A Tale of Two Christmas Letters

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Bess cocked her head, taking his gratitude in stride. “No problem,” she returned affably.

  As always, his daughters were delighted to see their favorite family friend. All spoke at once.

  “Hi, Bess.”

  “Can I have a hug?”

  “Why are you here?”

  She seemed to blossom with all the attention. “Hi, everyone. Of course you can have a hug.” She knelt and engulfed all three girls in her arms, smiled hello at his mom and Mrs. D. “I’m here to drive your daddy to Dallas for the conference.”

  “Daddy!” His three girls surrounded him before he could get a word in edgewise. “You can’t go yet! Not before we mail our letters to Santa Claus! You said we could go to the post office and do it with you!”

  He broke eye contact with Bess and turned back to his girls, reminding them, “We aren’t done with those yet.”

  “Yes, we are! I said I wanted Santa to come down our chimney!” Lindsay declared.

  “And I wanted Santa to bring me a new puppy!” Nicole chimed in. “Just like the one Bess is getting, only not that one!”

  It was all Jack could do not to cringe, although Bess’s expression remained remarkably nonchalant.

  “And I want a mommy and a baby brother!” Chloe claimed.

  He tensed.

  Luckily for them all, his mom stepped in. “I was just explaining to the girls that Santa can’t bring real people.”

  “But he brings real puppies!” Chloe argued.

  “Maybe,” Bess said, “it would be a good idea...just in case Santa doesn’t have what you all want at his toy shop at the North Pole this year...to ask Santa Claus if he would bring you all surprises instead.”

  The girls paused.

  Jack sent Bess a grateful glance only she could see. “Brilliant,” he mouthed.

  Chloe clapped her hands. “We love surprises!”

  “Yes, we do!” Nicole agreed.

  “As long as he brings them here to our house,” Lindsay said.

  Eager to have this resolved, he said, “Sounds like we have a plan, then.”

  The girls retrieved their letters. The adults helped them add “a surprise” to their lists, which were folded into the envelopes addressed to the North Pole, along with the pictures the girls had drawn earlier.

  “Daddy,” Nicole declared, “we need stamps.”

  Jack went into his office and returned with a book of them. He doled them out. The girls carefully pasted them on.

  “Can we please go to the post office?” Lindsay asked.

  “Now?” Nicole echoed.

  “I want to put them in the box!” Chloe added.

  Jack looked at Bess. This was turning into quite the ordeal. Not that his self-appointed driver seemed to mind. She was as chipper as always when she was around his girls. “We’ve got time since it’s just the two of us,” she said.

  “Five!” Lindsay corrected, counting. “There are five of us who are going to go.”

  Jack exhaled. There were times when being a dad seemed almost more than he could handle on his own. Thank heaven for Bess’s cheerful, steady presence.

  He smiled at his girls. “Right again.”

  * * *

  Bess couldn’t help but note as they all climbed inside Jack’s SUV that he looked exhausted. “Want me to drive?” she asked.

  “If you don’t mind. Yeah.”

  They made it to the post office in downtown Laramie just before the 6:00 p.m. closing. The girls carried their letters inside and, standing on tiptoe, pushed them over the counter.

  The fiftysomething postal clerk smiled when he saw the address. “I suppose you want these mailed off right away?”

  “Yes, please!” the girls said in unison.

  “Will they get there in time?” Lindsay asked.

  “Plenty of time,” the clerk assured her.

  The girls were sober as they left. “Maybe you should write Santa a letter, Daddy,” Lindsay said as they piled back into his car.

  Wondering what this was about, Bess backed out of the space.

  “Maybe then,” Chloe said, “if Santa brings you what you really want, you’ll be happy.”

  Nicole piped up from the back seat. “You, too, Bess!”

  She sighed. Out of the mouths of babes.

  But his kids were right. Jack had been looking a little stressed lately. Not as stressed as she had been when she’d written the two Christmas letters. But like he was missing something in his life, too.

  “You know,” Jack’s mom said as they went back in to retrieve his belongings, “your father and I will have the kids starting tomorrow evening. So if you or Bess were to decide you needed a little more time in the city...for holiday activities...it’ll be perfectly fine.”

  Jack accepted the offer with an inscrutable nod. They said goodbyes to everyone, then walked out to Bess’s Volvo sedan. She opened up the trunk, and he stowed his duffel and garment bag in the trunk.

  “Sorry about that,” Jack said.

  Unable to help herself, Bess quipped, “The delay in leaving or the obvious matchmaking?”

  “Both,” he deadpanned.

  Key in hand, she slid behind the wheel, wishing her own mom were still alive to give her such grief. “She wants you to be happy.”

  A mixture of resentment and resignation warred on his handsome face. “Doesn’t everybody.” Then he pressed his fingers to his eyes and grimaced in self-recrimination. “Now who’s sounding Grinchy?”

  Bess knew what it was like to work what amounted to a double shift and go twenty-four hours with little sleep. “Hey.” She reached over to pat his arm. “You’ve got a right to be a little grouchy.”

  Not that he seemed all the worse for wear for it, though. He had a day’s beard rimming his ruggedly chiseled jaw, his dark brown hair was rumpled, but his cobalt blue eyes were as alert as ever despite the shadows of fatigue beneath them.

  “In fact,” she continued, unable to help but admire how his big body seemed to take up the entire passenger side, “I don’t mind if you want to sleep while I drive.”

  As generous to a fault as usual, he said, “I’d rather hear about your day.”

  “Not much to tell. We were busy all day in the rehabilitation clinic. There’s a lot of excitement about the upcoming holidays. Which is nice.”

  As was driving, with him by her side.

  Jack smiled, as if he relished the chance to talk with her. “You seem happy, too.”

  “I guess I am.”

  His gaze roved her face. “Is it because of your date last night?”

  Cool segue. Bess accelerated as she merged onto the highway. “In a roundabout way.”

  Jack turned to her, waiting.

  Aware he still looked better than anyone had a right to look after such a long day, Bess smiled and said, “I’m going to help Tim find someone. Or at least I’m going to try. We were working on who he might want to be introduced to today at lunch. Luckily, the lady in question was amenable, so I’ve already set something up.”

  He flexed his shoulders beneath his cashmere sweater. “So you’re not seeing him again?”

  “Only as a friend.”

  Was it her imagination or did that news please him? From the loaded silence, something was clearly on his mind. “What?” she asked, slanting him a quick glance.

  “I’m your friend,” he pointed out drolly.

  “And...?”

  He said nothing.

  Her heart rate accelerating, Bess tried again. “What are you asking?”

  Jack folded his arms. Stared straight ahead. “If you kissed him.”

  Whoa. “Not that it’s any of your business, Doc, but no,” she rasped. “We did not!”

  Jack kept his poker face.

  “We had a perfectly nice d
ate, and I really enjoyed spending time with Tim,” she finished in exasperation, wishing she’d been able to say more.

  “Then?”

  A palpable silence fell. “Neither of us was feeling it.”

  He nodded, complacent.

  Her irritation rose. “You don’t have to look so happy about it.”

  “I’m not.”

  Ha! It was her turn to wait for him to continue.

  Eventually, he said, “I just never saw the two of you as a couple.”

  Nor had Bess, if the truth were told. Deciding she wanted answers, too, she pointed out, “Yet you were helpful to Tim when he came to you for advice.”

  Another shrug of those broad masculine shoulders. “I try to be supportive.”

  Supportive. Was that what she wanted?

  He turned as much as his seat belt allowed. The fabric of his slacks molded to his rock-hard thighs. “Would you have rather I acted like a jerk about it?”

  Would she? Did she want him to be jealous of the idea of her with another man? And what if he was? What exactly would that prove? Bess kept her eyes on the road. “Of course not.”

  He caught the low note of pique. “I’m not trying to irritate you.”

  Deciding the passenger compartment had become way too hot and close, their conversation suddenly far too intimate, she turned the car’s thermostat down another four degrees and said, “I know that, too.” She continued driving. Five miles passed, then ten.

  In the distance, horses grazed in the moonlight. The next pasture up, it was cattle.

  “So what is your plan for your love life?” he asked. His low tone said she could tell him anything and he would understand.

  Her mind made up on this issue, she gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands and admitted candidly, “I don’t really have one. Except to know I’m not going to date anyone just for the sake of dating them again. If the sparks aren’t there, I’m not going to waste my time. Or his.”

  * * *

  Jack felt a lot of things about Bess’s pronouncement.

  Relief, that he didn’t have any competition to worry about, at least in the short term. At least he hoped. Given how attractive she was, her single status was certainly not guaranteed.

  And guilt, because as much as he lusted after her and yearned to make her his, he knew he could not give her what she wanted most. The promise of everlasting love and marriage and a baby of her own.

  All of that had been wrung out of him when he lost his wife. He no longer believed that everything would always work out the way he hoped. Instead he’d learned the hard way that life was a crapshoot. And Bess deserved more than a relationship with someone who no longer had the soul-deep hope and faith to make all her dreams come true.

  “Jack?” Bess’s voice jarred him from his thoughts. “I want to fuel up before we hit the city. There are several fast-food places up ahead. Do you want to get something to eat now, too?”

  Getting out of the close quarters of the car suddenly seemed like a very good idea. He turned to her with a smile. “I do.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they sat down opposite each other at one of the Formica-topped tables next to the window. Popular Christmas music played in the background. A lit tree decorated the ordering area.

  “By the way,” he said as they unwrapped their sandwiches, “I meant to thank you for broaching the idea of asking Santa Claus for a surprise gift. When did you come up with that?”

  She beamed. “Right then, actually.”

  He gave her half his fries; she gave him half her onion rings. “Gayle used to be able to do that with the girls. I never have really had the hang of it.”

  She cut her grilled chicken sandwich in half with a plastic knife. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a very good father to them.”

  It helped to hear her say it. “Thanks,” he said quietly, although today was one of those days when he felt like anything but a great dad. The fatigue of the long day beginning to hit him, he took a bite of his cheeseburger.

  “It’s all going to work out.”

  He grimaced. “Once I come up with the ideas for those surprises they asked Santa for...” Something spectacular enough to make them forget they did not have a mother. Right now, he was drawing a blank.

  Bess nodded, almost as if she knew something. Which, given her expertise in dealing with his three daughters, she probably did.

  “Any thoughts?” he asked.

  Her smile sparkled almost as much as her eyes. “A few,” she teased.

  Loving the way she looked when she got excited about something, he leaned back in his chair and studied her over the rim of his cup. “I’m listening.”

  “Well...” She drew an enervating breath that lifted the swell of her breasts. “To make it fair, you could have Santa leave a note for them, saying he was gifting all three of them the visit to their house and the new puppy. Then, for the surprise gifts, do something really special and equitable for each one of them.”

  “Like...?” Gazing into her emerald green eyes, Jack pushed aside the sudden desire to take her hand in his and hold tight.

  “Chloe mentioned one of her friends has a really nice dollhouse that is apparently three stories high and around four feet tall.”

  Jack took another long, thirsty drink of his iced tea and considered the effects of sibling rivalry. “If Santa got Chloe that, I think the other two would each want one, too. As long as they were all different, that is.”

  Bess’s grin morphed into a satisfied smile. She tucked an errant strand of silky hair behind her ear. “I don’t think that would be a problem.”

  Jack imagined it would not.

  In an effort to get comfortable in a chair that was several inches too short, he shifted his legs beneath the tabletop, bumping her knees with his. Tingling from the accidental brush of their legs, he drew back. “But what would I give them from me, then, that would match up with what Santa’s done?” Make them feel loved and appreciated on both counts?

  “How about some really spectacular new baby dolls? Picked out to go with their new dollhouses?”

  He finished his burger and dragged a french fry through the ketchup. Deep down, he knew they had all been leaning on Bess too much, especially him, but it was hard not to when she was so much fun to be around. “Sounds good.”

  Finished with their meal, they stood and carried their trays to the bin, then walked back to the drink machines to refill their cups. “Where would we get all of this, though?” He gestured for her to go first.

  Bess stepped to his right, bumping him a little in the process. “I’m not sure about the dollhouses.” She added more ice and soda to her cup. “I’ll call some of my friends with little girls and ask if they can recommend any particular vendor. As for the dolls, that will be easy. There’s a big doll store for little girls in the Galleria mall in Dallas.”

  Trying not to notice how right it felt to be here with her like this, without other family to act as chaperones, Jack looked down at her. “If we pull this off,” he predicted huskily, “the girls will be thrilled.”

  “I think so, too.” Together, they walked outside to her car. Standing in the cold air, waiting for her to unlock the door to let them in, Jack had the strong urge to pull her in his arms and kiss her.

  For both their sakes, he did not. He stared down at her, wishing attraction and affection were as uncomplicated and easy for adults as they were teens. Because if they were...he and Bess would have been an item a long time ago. “Thanks for all the help.”

  She opened the driver door and climbed in. “You’re welcome.”

  * * *

  No sooner had they gotten back on the highway again than Jack got a call. He answered. Then he said, “Hang on. Let me ask.” He muted the call, then said, “It’s my speaking partner for the conference. She wants to go over the materi
al we’re covering in the seminar tomorrow. Would it be okay with you if we did this now, over the phone?”

  Glad not to be the sole focus of the sexy surgeon’s attention, Bess replied, “Have at it. All I’m going to be doing is driving.”

  “Thanks.” Jack got back on his call. “We’re good to go...”

  He talked surgical techniques and recovery times until they got close to the Dallas city limits. Then he navigated for her until they got to the hotel. A valet took her car, the bellhop their bags, and they headed inside.

  The lobby of the hotel was gorgeous, with high ceilings, marble floors and sumptuous furniture. A beautifully lit twenty-foot-tall Christmas tree stood in the center of the atrium, and soft carols played over the intercom.

  What was not quite so Christmassy? The very long line at the check-in desk.

  When they finally reached the counter, the clerk scanned his computer and frowned. “We don’t seem to have any regular rooms left. In fact,” he continued, typing rapidly, “we’re sold out for the next two nights.”

  Bess and Jack exchanged astonished looks.

  “How is that possible?” Jack asked.

  “We’re here for the Veterans Healthcare Summit. We both have reservations,” Bess said. Hers was printed out; Jack’s was on his phone.

  The clerk, an officious-looking man in his late thirties, straightened. “Not everyone we were expecting to check out this morning left.”

  “And how exactly is that our problem?” Jack asked, beginning to look a little irate.

  The clerk got the message. He typed some more. Finally, he said, “If you are willing to share, I can give you a one-bedroom suite with a sitting room that has a pullout sofa. Or we can start calling other hotels in the area and see if they have any availability, but there’s no guarantee that will work out, either.”

  Noting Jack looked like he was going to collapse with fatigue, Bess jumped in. They were adults, as well as old friends. They could make this work. “We’ll take the suite here.”

  Jack lifted a brow, but he didn’t seem to be objecting. Just surprised.