Chapter One
Thanksgiving Afternoon.
Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas and my December 26th birthday this year is for my brother, Cedar, to come home from his deployment with the Marines in time for his third child’s birth.Also, could my nieces, Hope and Joy, find at least one toy from their Christmas lists under the tree?We have no extra money for toys, but they’ve been such good girls this year and deserve something special.Cedar’s wife, Lilly, has been ordered to stay in bed for the last two months of her pregnancy, which means she had to quit her job at the hospital.My waitress job and what Cedar sends us is barely enough to pay the bills and buy food.
While I would not refuse a hot, sexy, good-hearted man if one should come into my life, I would happily give him up if the kids could have a good Christmas and Cedar could return home in time.
Thank you in advance,
Celyn Berry
PS—I hope you enjoy these cookies the girls and I made.We call them Elf Kisses.
****
Enrico Leonardo Francisco, jokingly known as Elf to the North Pole residents, read the letter from an obviously adoring aunt for a fourth time.The love in the letter touched something even deeper than his heart.It reached his soul.
Enrico could also feel the desperation behind the woman’s request.The children’s letters and cookies had already been sent downstairs to the Processing Department.
Picking up the phone, he called the head of Processing and requested that the rest of the Berry family package be brought to him.
As the North Pole’s chief investigator of letters from adult believers, it was Enrico’s responsibility to decide whether a letter should be acted upon, trashed as not worthy of attention, or send it to the angels for their divine attention.With most letters, decisions were easy to make.But Celyn’s letter pulled at him in a way none of the others he’d ever read had.
After fifty years in the job, Nicholas trusted him to make decisions about these letters on his own.Enrico even had permission to delve deeper into some of the more desperate or deserving letters if he felt the situation called for it.If he discovered a request was valid and worthy of their magical action, he had permission to fulfill part or all of the wishes expressed.After all, it was important that adult believers did not lose their hope or belief.If they did, who would teach the next generation about the magic of Santa Claus?
Enrico didn’t know if he’d been given leeway and latitude to act because he had been working for Nick for more than three hundred years, or if the big man wanted him to understand that making wishes and dreams come true was not always as easy as it appeared.
The fact that he was a black-haired, full-beard, slim-built, younger-appearing version of the popular image of Father Christmas also worked in his favor, especially when Nicholas began muttering about retiring and moving to Australia to become a sheep rancher.Talking with the other elves over the years convinced him that no one else wanted the job.
The other elves were content in their positions of making, sorting, wrapping, and packing the gifts, and keeping the other traditions of Christmas alive for children all over the world even in the changing climate where humans preferred to send gift cards and cash instead of making or buying a handmade gift from the heart.It wasn’t that Enrico disliked his job, he just wished they could do more for the adults.Especially the ones who still believed in Santa Claus and the magic of Christmas.
Reading Celyn’s letter yet again, Enrico was shocked when his cock grew hard and a feeling of sexual need unlike anything he’d ever felt before filled his entire body.
He needed to meet this woman.
He needed to more than just meet this woman.
He needed to help Celyn Berry and her family, no matter what it took.
“Elf, here is the package you asked Processing to send up.”Judy, his assistant in the Adult Believers Department, walked in with a green box covered with Christmas stickers in one hand and a bright red mug in the other.He knew the mug was filled with hot chocolate and she would be using it to bribe him to deal with some problem she had.
“Thanks, Judy.I may be heading south for a few days to check out the veracity of this letter,” Enrico said as he laid Celyn’s letter to the side of his desk.
Taking the box from Judy, he opened it, not surprised there were only two cookies left inside.Elves loved homemade cookies and always gave priority to letters that came with cookies.Especially if there were more than one or two.From the size of this box, there had to have been a dozen or more.Enrico felt lucky they left him two.
He pulled out the two envelopes in the box that were decorated with colorful stickers and crayon drawings.The fronts were addressed to Santa Claus, North Pole, in a pretty script that did not match Celyn’s handwritten letter.Perhaps their mother had helped them?
After reading the girls’ letters, Enrico made copies on his printer before handing them back to Judy.“They can go back to Processing.Mark them top priority.”
Judy nodded as she accepted the letters.“How long will you be gone?”
“As long as it takes.”
“I’ll pass the word,” Judy said before leaving his office.
Enrico picked up one of the last cookies in the box.It was ivory with five small chocolate chips pressed into the top at the tips of a star that had been drawn into the dough.
