“We’re still working on it. How’s Tiffany?”
“Awake and ready for the Santa Parade. Are you still coming?”
The last thing he wanted to do was stand outside in the cold, watching a line of Christmas floats drive along Main Street. But, while he was at the café, he’d promised Katie he’d be there. “When are you leaving?”
“In about ten minutes. I just have to find my reindeer antlers and then we’re off.”
Despite being stressed about what was happening in New York, Peter smiled. “Is that a small-town tradition you haven’t told me about?”
“I don’t know if it’s a tradition, but Willow’s on the Christmas Festival Committee. They’re encouraging everyone to dress up in some kind of Christmas-themed costume. Don’t worry. I have the perfect accessory for you.”
“I’m not a local, so the directive doesn’t include me.”
Zac laughed. “Nice try, but you’ve been here so often that you’re part of the community. I’ll see you at the front door in ten minutes.” And with another chuckle, he left the office.
Peter checked his watch. He had just enough time to call David before he discovered what surprise costume Zac had in mind for him. As long as it wasn’t an elf costume, he was happy to wear it.
With more care than usual, he locked the laptop and the papers he was reading in a drawer and called his clinical director. Now, more than ever, they needed to be super vigilant about security. If anyone saw the startling results his team had recorded, they’d want more than information about the prosthetics.
They’d break every rule known to mankind to get their hands on the formula they’d used to produce the neural gel. Because that, above everything else, had implications that went far beyond the prosthetic limbs.
* * *
Katie adjustedher elf hat and smiled at her dad.
With the camera on his cell phone ready, he snapped a photo of her with Barbara, Penny, and their beloved Golden Lab, Charlie.
“One more for good luck,” their mom said as she rushed forward to straighten the ruffle at Penny’s neck. “I’ll post the photos on Facebook.”
Penny groaned. “Do you have to?”
“It’s a human-interest story,” Mabel said as she fluffed Barbara’s angel wings. “You haven’t looked this cute since you were seven years old.”
“Is that supposed to make us feel better or worse about Dad taking the photos?”
“Better, of course.”
Katie glanced down Main Street, hoping to divert their mom’s attention before she noticed Charlie had eaten the decoration off the bottom of Barbara’s costume. “Diana’s coming. We should wait for her.”
Allan waved to his daughter. “I wonder how her meeting went with Pastor John.”
“Hopefully, there aren’t any problems with having her wedding at the church.” Mabel beckoned Diana forward. “Come and have your photo taken with your sisters.”
Charlie gave a happy woof and sat obediently at Diana’s feet. If you didn’t know what he’d been up to, you’d think he was the best-behaved dog in the world.
Wearing an exact copy of Katie’s candy-striped elf costume, Diana stood beside Penny. “I saw Megan and William on the way here. The floats are leaving from outside the library in ten minutes.”
Mabel consulted her watch. “That gives us just enough time to take some more photos, then find a good place to watch the parade. You can tell me where Wyatt, Ethan, and Theo have gone after we’ve finished.”
Katie looked at her sisters and grinned. She knew exactly where they were and so would their parents after the Santa parade traveled past them.
* * *
By the timePeter arrived in town with Zac and his family, hundreds of people were lining the sidewalk on either side of Main Street. With fairy lights glowing from the Christmas trees outside each store and the colorful costumes people were wearing, it definitely felt like Christmas was just around the corner.
Zac pushed Tiffany’s stroller ahead of them, leading them through the crowd. When Willow had told Peter about the number of people coming to town especially for the Santa parade, he hadn’t believed her. It wasn’t as if the small Montana town was close to a lot of bigger cities. But for reasons that probably had a lot to do with nostalgia, Main Street was buzzing with people of all ages.
Pushing his elf hat out of his eyes, he touched his ears. Zac had called it fate when he’d found the large, plastic ears in a party planning store in Polson. Peter called it bad luck. But maybe it was an omen. If the technologically advanced prosthetics his company was making flopped, he could always design 3D limbs for all kinds of fantasy creatures.
