Christmas Blessings: Seven Inspirational Romances of Faith, Hope, and Love

by Leah Atwood

  Avery smiled. She’d not even noticed the kindness in the woman’s eyes. When Mavis had sat down and started talking, Avery had shut her out and not given her a chance.

  “Not much of a talker, are you?” Mavis’ eyebrows rose with the question.

  “I’m a journalist.” Avery shrugged away her silence. “I tend to communicate better with writing. I can be pushy and blunt when I talk to people. Not everyone likes that.”

  Mavis chortled. “Well, then, I guess I should be thankful you opted for silence when I started in.”

  Avery chuckled.

  “So where y’all headed, if you don’t mind me askin’?”

  “We have an assignment in Nowhere, Oklahoma.”

  “Nowhere?”

  “Nowhere.” Avery confirmed with a nod.

  “We went through there once years ago. Not much to it unless something’s changed.”

  “Our editor made all the arrangements. Supposed to be a hotel for us to stay at and everything.”

  Mavis nodded. “Must have grown a lot since we passed through.”

  Avery had to ask. “So, God called your husband out of the Air Force, and now he fixes cars for a living. What happened?”

  A musical laugh erupted from the petite Mavis. She had the kind of laugh that sounded like it was always on the verge of surfacing. “He pastors a small church here in Amarillo. It’s not very big, so he has the mechanic shop, too, to supplement his income. We’ll never be wealthy, but we do okay.”

  Avery nodded. “I’m sure the congregation will grow.”

  The older woman lifted a shoulder. “People come and go. The economy has moved a lot of families away from us and brought some new ones in their place. Leon, he’s a great pastor, don’t get me wrong. He preaches a good message, and he loves his people. You’ll find him at the hospital anytime someone’s sick. It’s an honor for him to officiate at funerals and weddings or give counsel when people need it. He’ll never be the pastor of a large church, though, and he’s fine with that.”

  Avery tilted her head to the side. “What makes you say that?”

  “He likes to have a personal connection with everyone in his congregation. Leon wants to know what’s going on in people’s lives, and he wants everybody who comes into our church to know he cares about them beyond just that handshake as their heading out to the parking lot. The way he sees it, God made some to be shepherds of large flocks and some to be shepherds of small flocks. He kind of likes that God has given him a small flock. If you ever saw him behind the pulpit, you’d know that’s what he was born to do. People can’t help but be drawn closer to God when my Leon delivers a message.”

  “Huh.” What was Avery supposed to say to that? “I never heard it put quite that way before. I suppose some people are fond of big churches and some prefer small, too.”

  Mavis nodded. “What about you? Do you have a church back where you come from?”

  “We have a medium-sized church, I think. Not too big, not too small.”

  “With pews that are not too hard and not too soft?” Mavis laughed again, and this time Avery joined in.

  The men shuffled back into the convenience store and headed straight for the coffeepot, Eli included. Avery smiled. Her son had to be desperately cold in order to consider coffee a viable beverage. Then he shifted to the left, and she realized there was a hot cocoa machine there, too. One of these days, he was going to decide he liked coffee. She just knew it. He was her son after all, wasn’t he?

  Gavin led the way as the men all came to join her and Mavis. They sat down at the other table and Leon nodded to Avery. “I replaced the thermostat for you. It’s easy enough to get to on this model. There’s no good way to know for sure whether or not that’s the problem without running the car and getting your engine heated up.”

  The lanky man with thinning sandy hair took a long draw on his coffee. “I gave Gavin here my number. You shouldn’t be able to get more than thirty, maybe forty-five, minutes out of town before you’ll know whether or not you’ve still got yourselves a problem. If you’re going to do any driving in town, like stopping somewhere to get a new spare tire, then you’ll know sooner. Give me a holler if the problem persists. I might not be able to fix it, but I can at least give you a ride to somewhere warm until someone can get it taken care of for you.”

  Was it normal for strangers to be that kind? “That’s nice of you, especially on Christmas Eve.”

  The man shrugged. “This is Texas. We do everything big. Including snowstorms and hospitality.”

  Fortified by coffee and the smell of a pecan pie Mavis had insisted on giving them, Avery took over the driving so Gavin could rest. She followed the directions Leon had given her, landing them at a large automotive warehouse. They were able to buy a replacement doughnut. Once they had it tucked securely under the floor mat in the trunk of their little mustard-colored rental, they got back on the road.

  Gavin quickly nodded off as Avery worked to navigate the unfamiliar city streets and find her way back to the freeway. The sun had started to climb, but with the cast-over sky reflecting dimly off the snow-covered street, it still felt like night.

  All of a sudden, lights started flashing behind Avery. As if that wasn’t enough to start her heart racing and her palms sweating, the officer flipped his siren on as well. Gavin woke with such a start that he banged his head against the ceiling of the car. No idea what she’d done wrong, Avery pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the officer to approach. She pulled out her license and ordered Gavin to dig in the glove box for the vehicle registration.

  “What did you do?” His rude awakening hadn’t put him in the best of moods.

  “I didn’t do anything. I have no idea why he pulled me over.”

  “Mom.”

  “Not now, Eli.” Then, to Gavin, “Do you have the registration yet?”

  “I can’t find it.” Gavin continued to rummage through the glove box, his face tightening with each passing second. “You have to have done something, Avery. Police don’t pull you over because you’re driving an ugly car.”

  “Uh, Mom.”

  “Not now, Eli.” She reached in front of Gavin and began rifling through the glove box. “What did you do with the registration?”

  “What? What did I do with the registration? You have got to be kidding me.”

  The tension in the small car quickly escalated. Avery’s heart raced, and her arms and legs ached with how tense they were. She was jumpy from the adrenaline rush, and, to make matters worse, her bladder again told her it was time to stop.

  The officer remained in his car, no doubt calling in their license plate to make sure they weren’t mass murderers on the run from the gaoler.

  “Mom!” Eli yelled. Avery bit back her irritated response when she saw him pointing to something. Her eyes followed his finger.

  “Well, that explains a lot.” Gavin’s mutter broke the tension in the car.

  Avery stared in disbelief.

  The officer finally approached the driver’s side window and tapped lightly before stepping back. Avery pushed the button to lower the window. “Hello, Officer. I didn’t see the sign when I pulled onto the road here. I’m so sorry. I was trying to get back to I-40.”

  “License and registration, please.”

  “Aha!” Gavin shouted, waving a piece of paper through the air. “I found it!”

  He handed the registration over to Avery, who handed it and her license out the window. The officer, whose nameplate said Delaney, reviewed both and called something in using the two-way radio strapped to his shoulder. Still standing away from the car, he glanced up at them. “Where you folks from?”

  “Albuquerque.” Avery’s answer came out more as a squeak than a statement. “We’re heading to Nowhere, Oklahoma.”

  The officer’s eyebrows went up. “Not much in Nowhere. Is that your final destination?”

  Avery nodded. “I’m a journalist, and Gavin here is a photographer. We’re on a
ssignment for the Albuquerque Times. We’ve been ordered to do a Christmas story about Nowhere, and the folks at Corporate want it to be authentic, so we have to actually be there on Christmas.” She rolled her eyes. “If you can believe it, we left Albuquerque yesterday around three o’clock. This car has given us nothing but trouble.”

  Hands clenched in her lap, Avery made herself stop talking. If she kept this up, he’d be asking if she was related to Mavis Mueller.

  A voice came back over Officer Delaney’s two-way radio, but Avery couldn’t make out the words.

  The officer stepped closer to her open window and handed her license and the car’s registration back.

  “This has to be the most miserable excuse for a rental car I’ve ever seen. No rear bumper, you only have one working taillight, and it looks like the three of you can barely fit in there.”

  He pointed over his shoulder to the sign Eli had pointed out. “I gather by now you’ve figured out you’re going the wrong way down a one-way street.”

  Avery nodded, heat burning her cheeks.

  Then Officer Delaney pointed to the building across the street from them. “Of all the roads in town to get turned around on, you chose the one in front of the police station. You never had a chance.”

  For the first time, Avery scanned the street around her and realized it was littered with police cars. She’d been so caught up in her own panic at being pulled over that she hadn’t realized where they were.

  “I’m an idiot.” Avery slapped her palm against her forehead.

  He laughed. “Don’t worry about it. As it happens, the one-way sign where you made the left onto this road is obscured by snow. Today you get a friendly warning.”

  “Thank you, Officer Delaney. You have no idea what a horrible trip this has been. Your kindness is appreciated more than you know.”

  Gavin spoke up from the passenger seat. “Any chance you can give us directions back to the freeway?”

  The officer nodded. “You’ll need to take a U-turn here. It’s illegal on this street, but I’ll stop the flow of traffic and wave you through.”

  Traffic? Not a single car had passed them in the entire time they’d been pulled over.

  “Once you get to the end of the block, take a left on Third and then a right on Pierce. It won’t be too long till you see signs for the freeway. They’re real obvious. You might want to know, though…” He paused long enough to give them a sympathetic look. “The freeway is closed down east of here. You’ll be on it for a short spell, then they’ll detour you off to US-287 South.”

  “Why is it closed?”

  “Whiteout conditions, and they haven’t been able to get anyone out there yet to clear it. The snowplows are busy, and this snow keeps coming down. I’m thinkin’ it’ll be afternoon before they get it cleared again. Your detour will take you down through Washburn and Claude. At Claude, you’ll either be directed back to the freeway or you’ll be kept on the detour. It depends on the road conditions by then.”

  “Thank you for your help.” Avery offered the man a smile.

  He nodded and stepped away from the car and out into the road. No traffic was coming for him to stop, so he swept his arm out in the traditional traffic cop motion for turn, but he put a little extra twist into it, which she assumed was his signal for U-turn. Avery started the engine and did as directed. She, Gavin, and Eli all waved to Officer Delaney as they left him in their rearview mirror and once again headed toward their destination.

  Chapter Ten

  Goodnight, TX

  December 24, 9:30 a.m.

  They made it out of Amarillo and followed the freeway until they were directed onto a detour as Officer Delaney had predicted. The engine was cooling, and the heater was warming. Everything was going well. The worst of the trip was finally behind them. Probably. She dared not say it out loud, but Avery let herself think it for the barest hint of a minute: What else could go wrong?

  Gavin nodded off again, clearly exhausted. Eli was listening to music on his phone, which he now had plugged into the car’s only cigarette lighter for power. Avery, not wanting to wake Gavin with the radio, was left with her own thoughts for company.

  Spending time with her own thoughts didn’t always go well for Avery. She tended to over think situations. Situations like this road trip. Why they hadn’t turned back the first time something went wrong? Because she was a glutton for punishment. That’s why.

  When exactly should she have conceded defeat? An ugly car that looked old and was too small wasn’t the end of the world. And flat tires happened to people all the time. Of course, then there was the bumper falling off… because the duct tape had given out. That should have been a red flag.

  The snow wouldn’t have sent her scurrying back to the safety of Albuquerque, either. People drove in bad weather all the time. The three of them were just spoiled by living in the Southwest.

  A failing thermostat and overheating car might have been a clue to some people. But by then, they were already halfway to Nowhere. It hadn’t made sense to turn back. Besides, what else could have gone wrong at that point? Right? They’d pretty much covered it all already. They should be home free — or at least disaster-free — for the rest of the trip.

  The snowfall, which had been increasing as she’d been contemplating their road trip, began to come down in earnest. Avery flipped her windshield wipers onto high in an attempt to keep up with the thick flakes. Following the instructions her grandmother had given her years ago, she gripped the steering wheel firmly and leaned toward the windshield to better see. It was only weather. If she stayed alert, everything would be fine.

  “Is everything okay?” Eli’s whisper floated forward in the darkness.

  Gavin stirred but didn’t wake.

  “The snow’s getting heavier. No biggie.” No point in letting on that she was worried.

  Her son made a common-sense suggestion. “You could always pull over and wait it out.”

  “If this doesn’t ease up, I might need to.”

  No sooner had the words left her mouth than a loud thwack against the windshield echoed through the car. She lost all visibility and instinctively yelled for Gavin to roll down his window.

  The poor guy, who’d been asleep at most thirty minutes jumped, again hitting his head on the too-short ceiling of the car. He glowered. There may have even been some indecipherable grumbling.

  “Put your window down!” Avery sounded more like a general than a journalist, even to her own ears. “I need to know where the side of the road is. We’ve got to pull over.” She had her window down by then, too, and was leaning out far enough to keep an eye on the orange line of the road to at least make sure she didn’t veer into the other lane. She didn’t want to slow down too much in case a car came up behind them and, in the heavy snow, didn’t see them. The last thing they needed was to get rear-ended.

  “Okay.” Gavin’s calm voice settled Avery’s nerves. “The shoulder’s plenty wide. Start to pull off toward the right. I’ll let you know if you get too close to the edge, but you should cross over the white line enough to see it on your side before that ever happens.”

  Gavin directed her off the road and into the emergency lane. Once she had the emergency brake in place and the four-way blinkers flashing, the two of them got out to inspect the damage to the windshield.

  Gavin lifted the empty metal arm that would have normally held the passenger-side windshield wiper. The wiper on the driver side of the car had come loose, too, but was still hanging on, caught on a lip of the metal mechanism. Avery rescued it and attached it firmly back into place.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Well, the way I see it, we have two choices.” Gavin put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “We can leave it as-is and run the windshield wipers. The passenger window will get scratched up by the metal arm on this side, but then we can stop at the next town or truck stop and get a replacement wiper for it.”

  “Or?” Avery yell
ed the words so he’d hear her over the now howling wind.

  “Or we break the arm off. This saves the windshield but costs us a later repair and means we don’t have a passenger windshield wiper at all for the rest of this trip.”

  “I don’t care for either of those options.” What should they do? They’d already spent far too much time on the side of the road. “Do you have anything better to offer?”

  “Not at the moment.” He shook his head as he continued to study the hatchback. Then, a smile lighting his face, Gavin raised a finger into the air. “What about this? We put a sock or two on the arm, secure it tightly into place, and leave it be to run. The sock should protect the windshield. We can buy a new blade at our next stop, and the windshield will be none the worse for the wear.”

  “Brilliant!” If she had the energy for it, Avery would be happy the repair would be simpler than they’d first thought. As it was, witty banter was about as enthusiastic as she could get at the moment. “You’re pretty quick for someone who keeps hitting his head.” She reached in through the open driver window. “Eli, open the side pocket on my suitcase and pull out a pair of socks.”

  Her son raised an eyebrow in question but did as he was told. When he pulled out a brightly colored pair of thick wool socks, she shook her head. “No, not those. I like that pair. Get me some socks I don’t care about.” Plain white cotton came out next, and she nodded. “That’ll do it.”

  Avery tossed the socks to Gavin, who put one of them around the metal arm of the wiper and used some electrical tape from the glove compartment to secure it into place.

  “You sure one will be enough?”

  “We might need the other if this one blows off or comes loose.”

  “Alright, let’s go.” Avery opened the driver-side door and looked at the snow on her seat. “I can’t believe I left the window down.” Avery brushed as much of the snow off the seat as she could but knew she would likely end up with a cold backside as soon as she sat down. “I should have known better.” Her muttering filled the car as she climbed in, rolled up her window, and started the engine again.