“Nothing.” Stella was all innocence, but Lux wasn’t buying her act.
Neither was Mom. She shook the wooden spoon in Stella’s direction. “I think it’s time we meet this … Axel.” Mom almost choked on the name.
Lux stifled a laugh. The idea of Santa and Mrs. Kringle sitting down to a nice meal with Axel the tattoo artist was pretty funny. Of course, if Stella married him, then they’d be sitting down to a lot of meals together—family dinners.
Stella shook her head much too quickly. “He’s a flight risk, Mom.”
Mom narrowed her eyes.
“He had a bad experience with a couple of his ex-girlfriends’ families, and I don’t want to scare him off.”
Lux opened her mouth to point out the obvious warning sign in that statement, but Mom spoke first.
“I am not scary.” Mom’s fist tightened around the wooden spoon.
“Say that without threatening me with a spoon.” Stella smirked.
“I was not!”
“Besides, it’s not you I’m worried about. It’s Dad.”
Robyn snorted. “Yeah. Cuz Santa is soooo mean.” She opened the top oven and rubbed butter over the rolls. They would turn dark brown and beautiful with a few more minutes in the oven.
“So, are you coming?” Stella asked Lux.
“Thanks for the offer, but no.” Lux lowered her voice. “It’s Robyn’s birthday.”
“You’re no fun.” Stella turned to Robyn. “How ’bout you, sis? Wanna throw off that apron and raise some candy cane on the big three-oh?”
Lux didn’t bother to tell her the phrase was raising Cain. Stella had her own way of looking at life, and Lux wasn’t going to change that. She didn’t want to. Stella was pretty awesome, even if she was drawn to trouble. Lux finished loading the tray and slid it inside the dishwasher. She lowered the casing and pressed the button to start the machine.
Robyn lifted one eyebrow. “As tempting as that sounds, I’ll pass.”
“Then I’m off.” Stella headed towards the door. “Oh.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a small box wrapped with gold paper. “Happy birthday, sis.”
Robyn’s posture softened a fraction. “You didn’t have to get me anything. I told everyone I wanted to pretend this birthday didn’t exist.”
“What?!” Stella’s hands flew to her chest, and then her arms wrapped Robyn in a squishy hug. “Without this birthday there would be no you, and that’s not a family I want to be a part of.”
Robyn chuckled. “You’re far too dramatic.”
“Me? You’re the one wishing presents and cake away. That’s a cry for help if I’ve ever heard one.” Stella released Robyn and swiped her finger through the chocolate icing. She winked at all of them and stuck her finger in her mouth as she walked out the door.
“Wait!” Lux called. “Give me a heads-up if you see any power surges coming our way, would you?”
“Lux!” Mom gasped, her hand covering the chest of her red and green polka-dotted apron. “That’s not appropriate.” She rounded on Stella. “But highly important information. I expect Lux to inform me and your father of any power surges that take place.”
Lux shrugged as she pulled out her phone. “It’s kind of obvious, Mom; the lights will flicker. Besides, I created an app last winter when Ginger was dating Joseph.” She looked up from the screen to see all three women staring at her. Stella, behind Mom, was twisting her fingers over her mouth, telling her to lock her lips and throw away the key. Mom looked like a woman who had unwrapped a pair of diamond earrings. Robyn’s mouth hung open.
“You can monitor our love lives?” Robyn asked.
Lux looked back and forth between their faces. “I—yeah. Is that bad?”
Mom smiled sweetly. “Only for some.” She took Lux’s phone and rounded on Stella. “Have a great time, honey. I’ll be right here—” She tapped the phone. “—waiting for you to get home and tell me all about your date.”
Stella glared at Lux for a brief moment before smiling at Mom. “Can’t wait. Keep the cocoa warm.” She twirled around and ducked out the door.
Mom laughed and handed Lux back her phone.
“You don’t want it?” Lux asked, confused. She could rewire a church in under two hours, but figuring out what undercurrent flowed in this conversation was making her head hurt.
“I trust Stella.” Mom smiled at the two of them. “I trust all my girls.”
“Then why …?” Lux pointed from the phone to the door.
Mom laughed. “It never hurts to be reminded Santa knows if you’ve been naughty or nice.”
Lux smiled.
Robyn folded her arms. “I don’t like it.”
“Why?” Lux closed the app and put her phone in her back pocket. “You haven’t caused any surges.”
Robyn threw her hands in the air. “Exactly.”
Lux drew her eyebrows together.
Mom put her arm around Robyn. “He wasn’t the one, sweetheart. When you’re ready to get back out there—”
Robyn stepped away from Mom’s embrace. “No. I’m not meant to find love. I thought I was, but I thought I was supposed to take over for Dad one day, too. And, well, look how that turned out.” The timer went off, and Robyn rushed to get the rolls out of the oven before they burned. Lux watched Robyn’s intense interest in the oven. She must have been trying to avoid the conversation about all of them getting married.
Quik’s words came back like an echo of doom: remove a power source.
There was no avoiding the inevitable. Lux followed Robyn to the ovens. “It’s going to take all five of us falling in love to keep Christmas alive, Robyn. You can’t give up.”
“Easy for you to say,” Robyn quipped as she pulled out a pan of rolls and moved it between them like a weapon.
Lux took a step back from the hot tray. “It’s not easy.” The one guy she actually liked, admired even, had kicked her out. Not once, but twice, and then made her promise not to come back. “I don’t have a line of suitors like Ginger did; men don’t flock to me like they do to Stella. I don’t have your natural grace or Frost’s adorableness. I’m the geek of the family and stand out for all the wrong reasons.” She shoved her glasses up her nose. She didn’t even need to wear them if she wasn’t in front of the computer, but they’d become a part of her, and she just left them there.
Robyn frowned.
Lux took off the glasses and tucked them into her back pocket. “I don’t feel sorry for myself or anything, I just know the truth. But if even I can have hope, then you should be fine.” She looked back and forth between her mom and Robyn as they stared at her with shock.
“Lux,” Mom began.
Lux held up a hand. “Mom, I’m not fishing for compliments or reassurances that there’s some man out there just waiting for me. I’m not sparkly like a perfectly wrapped gift under the tree. But that’s okay. The man who loves me will have to love me for my brain. But I’m good with that.”
Robyn giggled. “Lux—your brain is a supermodel.”
Mom nodded.
Lux lifted a shoulder. “What can I say? My cerebrum’s got curves in all the right places.”
Robyn laughed, and even Mom chuckled at that one.
Lux dusted her palms together. “I’m going to go shower. I’ll be fast as a reindeer.”
The hallway from the kitchen to their rooms was deserted. Like the rest of the palace, the walls were a blue-white color. This hallway had family portraits and a few positive affirmation statements. The carpet was red with gold binding, thick enough to wander around without socks and shoes. She used the walk to free her hair from the tight French braid that held it back and kept her safe in the welding room. Loose hair, especially long, loose hair like hers, was an accident waiting to happen.
Once through her purple door with a silver knob, she took a moment to consider herself in the mirror above the dresser. No makeup. Dirt smudges on her shirt. Oil stains in her nail beds. Yeah, the man who loved her would ha
ve to see past aaaaall that.
Though she’d told Robyn she had hope for finding such a man, she was bluffing. Only one man had seen the real her, the total geek who got excited about formulas and experiments. He was locked away in Alaska with one cup, one plate, and one bowl on his shelf. There wasn’t room for Lux in Quik’s life, no matter how much she wished there were.
She turned away from the mirror so she wouldn’t see the frown lines that appeared. She needed to get through dinner and back to the shop, where she could work herself into exhaustion. Maybe tonight she’d fall asleep without seeing Quik’s smile in her dreams. Yeah, and maybe the ice castle would melt and she could float to Mexico.
Chapter Fifteen
256 Days until Christmas Eve
Lux stripped off her leather work gloves and grinned. She found her phone on the workbench—now dishes free—to take pictures of the cutest little substation ever built. It could be the only mini substation in the world. Aww, she had a one-of-a-kind. A grin split her cheeks as she took image after image to send to her sisters.
For the last three and a half weeks, one Kringle or another had dragged her to the dining room for family dinner, where they’d asked relevant questions about her work. They’d never spent this much time discussing what was interesting to her, and she suspected her conversation with Mom and Robyn regarding her lack of feminine wiles was a motivator for the increased attention. She didn’t need the confidence boost they all seemed to think she did, but she was super grateful they cared about her enough to make the effort.
And she was super proud of what she was doing, so talking about it was no hardship.
She wiped the back of her arm across her forehead. If they thought she worked too hard on the prototype, just wait until she had the go-ahead to build the real thing. She grinned, rubbing her palms together in anticipation. She’d need a crane. Not a new tractor-type crane with a diesel engine that would belch smoke inside; they had no way to vent the room where the substation would reside. She was still working on a name for the room. She’d seriously considered everything from the Gryffindor Room to the Black Pearl and Bag-End to Arendelle, but nothing fit.
Shaking off the distraction of naming the room, she thought more about the crane. It would have to be an old-timey one with ropes and pulleys. One of the reindeer could provide muscle. Dunder had all sorts of powerful legs. Guilt tugged at her lunch. She hadn’t been to the stables in almost a month. She hadn’t been anywhere in almost a month. When she thought about the last time she’d left the North Pole and the way she’d flirted with Quik, she wanted to tuck into the snow and stay close to home.
She hit the walkie-talkie button on her phone. There was no sense dwelling on what could have been. The phone beeped and she said, “Dad—I’m ready.”
“Ho ho ho, I’m on my way,” Dad replied. His good cheer infused Lux with excitement. The prototype was finally done and ready for a test run. She didn’t want to take it into the Magical Room—she tried out the name and wrinkled her nose.
They needed a much smaller test than the Magic in that room would allow, so she opted to test things in the welding lab. Dad said he had an idea and to make sure he was a part of the experiment.
Dad’s round tummy came through the open door first. He wore a pair of jeans and a red button-up shirt with a white T-shirt underneath. What was left of his hair was cut close to his head. He’d start growing it out in another couple months for those trademark Santa curls at Christmas time. The only Kringle that didn’t give in to the hair-growing gene was Stella. She had to cut her pixie look every two weeks to stay on top of it.
“Let’s give this a whirl.” Dad rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
Lux smiled. Whirling was exactly what they wanted. “Okay, this wire connects the Mini-Sub to that generator. The Christmas tree is plugged into the generator. So, the magic should flow through the Mini-Sub and into the generator and light up the tree. The prototype should be able to take Christmas Power and reduce it to a steady stream three-quarters as strong.”
“Why three-quarters?”
“That’s the highest amount of power our systems can handle without overloading.”
“Will three-quarters allow us to expand in the future?”
“Yep. And I should be able to make adjustments in the future if needs be. Qui—” She pressed her finger to her lips. She’d almost said his name. The closer she got to completing the prototype, the harder it was to think of her time with Quik. As short as it may have been, being with someone who got her, really got her, had been wonderful. “Someone recommended we use a linear layout to allow for expansion in the future.”
Dad didn’t say anything about her almost slip. “Got it. Let’s feed it magic and see what comes out.”
Lux handed him a pair of safety goggles and a thick leather apron that covered him from chest to knees. She wore a matching apron. Once Dad was ready, she flipped the switch on the generator. The motor whirled and chugged. The hairs on Lux’s arm stood up. A high-pitched whistle screamed through the air. Lux and Santa covered their ears. The prototype began to shake. Lux snapped off the generator and frowned.
Dad walked around the prototype. “Magic’s going in, look.”
The incoming lights glowed a bright gold color. She checked to make sure the valve was open. It was.
“Could there be a block of some sort?” asked Dad.
She shook her head. “I remember putting that together. I pushed my fingers through to make sure it was open and clear.” With a huff, she circled the Mini-Sub.
“What’s in the holding tank?”
Lux glanced up. “Air.”
“Why did you choose air?”
Lux pulled at her lower lip. “I’m on some sort of watch list. Any inquiries I made into purchasing SF6 were met with a firm government denial. Water works fine; I just need to make sure I perform regular maintenance. Besides, air is not flammable. I didn’t want to blow us up.” She took a deep breath. “I wonder if it needs a jump start.”
Dad wiggled his fingers and gold dust gathered around his hand. Lux stared in awe. He’d just conjured Christmas Magic out of thin air. No Kringle had done that before—that she knew of, anyway.
Dad’s merry blue eyes twinkled. “We aren’t dealing with electricity. Electricity would jump from finger to finger.”
“Conduit to conduit,” Lux amended.
“Right. Magic doesn’t jump.”
She reached out to touch one of the sparkles. It was warm and tickled. “It floats.”
“Like fireflies.”
Lux groaned. “How am I going to harness the power of fireflies?”
“Let’s try a more direct approach.” Dad wiggled his fingers again, directing the magic towards the input valve. The magic went in. The input lights glowed. The holding tank filled. And nothing happened.
Lux dropped her face into her hands. The smell of metal and oil was strong. “I need a new conductive material.”
“What conducts love?” asked Dad.
Lux threw her hands in the air. “Like I know.”
Dad chuckled at her exasperated reaction, his big hands on his round belly. “I’ve been married for many years, and I’m still not sure what conducts love. It’s not like you can fill this thing with kind words and hand-holding and kissing.”
She scowled. An expression that didn’t feel right on her face. She rarely scowled, but this prototype was supposed to work and they were supposed to move to phase three and Christmas was supposed to be safe and Stella was supposed to get married to keep the magic flowing—
Lux rounded on her dad. “You conduct Christmas Magic,” she said excitedly. Her shoulders dropped. “But I can’t stuff you into the machine.”
“Don’t think I’d fit anyway.” Dad patted his belly.
That earned him a small smile. “Come here.” She pulled him over to the large farm-style sink where they washed their hands. The copper glistened in the light. She plugged the sink and then tur
ned on the water. Once it was halfway full, she motioned for Dad to come closer. “Do your wiggle thing and see if the magic moves through the water.”
Dad lifted an eyebrow. “My wiggle thing?”
“I’m not talking about your cookie jar.” She patted his bowlful of jelly.
He swatted her hand away. “Watch me work.” With a quick move of his fingers, he had a trail of magic in the air. He thrust his hands into the water. The magic stayed there, like snowflakes in a snow globe.
Excited, Lux grabbed a bowl and scooped water into it. The magic stayed in the water. “Bingo! The old substations used water to transfer the electricity. The newer ones use SF6 because it doesn’t have a shelf life and won’t erode the tank, but before that, they used water.” Lux considered using SF6, but with her high-profile status on the watch list, she didn’t want to risk exposing the whole Christmas operation.
“Yeah!” Dad pulled his hand out of the sink and high-fived her. Water dripped everywhere, but neither of them cared.
Lux scooped another bowl full of water before watching the magic dots swirl down the drain. “I still have tests to run.” She lifted both bowls. So far, the magic stayed bright. “How long do you think before this fades?”
“To tell you the truth, I’ve never tested it.”
“You’ve never had a reason to.”
“We’ve got a reason now.”
Lux nodded. March was almost over. Building this prototype had taken a month and she still had to make adjustments so it actually worked. With any luck, she’d be done before Stella said “I do.” Otherwise they’d all be saying goodbye to the North Pole, the elves, and Santa Claus.
Chapter Sixteen
252 Days until Christmas Eve
Quik rummaged through the boxes under his bed for something to eat. The rubber totes kept mice and any other unwanted guests out of the food. He hadn’t made the trip into town since New Year’s Day, and his supplies were getting low. The greenhouse garden was far from yielding anything edible, which left him dependent on canned and dehydrated goods.
Marrying Miss Kringle: Lux Page 7
