Both clerks working the busy Fairbanks Airport car rental counter looked up at once, smiles on their faces. Even the good-looking guy in the black Stetson next to her shot a glance her way.
Why couldn’t her parents have given her a different name? Did they know how hard it was growing up with a name like Mary Christmas?
Mary sighed. If her father hadn’t been so supportive, full of energy and the spirit of Christmas, she might have been a lot less adjusted. But the truth was she was a member of the family who owned a store called Christmas Towne in North Pole, Alaska, and that was how things were. Or they were until her mother had died. Then it had been just her and her father to carry on the Christmas Towne legacy. Mary had tried hard to fill the void her mother left to the point she’d forgotten to have a life of her own.
“Here’s your keys.” The clerk waiting on the man next to her handed him a map. “Do you need directions, sir?”
“Yes, how do I get to North Pole from here?”
Mary cast another glance his way. Nice. Very nice. And going to North Pole. Too bad his hat would blow off the first second he stepped out into the Alaskan wind. And too bad she wasn’t interested. Nice-looking men tended to lie and break girls’ hearts. Or at least this girl’s heart.
She’d almost refused to come home for Christmas this year, preferring to stay in the tiny apartment she’d rented in Seattle. If not for the desperate message from her father, insisting he needed to talk to her, she’d have skipped Christmas altogether. She hadn’t even bought a tree for her apartment. The whole season, once a happy occasion to be enjoyed with family, was now a depressing time of the year. Christmas without her mother had never been the same. Without her father...well, she might as well skip Christmas altogether. Her dad had Jasmine now. He didn’t need Mary anymore. Mary should be happy she had a stepmother, but the word stepmother made her grind her teeth.
Not that her stepmother, had done anything specifically to earn her distrust. There was just something about the woman that set Mary off. Somehow, she had maneuvered her way between Mary and her father from the first.
The devil in Mary’s conscience nagged at her. Could it be because Mary couldn’t get used to the idea of another woman in the house? Or was it because her father had known Jasmine before he’d ever met Mary’s mother? Jasmine had been sure to share that information with Mary whenever they were in the same room, claiming she’d known him long before he settled in Alaska. A fact Mary’s father had never shared with her.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t seem to have a reservation for a Mary Christmas,” the clerk said.
“I know. I flew space A. I didn’t know I was coming until this morning.”
“Because it’s so close to Christmas, we’ve been booked solid. We don’t have a single car left.”
Mary’s shoulders sagged and her heart sank into her boots. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, ma’am. I wish I wasn’t.” He glanced down the line of rental car counters. “Have you tried the other services here at the airport?”
“Yes, and they all said the same thing. You were my last hope.”
“We just rented out the only car we had left to that gentleman.” He nodded to the man wearing the ridiculous cowboy hat walking away with the last set of keys. “I’m sorry. Perhaps you could find a hotel shuttle to get you to a hotel for the night and see if someone turns in a vehicle in the morning.”
“That’s not an option. I’m not staying in Fairbanks.” Her gaze locked on the man with the last rental car key. Hadn’t he said he was heading for North Pole? If she hurried, maybe she could catch a ride with him. Once she was there, her father would make sure she had a vehicle to get around in.
Balancing her bag of presents in one hand, she turned her rolling suitcase and raced through the airport.
She caught up with the man just as he stepped out the door into the continuous twilight of an Alaskan December afternoon. “Sir!”
A bitter wind blew her words away, or the man was ignoring her. He didn’t slow one bit until his cowboy hat flipped off his head and blew straight at Mary.
She let go of her suitcase handle and dove for the hat, catching it before it dropped into a pile of dirty snow. She held it out, pasting a smile on her face. She could have tripped on her own snow boots when the man turned his brown-eyed gaze onto her.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She bit back a smart remark about most people didn’t wear cowboy hats in December in Alaska. She didn’t know if he had a sense of humor and she definitely didn’t want to make him mad when she planned on begging a ride from him. “Are you headed for North Pole?”
He plunked his hat on his head and didn’t answer for the first five seconds. “Yes.”
Good. He was headed her direction as she’d thought. Mary breathed in a gulp of the icy air. “I’m headed that way myself and you just happened to get the last rental car in the airport. Is there a chance you could give me a lift there?”
His frown deepened, making her think he’d respond with fat chance.
His mouth opened. “Yes.”
“I’ll pay you half of your daily rate for today.” Mary stopped and stared at him. “You will?”
“I said yes.” He continued toward the nearly empty rental car parking lot.
Mary scurried after him, wrapping her woolen scarf around the lower part of her face and pulling her hat more firmly about her ears. She’d forgotten how unforgiving the wind blew in Fairbanks.
