by Loree Lough
BY LOREE LOUGH
SummeRSIde
PRESS
Love Finds You in North Pole, Alaska
© 2009 by Loree Lough
ISBN 978-1-935416-19-7
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
The town depicted in this book is a real place, but all characters are fictional. Any resemblances to actual people or events are purely coincidental.
Cover and Interior Design by Müllerhaus Publishing Group, www.mullerhaus.net
Back cover photo and interior photos of North Pole, Alaska, taken by Kevin McCarthy, www.northpolegallery.com.
Published by Summerside Press, Inc., 11024 Quebec Circle, Bloomington, Minnesota 55438, www.summersidepress.com
Fall in love with Summerside.
Printed in the USA.
Dedication
To Larry, my knight in shining armor, and my daughters, grandkids, and sons-in-law, for it’s their love and joy that feeds my muse. To everyone at Summerside for adopting me into their publishing family. Heartfelt thanks to Kevin McCarthy, talented photographer and mayor of North Pole, and Paul Brown, manager of the Santa Claus House, for their advice and guidance. To every man and woman in uniform who, like the hero in this story, makes daily sacrifices that give my readers and me the freedom to choose any book on the shelves. Most importantly, to the Lord my God, whose steady guidance enabled me to craft a story that promises a few laughs, some cleansing tears, and the knowledge that every reader—like the characters who live within these pages—can find shelter from life’s storms in His loving arms.
IN APRIL 1944, BON AND BERNICE DAVIS RENTED A CAR IN Fairbanks and headed south in search of a homestead. Upon spying an abandoned section of the original Richardson Trail, they parked and hiked until the wild vista stopped them. Breathless, they drank in the beauty of towering blue spruce and squatty scrub tree forests, home to moose, deer, wolves, fox, and snowshoe rabbits. Bald eagles screeched overhead, and in the bubbling streams, grayling and beaver thrived. It was decided: “This is it!” Locals claim the region’s frigid winter temperatures—typically ten degrees colder than the rest of the Interior—inspired folks to say, “It’s as cold as the North Pole!” And in January 1953, the cognomen became the town’s official name. Known as the town “Where the Spirit of Christmas Lives Year Round,” North Pole’s friendly residents annually welcome thousands of visitors from around the world who come to see its candy-cane-striped lamp posts and fire hydrants, colorful lights, street names like Donner Drive and Santa Claus Lane, and holiday-themed shops. North Pole is home to the Santa Claus House (where letters from Santa himself are mailed from the post office), a Christmas museum, and breathtaking displays of aurora borealis. Does another town exist where, despite occasional shoulder-deep snow, you can encounter some of the warmest-hearted people on the planet? Only one, I think: North Pole, Alaska.
Loree Lough
Chapter One
Curt gave the ancient chair a half-spin and then held it steady as Bryce dropped onto its well-worn leather seat.
“Don’t tell me,” the barber said, flapping a white cape in the air. “Just a little off the top. And the back. And the sides.”
Bryce jammed both forefingers under the cape’s collar, the only foolproof way to ensure his Adam’s apple would still function after Curt snugged it up. “Good to know you remember that I like it high and tight,” he said, chuckling.
“And I wish you’d remember that I don’t speak ‘marine.’ ”
“Short,” Bryce explained. “It means I like it short.”
“Short? Short is what my hair is!” Whistling through his teeth, Curt added, “Yours borders on bald.” His smile faded as he shook his white-haired head. “So how long do you have to wear that thing?” he asked, pointing dagger-sharp scissors at the ex-soldier’s black eye patch.
Bryce’s uncovered eye widened with feigned shock. “Whoa,” he said, hands up in mock surrender, “you tryin’ to poke out my good eye with that thing?”
“That’ll be the day. Why, I’ve been…”
“…cutting hair my whole adult life,” Bryce recited, finishing the quote that, as a kid, he’d heard dozens of times. “So how many years has it been, anyway?”
Curt traded the scissors for an electric razor. “Forty, come July.” Holding a narrow, slant-toothed comb near its teeth, he shaved a quarter inch from Bryce’s already short hair. “You were in here for a trim less than a week ago,” he said over the tool’s drone. “I won’t even need to sweep up when I’m done.”
Even Bryce knew his attention to detail sometimes bordered on the obsessive, but he explained it away by quoting one of his favorite mottos. “Good enough never is.”
“Far be it for me to argue,” Curt said as minuscule hair bits floated onto Bryce’s shoulders. “But four bucks for this? Y’make me feel like a snake oil salesman.”
“That’ll be the day,” Bryce said, echoing Curt. If only his elderly friend’s jokes could block the tune wafting from a boom box near the cash register. Mel Tormé’s dulcet tones should’ve made it easier to bear “The Christmas Song.” But it didn’t. Because Bryce had only just turned over the June page on his calendar!
Bryce loved the majestic vistas and small-town atmosphere of his birthplace. Loved the hale-and-hearty people who called North Pole, Alaska, “home.” What he didn’t love was that, in addition to their ambition to improve what could easily have remained a barren wasteland and turn it into a thriving tourist attraction, they’d turned what should be a holy, pious day into a commercial year-round free-for-all.
He’d hoped going away to college would dull the keen edge of his distaste. But it hadn’t. Ten years with the Marine Corps, including four grueling tours of duty in war-torn Afghanistan, hadn’t, either. If not for his injury—and the fact that Aunt Olive had decided to become a snowbird—he’d have signed up for a fifth go-round. So here he was, back in what the travel brochures called the city “Where the Spirit of Christmas Lives Year Round,” feeling more like Scrooge than gnarly old Ebenezer himself.
It amazed Bryce that none of the town’s residents shared his attitude, considering how every shop and storefront glittered with multi-colored lights. Weren’t they tired of looking at fire hydrants and lampposts painted to look like candy canes? Tired of watching mechanical snowmen and elves—some wood, some painted plastic—as they waved to passersby all year long? And that infernal holiday music, blaring from well-positioned speakers, made him long to hear a good old-fashioned ballad, an upbeat hoe-down, anything that wasn’t—
“Any idea when you can shed that thing?” Curt asked again.
Bryce shrugged, remembering that the original purpose of his eye patch had been to help keep the wound clean and dry. Now, its primary function was to hide the rope-like scar snaking from his right eyebrow to his cheek. The first time he’d gone without it, a child seated in front of him on a plane had shrieked, “Mommy, Mommy…it’s the Bogey Man!” The mother’s shame on you for terrifying a child! glare prompted him to replace the patch, and he hadn’t taken it off in public since.
Until the week before last, when he’d worked up a sweat hot-footing it through the Fairbanks airport. From out of nowhere, a pint-sized kid of six or seven had tugged at Bryce’s sleeve, then hiked up his own pants leg. “Got my scar falling through a plate glass door,” he’d boasted. “Wish it was on my face, like yours. That would keep those girls and their cooties away, for sure!”
Bryce frowned at t
he memory as Curt asked for permission to peek under the patch, his white-bearded face reminding Bryce of the forty-two-foot Santa that welcomed visitors to North Pole. He might’ve obliged his old friend—if a mother hadn’t chosen that moment to enter the barber shop, leading two small boys by the hand.
“Maybe some other time,” he said, nodding toward the door.
Curt followed his line of vision and gave a “gotcha” nod. “And when you do, maybe you can tell me how it happened. You’ve never said….”
With good reason, Bryce thought as his mind flashed on the rugged Afghan terrain, with its narrow rutted roads and mere handful of scrubby shrubs dotting the bomb-pocked landscape. Ordinarily, a captain like himself wouldn’t have led a small band of men on patrol. But that day, with his lieutenant out of commission, he’d taken up the gauntlet, determined to locate and detonate land mines hidden in the gritty soil in preparation for the arrival of new troops. One cautious boot step at a time, he’d picked his way around rocks and debris, cautioning the soldiers to follow in his footsteps. Sadly, one had lost his balance and—
“Look, Mommy,” shouted the youngest boy, “a pirate!” And pointing at Bryce’s eye patch, he narrowed his own eyes and asked, “Are you a real pirate?”
His brother, who outranked him by a year or two, groaned and rolled his eyes. “Of course he isn’t, dopey. There’s no such thing as real pirates.” Chin up and shoulders back, the older boy ignored the whining protests his comment inspired and plopped onto one of six red chairs against the mirrored wall. “You should get some Ranger Ricks in here, Curt,” he said, leafing through a tattered issue of Newsweek. “’Cause these things you call magazines are borrr-ing.”
Curt opened his mouth to respond, but the kid was a beat faster. “So, what happened to your eye, mister?”
Grinning, Bryce was tempted to say it had been poked out when, as a boy, he had asked one too many questions. As he tried to conjure a story that would satisfy a curious youngster, Curt said, “Son, I’ll have you know this man’s a war hero. He got that fighting for the good old U.S. of A.”
“Steven,” came the mother’s harsh whisper, “mind your own business, please.”
Bryce loved kids and had once prayed to have a house full of his own. But that was before shrapnel had turned him into a weird rendition of Al Pacino’s Scarface. Odd, he thought, that he’d braved a thousand battle horrors without flinching, yet the inquisitive stares of two young boys set his teeth on edge.
Suddenly, he wanted out of the barber chair. Out of the shop. Out of North Pole and away from Christmas. “You finished?” he asked Curt.
“Yeah…not so a body could notice.” He pointed at the tiny bits of hair scattered on the white tiles. “See? Won’t even need my broom.”
Standing, Bryce peeled off the cape and reached for his wallet.
But the barber held up a hand to stall him. “No, no…put that away. I’d feel guilty, charging full price,” he said, pointing at the floor again, “especially from a war hero. Give me two bucks, and we’ll call it a day.”
Bryce handed him a five, headed for the door, and, with a quick wave over his shoulder, stepped into the bright late-June sunshine. Slapping his Baltimore Orioles’ cap onto his head, he thought of the unexpected turns his life had taken. He’d turned thirty-two in a barracks overseas, surrounded by his men—all married with children, except for the very youngest recruits. Oh, how he’d envied the guys with families! Back in college, he’d mapped out his life. “The Plan” had him married by twenty-seven, a dad by thirty. He could almost hear his aunt Olive saying, “Tough to become a husband and father when you’re off fighting in foreign countries year after year….”
He glanced up and down Mistletoe Drive, where tour buses and RVs lined the curb. Even in his present mood, Bryce couldn’t help but smile at the joyous laughter of children, harmonizing with Brenda Lee’s rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock” emanating from the loudspeakers. He took a deep breath of clean Alaska air and shook his head, thinking of the To Do list he’d scribbled that morning. Except for “haircut,” not a single item had been checked off. But since it wouldn’t turn dark for nearly nineteen hours yet, he’d have more than enough daylight to get everything done.
Shoving both hands into the front pocket of his sweatshirt, he hiked toward Snowman Lane. Despite the bright day, the air held a dry chill, making him wish he’d grabbed a jacket before leaving his apartment above Rudolph’s.
His parents’ shop came into view, and it was more than enough to raise his hackles. His dad had tinkered and fiddled with the hideous two-story white structure until it became a flat-faced replica of Santa’s sleigh, and above the door stood the biggest, ugliest reindeer ever crafted from wood and metal. The deer grinned stupidly around a thick chain that supported a crimson sign, where softball-sized light bulbs spelled out RUDOLPH’S CHRISTMAS EMPORIUM. As if all that wasn’t high enough on the tacky scale, Rudolph’s nose—a gigantic, red-glowing ball—blinked to the beat of whatever tune blared from the store’s speakers.
Today, “Jingle Bells” twittered from above, and Bryce gritted his teeth as he yanked open the shiny green door, upsetting a dozen strands of tinkling gold bells hanging from the doorknob.
“Well, looky what the wind blew in.”
Bryce’s face softened. “’Mornin’,” he answered. His mood had brightened instantly, because as much as he hated Christmas, he loved his aunt Olive ten times more.
“I thought you were gonna get a haircut,” she teased when he whipped off his cap.
Running a hand along the short, flat surface of his hairdo, Bryce laughed. “I did!”
Olive harrumphed and went back to labeling snow globes covering the glass-and-stainless counter. “Coulda fooled me.”
Since his parents’ tragic deaths, Aunt Olive had been his only family. But if the truth be told, she’d filled that role long before they died. As he’d winged his way from the Afghan village where he’d been stationed, it had been Olive who’d arranged the memorial service, and by the time he arrived in North Pole, she’d put in her resignation at the elementary school. “I need a change,” she’d said when the last of the mourners left the church basement. “Soon as you head back overseas, I’ll manage Rudolph’s. By the time you retire, I’ll have the place running like a top…and paying for itself.” As his parents’ only child, Bryce had inherited the shop—along with a hefty mortgage and a stack of unpaid bills. He knew Olive had done her level best to keep that promise. It wasn’t her fault that a dozen other stores in North Pole sold similar merchandise.
Bryce leaned on the counter and covered her hands with his. “Wish I could change your mind about retiring.”
Olive winked. “If wishes were fishes…”
“I’ll be lost without you,” he said, meaning it.
“Pish posh,” she said and, waving his admission away, began counting on her fingers. “You’ve jumped out of airplanes into enemy territory, slept in foxholes, gotten shot at, dodged land mines—except for one—and escaped from a POW camp, yet dealing with a few Christmas shoppers scares you?” She laughed. “You’re weird, nephew!”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Bryce shrugged. “Besides, I suppose it is time you did something for Olive for a change.” To his knowledge, her plan for an extended vacation in sunny Florida marked the second thing she’d ever done for herself. Decades of caring for her aging parents had freed her brother to play shopkeeper. It didn’t seem to matter to anybody, least of all Bryce’s dad, that he was a horrible businessman. Bryce often wondered if his parents even realized that Olive’s “do the right thing” mindset had required her to sacrifice any hope of having a life of her own.
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said, slapping a price label onto another snow globe. Setting it aside, Olive began humming along with Bing Crosby as he crooned the words to “White Christmas.”
Bryce wondered how she’d react when he confessed that he’d been talking to a real estate agent wit
h ties to a national chain about selling the place. And that once it sold, he’d use the proceeds to turn his lifelong dream of opening a carpentry shop into reality. His dad hadn’t left him a dime, but he did leave a few decent tools. If they hadn’t rusted from lack of use and storage in the cold, damp garage, Bryce might just get a jump start on crafting sample pieces that would show buyers what he was capable of. Over the years, during weeklong furloughs, he’d designed and built an armoire, a roll-top desk, a dresser, and a kids’ rocking chair. But he’d need more than that if he hoped to eke out a modest living from the trade…especially in a town where Christmas was the main draw.
“All right,” Olive said, one fist propped on a chubby hip, “out with it.”
He felt the eye patch rise as his brow rose. “Out with what?”
“Oh, don’t give me that. I taught school too long not to recognize when somebody’s got something up his sleeve.”
Chuckling, he met her dark eyes. “Never could fool you, could I?”
“Main question I’ve always had is…why do you even try?”
She had a good point. So why not just spit it out? Might ease her mind, knowing that while she sunned herself on warm sandy beaches, he’d be happy, doing what he’d always wanted to do. Elbows between two snow globes on the counter, Bryce spelled out his plan, then held his breath and waited for her reaction.
“Honey,” she said, patting his cheek, “that’s the best idea you’ve had since…well, it’s your best idea yet.” She walked around the counter and threw her arms around his neck. “Now I won’t have to worry about you while I’m dipping my toes in the warm blue waters of the Atlantic. And let me tell you, I am so ready for that!”
A nice picture, he acknowledged…for Olive. But he bit back the sadness roused by mere thoughts of her leaving.
“Of course, with me gone, you’re gonna need to hire somebody to run the store…until it sells.”
Bryce heard the unspoken warning in her gravelly voice. The North Pole real estate business hadn’t exactly been brisk. The fact was, Olive probably made more selling snow globes than anyone in town had earned selling property.