Susan Meier - Single Dad's Christmas Miracle

“Why don’t we take a peek inside?”

Jack’s face scrunched in confusion. “You want to go into a Santa Shop?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t decorate until Christmas Eve?”

She took Teagan’s hand. “Well, maybe we should change that this year and do some decorating beforehand?”

Teagan blinked up at her silently. It wasn’t much, but she suspected eye contact was a big step for Teagan.

Jack shook his head. “If Dad hates us decorating early, I’m telling him it was all your idea.”

“Good. Fine. Because it is my idea. And if he loves it I’ll get all the credit.”

When they reached the shop door, Jack held it open like a perfect gentleman. The scents of cinnamon, apples and bayberry wafted out to them. Old-fashioned wooden tables held rows of toy soldiers. Model trains chugged in circles around miniature towns. Ceramic villages took up another two rows. Evergreen wreaths hung on the back walls beside bundles of tinsel.

“I can’t afford much,” she told the kids, “but we’re four weeks away from Christmas. The least we should get today is a wreath for the door. Then we’ll come back every week and get something new.”

Jack faced her. “You want us to pick out the wreath?”

“Sure. It’s for your house. Your Christmas.”

He stood in front of her, looking totally puzzled.

“I thought you said you decorated on Christmas Eve?”

“We do. But we only put up a tree. Dad says it’s enough.”

“Well, sure it’s enough,” she agreed, not wanting to undermine his dad or make him look bad. “But starting today and doing a little something every week to the house, a little something to remind us that in a few weeks we’ll get presents and drink hot cocoa by the fire and eat peppermint sticks—well, that’ll just make everything extra special.”

Jack laughed lightly. “I think you’re expecting a lot from a wreath.”

Holding Teagan’s hand, she headed for the wreaths. “You’ll see. Maybe not this week but next week it will all start to sink in and then we’ll have Christmas spirit all over the place.”

Following a few feet behind her, Jack laughed.

Althea’s spirits soared. Teagan might not be talking but she was happy. And Jack was laughing. Once they got the wreath, they could go home and start his lessons.

* * *

Around eleven o’clock, Clark began to get antsy. He’d been so focused on how much work he’d missed because of Mrs. Alwine that he hadn’t thought through leaving the kids that morning.

Technically, Althea wasn’t a total stranger. She was a friend of a friend. That was how she’d gotten wind of the job and why he’d agreed to interview her. Yes, he’d checked her references. But he didn’t know her. And he’d left his kids with her.

He fished his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and hit the speed dial number for his home phone. It rang the usual four times before it went to voice mail.

He sucked in a breath. She could be in the bathroom. Or she might have turned off the ringer of the phone in the den for Jack’s studying.

Or she could have kidnapped his kids.

He groaned internally, telling himself not to think like that, and rummaged around on his desk for the sheet of paper with her cell phone number on it.

When he finally found it, he punched in the digits and waited through five rings before it, too, went to voice mail.

He tossed his cell phone to the desk, telling himself not to be paranoid. But his situation was unusual. There was a reason he lived on a secluded mountaintop. A reason he hid his kids. Even discounting the possibility that someone might kidnap them because he was a wealthy man who could pay a ransom, lots of people were curious about Teagan.

He cursed, shot off his chair and grabbed his top coat. Walking through his assistant’s office, he said, “I’m going home,” and strode out to his SUV.

Even wanting to get to his house as quickly as possible, he made a loop around town and headed up the mountain. As his SUV rolled to a stop in front of the garage, his chest tightened. Althea’s car was gone.

Frantic, he flew up the porch steps and into the foyer, calling the kids’ names. No answer. Nothing but the eerie echo of his own words came back to him. Crazy clip-clopped into the foyer, nudging her nose against Clark’s hand for a pat on the top of her head.

Clark stooped to pet the nuzzling dog, but his mind jumped back to the day he’d gotten the call about his wife. He’d come home from a business trip to a cold, empty house and had no idea where his kids were, let alone his wife. Then the phone had rung and he’d gotten the news that his wife was dead and his kids were with her parents.

He broke out in a cold sweat.

Cold, empty houses were never good news.

And with a guy in town who might suspect he was Teagan’s father, a guy crazy enough to throw himself over Clark’s wife’s casket and wail—not worried about gossip or consequences—Clark couldn’t take any chances Brice Matthews would see Teagan.

Even if the kids were safe with Althea, that didn’t mean they were safe from Brice.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.

* * *

Though they purchased a wreath and secured it in her trunk, Althea took the kids around town to visit a few more shops and scope out potential decorations they’d buy in the following weeks. Now that she’d talked Jack into decorating the house for Christmas, she wanted to see her options.

They had just walked out of the last shop, laughing as they ate ice cream, even though it was freezing out, when two policemen rushed them.

One policeman grabbed Jack and Teagan. The other backed her into the shop wall.

“Are you Althea Johnson?”

“Yes?”

Teagan began to cry. Jack tried to squirm out of the officer’s hold. “Let go of me.”

“And these children are Jack and Teagan Beaumont?”

“Yes.”

“We have a report that you took these kids from their home.”

“I’m their babysitter. We came to town to look for a coat and boots for me.” She motioned to her brand-new blue jacket and still shiny black boots. “Call their dad. He’ll tell you I’m their babysitter.”

“He’s the one who filed the report.”

Clark’s SUV slid to a stop in front of the sidewalk. He bounded out and raced over, grabbing Teagan from the officer and then pulling Jack under his arm protectively. “Are you guys okay?”

Jack looked at him as if he were crazy. “We were fine until you called the police on us.”

Teagan buried her face in her father’s neck. Clark’s expression hardened. “Teagan is not fine.”

“She was,” Jack insisted. “She was laughing.”

Standing on tiptoes to see over the policeman’s shoulder, Althea shouted, “She was. We were having fun.”

“You were supposed to be home!”

“We were on our way home to start Jack’s lessons. We had plenty of time. We just shifted our schedule.” She pointed at her jacket. “I needed a coat. And boots.” She held up her foot, displaying one of her new boots. “Remember?”

The policeman holding her back faced Clark. “So what’s going on here?”

“We were just shopping!” Jack spat. “But I get it! He doesn’t ever want us doing anything that might even remotely be fun.” He shrugged out from beneath his dad’s hold and headed for the SUV. “Take us home. Put us back in jail.”

Saddened for Jack, Althea swallowed, glanced at Clark, then pressed her lips together.

A mixture of horror and confusion played across Clark’s face. As if finally putting it all together in his head, he stepped back. “Oh, my God.”

He looked from Jack who stood beside his SUV to Teagan in his arms to Althea still backed up against the shop wall, and scrubbed his hand across his mouth. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry.”