Annie Jones - Somebody's Santa

They treated her like one of them. An old friend. No different than anyone, not even the town’s Top Dawg: Burke Burdette.

To be treated like one of the crowd had to drive a man like Burke, a man who defined himself by his position, his accomplishments, his respect as a leader, crazy.

Dora smiled to herself. Mt. Knott might drive Burke crazy, but she was just crazy about the place, and the people. She couldn’t think of a nicer, warmer, sweeter place to be during the Christmas season, and she looked forward to the town-wide event tomorrow night.

Burke hadn’t wanted her to stay for Mt. Knott’s Christmas kickoff. He’d asked her to come here, but now he did not want her to stay. Why?

If it were possible, she felt even more unwanted by Burke now than she had sitting alone in her office the day after Thanksgiving. What had she gotten herself into? And how did she get out?

Winner of the Holt Medallion for Southern Themed Fiction, and the Houston Chronicle’s Best Christian Fiction Author of 1999, Annie Jones grew up in a family that loved to laugh, eat and talk—often all at the same time. They instilled in her the gift of sharing through words and humor, and the confidence to go after her heart’s desire (and to act fast if she wanted the last chicken leg). A former social worker, she feels called to be a “voice for the voiceless” and has carried that calling into her writing by creating characters often overlooked in our fast-paced culture—from seventy-somethings who still have a zest for life to women over thirty with big mouths and hearts to match. Having moved thirteen times during her marriage, she is currently living in rural Kentucky with her husband and two children.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

—Matthew 1:21

To my family far and wide (yeah, the older we get

the wider we are!): For all the merry Christmases

past and all the joyous new years to come, thank

you and God bless!

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Questions for Discussion

Burke Burdett had lost himself.

The man he had always believed himself to be had vanished. Nobody needed him anymore. Nobody wanted him. Nobody even realized that he had gone.

It had happened so quickly he still didn’t know where he fit into the grand scheme of his company, his family or even his own life. But he did know this—years ago he had made a promise and now he had to see that promise through, even if it meant he had to go someplace he swore he’d never go to ask help of someone he swore he’d never see again. Even if it meant that he had to trade in his image of Top Dawg, the eldest and leader of the pack of Burdett brothers, to become somebody that nobody in Mt. Knott, South Carolina, would ever have imagined. If Burke ever hoped to find himself again, he was going to have to become Santa Claus.

Fat, wet snowflakes powdered the gray-white Carolina sky. Dried stalks of grass and weeds poked through the threadbare blanket of white. Everything seemed swathed in peace and quiet solitude.

Winter weather was not unheard of in this part of South Carolina, but Burke Burdett had rarely seen it come this early in the year, nor had he ever considered it the answer to somebody’s prayer. His prayer.

He looked to the heavens and muttered—mostly to himself but not caring if the God of all creation, maker of the sky, and mountains and gentle nudges in the form of frozen precipitation, overheard— “And on Thanksgiving Day of all times.”

It had to be Thanksgiving, of course, one of the few days when Burke took the time to actually offer a prayer much beyond a mumbled appeal for help or guidance.

This time he had asked for a little of each and added to the mix a heartfelt plea, “Please, prepare my heart for what I am about to undertake. Give it meaning by giving me purpose.”

If he were another kind of man, he could have waxed eloquent about love and honor and humbling himself in order to learn and grow from the experience. But he wasn’t that kind of man. He was the kind of man who wanted to feel productive and useful. There were worse ambitions than asking to be useful to the Lord, he believed.

So he had left his prayer as it was and waited for something to stir in him. It had stirred outside instead. Snow. In November.

The whole family had ooohed and ahhhed over it, and for an instant, Burke recalled how it felt to be a kid. And just as quickly he excused himself and drove awry from the family compound of homes.

Now in the vacant parking lot of the old building that housed his family’s business, the Carolina Crumble Pattie factory, Burke did not feel the cold. Only a dull, deepening sense of loneliness that had dogged him after spending a day surrounded by his family. In years past that family had consisted of his mom and dad, Conner and Maggie Burdett, his three brothers, Adam, Jason and Cody, and maybe a random cousin or two in from Charleston. This year two sisters-in-law and a nephew had been added. But it was the losses that Burke simply could not shake.

Age and grief had ravaged the tough old bird who had once been the strong, proud Conner Burdett, left him thin and a little stooped, worn around the eyes and unexpectedly sentimental.

Sentiment was not the Burdett way and seeing it in his father made Burke think of weakness and vulnerability. Not his father’s but his own.

Burke clenched and unclenched his jaw and squinted at the low yellow-and-tan building where he had worked since he’d been old enough to ride his bicycle there after school. It did not help that the realities of the changing market had their business by the throat and had all but choked the life out of what had once been the mainstay of employment for much of the town of Mt. Knott, South Carolina.

They had made a plan to deal with that, or rather, his brother Adam had. He had gone out into the global marketplace, learned new techniques and made powerful allies. He was the one, the family had concluded by an almost unanimous vote, who needed to take the reins now. That plan had come at a cost. Burke, who had always carried the title Top Dawg in the pack of Burdett boys, had been asked to step aside.

Step aside or be forced out. By his own family.

In doing so Burke had lost his place not just in the family but, he thought, in the whole wide world. Not that they had fired him outright. They had asked him to stay on in a different capacity, but they must have known he’d never do it. After all, who had ever heard of Upper Middle Management Dawg?

So he had tendered his resignation and never returned, not even to collect his belongings. Until now.

Adam was to take on the job that Burke had held, for all intents and purposes, for a decade now. Adam, with his expertise in international corporate business dealings. Adam, with his new ideas for marketing and distribution. Adam, with the one thing that made him the most honored in the eyes of Conner Burdett, the thing that would assure them all that their name and reputation and even their business would go on—a son.