Her Christmas Miracle: Park City Firefighter Romances

by Banner, Daniel

  The convention center had been decked out in decorations, making a fun place to work on the name plates. Most of the volunteers had finished their assignments. Jillian had been there since noon, and after four hours, she was almost done with her role.

  “You have such lovely handwriting,” said someone from over her shoulder.

  Jillian glanced back to see a volunteer who had been around as long as Jillian had been involved with the organization. Beryl, a petite woman who didn’t mind stating her opinion, was smiling sweetly down at her.

  “Thanks, I actually took a calligraphy class at the U as one of my electives.”

  “Well it paid off. I’m so glad there are young people like you who bring such neat talents and so much energy to Homecooked Holidays. I was just telling Mary Ellen Owensby—you know her, from the Board—that we need to get more young people involved. Like Mercy.” Jillian recognized the name of the volunteer coordinator. “She can relate to our guests like no one else, I think it has something to do with her tattoos. How do we get more people with tattoos? Is there a way in social media to, I don’t know, advertise for people with tattoos who want to volunteer?”

  Jillian had to chuckle at Beryl’s enthusiasm. “I just graduated in primary education. I’m pretty good at getting little kids to volunteer in class, but I doubt you’ll find any with tattoos.”

  Beryl smiled and peered down at the list Jillian was working on. The name plates were a new idea that Jillian had suggested and the decision makers had loved immediately. It was a special thing to make the Christmas event stand out. Jillian had spearheaded it, with a few helpers coming and going, and was almost to the last page of the list of over 300 names.

  “Let me help you,” said Beryl, pulling out the chair next to her. “Your hand must be killing you.”

  “It’s not doing bad,” said Jillian. “We learned some techniques in that class to help prevent fatigue.” She slid over a stack of cards, a calligraphy pen, and the nearly finished sheet she’d been working on, then looked down at the final page. Thomas Vaughn was the first name.

  “Is your family local, dear?” asked Beryl.

  “Flying home to Napa tomorrow. My folks and brother are back there.” She’d be able to spend Christmas with them, even if her Christmas Eve was going to be spent with hot chocolate and Netflix. She knew it wouldn’t even feel like Christmas Eve without a family to spend it with, but tomorrow should make up for it.

  “Is there also a special someone to spend the holidays with this year?” Beryl’s smile had an elfin, mischievous twist to it, like she wanted to hear all about Jillian’s love life. They both looked down at Jillian’s unoccupied ring finger.

  “I had hoped that … well, I’d hoped to find someone before Christmas this year.” She finished Mr. Vaughn’s card and crossed him off her paper. It would have made such a wonderful Christmas miracle to find Jak just one more time. Once she left tomorrow to fly home, her big Viking would be left behind as well. She was coming back to Park City after the New Year with her brother, only to haul all her stuff away.

  With an internal shrug, she went on to lettering Alice Veitch. “What about you, Beryl? Do you have family in town?”

  Beryl’s face lit up. “My son. He’s like you—such a catch, but inexplicably single still.” All of a sudden, Beryl’s angle toward Jillian shifted slightly and her tone became higher pitched. “Sooo, what kind of boy are you looking for?”

  Jillian hid her amusement under the guise of sliding Mrs. Veitch out of the way and moving on to Vicky Vickers. Instead of saying, Any dang man I can meet three times, she answered, “I want a big, I mean nice strong Christian man. I know they’re out there.”

  Beryl’s marker came to a stop and ink bled out into the cardstock as she looked up with a face as excited as someone who’d been given the perfect Christmas gift. “You don’t say? Good Christian boy? Strong?”

  Oh no. Here came the setup. That wouldn’t work for Jillian. It had to be natural meetings. “Um …” She tapped the cardstock, thankful the expanding ink blot was offering her a way out of the conversation.

  Waving her hand dismissively over the ruined card, Beryl capped the marker and let it fall to the table. “Did I ever tell you my boy played Jesus in the interfaith Christmas Pageant this year?”

  “No,” said Jillian. “You didn’t mention it.” She thought back to the pageant she’d seen, but couldn’t remember seeing an adult-age Jesus. And there was no way Beryl could have a boy young enough to play Baby Jesus or even Toddler or Child Jesus. Beryl’s son must have come on stage after Jillian had left to rescue Emma.

  “I was so proud of him.” Beryl’s phone had appeared in her hand, and Jillian prepared herself to say something nice about the boy who was a catch yet still single. Beryl had to be pushing 70, so her son was probably forty. And probably had a beard. Ew. “I am so proud of him. I like to tell him he’s doing good and doing well.”

  Jillian wasn’t about to shoot down a proud mother and her photo moment. She pasted her smile on as Beryl turned the screen to face her. There was Beryl, smiling proudly next to a bearded man, also smiling—

  A cold and warm shiver traveled from Jillian’s neck down both of her arms and legs. The man was two men, combined into one and she recognized both of them.

  A firefighter from the open air concert.

  An intimidating bearded man from a dark alley.

  A skier off course, waiting for her to ride past him.

  Beryl said, “His name is—”

  “That’s Jak.” The words fell from Jillian’s mouth as her mind shuffled the rest of the puzzle pieces into place.

  One, two, three. Concert, alley, resort.

  Jak had been right; the ski lift was the third time.

  Three times I will meet my true love.

  Three times broken, three times to heal.

  The alley! It hadn’t been someone trying to trap, intimidate, assault her. It had been the second meeting. He was just being friendly and her fear had made her misinterpret it.

  Jillian was on her feet but she didn’t know how she’d gotten there, especially since her knees had no strength to keep her up. Through watery eyes, she saw the phone fall from her weak grip, bounce off the edge of the table, and land flat on the tile floor with a sickening slap.

  Oh no. Bracing herself with one hand, and praying her knees would get her back up, Jillian bent to retrieve the phone and turned it face up. Spider webs of cracked glass covered the entire screen. The picture of Beryl and her son—of Beryl and Jak!—was still on the screen, but only the edges of the picture were clear. The phone would be useless until the screen got replaced. Jillian’s stomach sank, but she quickly pushed aside worries about the screen.

  Speak, Jillian commanded herself, and took a moment to find her voice, “I’m so sorry. When I saw him …” She went speechless again, trying to reconcile the clean-shaven man from the concert and in the snow with the thick red beard of that huge man in the alley. More than ever she wanted to know what she had done in the fugue state that night.

  “Are you all right, dear?” asked Beryl. “You look like you just saw all the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future all at once. And how do you know Jak? No, that story will keep, let me get you a drink of water.”

  Beryl rose to her feet. Jillian put a hand on her arm and without speaking, lowered the woman back to her chair.

  Three times I will meet my true love …

  The fear that her three times had come and gone, and a fourth would never come, was choking Jillian’s speech. In twelve hours she would be on a plane and halfway across the country. In the movies, once you missed out on fulfilling a prophecy, you didn’t get another chance.

  “I need to call him right now,” said Jillian, staring down at Beryl’s shattered screen. “Please tell me you know his number. I’ll get your screen fixed—”

  “What’s going on, dear? I think you need to lie down for a minute.”

  Jillian shook her hea
d. “I … There’s no time to explain now. Please tell me that you know his number without pulling it up on your phone.”

  Seeing Jak’s picture on the phone and realizing that, not only had they met three times, but that Jillian had an inside track to locating him, should have excited her and given her hope. Yet, it felt like the fuse of a bomb had been lit, and she could practically hear the tick, tick, tick as time ran out on their chances of being together.

  Beryl rolled her eyes. “You can’t call him now. He’s with his firefighter buddies and they have a strict No Phones policy when they’re together. I shouldn’t complain; I wish more people would put their devices away and pay attention to people around them.”

  “I really need to find him. As soon as possible. I know this sounds weird—”

  This time Beryl interrupted her by simply placing her hand gently on top of Jillian’s. The hint of promise or mischievousness that she’d seen in Jak’s eyes at the concert reflected in Beryl’s, and instantly Jillian felt as if she’d just taken a deep breath and counted to ten. She still had to find him as soon as possible, but at least she had time to breathe now.

  “It’s going to be fine, honey. It’s Christmastime. If it’s meant to be, well, you know.”

  “Where is he? The fire station? Can I go there?”

  “Breathe, dear. They do their party at Pineapple’s every year.”

  Jillian checked her phone. “It’s only five. Has it even started yet?”

  “It might be over,” said Beryl. “He said they were doing it early this year, so they might be wrapping up.” She took the marker and list from Jillian. “You go, I’ll finish up the name plates.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” She handed Beryl the unusable phone. “Sorry I broke it. I’ll get it fixed. Shoot, I’m leaving tomorrow. Do you have Venmo or—”

  “Go, dear,” said Beryl. “It will work out. It will all work out.”

  Jillian gave the tiny woman a quick hug, then rushed from the banquet center, hoping those last words were right.

  * * *

  Jillian drove as fast as she dared down the snowy streets toward Pineapple’s Bar and Grill. She still wasn’t completely comfortable driving in the snow, and a slide-off or crash would really kill her chances of finding Jak tonight. The mapping app said she was only six minutes away, but at half the speed limit, it would take twice that long, which might as well be twelve hours.

  It was so foreign to not be able to call or text him. With the lack of cell phones, and the colorless world around her, she felt like she was in an old-fashioned Christmas movie, racing to find the man she loved before the bell struck twelve.

  Man she loved? That was going a bit far. Maybe it was the magic of Christmas making her feel like all they had to do was find each other and their love story would all work out. It felt as certain as presents under the tree and football on her parents’ TV tomorrow. It all hinged on finding him.

  Jillian tried to focus on the Christmas music on her radio and leave the rest up to the angels who she hoped weren’t too busy on a Christmas Eve to get her safely to Pineapple’s and somehow keep Jak there long enough for her to arrive.

  The sign finally came into view, and Jillian pulled into the parking lot. Her headlights swept across a mostly empty parking lot and a building with no lights on. A pickup and a Cherokee, both with firefighter license plates, sat under inches of snow. Jillian figured a couple guys had a little too much eggnog at the party and had to catch a ride home. They were firefighters. Of course they’d be responsible when it came to drinking and driving. No fresh tracks criss-crossed the parking lot; it had been a while since everybody left and the faintly falling snow had blanketed the surface.

  So much for her Christmas dream. So much for her and Jak.

  Automatically she reached for her phone to call him, then realized again that she didn’t know his number. And she hadn’t thought to get Beryl’s number before leaving the convention center, so she couldn’t even call her and ask for it. No, that wouldn’t have worked either since Jillian had shattered Beryl’s screen. It was too late to drive back to the convention center just to ask Beryl for her number. That place would also be closed down tight for the night. And by the time Jillian left for the airport tomorrow, none of the volunteers would even be awake.

  This would go down as the most disappointing Christmas Eve of her life. She took comfort in the fact that she’d done what she could to put a fancy touch on the Homecooked Holidays. Too bad she’d run out on that before finishing what she’d committed to do.

  Like a kid not quite ready to accept the fact that Santa hadn’t brought the perfect gift this year, even though all the presents had been opened, Jillian drove right up to the front door and used her headlights to illuminate inside the glass doors. Only the entryway was visible, but the lights were off and a large Closed sign showed in the window. The building was closed up and empty.

  No, the building looked closed up and empty. She had come this far, she might as well check. Shutting off her car, she braced herself against the cold and opened her door. There wasn’t even a hint of a breeze, and each small snowflake fell straight to the Earth as if riding an invisible strand of tinsel. They landed silently; in fact, the whole world around her was silent and still.

  Jillian’s footsteps on the soft snow were noiseless as well and she felt like she was walking on a thick cotton blanket. Too soon she reached the door. As soon as she tried it and found it locked, she’d be forced to admit that she was too late. She had let a very promising man come and go three times, and if she didn’t find him on Christmas Eve, she somehow knew she’d never find him.

  On a count of three she would pull on the door and know for sure.

  One, two, three.

  Locked. Just as she’d already known deep down, there was no one in the building.

  “The party’s over,” said a man’s voice off to the left of the door. It was gentle and calm, and even though she was all alone, it didn’t startle her.

  Jillian looked over and saw an enclosed recess formed by the trees in front of the building. The trees had shielded the area from her headlights and appeared to protect it from snow as well. They had also prevented her from noticing the man sitting alone on a bench.

  As the man rose slowly, Jillian felt like she should light her fight or flight fuse. The guy was big and they were definitely all alone.

  The stillness of the night and his unthreatening stance—hands held slightly out where she could see them, smooth motions like someone trying not to startle a bunny in the woods—made her feel calm and safe.

  “Jak?”

  “Jillian?” came the reply.

  It was him. The party was over, but for some reason Jak was sitting out here in the cold. Well, she knew very well the reason: he was waiting for her.

  She asked, “How did you know I’d come?” Now that Jillian knew it had been him in the alley, but that she’d hidden in her own mind before recognizing him, she realized he was trying hard not to be intimidating this time.

  “Simple,” said Jak, coming forward a bit more. “It’s Christmastime. How could my Christmas prophecy not come true?”

  A feeling like angels singing filled Jillian’s chest to hear that he thought she was his Christmas prophecy. The evening around them was perfect and still, still, still. Never had she experienced such a silent night before.

  “I’m not going to run away this time,” she said.

  Jak’s head tilted and she could tell they both had so many questions. The beard was gone, thank goodness, and he had come forward enough for her headlights to illuminate him. His strong, Viking-like features were even more handsome than she remembered. The broad, muscled jawline, thick smile, strong brow. His pale eyes were playful, but she could tell they could turn intense and fierce in an instant if it was called for. And she didn’t remember his blond hair being so long and curly. You couldn’t put it in a ponytail or anything, but there was plenty if she wanted to run her hands through it. If
she could reach it. He had to be at least six-four. He was huge and while she could still see that his waist tapered up into strong shoulders, she couldn’t make out his muscles under his winter coat like she had the night of the concert.

  With another step toward her, Jak was no longer under the trees, and the small specks began to decorate his head and his coat.

  “This makes four times,” he said, holding up the fingers of his gloved hand.

  “This one doesn’t count,” she said. “It has to be natural, remember? I came to find you on purpose tonight.”

  “Good thing we already got three then.”

  “Good thing,” agreed Jillian, smiling back at him. He was close enough now that she had to look up to keep her eyes on his.

  Jak took both of her hands in his own large hands. Even through their gloves, she felt the instant connection. It wasn’t her imagination or the fevered imagination of a frustrated fugue state. He was really here, in front of her, holding her hands.

  Neither of them spoke and for a long time, they were the centerpiece of a perfect snow globe, complete with the snow falling and all the happy feelings of Christmas. There was no sign of their frosty breath in the air, and Jillian wasn’t even sure if her heart was beating.

  Jak’s head came forward and Jillian realized her own head was moving up toward him. Their lips came together and Jillian knew the spell was broken or finished or the prophecy was fulfilled.

  His lips were warm on the cold night, and the energizing warmth filled her whole body. In the simple touch, she could sense a gentleness she didn’t expect from this burly Viking.