Silhouette Christmas Stories Page 9

  "He had you and Christy, and he went looking for more?" Slade's gray eyes registered disbelief. "He's a fool."

  Carroll stared at him. "Where were you years ago when I needed to hear that from someone besides my mother and grandfather?" she finally asked with wry humor.

  "Where is he now?"

  "Last I heard, he was in some over-the-hill hippie, vegetarian commune."

  Her casual shrug told Slade all he needed to know. She wasn't mourning the loss of a husband. She'd had the strength to rebuild her life, and she wasn't wasting any time looking over her shoulder. If her steady gaze was any indication, she was, apparently, happy.

  "You're better off without him," Slade said flatly.

  She nodded. "I couldn't agree more. Actually, I feel a little sorry for him. I have full custody of Christy, and he'll never see her grow up. He has no idea what he's missing."

  Slade raised his mug and sipped thoughtfully, his eyes never leaving her face. He liked what he saw. Life had made her strong, yet she still had compassion for a loser ex-husband. She wasn't bitter, but she knew her own value and wouldn't let the guy within a hundred feet of her or Christy. Which was exactly as it should be.

  Carroll wasn't beautiful, he reflected. She didn't have the anorectic, hollowed-cheekbones and exotic glamor found in fashion magazines. She was small-boned and barely came to his chin. Slim, but not excessively so, with a neat little bottom that had kept him awake more nights than he wanted to count. Her steady blue gaze reflected intelligence and a lively sense of humor. Straight blond hair framed her face and usually looked as if she had been running her hands through it. No, she wasn't beautiful, Slade reflected, but the sum total of what she was had a lethal effect on him.

  He leaned back and was idly considering the state of his hormones when Santa Claus threw open the door.

  Chapter Two

  Slade blinked at the sight before him and silently corrected himself. First you'd have to swap the old man's blue sweatsuit and hightop tennies for an outfit of red velvet, fur and boots; then he would be Santa Claus. Kris had blue eyes that actually twinkled beneath thick snowy brows, ruddy cheeks, a glistening white beard that fanned out over his chest and a frame that needed no artificial padding. He also had a booming voice and an inextinguishable supply of enthusiasm. Fanaticism might be a better word, Slade decided.

  "Slade!" Kris beamed at him, slamming the basement door and pulling up a chair next to Slade's. "The very man I want to see. The word's out that you're a hotshot engineer. Exactly what is it that you do?"

  After a slight pause, Slade said briefly, "Right now, I'm designing a type of radar for the military."

  "Ah." Kris blinked and returned to his primary concern. "Ever do much with electricity?"

  Slade nodded cautiously. "Some."

  "Ha!" Rubbing his hands in satisfaction, Kris chortled, "Just what I thought. I need your help."

  Eyeing the old man's expectant smile with fascination, Slade demanded, "You want my help?"

  "Right." Kris nodded, pleased by what he apparently considered an eager volunteer.

  "Mine?"

  "Sure. Can you come down to the basement? I want to show you something."

  "Wait a minute." Slade held up a restraining hand. "I have a slight problem of my own that we need to discuss."

  Kris blinked, his blue eyes thoughtful. "You mean the power?"

  Slade nodded grimly.

  "About it going off, you mean?"

  He nodded again.

  Kris's face brightened. "I knew you were going to fit in around here, boy." He swiveled around to Carroll and demanded, "Didn't I tell you that you were wrong about him?" Turning back to Slade, he said, "I suppose when it went off, you knew I needed help."

  "Not exactly."

  "And you came right over," he continued, ignoring Slade's terse reply. "What a neighbor!"

  "Kris-"

  "Ready to pitch right in and help. I didn't even have to ask!" He jumped to his feet. "Well, that's the way things work sometimes. You worry and fret about a problem, and then you turn around and find the answer sitting in your kitchen." He opened the basement door. "Come on down and let me show you what I'm wrestling with."

  "Kris, I'm not-"

  "Teh, don't be modest," the old man urged, his cheeks rosy with barely suppressed excitement. "It should be a snap for someone like you. I know what I want. I just don't know how to get it. Come on, we've only got four weeks." Taking in Slade's puzzled expression, he added, "Until Christmas Eve." Bounding down the stairs, he called back over his shoulder, "That's when all the lights I've strung around town go on and stay on for a week."

  "Well, hell." Slade glared in frustration at the empty doorway, then swung around to Carroll, his frown deepening when she grinned. "He doesn't listen."

  "I know."

  "The only reason I came over here was to tell him to stop that damned testing during the day."

  "I know."

  "What does he mean, all?"

  "He's going to dazzle us in degrees. Some lights go on in two weeks, more the following week, and more-"

  "I get the idea." He ran a hand through his dark hair, making it stand on end. "He's hell-bent on getting me involved in this idiotic project."

  "You're absolutely right." At that point, she honestly didn't know who needed protecting, her grandfather or Slade. "Why do you think I've been trying to keep you two apart?"

  "To save his neck."

  Carroll nodded thoughtfully. "There is that," she admitted. "But actually, I've been thinking of you, too. I know how Kris is. He works on the premise that everyone has the same enthusiasm for his schemes that he does, and before his unsuspecting victims know what's happened, he's suckered them in."

  Resting his hand on the edge of the open door, Slade said firmly, "I'm not a victim. I guess I'll just have to set him straight, won't I?"

  "I guess you will." Carroll picked up her mug and made a small toasting gesture. "Good luck." Her smile was rueful. It wasn't easy to pop her ebullient grandfather's balloon, to rain on his parade. Slade would need more than luck.

  When he hit the middle of the stairs, Slade caught a glimpse of Kris's workshop that made him stop in midstride. By the time he reached the bottom, he knew he had underestimated the redoubtable old man. So what else was new? he asked himself disgustedly. He had misjudged the entire family.

  On the basis of a few short days of observation, he had decided that he'd moved in next to a den of dreamers. Carroll, who seemed free to come and go at will, had been his first mistake. He'd pegged her as a dazzling wildflower who apparently didn't have to worry about basics like paying rent and finding a job. Then he'd learned that she ran a flourishing secretarial service from the house, enabling her to be home with Christy and keep an eye on her flighty mother and loony grandfather.

  After Christy's first visit, he'd mentally labeled her as precocious and a bit spoiled. Wrong again. She was bright, talented, articulate and fiercely loyal. She also wanted a father and had apparently set her sights on him.

  His first encounter with Noel had been on his front porch. She had been gazing abstractedly through a spray of pine needles at a billowing formation of cumulus clouds, not even turning to acknowledge his greeting. His gut reaction had been that she was playing the part of a vague, eccentric artist. Another mis-take. She wasn't playing at anything; she was a vague, eccentric artist. A very good one.

  And Kris? The score was now four out of four. He'd been convinced that the old man was merely a lunatic with a light-bulb fixation. Now, taking an assessing glance around the well-equipped workshop, Slade realized that neither the man-nor the problem-was that simple.

  Kris was bent over a platform that took up the entire center of the basement. He waved Slade over without looking up. "Come take a look at this."

  Slade hesitated, first taking in the brightly lit room. Over in one corner was a massive desk strewn with papers. Behind it, covering almost the entire wall, shelves strained under the w
eight of books. A power saw stood at the end of a long workbench that bristled with tools. They all looked well used. The room smelled pleasantly of wood shavings and lacquer.

  Slade finally joined the other man and looked down at the platform. "My God. It's the town."

  Kris slanted a look up at him and pushed his round, wire-framed glasses back up his nose. "What do you think of it?" Pride gleamed in the pale blue eyes.

  "It's… magnificent." It was more than that. It was mind-boggling. Kris had contoured the hills with mathematical precision and placed each miniature wooden house with the same exactitude. Minuscule pine trees lined the streets and surrounded the homes, while a profusion of greenery represented the tangle of oaks, maples and cottonwoods that grew among the pines. It was a detailed, precise replica of the entire town; every house, every tree-at least as far as he could tell-was represented.

  Trouble. He was looking at a platform full of the stuff. He was no longer dealing with something as simple as an old man's hobby, Slade realized. Nor was the operation merely a diversion to keep boredom at bay; Kris's precision work and attention to detail made that quite clear. No, what he had here was commitment and dedication, a problem of epic proportions. One massive headache.

  "Kris," he said abruptly, "you've got to do something about these lights."

  "Umm." The older man tilted his head and nudged a tree a bit to the left. "I know. That's why I asked you down."

  "Every time the power goes out, my computer dies. When it comes back, I've lost whole chunks of my design."

  Kris moved the tree back to its original position. "The trouble is, I just don't have enough juice."

  "And every time it happens, I get further behind on my deadline."

  Kris prodded his glasses back up his nose. "The power company's getting a tad upset, too."

  "I've got a lot riding on this design."

  "But I think I've figured it out."

  "Kris!" Slade scowled at the portly man's backside. "Are you listening to me?"

  "Why else would I ask you down here?" Kris turned and beamed at him.

  If he says ho ho ho, I'm going to throttle him, Slade decided. "Then what are we talking about?" he demanded instead.

  "Power, juice, electricity!" Kris clapped him on the shoulder. "You're going to show me where to put some small generators."

  "The hell I am!"

  "You got a better idea?" Kris's hopeful glance would have melted Scrooge.

  "Yeah. Tear all the lights down and forget the whole thing."

  "Umm." Kris smiled absently at the joke as he shifted another tree. "I thought maybe a generator here and another one here." He pointed to a couple of houses. "What do you think?"

  Slade's exasperated gaze followed the pudgy finger. Kris was obviously an advocate of selective listening; he heard only what he wanted to hear. "It all depends on how much voltage you're using," he said reluctantly. "Do you have any idea how many lights are out there?"

  "Of course."

  "How many?"

  "To the last bulb?"

  Slade sighed. "A round figure will do."

  "A little over five hundred thousand."

  "Five hurt-" He stopped, astounded. "I don't believe it."

  Kris shrugged apologetically. "We're still pretty small."

  "You can't have that many lights out there. It's impossible," Slade said flatly.

  Kris spun around and darted over to the desk. After slapping at several piles of paper, he muttered in satisfaction and pulled a thick binder from beneath a stack of catalogs. He thrust it into Slade's hands.

  "Here. Take a look. Every house, every tree, every lamppost is accounted for-the number of lights and voltage for each."

  He pulled out two chairs and watched with barely concealed satisfaction as Slade dropped into one and turned the pages in disbelief. "What I'm aiming for," Kris confided, "is to build up to a grand finale on Christmas Eve. Two weeks from tonight, I'm turning on the first batch. That's about half the lights and a few of the animated scenes. I've got enough juice for that. The following week I add another twenty-five percent. That's iffy. Then, the last week, on Christmas Eve, the whole kit and caboodle goes on! We'll outdo New York City. At least, we will if the power holds out. So the last two weeks are where I need a little help."

  Slade shot him a skeptical look. "A little?"

  Kris grinned and measured an inch of space between his thumb and finger. "About that much."

  "Do you have a calculator?" Slade waited while Kris unearthed it from beneath another pile of paper, then flipped through the pages again, rapidly plugging in some numbers. He finally looked up, shaking his head." You can't do it."

  "Yes I can," Kris said calmly. "I just have to find the way."

  Slade handed him the notebook and calculator. "Good luck."

  "I don't need luck. I need you."

  "You can't have me," Slade said, holding his voice even with an effort. "I have a job. I work at it every day. If there were more than twenty-four hours in a day, I'd work longer. The reason I'm not working now is because the power went out." He glared at Kris, who was watching him with a placid expression. "Do you know why the power went out?"

  "Of course!" Kris's smile said "gotcha." "Because I don't have enough juice."

  Four hours later, Slade climbed the stairs to the cheerful kitchen. Pale yellow walls, oak cabinets and several large windows made the room light and airy. If Carroll had still been sitting at the table it would have been even brighter, he concluded after a quick look around.

  Instead, Christy, a miniature edition of her mother, sat there. She was bent over a cup of milk, her face hidden by a fall of silvery hair-as she dipped a chocolate-chip cookie in the milk, then popped it in her mouth. When she saw him, she waved, pointed to her bulging cheeks and swallowed, wiping off her milk mustache with the tip of her tongue.

  "Hi, Slade." She tilted her head and waited until he closed the basement door. "You helping Kris with the lights? He said you were going to." Pressing the tip of her finger on a crumb, she eyed it thoughtfully before swiping at it with her tongue. "He told Mom that even Santa Claus was gonna have a tough time delivering this package." Unblinking blue eyes that were a genetic gift from Kris and Carroll examined him.

  Her matter-of-fact tone didn't reassure Slade. Kids often said things without even a minimal understanding of the subtleties involved. At least, he thought they did. Eyeing her waiting expression, he reflected that. he'd give a lot to know her position on the existence of Santa Claus. Did she still believe? And if she did, did she think Kris was on permanent loan from the North Pole?

  "He really isn't Santa Claus," Christy said kindly.

  Slade blinked. She not only looked like her mother, she sounded like her. "He isn't?"

  "Nope." She offered him the plate of cookies and waited until he had selected one before she helped herself. Dipping it in the milk, she asked, "Did he say he was?"

  He sat next to her. "Not exactly," he said cautiously.

  "Sometimes he does," she confided before sucking the milk from the cookie. She seemed to enjoy the slurping sound. "He gets people all mixed up."

  "But not you?" Slade downed his cookie and reached for another.

  "Uh-uh." Her hair cascaded around her face in a silvery curtain when she shook her head. "Kris told me all about it a long time ago. The real Santa lives in the North Pole." While she chewed and swallowed, she looked up to make sure Slade was listening. Apparently satisfied by his fascinated gaze, she took up the tale. "Kris is his helper-probably his most important one, don't you think?"

  Slade nodded.

  "Anyway, wherever we live, that's where Kris works for him."

  "What are his, uh, duties?"

  Christy finished her milk and shrugged. "Whatever he has to do to make Christmas better. He said when we moved here he knew his job was to light up the town. He spends almost all his time downstairs making scenes for people's yards and for the park."

  Slade snagged another c
ookie. "It'll take a miracle to do it the way he's got it set up."

  "Kris says that a lot of times people make miracles." When Slade didn't answer, she said cheerfully, "Anyway, once all the lights are on, and the snow comes-"

  "Snow?"

  She nodded. "Snow."

  "I didn't know it did. Snow here, I mean."

  "I don't think it ever has." She slid her tongue over the milky froth on her lips. "But this year it will."

  "You sure about that?"

  She nodded emphatically. "Kris said so. Anyway, when it snows, Kris is going to have a huge sleigh pulled by two horses and deliver presents to everyone in town. The horses' names are Blitzen and Rudolph."

  "They would be," Slade muttered. "Where do the presents come from? You're not going to tell me Kris-"

  Christy shook her head again, this time impatiently. "The older people know Kris isn't Santa Claus. They're bringing the presents. But the little kids don't," she warned, "so don't tell them."

  Slade raised his right hand. "I promise."

  "Okay." She slid off the chair and grabbed her crutches. Slade tucked his feet safely beneath the table. When she reached the door, she turned back to look at him. "So are you?"

  "Going to help him?"

  She nodded, waiting. Her worried blue eyes never left his face.

  "I-"

  "Don't bug Slade," Carroll said briskly, appearing in the doorway. With gentle fingers, she absently smoothed her daughter's hair away from her face. "He'll do whatever he thinks is best."

  "But, Mom-"

  "Christy." The single word was a definite warning.

  "Okay." The girl sighed and slid a gloomy look at Slade, her expression brightening only when he lowered one eyelid in a slow wink. Planting a hasty kiss on her mother's chin, she said, "I gotta go now. I told Nana I'd come up to see her."

  As her daughter thumped down the hallway, Carroll said, "A word of warning. Don't encourage her. She's every bit as persistent as Kris."

  Slade grinned. "Too late. She already knows she's got me wrapped around her little finger." He lifted the plate. "Cookie?"