by Jenn Roseton
Back in the kitchen, Mitch gazed at the disarray littering the bench top. “Your kids are right. What the hell are we doing?”
Garrett looked at his phone. “According to this website, the turkey should take another two hours to cook.”
“Is that with the oven cranked up?” Cole’s fingers hovered over the temperature dial.
Garrett squinted at the screen. “Not sure. But if we turn up the heat too much, it might burn.”
“I’m not serving burned turkey to Sophie.” Mitch crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“Relax,” Logan said. “We can--”
“Alex?” Laura called out from the great room. “Do you need any help in there?”
Alex sped to the kitchen doorway. “No, sweetheart, everything’s under control.” His confident grin looked more like a grimace.
“Food, food,” Garrett’s son chanted, trying to peer past Alex’s tall, muscular body blocking the entrance to the kitchen.
“Soon, Jack.” Alex gave his nephew a strangled smile. “Why don’t you see what your cousins are up to?”
“We need to give them something to eat now,” Garrett hissed.
***
Fifteen minutes later, Cole appeared in the great room carrying a large plate of smoked oysters on crackers.
“Appetizers.” He grinned, holding out the plate.
“Mm.” Maddie helped herself to a couple. “I’m starving.”
Her sisters-in-law crowded around Cole. In a couple of minutes, the plate was empty, apart from a few cracker crumbs.
“Where are our appy-tizers, Uncle Cole?” Garrett’s son Jack tugged at his uncle’s trousers.
“Coming right up.” Cole vanished into the kitchen.
“Try this.” Maddie held out a cracker decorated with an oyster to her son.
He screwed up his nose. “Eew.”
Back in the kitchen, Alex’s sons silently re-appeared and held out his phone. “Aunt Edna wants to talk to you.”
“What?” Alex stared at the cell phone and then at his sons. “You called Edna?”
“You needed help, Daddy. Edna said she’d tell you what to do.”
Alex looked chagrined for a moment, then grabbed the phone. “Thanks, boys.”
As Alex spoke to Edna, his wife’s right hand in her catering business, Logan handed a small plate to each of the twins. “Why don’t you two take these out for your cousins?” Ragged cubes of yellow cheese covered the plates.
“Thanks for calling Edna.” Mitch winked at the twins.
Tommy and Tyler munched bits of cheddar while carefully carrying the plates into the great room. Their cousins descended on them. Thirty seconds later, the plates were empty.
“Do you think we should go in and help the guys?” Ellie cast a dubious glance toward the kitchen.
“It’s okay, Aunt Ellie. We called Aunt Edna for help.” The twins grinned at their mother and aunts.
Laura bit her lip to keep from laughing.
“That’s what Daddy always says - be zourceful.” Tyler said.
“Resourceful?” Laura smiled at her sons.
“That’s what we said.” Tommy said.
In the kitchen, the brothers listened to laughter from the other room.
“I hope they’re not laughing about the appetizers,” Cole grumbled.
“At least they should stave them off for a while.” Alex glared at the kitchen counter which was littered with the remnants of their food preparation. “Laura makes this look so easy, whether she’s cooking for four or a hundred. How can it be so difficult to make Christmas dinner?”
“Now we’ve got some instructions from Edna, the rest should be simple.” Garrett looked around the kitchen. “We’ve already prepped the potatoes. All we have to do is wait for the turkey to cook, make the sides, and dessert.”
While the brothers waited for the turkey pieces to roast, they followed the notes they’d jotted down after Alex had put Edna on speaker. Soon, the rest of the meal was almost ready.
“Ten minutes to go,” Logan announced, checking the oven timer.
“Great.” Cole rubbed his hands together. “I’m starving.”
Suddenly, the lights went out. There was a second of shocked silence, then the brothers started talking at once.
“What the--”
“Hey!”
“We better check on--”
“--the girls--”
“--and the kids.”
“Is everyone okay out there?” Garrett called out.
“We’re fine,” Maddie replied from the great room. “What happened?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Logan muttered.
“The circuits might have gotten overloaded,” Laura suggested, raising her voice to carry into the kitchen.
“I’ll check.” Mitch dug out his phone and switched it on, punching the button for the flashlight.
“The turkey better not be ruined.” Cole frowned.
“I won’t allow it to be.” Alex clenched his jaw.
Before Mitch stepped out of the kitchen, the lights flickered, then came back on. A cheer resounded from the great room.
The brothers looked at each other in relief.
Alex strode to the oven. “It looks like it’s back on.” He opened the door, a savory, tantalizing aroma wafting out into the room. Golden turkey pieces glistened in the roasting pan.
“Santa!” All the kids rushed into the kitchen, pointing through the window at the sky. “Santa’s here!”
A jingle reached the brothers’ ears. They stared at each other, then turned as one and looked out the window. A faint “Ho, ho, ho,” sounded outside. A golden shape that looked like a sleigh flew away from the house.
“Santa!” The kids chanted.
“He must have gotten our letter after all!” The twins jumped up and down with excitement. “He turned back on the ‘lectricity!”
All five brothers opened their mouth to speak, then stopped. It couldn’t be, could it?
In the great room, Maddie, Laura, Phoebe, Ellie and Sophie stared out of the large window.
“Did you see what I saw?” Sophie’s eyes widened.
“I think so,” Phoebe murmured, her baby stirring in her arms.
“It wasn’t one of the guys, was it?” Maddie crinkled her brow.
“I don’t think even Alex could have pulled this off,” Laura murmured, staring out the window.
A bright twinkle at the edge of the blue-gray sky was the only hint that something magical had just happened.
Ellie crossed over to the kitchen and peered inside. “All the guys are in the kitchen, and they’re busy looking out of the window as well,” she reported, rejoining her sisters-in-law at the window.
“Santa got our letter, Mommy!” Laura’s sons burst into the great room, surrounding her. “We asked him to help with our Christmas dinner and he did!”
Laura hugged the twins. “That’s wonderful, boys.”
A few minutes later, Garrett appeared in the doorway, a look of relief on his face. “It’s ready!”
The kids cheered and raced into the dining room. The wives had laid the table earlier that morning, using the gorgeous silver cutlery provided with the house. A white tablecloth with embroidered blue spruces and a small vase of white tulips added a festive note to the mahogany paneled room.
Once everyone was seated, the brothers proudly brought in the dishes: golden roasted turkey pieces, a huge bowl of mashed potato and an accompanying jug of gravy, sweet potato casserole, caramelized onions, lemony green beans, and cranberry sauce.
“Wow!” Laura’s eyes widened. When Alex sat beside her, a smile of satisfaction on his face, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “It looks wonderful. Thank you.”
“Today has been a real eye-opener,” he murmured, kissing her deeply. “I hope I’ve always thanked you for the wonderful meals you’ve prepared for me and the kids.”
A smile played around the corners of her
mouth. “You can always thank me again tonight.” Her soft lips invited his attention.
“Stop smooching, you two,” Mitch joked, when Alex and Laura seemed oblivious to everyone else in the room.
Alex reluctantly released her lips. “Later,” he promised, banked heat in his brown eyes, before helping his son Tommy to a piece of turkey.
Laura scooped mashed potatoes onto Tyler’s plate.
“This is the best Christmas ever,” Tyler mumbled around a spoonful of the fluffy white starch. “We saw Santa for real!”
“It looks wonderful, Mitch,” Sophie told her husband. Although the festive meal had started later than expected, and she was absolutely starving, everyone was talking and laughing, helping the person sitting beside them to tempting morsels of each dish. She doubted that if the meal had been catered, there would have been quite the same atmosphere.
Each brother looked proud that he’d helped put the dinner together. While her brothers-in-law had rudimentary kitchen skills, and Mitch often cooked simple meals for both of them, she doubted that any of them had been involved in making such an elaborate meal before.
Mitch had always been a wonderful husband, and he was going to be a wonderful father as well.
“I’m glad you like it.” His warm breath tickled her ear.
Electric shivers raced down her spine. “Thank you,” she whispered, her love for him shining from her eyes.
“Thank you for loving me.” His eyes smoldered with deep-felt love and desire.
“That’s easy.” She smiled softly.
“What’s for des- des - sert?” Maddie’s four-year-old daughter asked in a loud voice.
“Raspberry truffles,” Garret replied with a grin. Edna had assured them it was easy to make with raspberry jelly, melted chocolate, and cream, and it had been.
“Ooh!” The little girl clapped her hands in delight.
Alex cleared his throat. “I just want to say thank you to everyone. Things mightn’t have gone exactly to plan, but we--” he glanced around the large table at his brothers, “wanted to give our wives a break this Christmas, and handle today’s meals ourselves. And I think it tastes better, because we did all the work ourselves.” He raised his glass. “Merry Christmas, everyone.”
“Merry Christmas.” The adults raised their glasses and toasted each other. The kids imitated their parents, raising their glasses of juice, happy grins on their faces.
“This is the best Christmas ever!” Phoebe’s five-year-old daughter sat her new doll up and gave her a sip of juice. “Santa came!”
Phoebe and Cole hugged their daughter and their six-month-old baby.
Everyone started talking about the possibility that it had indeed been Santa Claus who’d come and restored the electricity at the crucial moment. But most of all, love and goodwill filled the room, just like it did every Christmas, no matter where the Trask brothers and their families were.
THE END
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