down off the counter with no help from Frank. She looked especially festive that day, having replaced the snow-soaked gold tinsel in her halo with bright silver. “The needles will fall off.”

  “We had a fake one in California,” Henry said. “It was made of the same stuff as that thing on your head, so the needles never fell off. We could have left it up till the Fourth of July.”

  “That’s stupid,” Lissie responded. “Who wants a Christmas tree on the Fourth of July?”

  “Liss,” Frank said. “Throwing the word ‘stupid’ around is conduct unbecoming to an angel.”

  The little girl sighed hugely. “It’s useless trying to be an angel anyway,” she said. “I guess I’m going to be a shepherd for the rest of my life.”

  Addie straightened Lissie’s halo. “Nonsense,” she said, suppressing a smile. “I think it’s safe to say that you most certainly will not be a shepherd three weeks from now.”

  Outside, in the driveway, a horn bleated out one cheery little honk.

  “Car pool,” Frank explained when Addie lifted her eyebrows in question.

  She hastened to zip Henry into his coat. He endured this fussing with characteristic stoicism, and when he and Lissie had gone, Frank lingered to refill his cup at the percolator.

  “No word from Wonder Dad, huh?” he asked.

  Addie shook her head. “How can he do this, Frank?” she muttered miserably. “How can he just not call? For all he knows, Henry never arrived, or I wasn’t here when he did.”

  “He knows,” Frank said easily. “You’ve been calling and e-mailing, haven’t you?”

  Addie nodded, pulling on her coat and reaching for her purse. She wanted to get to work early, show Mr. Renfrew she was dependable. “But he hasn’t answered.”

  “And you think that means he didn’t get the messages?”

  Addie paused in the act of unplugging the coffeepot. Frank had a point. Toby was a master at avoiding confrontation, not to mention personal responsibility. He wouldn’t call, or even respond to her e-mails, until he was sure she’d had time enough to cool off.

  She sighed. “You’re right,” she said.

  Frank gave her a crooked grin and spread his hands. “Are we still on for the tree-lighting ceremony tonight?” he asked.

  Addie nodded, glanced at the Advent calendar, with its four open boxes. Twenty to go. “Have you noticed a pattern?” she asked. “I mean, maybe I’m being fanciful here, but the first day, there was a teddy bear. Henry was carrying a bear when he got off the bus. Then—okay, the ballerina doesn’t fit the theory—but yesterday was the snowman. We built one. And today, it’s the Christmas tree, and the shindig at the square just happens to be tonight. “

  Frank put a hand to the small of her back and gently propelled her toward the doorway. “The bear,” he said, “was pure coincidence. The snowman gave the kids
the idea to build one. And the fire department always lights the tree three weeks before Christmas.”

  They’d crossed the living room, and Frank opened the front door to a gust of dry, biting wind. Addie pulled her coat more tightly around her. “All very practical,” she said with a tentative smile, “but I heard you tell Miss Pidgett she might be visited by three spirits some night soon. If that’s not fanciful, I don’t know what is.”

  They descended the steps, and Frank didn’t smile at her remark. He seemed distracted. “Lissie really wants that part,” he fretted. “The one in the pageant at St. Mary’s, I mean. And Almira isn’t going to give it to her, not because the kid couldn’t pull it off, but because she doesn’t like me.”

  Addie thought of Lissie’s tinsel halo and felt a pinch of sorrow in the deepest region of her heart. “Maybe if you talked to Miss Pidgett, explained—”

  Frank stopped beside his squad car, which was parked in the driveway, beside Addie’s station wagon. “I can’t do that, Addie,” he said quietly. “I’m the chief of police. I can’t ask the woman to do my kid a favor.”

  She touched his arm. Started to say that she could speak to Miss Pidgett, and promptly closed her mouth. She knew how Frank would react to that suggestion; he’d say she was over the line, and he’d be right.

  Frank surprised her. He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Thanks, Addie,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For coming home.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Addie stopped on the sidewalk outside the Wooden Nickel, at eight forty-five A.M. precisely, to admire the glowing tree in the center of the square. She hoped she would never forget the reflection of those colored lights shining on Henry and Lissie’s upturned faces the night before. After the celebration, they’d all gone back to Frank’s place for spaghetti and hot cocoa, and Addie had been amazed that she didn’t so much as hesitate on the threshold.

  When she and her father had lived there, the very walls had seemed to echo with loneliness, except when Eliza or Frank were around.

  Now another father and daughter occupied the space. The furniture was different, of course, but so was the atmosphere. Sorrow had visited those rooms, leaving its mark, but despite that, the house seemed to exude warmth, stability—love.

  A rush of cold wind brought Addie abruptly back to the present moment. She shivered and pushed open the front door of the Wooden Nickel, and very nearly sent Mr. Renfrew sprawling.

  He was teetering on top of a foot ladder, affixing a silver bell above the door.

  Addie gasped and reached out to steady her employer. “I’m sorry!” she cried.

  Mr. Renfrew grinned down at her. “What do you think of the bell?” he asked proudly. “It belonged to my grandmother.”

  Addie put a hand to her heart. The bell was silver, with a loop of red ribbon attached to the top.

  “What’s the matter?” Mr. Renfrew asked, getting down from the ladder.

  In her mind’s eye, Addie was seeing the little bell in the Christmas box Lissie had opened that morning. Silver, with red thread.

  She smiled. “Nothing at all,” she said happily, unbuttoning her coat. “It looks wonderful.”

  “There’s a phone message for you, Addie,” put in Stella Dorrity, who worked part-time helping Mr. Renfrew with the ad layouts. “He left a number.”

  Addie felt her smile fade. “Thank you,” she said, reaching out for the sticky note Stella offered.

  Toby. Where on earth had he gotten her work number? She’d only been hired the day before.

  Shakily, she hung up her coat and fished her cell phone out of her purse. “Do you mind if I return the call before I start work?” she asked Mr. Renfrew.

  “You go right ahead,” he said, still admiring his bell.

  “You’d better move that ladder,” Stella told him, arms folded, “before somebody breaks their neck.”

  Addie slipped into the cramped little room behind the reception desk, where the copy machine, lunch table, and a small refrigerator stood shoulder to shoulder.

  She punched in the number Stella had taken down, not recognizing the area code.

  Toby answered on the third ring. “Yo,” he said.

  “It’s about time you bothered to check up on your son!” Addie whispered.

  A sigh. “I knew you’d take care of him.”

  “He’s scared to death,” Addie sputtered. “When I saw him get off that bus, all alone—”

  “You were there,” Toby broke in. “That’s what matters.”

  “What if I hadn’t been, Toby? Did you ever think of that?”

  “Listen to me, Addie. I know you’re furious, and I guess you have a right to be. But I had to do something. The blended-family thing isn’t working for Elle.”

  Addie closed her eyes, counted to ten, then to fifteen, for good measure. Even then, she wanted to take Toby’s head off at the shoulders. “Isn’t that a pity? Tell me, Tobe, did you think about any of this before you decided to tie the knot?”

  “It’s love, babe,” Toby said lightly. “Will you keep him—just until Elle and I get settled in?”

  “He’s a little boy, not a goldfish!”

  “I know, I know. He wants to be with you, anyway. Do this for me, Addie—please. I’m out of options, here. I’ll straighten everything out with him when we get back from—when we get back.”

  “What am I supposed to tell Henry in the meantime? He needs to talk to you. Damn it, you’re his father.”

  “I’ll send him a postcard.”

  “A postcard? Well, that’s generous of you. It’s almost Christmas, you’ve just shipped him almost two hundred miles on a Greyhound, all by himself, and you’re going to send a postcard?”

  Another sigh. Toby, the martyred saint. “Add, what do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to call him. Tonight, Toby. Not when you get back from your stupid honeymoon. I want you to tell Henry you love him, and that everything will be all right.”

  “I do love him.”

  “Your idea of love differs significantly from mine,” Addie snapped.

  “Don’t I know it,” Toby replied. “All right. Let’s have the number. I’ll give the kid a ring around six, your time.”

  “You’d better, Toby.”

  She knew he wanted to ask what she would do about it if he didn’t. She also knew he wouldn’t dare.

  “Six o’clock,” he said with resignation, and hung up in her ear.

  * * *

  “I think Lissie sleeps in that dumb halo,” Henry observed that night as he sat coloring at the kitchen table. Addie was at the stove, whipping up a stir-fry, and even though she had one ear tuned to the phone, she was startled when it actually rang. She glanced at the clock on the opposite wall.

  Six o’clock, straight up.

  “Could you get that, please?” she asked.

  Henry gave her a curious look and stalwartly complied.

  “Hello?”

  Watching the boy out of the corner of her eye, Addie saw him stiffen.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  Addie bit her lip and concentrated on the stir-fry, but she couldn’t help listening to Henry’s end of the conversation. Toby, she could tell, was making his stock excuses. Henry, playing his own customary role, made it easy.

  “Sure,” he finished. “I’ll tell her. See you.”

  “Everything cool?” she asked carefully.

  Henry adjusted his glasses. “I might get to stay till February. Maybe even until school lets out for the summer.”

  Addie dealt with a tangle of feelings—exhilaration, annoyance, dread and more annoyance—before assembling a smile and turning to face the little boy. “Is that okay with you?”

  Henry grinned, nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe he’ll forget where he put me, and I’ll get to stay forever.”

  Although she wanted to keep Henry for good, Addie felt a stab at his words. He was so young, and the concept that his own father mig
ht misplace him, like a set of keys or a store receipt, was already a part of his thought system.

  She dished up two platefuls of stir fry and set them on the table. “We have to take this one step at a time,” she warned. Toby was a creature of moods, changeable and impulsive. If things went badly with Elle, or if the new wife was struck by a sudden maternal desire, Toby might swoop down at any moment and whisk Henry away, once and for all.

  “Do you think she sleeps in it?” Henry asked, settling himself at the table.

  Addie was a few beats behind. “What?”

  “Lissie,” Henry said patiently, reaching for his fork. “Do you think she sleeps in that halo?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Seated at her desk, the telephone receiver propped between her left shoulder and her ear, Addie doodled as she waited for her sales prospect, Jackie McCall, of McCall Real Estate, to come back on the line. A holly wreath, like the one in that morning’s matchbox, took shape at the point of her pencil.

  The bell over the front door jingled, and Almira Pidgett blew into the Wooden Nickel, red-cheeked and rushed. Her hat, with its fur earflaps, made her look as though she should have arrived in a motorcycle sidecar or a Model T—all she lacked was goggles.

  Alone in the office, Addie put down her pencil, cupped a hand over the receiver and summoned up a smile. “Good morning,” she said. “May I help you?”

  “Where,” demanded Miss Pidgett, “is Arthur?”

  Addie held on to the smile with deliberation. “Mr. Renfrew had a Rotary meeting this morning. He’s in the banquet room at the Lumberjack.”

  Miss Pidgett, plump and white-haired, had been an institution in Pine Crossing for as long as Addie could remember. She had been Addie’s teacher, in both the first and second grades, but, unlike Lissie, and Frank, for that matter, Addie had always enjoyed the woman’s favor. She’d played an angel three years in a row, at the Christmas pageant, and graduated to the starring role, that of Mary, before going on to high school.

  Now Miss Pidgett sighed and tugged off her knit gloves. “I wish to place an advertisement,” she announced.