A Father for Christmas: A Veteran’s Christmas, #1

by Ayala, Rachelle

  “Yay, Santa pwo-mised. He did.” Bree lifts her chin, so assured in her beliefs. “I also asked God to be safe.”

  “So did I.” I kiss the top of her head.

  Ella puts her arm over my shoulder. “Let’s all pray for Tyler.”

  Several hours later, I’m finally able to relax. It took some bribing, lots of cookies and warm milk, including a share for Santa, and not a few threats about Santa not coming down the chimney at houses where children stayed up, before Bree was satisfied to go to sleep.

  Mother went to bed soon after Bree. Ella and Jaden left to spend Christmas at Jaden’s parents’ house, leaving me alone and awake.

  I heat two mugs of apple cider and add a splash of whiskey. Setting one on the kitchen table across from me, I cradle mine and sip, imagining Tyler and me kicking back and sharing a laugh.

  Either I must have dozed off, or the knocking was faint and I’d imagined it. My heartbeat quickens as I pad to the door. “Is anyone there?”

  “Ho, ho, ho, Santa Claus here.” It’s Tyler’s voice.

  I fling open the door. Tyler stands there with a large bag over his shoulder.

  Joy springs from my heart, and I throw myself into his arms. “They let you out. I knew you didn’t do it.”

  He drops the bag, and his mouth swoops down to capture mine. Relief and elation flood through me as I shower him with kisses.

  I drag him into the apartment. “Tell me everything. What happened? How did they let you out?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He presses a finger on my lips. “First, I have to put all the presents under the tree. Then I eat the cookies Bree left for me, and then, I get a kiss under the mistletoe.”

  “You got your kiss already.” I laugh. “Okay, let me help.”

  Tyler drags a box out of the bag. It’s a Christmas train set. “For Bree.”

  “She’ll love it.” I arrange the rest of the presents while he builds the train tracks around the Christmas tree.

  While we assemble the track and trains, he tells me how he’d gone to his parents’ graves, how he met a Vietnam veteran who hooked him up with a veteran’s group, and how the police had let him go after a video was turned in showing Tyler as the guy who stopped the shooting.

  “That means you’re the hero. You saved Bree and everyone else.” I hug him. “The shooter was the guy who gave me the bad trade. Even though he didn’t go to jail, he had to pay back all his winnings and a huge fine. His father cut off his allowance, and he probably blames it on me for getting caught.”

  Tyler’s lips press tight and he nods. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you or Bree. Not if I can help it.”

  I swallow a tight lump in my throat. Of course he’d never let anyone hurt me or Bree physically, but he could still damage our hearts. Should I risk it? Put myself out there? Does he even know I went after him?

  I light the gas fireplace and drop pillows on the carpet in front of the Christmas tree. Getting comfortable, I lean into his arms.

  “Tyler, I trust you with my life and know you won’t let anyone else hurt me, but what about you? When you left, it hurt really, really bad. I can take it, but I don’t want Bree to ever feel abandoned.”

  “I feel horrible leaving you like that.” He presses a kiss on my forehead. “I was afraid to ruin your life. It’s not going to be easy being with me.”

  “It’s not easy being with anyone.” I stroke his forearm and take his hand. “We all have our baggage, and there’s no guarantee of the future. That’s why I never wanted a relationship. I thought I could raise Bree by myself, shield her from pain and rejection.”

  He caresses my shoulders and back, holding me close. “Has someone hurt you? Rejected you?”

  The lump in my throat grows and I nod. “My father has another family. What you see here are the castoffs. Me, my mother, and my sister. When my mother got sick, he didn’t lift a finger to help us. When I went to jail, he disinherited me. He tried to manipulate Ella. Made her choose between his money and us.”

  “She chose wisely. And so do I.” He tilts my chin to face him. “I need you, Kelly. I won’t ever run off without talking to you.”

  “You better not. After I went all the way to Colorado to find you.”

  His eyes widen, and his jaw slackens. “You followed me? What happened when you didn’t find me?”

  “I froze my tush in your cabin until the guy I hired to take me to the old fort came and got me. He must have felt sorry for me because he drove me straight to the airport and made me get on the plane. Call it temporary insanity.”

  He sweeps my hair from my face. “I prefer to call it love. I’m sorry I missed you. I was already on my way back to you.”

  I bury my face in his neck and hold him, my heart fluttering with warmth and happiness. I’ve reached him. He’s able to feel my love and believe it. Trust me enough to come back and take another chance. But can I trust him?

  Tyler caresses my hair and whispers, “You’re incredible. I can’t believe you were there.”

  “Oh, believe me, I had to put up with some real characters at your hometown.” I take his hand and intertwine my fingers with his. “I saw your footsteps and your parents’ graves, the wreath you left, and the little stone cabin in the canyon. I understand why you went.”

  “I needed to be with my parents. To feel like I’m not alone in this world. They were there, in my heart. But I needed more than two gravestones. So I came back for you. I couldn’t stay away.” His warm breath brushes over me. “Everything was empty without you. My mother always said I’d one day be some woman’s entire world. I want to be yours.”

  I reach for his face and gaze into his eyes. They seem truer and bluer than I remember. “Stay with me, and be Bree’s father too.”

  He blinks and wets his lips, a look of hope opening his face. “You trust me?”

  “With my heart.” I kiss the stubble on his jaw. “And Bree’s.”

  “Let me protect and care for you.” He clasps my hands between his strong, warm hands. “You and Bree. Let me be the man in your life.”

  “You already are. I’m falling in love with you.”

  “I love you, Kelly, with all my heart.”

  “Merry Christmas, Tyler.”

  ~ Tyler ~

  “Nana, Nana, look what Santa got me.” Bree’s chirpy voice pierced the morning stillness.

  Tyler shifted his body on the pillows and cracked his eyes open. The needles of the Christmas tree brushed against his face. Kelly was asleep in his arms, and Bree stood over them, still wearing her pajamas.

  Bree tapped Kelly. “Mama, what are you doing with my present?”

  “Huh, what?” Kelly yawned and stretched. Her elbow caught Tyler in the jaw.

  He rubbed his face. “Ouch. I’m getting assaulted on Christmas morning.”

  Footsteps shuffled down the hallway. “Bree, it’s too early.”

  “But, Nana, look. Mama and Ty are under the Chwistmas tree. I bet they were kissing.” She danced a storm around them, laughing and jumping in glee.

  Kelly blushed and straightened her rumpled blouse. Thankfully, they’d fallen asleep fully clothed while cuddling, nothing more.

  “Oh, my bones,” Peggy said. She stopped at the entrance to the living room. “Well I’ll be fit to be darned. Looks like we all got our present under the big ol’ tree.”

  “You, Mama?” Kelly’s eyebrow cocked at her mother.

  “Oh, yes,” she replied. “I asked for a handyman.”

  “You did not, you asked for a son-in-law.”

  “Same difference.”

  “I asked for a papa.” Bree landed in Tyler’s lap and hugged him.

  “And Kelly? What did you ask for?”

  “I asked for love, but got you instead.” She winked before smacking him with the best Christmas kiss he ever got.

  * * *

  Thank you for reading A Father for Christmas. Please consider writing a review if you enjoyed the story.

  For more swe
et, clean and wholesome Christmas stories, please check out:

  A Pet for Christmas

  Christmas Stray

  Christmas Lovebirds

  Turn the pages for Excerpts

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  * * *

  If you enjoyed A Father for Christmas, please consider buying the paperback as a gift for a friend or loved one. They come in both regular print size (11 pt font) and large print (18 pt font).

  Excerpt - A Pet for Christmas

  Kelly, Tyler, and Bree’s story continues one year later …

  >>><<<

  A Pet for Christmas

  Kelly Kennedy thought her life was finally on track. Engaged to the man of her dreams and with a baby on the way, she reassures her five-year-old daughter, Bree, that the father she picked for Christmas still loves her.

  Unfortunately, war veteran Tyler Manning has been away most of the year. Recovering from PTSD isn’t easy. Rather than worry Kelly, Tyler spends his time traveling to Afghanistan to work at a children's charity he founded.

  Kelly decides to distract Bree with promises of a pet for Christmas. When Tyler is captured by terrorists, she finds it hard to convince Bree that they will truly be a family in time for Christmas.

  Excerpt

  Copyright 2015, Rachelle Ayala

  Chapter One

  ~ Kelly ~

  “Tell me about my father.” My five-year-old daughter, Bree, taps the oak dining table with her fork and knife right after we’ve said grace. Her blue eyes are large and expectant.

  Everyone gathered around my mother’s Thanksgiving table gawks at her before turning to me.

  “We just spoke to him on the video call.” I try to avoid the question on everyone’s faces. “He’s helping children in Afghanistan, remember?”

  The baby in my belly kicks and reminds me how exhausted I am with Tyler, my fiancé, traveling again. He assures me he’ll be home for Christmas. I can only hope.

  “Not Tyler.” Bree pouts and her eyebrows narrow with that determined look of hers—the kind that tells me she’s not about to be put off. “I want to know about my real father.”

  Uh oh. This is not the type of thing I want to be discussing with company. My mother knows, and so does my sister and her boyfriend, Jaden, but we also have church friends gathered around, including Mr. Wong, the widower who recently started dating my mother. The turkey is waiting, as are all the trimmings, dressing, candied yams, potato salad, butternut squash casserole and cranberry sauce.

  “Tyler is your father.” I pat her shoulder, gently. Last year, right before Christmas, Bree asked Santa for a father. She met Tyler Manning, a war veteran, soon afterward sitting under the giant Christmas tree at a mall in San Francisco. We both fell in love with him, and I assumed the rest would be history.

  Bree blinks and looks away from me, or at least my face since she’s staring at my protruding belly. “I want my real papa. The kind who puts babies inside mamas. We didn’t know Tyler when I was a baby.”

  Various throats clear around the table as my mother’s guests pretend not to hear Bree’s request.

  “Pass the turkey, please.”

  “I’ll have a helping of mashed potatoes.”

  “Anyone want yams?”

  Beside me, Bree rattles her plate with her fork and pouts. “A real father would be here for Thanksgiving.”

  So should Tyler. I’m disappointed too, but now’s not the time or place to go into it. I serve a scoop of mashed potatoes onto Bree’s plate. “Sweetie, Tyler misses you and wishes he could be here. You know that, don’t you?”

  Bree crosses her arms and shakes her head, making her blond curls bounce. “He promised he would give me the biggest drumstick.”

  “You can still get the drumstick.” I take the platter from my sister. “See, here? Just for you.”

  Bree grabs it, looking happy for a split second, before her lower lip protrudes again. “When my baby brother gets here, he’ll take the drumstick, won’t he?”

  “A turkey has two drumsticks,” my mother interjects and rubs Bree’s head. “I’m sure you and your brother can share.”

  “Only Tyler’s his real daddy, and he’ll get everything.” Bree stares at her drumstick as if it’s the last good thing she’ll ever get.

  “He’s your real daddy, too,” I remind her. “You asked Santa for him, and you found him under the Christmas tree.”

  Bree flings the drumstick onto her plate and climbs off the chair. “You’re not supposed to find a daddy under the Christmas tree. They told me at school.”

  She stomps down the hallway to the guest bedroom she stays at whenever I work late. Great. I wonder what else the kids at school have been talking about. She’s only in kindergarten. However, these days, they know everything, although I doubt they understand artificial insemination, which is why I’ll never be able to find Bree’s biological father.

  The baby inside me, Tyler’s baby, kicks and turns as a wave of exhaustion crests over me. Some days, I don’t believe I can do it all—work a full time job chasing insider traders for the government, be a mother to Bree, and hold onto my high-risk pregnancy.

  “Are you okay?” My mother grips my arm. “Any contractions?”

  “I’m sorry Bree ruined everything. Please continue with your dinner. I’m going to rest.” I didn’t want to let her know about the contractions and tightness around my womb. I’d been spotting off and on during this pregnancy, and while I haven’t been ordered on bedrest yet, I have to monitor myself by counting contractions and kicks every day.

  “It’s okay.” My mother rubs my back. “Everyone here is family or friends. We understand.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I should call Tyler again and let Bree speak to him. May I be excused?”

  “Of course. It’s hard to talk to him when all of us are around. Obviously, Bree heard something from school.”

  I nod and smile to everyone around the table and push myself away. I can’t expect Bree to understand the stress Tyler is under. He still suffers from PTSD caused by his combat days, and even though he hides it from me, I’m only too aware why he’s chosen to travel so much.

  “Bree?” I stop in front of the bedroom door. “We can’t call Tyler until after six our time.” Afghanistan is twelve and a half hours ahead of California. “He’s sleeping right now.”

  “I don’t want Tyler. I want my real father.” Bree flips through a storybook. “My real papa will buy me a dog and play with me all the time. He’ll read me stories and take me to the zoo.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” I sit on the daybed next to her. “You have so many people who love you. Me, Nana, Ella, and Tyler.”

  Bree continues flipping through the storybook. It’s my mother’s old Barney Beagle book, a story about a dog waiting at a pet shop for his very own special person.

  Bree stops on a page where a girl with a fancy coat takes Poodle home with her.

  “See how happy they look.” She echoes Barney, the little beagle, who is left overnight in the store without a boy or girl. “Will Tyler bring me home a puppy?”

  “Maybe,” I say idly.

  Bree used to call Tyler “Papa” when we first got together last year just after Christmas. Everything was great back then. Tyler had been a homeless veteran, but had landed a job as spokesperson for Warspring, International, an organization that raises and distributes funds for charities benefiting children who are orphans because of war.

  He moved in with us, and I thought we’d get married, eventually. We were so perfect together, me, Tyler, and Bree that I got careless about birth control. Once we found out we were pregnant, Tyler redoubled his efforts on finding speaking engagements to earn money to save for a down payment on a house. I don’t know why I never noticed, but little by little, he began traveling more frequently and staying away longer.

  “Bree,” my sister, Ella, calls from the dining room.
“Nana says you can have dessert first. How about a hot fudge brownie and strawberry ice cream?”

  “A brownie!” Bree drops the storybook and bounces off the bed. “I want a brown puppy just like Barney Beagle. Mommy says my real daddy will bring me one for Christmas.”

  ~ Tyler ~

  Sweat ringed Tyler’s head and he rolled, tangled in the damp sheets, unable to sleep. The chill of an Afghan winter did nothing to cool the heat coursing his veins. The sports compound he was in charge of was in the northeastern part of Afghanistan, near the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains separating Afghanistan from Pakistan.

  Minutes and hours ticked by, and he still had a million things he needed to do. Much needed supplies had been delayed, and money was missing from the books. The center director had quit, and key staff members hadn’t shown up for work. Instead of running a sports camp for boys, the walled compound had filled up with refugees from areas where the Taliban and other insurgents fought for control after the US withdrew the bulk of its forces last year.

  In any case, Tyler couldn’t turn needy people away, and after months of being back in Afghanistan, he had to conclude that the sports idea was unfeasible when there were so many children in need of basic shelter, food, and medical treatment. About all he’d accomplished was replacing the sacks used for street soccer with real soccer balls for the children to use.

  Not that he’d given up. He still held matches for the residents and taught them how to exercise. Playing sports was healthy, and even the tiniest smile was a reward for his efforts.

  Which were never enough. Ever.

  He wiped his palms over his face and breathed to calm his galloping heart. It was Thanksgiving in the States, and he’d chatted with Kelly and Bree by video call right before turning in. Kelly had put on a cheery smile, but her eyes were tired, even though she’d assured him she was doing great. Bree, however, had barely looked at him, only answering when Kelly told her to say “hi” and “bye.”