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

by Leah Atwood

  “Albuquerque.” Gavin answered without approaching the officer. “We were sent to Nowhere to do a story for a newspaper, but it appears the higher-ups who ordered the story didn’t realize there wasn’t much here.”

  The officer had his headlights directed at them so he could see them clearly. He, however, was at best a fuzzy apparition to them. As he stepped closer, he blocked some of the light from his car. “I’m under orders to find y’all and deliver you down the road to Lawton. Seems as if you got some folks mighty worried about you.”

  “Who sent you to find us?” Gavin stood between the officer and Avery. Protecting her, maybe? Just in case things weren’t what they appeared to be.

  “Uh, well…” The officer ran a hand over his hatless head. “Who didn’t send me? Seems you met a trucker back in Hollis who was fit to be tied that you insisted on driving this way, so he put the call out on his radio, and every trucker what’s spotted you between Hollis and here has reported your location to the highway patrol.”

  He made a sound like an exasperated Chihuahua before continuing. “You don’t realize how busy the roads are until every trucker on them starts calling in to dispatch. Then you’ve got somebody in New Mexico who called in a favor with one of our senators. Nearly every highway patrolman in this half of the state of Oklahoma has been tasked with locating y’all. I got the job of keeping an eye on Nowhere. I’ve been driving by here every hour for the past six.”

  Gavin gazed back at Avery.

  She gave him a nod. “Mitchell. He has interesting friends all over the place.”

  “So, anybody want to tell me what happened to the car?”

  Eli jumped up, his phone slipping from his grasp and landing with a soft kwang against his abandoned seat. “The car rental company went to the wrong place and didn’t pick us up. By the time they figured out the problem, they’d already given our rental SUV away to somebody else. They offered us a Zeon, but my mom here…” He indicated Avery with the tilt of a thumb. “She wouldn’t hear of it.”

  The officer ogled them and their pile of luggage. “Uh-huh.”

  “So they stuck us with this little hatchback. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but no sooner had we left Albuquerque, than we got food poisoning and a flat tire. When the tow truck fixed the flat, the back bumper fell off. That’s when we realized the car was being held together by sturdy paperclips and a whole roll of duct tape.”

  “Uh-huh.” The officer’s eyebrows were climbing.

  “The guy back in Moriarty is keeping the bumper for us.”

  “Moriarty?” The eyebrows lifted a bit further.

  “Not too long after that, it started snowing. Then the radiator blew. Well, not really, but that’s what we first thought. We called someone to come take a look at it, but we ended up with the guy who runs the bait shop because everyone else was gone. Only, he couldn’t fix it. But at least we knew the radiator hadn’t blown. So we had to keep the heater off and stop often to let the engine cool back down. The problem was, the snow was getting worse, and we couldn’t turn the heater on. And it was the middle of the night.”

  Avery gave her son a soft elbow to his side. “You are having way too much fun with this.”

  Eli gave her an unrepentant grin. “For the first time ever, I’m hoping my English teacher makes us write a What I Did Over Christmas Break paper when school starts back up. And that she makes us present it orally.”

  Avery tried to fight the grin and match the patrolman’s somber expression, but it was hard. If Eli did have to give a report about his Christmas break, she would need to find an excuse to be in his class that day. With his flair for the dramatic, it would be a fantastic presentation.

  “Maybe we should get you loaded up into my car, and you can tell me the rest of the story along the way.” He didn’t look as if really wanted to hear the rest of the tale. “By the way, my name’s Sterling. Officer Sterling.”

  Gavin reached out a hand to shake. “So do we call you Officer or Sterling?”

  When the highway patrolman didn’t seem to get Gavin’s joke, Avery interrupted the silence. “Our stuff smells pretty bad. Are you sure you want it in your car?”

  Officer Sterling frowned. “I’m pretty sure you smell just as bad as your luggage, but there’s nothing I can do about that. We should be able to get most of the luggage into the trunk. The three of you will have to cram into the rear seat. Any luggage that don’t fit in the trunk I might be able to put up front with me.”

  Avery, who again needed to use the facilities, smiled weakly as she took the toilet paper and headed out behind the little store. She heard Eli’s, “Don’t ask,” as she slipped around the side of the building. With any luck, they’d have the luggage all loaded up before she returned.

  “Sorry about the wind.” Officer Sterling pushed the button to lower both front windows. “I’ve got to do something to try to keep the stink out of my face, or I won’t be able to see to get us back to Lawton. Man, oh man, it’s been a long time since I smelled anything as fierce as this. It’s a tenacious smell, too, ain’t it? The folks in the garage are going to spend weeks trying to get the smell out of this car, and I ain’t even the one who hit the little varmint.”

  “Uh, yeah, it’s a strong smell alright.” Avery wasn’t sure if the officer even wanted a reply.

  “It burns, too.” Officer Sterling apparently wasn’t done with his commentary. “Burns something fierce. I think my nose hairs might have been singed off. And my eyes feel all dry and crackly like firewood that’s about to explode. Except for when the tears start pouring out, I guess. And don’t even get me started on the nausea. How it is y’all aren’t back there puking your guts out from having to smell yourselves is beyond me.”

  How did he think it felt to be in the back seat next to two other people who’d suffered the same malodorous fate? He had it easy up there in the front of the squad car.

  “Whoo-whee, that sure is one awful stench!”

  “Okay.” Gavin had the decency to cut him off. “We get it. The smell is dreadful, and it’s not going away. What’s supposed to happen to us when we get to Lawton?”

  “Well…” Officer Sterling tapped the steering wheel. “I suppose you can book a flight and head on back to Albuquerque.”

  “Peachy.” If sarcasm were a tangible thing, Eli’s words would have been downright dangerous. “If you can’t stand to have us in your car without the windows open, how are we supposed to fly back? The folks on the airplane won’t be able to open their windows and blow the smell out of their faces.”

  “Hmm, you got a good point there.” Officer Sterling clucked his tongue. “Let me see what I can do.”

  He then proceeded to pick up his radio and call dispatch. “Hey there, Norma Sue, you read me?”

  “That you, Joe?” A disembodied, high-pitched voice came back over the radio.

  Aha! So his first name wasn’t Officer after all! A little giggle escaped, causing Avery’s seat companions to look at her oddly.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I found those three travelers out at Nowhere, but we got us a problem.”

  “They look as scary as a bunch of serial killers? Maybe cannibals? Should I call SWAT?”

  Officer Sterling glanced over his shoulder at them and blushed. He answered with a loud whisper. “Hush, Norma Sue. They’re in the car with me.”

  An equally loud whisper came back over the speaker. “Oh, sorry about that. They’re not threatening to eat you, are they?”

  Avery, sandwiched between Eli and Gavin, felt them both shake with laughter. Even she had to admit the conversation was only a short distance from absurd.

  “Who needs Vaudeville?” Her whisper was soft enough not to travel beyond the back seat. The shaking beside her increased.

  “So, uh, here’s the deal.” Officer Sterling’s voice returned to its regular volume as he continued to speak into the radio. “Their car’s dead. I left it at Nowhere. They hit a skunk, though. The young’un’s worried they won’t be a
llowed on an airplane smelling as bad as they do.”

  “Whoo-whee.” Norma Sue’s whistling nasal voice took on a sing-song quality. “That’s the worst stink there is. And you got them in the car with you? All three o’ them? Ain’t no way the folks at the garage are gonna smile at you when you bring that car in. They’ll stick you with that twenty year old clunker of a patrol car for at least the next month if you make them clean out skunk smell.”

  “Well, what did you expect me to do? Leave them out there to freeze to death?”

  “Nah, you can’t do that.” The sing-song was gone as Norma Sue answered matter-of-factly. “Some big, high monkey-monk from the state has been breathing down Cap’n’s neck.” If the woman had paused even once to breathe, Avery couldn’t tell. “Oh! I should let Cap’n know you’ve found them!”

  “Wait!” Officer Sterling called out, but it was too late. Norma Sue was gone.

  “Wow.” Eli’s gaze remained straight ahead. “I didn’t know they could put their own officers on hold.”

  If the glare burning its way through the rearview mirror was any indication, Officer Sterling did not appreciate the observation.

  Gavin saved them all by changing the subject. “You have any idea why I haven’t been able to get a signal for my phone? My cell service has been on the fritz almost this whole trip.”

  Officer Sterling let out a low whistle. “You know how college kids go home during Christmas break?”

  When they all nodded, he continued. “Seems like a buncha kids at some college back east didn’t have family to go visit, or couldn’t afford it, or something. They stayed on campus over break and decided to prank a cell company by hacking it and doing something or other.”

  Avery winced, sure this tale wasn’t going anywhere good.

  “While they were in there poking around, they triggered some sort of worm that was in there from a long time ago. Seems like real bad security if you ask me.” A brisk tap to the steering wheel emphasized his point. “Anyway, the news has been calling it a ‘catastrophic failure’. People who have their phones through that company have mostly been without service since day before yesterday.”

  “Any idea when they’ll have it back up and running?” Gavin ran a hand over his face as soon as he’d asked the question. He didn’t appear too optimistic about the answer.

  Officer Sterling shrugged. “They said forty-eight hours, but that was about two days ago. Not sure what they’re saying now. My phone’s through a different company, so I haven’t been following. All I know is we increased patrols in the rural areas in case people got stranded and couldn’t call for help.”

  Several minutes later, Norma Sue’s voice came back over the radio. “You still there, Joe?”

  The man in question expelled a heavy sigh before picking up the mouthpiece. “Where else would I be?”

  “Cap’n says you won’t find an airline willing to sell ‘em tickets if they’re rank with skunk, plus the airlines are all backed up because of closures. He’s got me calling around to hotels to see if I can find one willing to take them long enough so they can get cleaned up. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “A’right Norma Sue. I sure do appreciate the help.”

  After a couple moments of silence, Gavin shifted in his seat. “So, is it true tomato juice is the way to get rid of skunk smell? I imagine it would stain the clothes.”

  Officer Sterling laughed. “My wife swears by tomato juice, but my mama, she has another solution. Mama used to take a whole bunch of hydrogen peroxide and mix in some baking soda and dish soap and make us wash down with that outside before we could come in whenever we ran into a skunk. Stuff worked like a charm.” He chuckled. “But don’t you ever tell my wife I said so. She’d be madder’n a hornet if she ever thought my mama was better at something than she was.”

  “What about clothes?” Avery couldn’t help but think of all the bulging suitcases that were no doubt permeated with the same horrible smell.

  “I don’t rightly know, but I can call and ask Mama when we get back to the station. We want to make sure we don’t mess it up. Wouldn’t do no good to blow something up on accident, would it? Course that would probably get rid of the skunk smell just as well.”

  Avery rested against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. Her head was pounding from the smell and the constant droning of the wind through the windows. She thought about reaching for her purse to get some acetaminophen but rejected the idea. What if the pills tasted of skunk?

  Officer Sterling was a stellar conversational. “You know, I’ve had people puke in my car before. I’ve had people bleedin’ all over in the back seat. Had people urinate in the cruiser. Even had one man, you know, do the other, one time. But ain’t none of that ever come close to smellin’ as bad as the three o’ you.”

  Apparently content to hear his own voice, he continued. “The thing about skunk is, the critter don’t have to spray you direct in order for it to stink. When you hit it the way you did, the smell got air-o-saul-ized.” He enunciated the word slowly, drawing it out. “That means the stink got up into the air. You walk through air reeking of skunk, and you come out the other side smelling almost as bad as if the little varmint had lifted its tail and sprayed you down personal-like.”

  There wasn’t anything to be said to that, so Avery kept her eyes closed and prayed for the ride to be over soon. She needed something for her pounding head, and, if the officer insisted on continuing to talk about how bad they smelled, she was pretty sure she was going to need some antacids as well.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lawton, OK

  December 25, 1:30 a.m.

  They arrived in Lawton. Gavin, who peered at the darkened city around them, was not impressed. “Tell me again why we didn’t go to Oklahoma City?”

  Officer Sterling shrugged. “Nowhere is under the jurisdiction of Highway Patrol Troop G, and the headquarters are here in Lawton. S-O-P says I got to take you back to my station.”

  “What’s the population of this place, anyway?” Eli, too, scanned their surroundings through the window of the police cruiser.

  “Lawton here is the fifth largest city in the entire state of Oklahoma. It’s one of our – what do you call it? – metropolises.”

  “How many people live in this metropolis?”

  Even from their seat behind him, Gavin could see the man’s chest puff up with pride before he answered. “Almost one hundred thousand people here in Lawton. It’s a fine city.”

  Gavin felt Avery’s elbow in his ribs seconds before her words penetrated. “Albuquerque’s not exactly New York City, either. All we care about is whether or not they have an airport.”

  Officer Sterling pulled up in front of a long white building, low-slung with multiple flat roofs that had a layered appearance. While not nearly as complex, it had the look of a Pueblo-styled structure, but it was white, with the drab look of an industrial building. When he pulled the car into a parking spot rather than around to the back of the building, Gavin couldn’t help but ask, “Don’t you need to take it to the garage?”

  With the first full smile he’d given them since coming across them in Nowhere, Officer Sterling answered him. “They’re all off-duty at present, it bein’ Christmas and all. If they don’t find the problem with the car until tomorrow or the next day, that’s fine. And if I’m not here when they do discover it, all the better!”

  He let them out of the cramped rear seat and began pulling their luggage out from the trunk and passenger seat. As they trudged toward the entrance, Gavin wondered about the type of welcome they’d receive. Joe had made it plenty clear he wasn’t happy about them stinking up his car, and the smelly travelers had no reason to think the folks in the Highway Patrol headquarters would feel any different.

  Before Gavin could voice his thoughts, a tiny woman came rushing out through the glass doors. “Oh, you poor things! You’ve had such an awful time of it! Who in tarnation would be traveling through a whiteout on Christmas
Eve is beyond me, not that those Texans would even know what a whiteout is anyway. We didn’t get more than a dusting of snow here. But that’s all behind us now. You come in here and sit down, and we’ll get you taken care of.”

  Her voice gave her away; Gavin knew in an instant who she was. “Thank you, Norma Sue.”

  The bottle-red hair, pulled up into what could only be described as a beehive on top of her head, bounced dangerously as she nodded and beamed at him.

  “Our car got hit a while back, and I’m afraid Avery might have a concussion.” Gavin pulled the woman in question close to his side. “Could we get someone to look at her?”

  Norma Sue ushered them into what appeared to be an interrogation room, complete with two-way mirror. “I’ll put a call in to the paramedics. They won’t mind coming on down and taking a look at all three of you.” She scarcely stopped to breathe. “Y’all have a seat in here, and bring your luggage, too. I was told not to let y’in at all, what with the smell, but I can’t see doin’ that to a body on Christmas morning, can you? There’s no airline that will take you, and I couldn’t find a hotel either. The homeless shelter, who I thought couldn’t turn anyone away, said no way, not unless you actually were homeless. Then they’d be obligated. Lyin’ to ‘em didn’t seem right. So I called up Joe’s mama…”

  “You did? How’s she doin’? I was gonna call her, too, about the skunk smell.” Crestfallen, Joe glared at Norma Sue as though she’d cheated in a game and won the prize.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance to talk to her. She run over to that big department store that’s open all-night to buy everything we need and should be here any minute now.”

  “Well, if it ain’t my big handsome law enforcing son.” A booming voice came from the lobby. Gavin couldn’t see the woman, but by the deep baritone sound of her voice, he almost expected her to have a full beard when she came into view.