Chapter One

The heavy, wet dollops of snow were changing to frozen, intricate flakes as I made my way up the only road that led to Kringle Falls. The winding, two-lane pass was a time machine. The years peeled back with each mile marker as I traveled toward my hometown. “Sleigh Ride” crackled on the radio. I was beginning to lose the signal from New Hope. Once I rounded the bend, I knew that the three-decades-old wooden Santa would be waving his newly painted bright mitten. The elves would be loading the sleigh, and the reindeer would be standing proudly, waiting to take Santa on his most important trip of the year. Here, I would hear the first sounds of Kringle Falls’s only radio station, KRIS, where there was one program: Christmas music, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.

Reaching down to change the channel, I felt the tires slide across the pavement. My 1986 vintage Land Cruiser handled the roads well, but the spinning started immediately. Snow-covered trees became a blur as I came to a stop with a loud thud. The Kringle Falls Santa, which had welcomed visitors for over thirty years, was lying on the front of my truck. His bright green mitten was still waving, thunking my windshield with each jolly nod. His voice box let out a dystopian distress signal rather than the ordinary holly jolly, “Ho, ho, ho.” It was now more of a whale’s mating call. I slowly looked above the steering wheel to a post-apocalyptic scene of Santa, his elves, and the reindeer, all scurrying from a crime scene as the smoke from my engine wafted across the merry gang, adding to the illusion of an Armageddon.

Looking over the damage, there was no way I would be able to fix this one on my own. Handiness ran in our family. We could fix just about anything, anything except this Santa, who had been decapitated, his head launched into a nearby tree where it was lodged in a squirrel’s nest. The loud chattering from the treetops rained down on the already chaotic scene. Those squirrels were mad and they were letting me know.

“I hear you,” I yelled out the window to the squirrels running amuck in the top of the trees. Santa’s head rolled from their nest, bounced on a few branches, and landed on my windshield, where a small crack popped into the glass and quickly spread.

A large battery ran the waving hand, incessantly knocking on my windshield, slowly but steadily spreading the crack. I pushed my door open with both legs, shoving piled-up snow out of the way. My only option was to climb over the hood and try to disarm it. That’s when I heard a car slowly stop on the road behind me, a finely engineered German engine from the sound of it. I know my machines.

Unfortunately, I had thrown my legs in the air to reach the battery and could not see anything above Rudolph’s ass, which proportionately was larger than it should have been. I struggled to get the wires, my legs flailing about as if my life were in danger. Balance and grace were never in my wheelhouse. From the stranger’s point of view, I looked as if I were a toy that had just been stuffed headfirst into Santa’s bag, now desperately trying to escape. As I strained to reach the battery’s wires, I heard a voice.

“Is everything okay?” The firm and serious voice was not the slightest bit amused by what she saw. On the other hand, I chuckled as I pictured the scene. Years of being awkward allowed me to develop a keen sense of humor in these situations.

“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just this one wire.” My voice strained as I pushed out a grunt stretching for the mechanism. Santa’s bag collapsed, sending me backward toward the reindeer. I managed to mount Prancer, the only member of Santa’s team still standing. Laughing at the absurdity of the entire situation, I slid down the side of the tall wooden reindeer, using an elf’s head as a step, to be standing face-to-face with a very serious woman. A very stunningly beautiful, serious woman. Her eyes were silver-gray, and her blond hair was pulled back. Her presence was unwelcoming. Everything about her had a hard edge, including the expensive suit she wore. Why then, was I so drawn to her? We stood looking at one another as time slowed to a stop. I caught the slightest movement of her eyebrow. She felt something too and quickly looked down to break eye contact, and the world began to move again.

My T-shirt had caught on the reindeer’s rough wooden fur, pushing it up in the back. She looked at me once again, a slight smile turned the corner of her lip, as she glanced away. The cold on my stomach was due to exposure.

“Your shirt…” she said slowly, as if I might not understand her. Her opinion of me could only go up.

“Oh jeez, I thought it was cold out here.” I quickly pulled it down, stepping away from the reindeer.

“I assume you’re okay then?” she said, pulling a twig from my hair.

“I am but I’m not so sure about Santa.” I laughed, tossing a glance toward the leaning heap on top of my truck. Presents were strewn all over the roadway, thrown from the back of Santa’s sleigh. The reindeer and elves were scattered as if they were all searching for something—perhaps my dignity.

“It seems as though you’ve made quite a mess here.” Her gray eyes were as cold as her condescension. Absurdly beautiful, I mean who looks like this?

“I must have hit an icy patch. My truck started spinning, and the next thing I knew…” I shrugged my shoulders and pointed toward my resting truck.

“This type of weather does require one to pay a bit more attention when driving. There must have been a good song on the radio or perhaps an important text?”

She threw a fake smile at me as she finished her sentence. I’m not sure that I deserved her attitude or was this normal for the tall, exquisitely dressed, thirty-something woman, that stood before me, wafting a wonderful scent? This aforementioned scent would have surely knocked the closest reindeer over had they not already been lying on their backs, legs in the air. I would have been much quicker with my wit had I not been so taken aback by everything about her. How could such a disgruntled human being smell so good and look so perfect? I stumbled over my words multiple times, trying to form a sentence. I wanted her, and I was incredibly annoyed by her. How was that possible?

“I…uh…there was no radio involved here,” I lied as my right eye twitched, and I shoved my hand deep into my pocket.

“Shall I call a tow truck?”

“No, my brother owns the garage in town. I can call him. He can help me put the North Pole back together again,” I said, gesturing toward the festive heap. “Headed to Kringle Falls?”

“Business.”

“I wasn’t thinking vacation.”

“Excuse me?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

“You have the look of someone who is either going to the reading of a will or foreclosing on a house.”

“So, you’re okay then?” she quipped.

“I’m good. You don’t need to stay but thanks for stopping.”

“I’ll just wait in my car until someone shows up.”

She walked away, carefully skirting the large clumps of snow in her exceptionally shiny, black Jimmy Choos. I was gathering the presents scattered about when I heard a distant horn playing “Jingle Bells” as my brother’s truck rambled toward us. He had just purchased the garage, and money was tight. His tow truck resembled Mater from Cars, complete with rust and dangling parts. He did, however, take the time to install a horn that played numerous Christmas songs. He adorned the truck with garland and a large wreath on the grill. The wreath was filled with lights that blinked quickly enough to induce a seizure. I watched the woman cringe as she heard the horn for the first time. She seemed embarrassed as she closed her eyes and lowered her head. My brother slid into place behind my truck as the stranger pulled away, offering a quick hand in acknowledgment.

He got out of his truck and saluted her. “Andi, you’re home!”

“How did you know I was here?”

He pointed to a small black box on Santa’s sleigh. A red light blinked in the corner. “You’re live. Some local kids were making off with the reindeer and the elves. We would find them arranged in compromising positions around town. It came to a stop as soon as I installed the camera.”

My brother is very serious about Christmas. Every year my family is filled with the spirit of the season. I am surprised he didn’t install tracking devices. Christmas in Kringle Falls was serious business.

“That was quite a slide you took, sis.”

“Saw the whole thing, huh?”

“I heard the commotion and checked the camera. You forgot the garage is not that far from here, just through those trees. I’m not sure how we’ll get this fixed, though.” He sighed, looking around at the mess.

“Let’s pack up Santa and take him home. We can fix him and bring him back.” I quickly gathered the elves and righted the reindeer. Sean collected the presents and retrieved Santa’s head. The squirrels quieted down, but I assumed I would be receiving a bill for repairs to the nest, payable in walnuts or acorns.

“Way to make an entrance, Andi.”

“Let’s just get this fixed before too many people notice.” We headed toward town with my Land Cruiser in tow and Santa tied to the front of Sean’s truck, like we were bringing him home from a hunting trip, mitten still waving in the breeze, thunking the hood of the old truck.