Buch lesen: «Stranded With Santa»

Chapter One

Zach Lucas stood on a weathered old porch in the small town of Deep Gulch, Montana, and scowled as the gray sky darkened even further. “It’s going to snow.”

Dr. Norris, the only vet in Deep Gulch, Montana, shrugged as he cheerfully slipped another handful of candy canes into the mail bag Zach had slung over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about the snow. The postal truck always makes it through. You’ll do fine.”

The doctor had made a bargain with Zach. It was Saturday, December 23, and Zach was to deliver the mail along the rural route outside of Deep Gulch so that the doctor, who had promised he would do his sister’s mail route in her absence, could tend to Zach’s sick horse instead.

It was a perfect bargain except for one small thing. Zach hated it.

If he wasn’t so worried about his horse, Zach would never have agreed. It wasn’t that he had anything against delivering the mail. That was no problem. What was a problem was delivering it the way the doctor’s sister wanted it done. She wanted it to look like Santa himself was out there delivering the letters this close to Christmas.

Zach pushed his Stetson hat lower on his head. He didn’t know anyone in this crazy one-stop town, but he still hoped no one saw him as he stood on the doctor’s porch. He was Zach “Lightning” Lucas and he had a reputation to uphold—a reputation that didn’t include a fuzzy red fat-suit and a plastic black belt. It was bad enough that the four-wheel-drive postal truck had a fake set of reindeer horns tied to the grill and a ball of mistletoe swinging from the antenna. He didn’t need Christmas fuzz all over him, too.

Zach grimaced as red and green flashes met his eyes. The lightbulbs hanging from the reindeer horns were on a timer. When he first saw them, he’d hoped they were merely ornamental. No such luck.

Zach didn’t know how much holiday nonsense he could take. After all, he was Zach “Lightning” Lucas. He had more gold-plated champion belt buckles than most men had ties. He had fans who knew his name—lots of fans since he’d endorsed that Ranger breakfast cereal. People recognized him in grocery stores and in laundromats. He was famous, for Pete’s sake. He was entitled to some dignity.

Unfortunately, the doctor did not care about Zach’s dignity.

And it was all because of Christmas. Not that Zach should be surprised. Christmas had been giving him trouble for years. It always depressed him with all that family stuff. Not that Zach had anything against families—it’s just that that family stuff wasn’t for a man like him.

That’s why, this year, he had made a plan.

Zach and Thunder were only passing through Montana, heading over to Interstate 15 for the long stretch down to Las Vegas. Once there, Thunder would board at a ranch some miles outside of Vegas while Zach hit the Strip. The neon lights and showgirls—well, if her return message was to be believed, one showgirl in particular—would make him forget the holidays were even here.

He and Thunder had been making good time, too, Zach thought mournfully, until Thunder got a fever.

“You’ve got the map.” The older man patted his pockets as though the slip of paper showing all the county roads might still be there instead of taped to the dashboard of the postal truck.

“Yes, sir.”

The winter air had a bite to it, but Zach was in no hurry to leave the doctor’s porch and get into that decked-out postal truck. He might as well ride around in a clown’s cart and be done with it.

“Well then, let me get that apple pie my sister baked for the Collins family.” Dr. Norris ducked inside his house, his muffled voice continuing, “That’ll be the last stop on your list. And the box in back is for them, too. Their car is broken. Radiator. So Delores said she’d pick some things up for them.” The doctor appeared again with a foil-wrapped pie. “Two of the cutest kids you’ll ever meet.”

Zach nodded. He’d already met every kid on the planet—both the cute and the ugly. The ones he missed at the rodeos he met because they ate Ranger breakfast cereal. Not that he was complaining. He liked kids better than he liked most adults.

The doctor smiled and looked at Zach slyly. “’Course, one look at their mother and you’ll see why they’re so cute.”

Zach grunted. Now that was the part of meeting kids he didn’t like—their mothers. Even the women who were married always seemed to have a scheme to get him married off to someone. You’d think there was something wrong with a man choosing to live in hotel rooms and wash his socks in bathroom sinks.

The doctor shook his head. “The poor woman. Such a pity—”

The doctor looked at Zach as though he expected some curiosity.

Zach had none.

The doctor ploughed ahead, anyway. “Jenny Collins is a widow. Not that she’s old, mind you. No, sir. Moved up here a couple of months ago—surprised us all. She’d been married to Jeb Collins’s nephew.” The doctor nodded at Zach as though Zach had known this Jeb, whoever he was. “Jeb had left the place to his nephew, but we all thought the nephew would have sense enough to sell it before he started dying of that cancer of his. But he didn’t. Don’t know what he was thinking. Surely he didn’t expect his widow to move up here with the two kids. What do you think a city woman’s gonna do with a place like that anyway?”

Zach shrugged. He didn’t like to get involved in the problems of strangers.

The doctor had no such hesitation. “Delores says the woman’s been getting magazines on farm management!” He shook his head. “She’s a game one, I’ll give her that. But it’s no place for her and the kids—even old man Collins used to move into town here for the winter months. The house doesn’t even have a decent road leading up to it. Ruts a mile deep, and it drifts closed every time there’s a blizzard.”

The doc took a breath before he continued. “Delores always drives the mail right up to the house for them. But with the next hard snow they won’t get mail for a week. The county snowplow doesn’t go that far out. Most farmers out that way have plows on their tractors or something. But all the woman’s got is that car of hers—and with the two little ones—Delores worries about their car not working.”

Delores, Zach had already learned, worried about everything and everybody.

The doctor stopped suddenly and squinted at Zach. “What Jenny Collins needs is a husband.”

Zach looked at the doctor in amazement and then pushed his hat farther down on his head. “Don’t look at me. I’m just trying to get my horse fixed up. Besides, from the sounds of it, she needs a tractor worse than she needs a husband.”

The doctor shrugged. “I doubt you’d stand a chance, anyway. I hear Max Daniel is planning to ask her out—he’s a rancher north of here. ’Course Tom Fox might beat him to the punch. A good-looking woman like Jenny can have her pick of the bachelors around here.”

Zach grunted. Ever since he started making money at rodeoing, he’d had women who wanted him to settle down. Made him nervous as a rope-tied calf every time a woman talked about it. Anyone with any sense could see that the life he’d led didn’t prepare him for marriage.

Not that he didn’t like women. He did. He just had sense enough to know his limitations. He didn’t even have a year-round mailing address; he’d be a fool to think he would be any good at marriage.

“Yeah, well, it was only a thought,” the doctor said as he pointed to the back of the truck. “Now, you remember what I said about the camera back there. Delores promised Jenny pictures of her little boy with Santa, and I’ll never hear the end of it if you don’t remember to take one.”

“Pictures.” Zach grimaced. “I’m not much good at pictures.”

“What? You can’t tell me that. Even I’ve seen your picture in the paper. You looked okay to me.”

“Well, the news photos—and the ads—they’re all right. But they’re not, well, personal.”

Zach didn’t know how to explain his reluctance to have a picture of him in some family album along with pictures of babies and grandmas. He’d feel a fraud. A family photo album was one place he didn’t belong.

“There’s nothing to a Santa picture,” the doctor said, pushing ahead anyway. “It’s one of those cameras that prints out a picture while you wait. Jenny will even take the picture for you. And Delores said to leave it, in case Jenny wants to take other Christmas shots.”

Zach nodded in defeat. What was Delores going for…mail carrier of the year?

“And don’t forget about old Mrs. Goussley. She has a sweet tooth. Delores always gives her a few extra candy canes.” The doctor winked “Say they’re for her cats. She’ll give them back if you say they’re for her.”

“Cats,” Zach repeated bleakly. Forget mail carrier of the year, Delores must be going for sainthood.

“Mrs. Goussley likes her visit from Santa. She gets a kick out of the suit.” The doc eyed Zach. “I know my sister got carried away this year with putting those flashing lights around Santa’s belt, but you can keep them pressed off if you want. Plus the suit’s warm—all that padding. Still it might not be enough. Gets cold out there. Could drop to zero before you get back.”

“I’ve got a sheepskin coat if it does.” Zach had put his duffel bag and the coat in the postal truck. The sheepskin was imitation, but of good enough quality to be worth a pretty penny. It wasn’t something he’d leave behind. Not that he didn’t trust the doctor, but he’d worked enough rodeos to know never to leave his duffel with strangers.

“Oh, well then,” the doctor muttered as he walked toward the truck. “I’ll just put this pie inside and let you get going. Remember, now, the brakes turn a little to the left if you happen to be going downhill.”

Zach nodded. He was definitely going downhill. Playing Santa to an old lady and her cats. Zach “Lightning” Lucas. He shook his head and pulled his Stetson down farther.

He sure hoped no one saw him.

Jenny Collins looked out the kitchen window again. Gray stormclouds almost covered the square butte west of her place. It was starting to snow, and the mail hadn’t come yet. Delores had told her the doctor might be late with the mail, but he’d see the package got to them. It wasn’t much, but it had the few presents she’d been able to get for the children, and she was anxious for them to arrive. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve day and, since it would be Sunday, there’d be no mail delivery then.

She had kept thinking she would get the car running, so Jenny had not sent her list in with Delores until a few days ago. The box should contain a water pistol for Andy, a paint kit for Lisa, and much-needed mittens and scarves for them both. Four-year-old Andy really wanted a cowboy outfit with a hat, and eight-year-old Lisa really wanted a princess tiara, but they were both too expensive and nowhere to be found in Deep Gulch anyway.

Maybe next year, Jenny consoled herself. She’d surely think of a way to make some money soon. She had to. She’d just spent everything except a few hundred dollars filling the propane tank so the furnace would keep going for the next few months. If nothing else, she wanted to be generous with heat when it came to their place.

Their place. She repeated the phrase to herself in satisfaction. This Christmas it would be enough that they had a home that was all their own, even if the roof leaked on the south side of the living room and the linoleum in the kitchen had more cracks than color left. Still, the place had three bedrooms and no mortgage. She was glad her husband had forgotten he had the deed to this place. It was the one thing she had left when the estate was settled.

She’d go looking for a job after Christmas. She’d have to go to Deep Gulch each day, anyway, once she enrolled Lisa in the school there.

Jenny had talked to the second-grade teacher, and they’d agreed Lisa could start in January. Surely by then Jenny would have the car running.

In the meantime, they were happy enough. Maybe more than happy. Jenny had always dreamed of living in a small town like Deep Gulch. Her dreams even included a mail carrier like Delores.

Jenny and her family had rented a house for eight years on that wretched street in El Monte, just east of Los Angeles, and the mail delivery people there changed routes so often she doubted any of them knew her face let alone her name. Here, Delores greeted Jenny like a friend and spoiled the kids with dinosaur candy and news of her own grandchildren.

Yes, Deep Gulch was home. Jenny just needed to find a way to make her piece of home support them.

“Mom, I see her coming!” Andy’s voice carried from the back bedroom. He was obviously looking out the window himself.

“Get down off those boxes, Andrew Joel.” If he could see out the window, it meant he was standing on the boxes again. Jenny didn’t intend to leave everything in boxes for long. She just hadn’t been able to buy dressers or book shelves or cabinets—none of the furniture that stored things.

Jenny had left all their furniture in California. She’d had to. Their savings wouldn’t stretch to paying off the funeral expenses and hiring a moving van, as well. Besides, she’d hoped there might be furniture in the house already.

That hope died when she took one look at the outside of the house and realized the inside probably wasn’t much better. The property wasn’t what she had expected. She doubted anything but thistle had grown on the place for the past ten years. The acreage was fenced, but half of the fence was down. The only trees were short scrub ones, and she’d already heard from someone at the store in Deep Gulch that the creek at the bottom of the coulee had been dry for the past five years.

Still, Jenny knew this was their home. Even though it had already turned cold before they moved, the children liked to be outside. They had a freedom they had never known around Los Angeles.

If the children were happy, Jenny could live without furniture for a few months. She’d told the kids they’d pretend they were camping. So far, they hadn’t complained.

“But she’s coming!” Andrew said as he ran out of the bedroom door and down the small hallway. “She’s coming to get my letter.”

“Oh, dear. I forgot,” Jenny remembered that Delores had promised Andy she’d take his letter special delivery to the North Pole so that Santa could read it before he began his trip tomorrow. Jenny had helped him write the letter so she had known for days what it said. She just hadn’t realized he wanted the letter mailed until recently. “I’m afraid it won’t be Delores getting the mail today. Her brother is taking the route for her.”

“The guy who showed me that runny pig?”

“Runt. The pig was a runt. And, yes, that’s the man.”

“Can he find the North Pole?”

“I’m sure he can,” Jenny said. Dr. Norris was a nice man. She was sure he’d play along with Andy’s fantasy. Andy was at the age when he was starting to doubt Santa Claus, but he wasn’t ready to give up hope yet.

Or maybe, Jenny thought, she was the one not willing for him to give up his fantasy. His young life had been so difficult. He’d never really had a father. At least not one who showed any interest in him.

Stephen had made it plain to Jenny even before they married that he wasn’t a family man. Jenny had thought he would change—surely a man would care about his own children. But Stephen never had. Stephen had lived his life apart from the family as much as possible ever since her oldest, Lisa, was born.

No, it wouldn’t hurt Andy to believe in Santa for another year.

Zach twisted the wheel to keep the postal truck on the road. The doctor hadn’t exaggerated when he’d complained about the ruts to the Collins place. No wonder the woman’s car was down for the count. There probably wasn’t a nut or bolt in the vehicle that hadn’t been shaken to within an inch of its life.

The road matched the house at its end. A bright patch of white paint around the door made the rest of the house look even more faded. He suspected this Collins woman didn’t know that paint needed to be applied in warmer, dryer weather. Of course, he supposed it did get the message across that someone was living there. Without that paint and the yellow curtains in the kitchen window, the place would look deserted.

The land itself looked like no one had ever cared for it. Flat and gray, the land stretched out in all directions with nothing but half-melted lumps of old snow drifts and a few scrub trees on it. The gray patches were gathering a coating of white as the snowflakes started to fall. In the distance Zach saw a few buttes rising up from the ground, but they were so far away he didn’t pay them any attention.

A woman opened the door as Zach pulled the postal truck to a stop. She was hugging an unbuttoned man’s flannel shirt around her shoulders and was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. A young girl stood on one side of her and an even younger boy on the other.

Zach unlatched the side door and stepped out of the postal truck. The north wind was already turning bitter, so he walked along the south side of the truck until he reached the vehicle’s back door. Cold, hard flakes of snow hit against his face.

Zach had given up and put the Santa beard and hat on before he even got to Mrs. Goussley’s. It was the cookies that had done it. Every place he stopped someone shoved a plate of homemade cookies into his hands. He explained that he wasn’t Delores—shoot, he wasn’t even the doctor—he wasn’t entitled to any cookies. But no one listened. It was Christmas, they said, and he looked like a nice young man.

He hadn’t been called a nice young man since he’d started riding rodeo.

He was getting soft, he thought glumly as he yanked the furry red cap farther down on his head and snapped the fake white beard into place. The cardboard box marked “Collins” and the pie were all the mail left to deliver.

Zach lifted the two things up. It would only take a minute to get the box up to the porch. Once there, he’d see about a quick Santa picture with the kids and head back to town. Maybe Thunder would be able to travel by then. If Zach was lucky, he’d be in the arms of that showgirl by Christmas after all.

Even from a distance Zach could see the woman was younger than he’d thought she would be. He’d guess her age at twenty-five or twenty-six. He shared the doctor’s surprise that she’d taken on a farm in the middle of Montana. He would expect someone like her to move into one of the cities like Billings or maybe Missoula. Someplace that had a video store and a beauty shop.

Not that it was any of his worry. She could live on the moon for all he cared.

“Package,” Zach said when he got close enough to the porch to thrust the package at the woman.

Short blond curls blew around her face, and up close he confirmed his opinion of her. Even in the cold, she would draw some attention in a crowd. The wind had turned her nose pink to match her cheeks.

Zach had a momentary wish he’d taken the Santa suit off before he’d made his last delivery. Lots of women had a weakness for cowboys. He’d never heard of a woman yet who thought a fat, polyester Santa was sexy.

Not that he was interested in what this woman or any woman in this part of Montana thought about him. What he’d told the doctor had been true—he was just delivering the mail and then passing through.

If Zach had been paying attention to what he was doing instead of admiring the woman in front of him, he would have seen her eyes sooner. Startled blue eyes looked straight at him.

“It’s the mail,” Zach clarified. No one else had greeted him with anything remotely like panic. Maybe she thought he was some kind of kook. “The suit’s for the old ladies. Well, that and the pictures. Delores wanted you to have one with your kids.”

“Where’s the doctor?”

“Back in town looking after my horse.”

“You’ve got a horse.” The young boy looked around his mother’s thigh and up at Zach. His eyes shone with wonder. “A real horse.”

The two children stood on either side of the woman. The boy’s jeans were neatly patched at the knees, and he obviously took his fair share of tumbles; the girl’s clothes were well washed but showed no sign of stains or tears. Not even little ones. The boy’s eyes had already welcomed Zach, but the girl’s were more careful.

“Thunder’s as real as a horse can be, even when he’s sick,” Zach said. “In his day, he was the best bucking bronc around.”

“Santa has reindeer—not horses,” the young girl pointedly corrected Zach as she crossed her arms. Zach pegged her age at seven. Maybe eight. “You need to get the story straight.”

“It’s no story,” Zach protested. “I’m not—”

The woman’s eyes widened in even more alarm and Zach stopped. He looked back down at the young boy.

“—in a hurry,” Zach fumbled. Were there still kids left that believed in Santa Claus? Apparently so. “I’m not in a hurry at all.”

The woman smiled in relief.

Now, that woman should smile more often, Zach thought. She was pretty without it, but when she smiled she made him think of one of those soap ads where they try to picture springtime. It might be twenty degrees below zero on this porch right now, but when he looked at her he could almost see the green meadow she should be walking through.

But, Zach reminded himself, he wasn’t here to think of meadows. He was here to deliver the mail, snap a picture and give away the last of those blasted candy canes.

“I have something for you in my pocket.” Zach had moved the last of the candy canes from the bag to his pocket several stops back. “Just let me set this box down inside the house and I’ll get it out for you.”

Zach didn’t notice that the alarm on the woman’s face turned to dismay.

“I can take the package,” Jenny offered. She wasn’t ready for company.

“No problem. I’ve got it,” Zach said as he stepped up to the door the boy was opening.

“But I can—” Jenny started to repeat even as she watched the man walk into her kitchen. Great, she thought. Just what she needed—some man in a Santa suit seeing her house. Every man she had ever known expected a woman to keep a neat house. Stacks of boxes and fold-up furniture would hardly qualify as neat.

She hoped the beard would hide his disapproval. Although, she told herself with a tilt of her chin, it wasn’t any of his business what kind of a housekeeper she was.