DO YOU BELIEVE IN SANTA
Evergreen Lane #1
Sierra Donovan
Released Sept 29th, 2015
Kensington: Zebra
What grown woman claims to have seen Santa Claus? Mandy Reese, for one—on a very special Christmas Eve when she was eight years old. These days, Mandy works at a year-round Christmas store in Tall Pine, California, where customers love to hear about her childhood encounter with Saint Nick. But when Jake Wyndham arrives in town—charming, gorgeous, extremely practical—Mandy faces a dilemma. Deny what she saw, or let Jake think she’s sugarplum crazy?
Jake scouts hotel locations all over the country, but he’s never met anyone quite like Mandy before. Her warmth and sparkle are irresistible, but…meeting Santa? Really? Jake’s no Scrooge but he’s definitely skeptical. Then again, there are all kinds of things Jake never experienced until he came to Tall Pine. Like autumn snow. Mind blowing kisses. And the magic of falling head-over-heels, madly in love…
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“Then
he laid a finger aside his nose . . .” Mandy told the wide-eyed four-year-old
boy.
From
her crouched position, she glanced past the brown-haired boy’s shoulder for
just a moment. His mother, standing behind him in the little shop, was smiling
with a touch of the Christmas glimmer in her eyes, even though it was the
middle of August.
“.
. . and, whoosh! He went right up the chimney.”
“Did
he drop anything?” About half of the children asked her that.
“Nope.
He was very careful.”
“Did
he bring you what you wanted for Christmas?”
A
lot of them asked her that, too.
“There
were a lot of presents under the tree,” Mandy said carefully, glancing past the
boy at his mother again. “But after he left, I couldn’t even remember what I
wanted that year. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because
seeing Santa was the best Christmas present I ever got.”
Mandy
straightened, smiling at them both. She didn’t often have the chance to tell
the story in the heart of summer; this visit was a treat. One of the nearby
store owners must have sent them over.
“Did
you ever see—?”
“Robbie.”
The little boy’s mother patted his shoulder. “We’ve taken up enough of this
lady’s time.” She met Mandy’s eyes. “Thank you. We’ll take these.”
The
woman handed Mandy a pair of peppermint-striped salt and pepper shakers, and
Mandy took them behind the counter to the cash register. “I love these. I have
a set at home.”
As
Mandy wrapped the shakers in tissue paper, Robbie’s mother fished in her purse
for her wallet, still glancing over the necklaces, key chains and other
Christmas knickknacks displayed on the countertop. “It must be hard not to take
the whole store home with you.”
“Oh,
I think I already have.” Mandy grinned as she rang up the sale.
The
North Pole was the kind of store that wouldn’t stand much of a chance outside
of a mountain town: ninety percent Christmas merchandise. But when visitors to
Tall Pine wandered the shops on Evergreen Lane, most of them stepped inside for
a quick look, and many left with a knickknack or two. Mandy thought it might be
something about the mountain air and the scent of pine that helped people catch
the Christmas spirit, even in the off-season.
As
Mandy handed the customer her bag, Robbie said, “Hey, that’s you! Are you
famous?” He was pointing at the two framed newspaper clippings on the south
wall. One was the original story the paper had run the year Mandy told the
television reporter about Santa Claus. The other was from six years back: SANTA
SIGHTER GOES TO WORK AT
CHRISTMAS STORE. The photo showed an
eighteen-year-old Mandy standing in nearly the same spot she was right now,
smiling behind the counter. She didn’t know if anyone else could see the slight
discomfort beneath the smile.
“No,
I’m not famous,” she said, feeling a trace of a blush warm her cheeks. “They
just wrote a couple of stories about me. Because not everyone gets to see
Santa.”
The
framed clippings were the only part of the job Mandy didn’t care for, but it
was the reason Mrs. Swanson had hired her. And Mandy had wanted, with all her
heart, to work at The North Pole. It was filled with the things she loved, and
she loved telling her story to the kids who occasionally came in to hear it.
The clippings reminded her of the hard part, the kidding she’d taken all
through school. But if it meant being here every day to share the magic, then
so be it.
Robbie
took his mother’s hand as she led him toward the door.
“Hey.”
Mandy reached into the crystal bowl on the countertop. “Want a candy cane for
the road?”
“A
candy cane? In the summer?”
“Sure,
why not? They’re still fresh, I promise.” Mandy winked at him. “I had one
earlier this morning.”
Mother
and son stepped forward, and each of them took one of the short,
cellophane-wrapped candies.
“Merry
Christmas,” she said.
The
little boy waved, and the sleigh bells hanging from the door jingled behind
them as they left.
Jake
Wyndham strolled the sidewalk of Evergreen Lane, peering in the occasional
window. He’d already checked out a T-shirt store and a sporting goods shop.
He’d looked over the menu posted in the window of a sandwich shop, but it was
too early for lunch. The street had a lot of foot traffic, a healthy sign on a
Saturday morning. So far, everything he saw supported his company’s research:
Tall Pine looked like a town that drew a fair number of weekend visitors.
Up
ahead, two red-and-white-striped poles supported the awning over the entrance
to another store. It didn’t quite look like a barber shop. . . . No, wait,
those were supposed to be big peppermint sticks.
Jake
got close enough to see the display in the nearest of the two windows flanking
the entrance to the store. The large sill was decked in cotton that passed for
snow, with a miniature Christmas village laid out on top. Tiny children on
little toboggans pretended to slide down an improvised hill.
The
red letters on the shop window read THE NORTH POLE.
Okay,
this could be interesting.
He
pulled open the door, to be greeted by the jingling of the bells that hung on
it. From speakers overhead, Jake recognized a voice that he never heard any
time of year but December: Bing Crosby.
“May
your days be merry and bright. . . .”
They
weren’t kidding around about this. Reindeer, snowmen and nutcrackers filled the
shop: figurines on shelves, pictures and plaques on the walls, jewelry and key
chains hanging from display hooks in front of the counter. Artificial Christmas
trees, large and small, poked up from corners and alongside rows of shelves,
decorated with price-tagged ornaments. It was a world of red and green,
peppermint and pine. Jake had never seen anything like it back home in
Scranton, that was for sure.
He
stepped slowly forward, the old tenet of “you break it, you bought it” echoing
in his head. Thankfully, the rows of shelves weren’t so close together that
bumping into them was a hazard. What had felt like a manic clutter at first
glance was actually arranged rather nicely. A cluster of mugs here,
candleholders there . . . and, Jake was astonished to see, a whole shelf
devoted to salt and pepper shakers. Did people really—
“Hi.”
Jake
turned to see a pretty, dark-haired woman step from behind one of the Christmas
trees a few feet to his left. “Can I help you find anything?” she added.
“Not
at the moment.”
She
had a warm, ready smile, and her eyes were a deep blue. She held an ornament
that looked like a little wooden rowboat. Jake’s eyes went from the ornament to
the tree, and he saw it was decorated with other outdoorsy items: elk, geese,
pinecones, even a snowman with a fishing pole.
“I
see you’re going with a theme,” he said.
“It’s
fun.” The girl hung the boat on a branch and reached into a box resting on a
nearby stool. She fished out another ornament—appropriately enough, a fish. “I
could never stick to one thing on my tree at home. There are so many personal
memories that go with Christmas decorations. But it’s fun to do it here.”
Jake
watched deft fingers with unpainted nails hang up a dark-furred grizzly bear.
“How does your store do when it’s not Christmastime? Is it pretty slow?”
“Oh,
it’s quieter, for sure.” She gestured around the store, empty of any other
customers, with a little shrug. “But people trickle in. And when they do, they
usually buy something.”
“Locals?
Or tourists?”
“I
guess you’d say local tourists. People from maybe an hour or two away. During
the summer they like to come up for the day because it’s cooler up here in the
mountains. And in the winter it gets pretty crazy. We’re the first town people
hit when they drive up to go to the snow.”
“‘Go
to the snow’?”
“Sure.
Down the hill, it never snows. You usually have to be at least four thousand
feet up to get snow in Southern California.” She studied him with a quizzical
frown.
He
stepped back, feeling as if he’d been found out. “Sorry, I’m from Pennsylvania.
The idea of driving somewhere to visit snow
never occurred to me.”
She
grinned. “I guess so. If you never get snow, it’s a novelty. Up here we have to
dig our way out of it sometimes. But it’s so beautiful.”
She
looked almost starry-eyed. Clearly, she hadn’t gotten over the novelty of snow.
“Have you lived here long?” he asked.
“All
my life.” She picked up the box and stepped back to view her handiwork. It
brought her one step closer to Jake, and he sneaked a look at her contemplative
profile. Her blue eyes had a soulful look he couldn’t remember seeing on any
adult.
He
took his eyes from her face before she caught him staring, and noticed a silver
bell earring dangling from her earlobe.
Silver
bells . . . Oh. Right. Got it.
Apparently
satisfied with the tree, she walked past him with a smile, taking the box
behind the counter and setting it down. “So,” she said, “what brings you here
from Pennsylvania?”
“Do
you have anything for a seven-year-old girl? My niece,” he added, not sure why
he felt the urge to clarify.
Her
eyes went ceilingward as she contemplated the problem.
The
reason he’d come to town wouldn’t be a secret for long, but Jake found he
usually got better answers to his questions if people didn’t know why he was
asking. Regal Hotels had sent him to set up their next location, and the
demographics of Tall Pine looked great. But getting the perspective of locals
often came in handy.
The
woman’s eyes roamed over the store. “Really, just about anything, except maybe
for the glass breakables,” she said. “Are you looking for something a little
less seasonal? For a souvenir?”
Jake
nodded. “Exactly.”
“Does
she like jewelry?”
He
hesitated.
“Oh,
I don’t mean diamonds and rubies.” That smile reached her eyes every time.
“Just a little bauble.”
Bauble?
She
reached over to a display rack of necklaces on the countertop, turning it to
show the different designs. Bears, Santa hats, Christmas trees . . . Her
fingers came to rest, cupping a tiny pinecone about the size of a thimble. His
niece, Emily, would like
that.
“We
sell a lot of these,” she said. “They’re real pinecones, but they’re treated
with lacquer so they’ll last. Pinecone . . . Tall Pine?”
Got
it. Jake eyed the price tag on the chain: ten dollars. “That’s
perfect. Thanks.”
She
wrapped the necklace in tissue paper as gently as if it were a crystal vase.
Meanwhile, Jake became aware of the music from the speakers again. It had left
Bing Crosby and moved on to Nat King Cole. “Do you ever get tired of Christmas
music?”
“You’d
be surprised how often people ask me that.” Not really. “But
I never do. There’s so much good Christmas music. I bring a lot of it from
home.”
She
rang up the necklace and handed him the bag, silver bells glinting below her
ears. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry
Christmas,” he said before he thought. With Nat King Cole in the background, it
came as a reflex.
He
walked out the door, bells jingling behind him. The warm summer day came as a
shock after being surrounded by mistletoe and holly.
An
unexpected voice piped up in his head, as if it were chiming in with the bells:
You should have asked her out.
The
multipaned door swung shut. Too late.
Besides,
he had work to do, and he knew where to find her.
Resisting
the urge to look back through the glass, Jake set off to continue his
fact-finding foray up the street.
Enter to Win a Print Copy of
DO YOU BELIEVE IN SANTA?
Sierra Donovan is a wife, a mother of two and a writer, though not
always in that order. Her greatest joy is helping people find true love on the
printed page. She is a firm believer in Christmas, classic movies, happy
endings and the healing power of chocolate. Sierra’s first novel, Love On The
Air, was a Holt Medallion finalist. Her 2014 Kensington debut, No Christmas
Like The Present, won the Golden Quill Award for Sweet Traditional Romance. Her
2015 novel, Do You Believe In Santa? marks the beginning of Sierra's new
Evergreen Lane series. You can email Sierra at sierra_donovan@yahoo.com, or
visit her website at www.sierradonovan.com
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