Nothing.
He listened for footsteps.
Silence.
The building was as empty as a tomb. “Where did he go?”
Sleigh bells sounded above his head. His jaw dropped open as he stared at the ceiling. “No. Way.”
He stood there for a minute, half expecting Nick Kringle to pop out from behind a Christmas tree and yell, “Just kidding!”
It didn’t happen. He checked the men’s room, just in case.
“This Christmas is so weird.” He washed his face in the sink, scrubbing until the sugar was gone, and then dried it with a paper towel. He stared at himself in the mirror. “Look. Your dad died. On some subconscious level, you’re making things up that remind you of when he was alive.” He nodded as he thought this over. It made so much sense. His dad took him to see Santa every year when he was a kid. Lauren was the first person he lost. His dad was the second. Of course, he’d reach for her.
What about Nick? His brain asked. Did you make him up too?
“I must have,” he replied out loud. With a pause, he decided to keep all conversations with himself inside his head. No one else needed to know he was making wishes and talking to imaginary Christmas figures. He also decided to give himself some grace in the situation. This was his first Christmas without his dad, and Lauren was home. Both were huge. He would adjust as long as nothing else out of the ordinary happened.
He went back to the office and stopped in his tracks. The messy piles of ballots that had been all over the table were in one neat bundle. On top was a piece of paper with the winner’s name. Under that was a note.
Merry Christmas ~N.K.
“Nick Kringle,” he whispered as the paper fluttered to the floor.
Maybe he should have gone on the cruise after all.
CHAPTER5
Lauren’s run-in with Jacob had shaken her down to her frozen toes.
Her heart didn’t stop hammering until she was almost home. He’d tried to kiss her! “Where was that guy at graduation?” she grumbled behind her parents. Thankfully, the empty wagon bouncing behind her drowned out her words.
She’d loved Jacob Morris since she could walk–though she’d never told him that. She knew better than to tell a seven-year-old boy that she wanted to get married. Having an older brother had advantages–like a front-row seat to what boys thought of girls who wanted to play kissing tag. Ethan was a talker at the dinner table, and Lauren soaked in all the wisdom he didn’t know he was handing out. She’d applied those lessons as thick as frosting on a gingerbread house so she wouldn’t lose Jacob. After a time, it’d become second nature to suppress her real feelings for him.
Until Jacob turned eighteen.
She’d thought her time had finally come–that he’d grown up enough to handle her heart with care. Like Ethan had Pearl’s. Her older brother couldn’t wait to make his high school sweetheart his wife. Even so, she’d bided her time, waiting until graduation.
She couldn’t have been more naïve.
Her shoulders fell at the memory of the humiliation that flooded her the moment Jacob backed away as if she had the plague. As if kissing her would somehow taint him. She rolled her eyes.
She might have rethought her plan if she’d only waited a couple of years to see how Ethan’s romance turned out. Pearl ran out on Ethan and Collin. She was on her fourth honeymoon this Christmas. She loved being a bride but hated being a wife and barely endured being a mother.
At least Ethan got Collin out of the deal. He was the first to say it was all worth it because of that adorable little boy. Some day, a woman would realize that Ethan was the best kind of man, and she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from loving him. Lauren only hoped that her brother would let someone new into his life. He seemed confirmed in his bachelorhood.
Lauren couldn't say she enjoyed being single. Without Jacob, she was alone in a way she’d never experienced before. Not only had she lost the boy she loved, but she had also lost her best friend. It all seemed so sad when she thought back to that time. She’d never filled the vacancy he’d left in her life. Never. Maybe it wasn’t possible.
She clenched her fist. Seeing Jacob up close, and smelling his cologne, had messed with her mind and scattered her emotions like snowflakes on an empty field. One minute her heart pounded with the near kiss and the next her face flushed with old anger. She felt like she was eighteen all over again.
What she needed was to find her footing. She wasn’t the gangly teenager he’d laughed at when she’d whispered those three fateful words. Her life was good. She had a career, a successful boyfriend and a group of friends and acquaintances that respected her. It was time to put on her big-girl persona again–to find the woman she’d gone searching for when she left this town.
To start off, she would spend some time with a man who saw her as the woman she wanted to be. She hurried past her parents and into the house.
Lauren tapped lightly on the guest room door. Foster didn’t answer, so she silently turned the knob so as not to disturb him and cracked the door.
Foster sat with his back to her, his pad propped up in front of him. On the screen was a beautiful brunette with caramel-colored highlights and a red velvet dress that showed off her assets. She was pouting at the camera.
