Sandcastles Under the Christmas Moon

by Vickie McKeehan

  “I’m taking the boys down to the beach. Is there any way you could keep an eye on Charlotte while I’m out?”

  Winona stood up. “No problem. I’ll take a book and go sit with her. If we need you for anything, I’ll text you and you can run back up to the house.”

  “Great. Thanks. Has anyone heard from Quentin?”

  “Not since he left to take care of the bait shop owner.”

  “Hmm, wonder what’s keeping him. A cyst shouldn’t take this long. Oh well, I suppose he’ll text when he can. Anyway, I’m off to fix some PB&J for the beach.”

  She made a stop in the kitchen where she got to work with the sandwiches, packing them into a cooler for easy transport.

  By the time she got back to the sunroom she was surprised to find it empty. For some reason a wave of alarm crept up her spine, not knowing where the two boys were.

  She ran out of the slider, following the trail down to the little strip of sand behind the house. But when she reached the spot, she saw she needn’t have worried.

  Beckham sat on the ground up to his elbows in muddy sand. Nate was doing the same. The two boys were laughing and giggling while building a knee-high mound around them.

  “What on earth are you guys doing?”

  “Building a sandcastle,” Beckham yelled over the waves. “We have to hurry. High tide will be in soon. Wanna help us?”

  So this is what Quentin had meant that first day they’d checked the place out—Beckham building his sandcastles, here, on this stretch of beach. He obviously knew the boy better than she’d thought.

  “Come on,” Beckham urged. “We still have to finish the top and sides. You aren’t afraid of a little mud, are you?”

  Sydney’s face broke out in a smile. She plopped down beside them, running her hands in the wet sand. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else this afternoon.”

  While they were having fun, Quentin was not. Tandy Gilliam had phoned early that morning complaining that the cyst on his chest had become an infected, swollen mess.

  Quentin could attest to that. He’d had to cut into the knot that had grown to the size of a quarter. The thing had festered into a puffy, red lesion that had to be lanced, drained, and packed. For twenty minutes, he’d been working on the exposed area. Now, he was ready to use sterile packing strips in the cavity so the wound would heal from the inside out. “You’ll have to repack this again in forty-eight hours. Will your wife be able to do it?”

  “She’s awful squeamish about stuff like that.”

  “Then you’ll have to come back in and let either Sydney or me change out the dressing. What made you wait so long to get this treated?”

  “I don’t like going to the doctor.”

  “So you like having this huge ball of infection on your chest?” Quentin said, shaking his head. “Do you realize this is how sepsis enters the bloodstream? I took a biopsy just in case. You should take better care of yourself, if not for yourself, then for your family. I’ll write you a prescription for a sulfa drug, a powerful antibiotic. Take four of these a day. Don’t miss a dose. If, after a few days, the swelling hasn’t subsided, or it looks like I didn’t get all the mass, then you’ll have to come back and I’ll try it again. And next time, don’t wait so long.”

  After Tandy left, Quentin went into his office to go over a stack of patient charts. But he hadn’t settled in with the first one when the phone rang. Kinsey’s name came up on the readout.

  “I need to talk to you. Is it okay to come over to your office now?”

  “Sure. Are the twins okay?”

  “Better. But this isn’t about them. It’s about Beckham.”

  “Should we meet at Bradford House then? That’s where he is now.”

  “No, I think it’d be better if Beckham wasn’t part of this conversation. I can be there in ten minutes.”

  An anxious Quentin paced around the office waiting for her to show up, and then greeted her at the door. “You have me worried.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you on a Sunday. But since I talked to Sydney at the bar the other night about how bad Charlotte is, I think we need an explicit path to what happens after she…passes.”

  “She’s been plenty specific in her will so far that I become Beckham’s legal guardian. That’s the way you wrote it up.”

  “Yes, after she’s gone, you’ll get legal custody of Beckham. The thing is, I propose it might be better for Beckham to get it done while Charlotte’s still around. There are strong legal reasons to do it now instead of waiting. The biggest is, if she dies, it puts Beckham in a gray area right after the funeral. I’ve been checking into this and child services could possibly take him immediately into their custody. Then you’d be waiting around for a court date.”

  “That’s not happening.”

  “It could, though, and would leave him vulnerable in the system for perhaps weeks.”

  “Then do it. Start the paperwork. We’ll both present the idea to Charlotte and make our case. The one thing we don’t want to do is leave an opening for child services to sweep him up into the foster care system, especially right after. It might be weeks or months before I’d be able to get him back.”

  “Then I’ll start working on the details. Do you want the latest info on Kyle?”

  “Sure.”

  And for the next thirty minutes, the two worked out a strategy to deal with the bully.

  By the time Quentin walked in the door at Bradford House, it was a flurry of activity. He’d never seen so much chaos. Beckham and Buckley were playing a noisy game of hide-and-seek in the open living area with a toddler who kept running around and giggling at the top of his lungs. Sydney had trapped the adults—Ethan, Hayden, Winona, and Stone—in the dining room and enlisted them to roll out cookie dough in assembly-line fashion.

  She looked up from her cookie sheet and spotted him. Her face transformed into a dimpled welcome. “Well, look who’s here and just in time to slather the green icing on the Christmas tree cookies.”

  “Run, Quentin, run,” Ethan cautioned. “Run the other way. Get out while you still can. My wife and Sydney have us cornered in here decorating sugar cookies for the Christmas Festival that starts next week.”

  Quentin started rolling up his sleeves to pitch in as Sydney handed him a beer. “Then I probably shouldn’t tell you that I’ve always been pro-sugar cookie.”

  “Then take a seat. Dip the snowmen in white icing and the reindeer in that chocolate stuff. Stone’s in charge of accessorizing them with the colorful dots.”

  Sydney finished striping a candy-cane-shaped cookie in red and white. “Did you take care of Tandy’s emergency?”

  Without warning, a warm feeling spread through him. No one had prepared him for feeling this way, no clever heads-up, no long talk to get him ready for the big dive off the cliff into the abyss. Love was a powerful emotion. When had it happened exactly? He stared into Sydney’s eyes—those green pools had somehow managed to pull him into their depths for good.

  He leaned in, lightly touched his lips to hers before whispering in her ear, “I’ll tell you about my day later. Right now, I’m just glad to be home. How was Charlotte?”

  Sydney shook her head. “I’ll tell you later.”

  Beckham skidded to a stop near the table. “Nate and I are hungry. Can we order pizza?”

  “Pizza!” Nate chorused, clapping his hands.

  “Looks like we have a consensus,” Sydney said, reaching for the phone. “I could use a meat lover’s deluxe myself.”

  The discussion ramped up as to what everyone preferred on their pie. Once that was agreed on, Sydney placed the order. “Fischer says he’ll send Madison over with the delivery.”

  Quentin looked around the room at the fifty or so boxes of cookies. “It’s hard to believe you guys did all this in a matter of hours.”

  “After watching another Raider loss, I needed to do something,” Stone explained. “Sydney had mentioned she needed a bunch of cookies f
or the festival so…”

  Winona finished his sentence. “Stone decided to whip up a batch of his famous sugar cookies. Thanks to Charlotte, we found everything we needed, like cookie cutters and baking sheets at her house. Stone and I went to the market…”

  “And they started all this while I was out playing on the beach with the boys,” Sydney added. “Just for the record, Stone’s recipe, his buttery cookies all but melt in your mouth.”

  Stone smiled at the praise. “Thank you. Once Ethan and Hayden got here, Sydney wouldn’t let them leave until they’d done their part to ice all these suckers. She set up an assembly line…”

  “And here we are,” Hayden tossed in. “Held hostage to get it done. Typical of my hard-charging sister.”

  Quentin put his arm around Sydney. “That’s one of the things I love about her. She doesn’t wait around for instructions, but takes the initiative.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’s the food,” Ethan said. “I’ve got this,” he added when Quentin reached for his wallet.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. It’s the least Hayden and I can do for our built-in babysitter and to welcome all of you to the neighborhood.”

  Later, after Hayden and Ethan left, Beckham didn’t look quite so downhearted. They cornered him in the kitchen for a sit down talk to cover a range of issues.

  “Kinsey called me today. It looks like Kyle’s parents are accusing you of assault.”

  “You’re kidding? But I didn’t even touch the guy except to defend myself.”

  “Don’t worry. Kinsey and I have this handled. What Kyle and his parents are trying to do is stall. The Hargraves don’t want to pay your doctor bills and this counter accusation is a way of not doing it. I also know what happened that day. I know how Kyle ended up on the trash heap.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah.” Quentin went into the long-winded version of spiritwalkers and how they worked, in this particular case, how Scott worked. “Some people see him. Some people don’t. That day, he showed up to help you out.”

  “You mean, he’s like a ghost who isn’t mean or anything but shows up when you’re in a jam to get you out of it?”

  “Well…yeah. That’s a fairly accurate description.”

  “Has that ever happened to you?”

  Quentin exchanged looks with Sydney. “As a matter of fact, it’s happened to both of us since we’ve been here.”

  “For real?”

  Quentin nodded. “Did you get a good look at this guy that tossed Kyle twenty feet?”

  “Yeah. I thought it was strange that he wore shorts in November cause it was rainy and kinda chilly that afternoon. But I didn’t mention it because I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

  Sydney put her hand in Beckham’s. “Don’t ever think that way again. Because we do. We don’t just believe you, we believe in you. That’s what families do.”

  Quentin cleared his throat. “Now I think it’s time you went upstairs and got ready for bed. I’ll be up in a minute to check on Charlotte and say goodnight.”

  When the boy stood up it was without argument. There was a moment that he leaned over and put his arms around them. It was the briefest of touches. But the gesture felt like the three of them were a solid unit.

  Afterward, they were cleaning up the kitchen when Sydney tossed the dish towel on the counter and said, “Oh my God. Beckham’s birthday is in two weeks.”

  “What? No, you’re mistaken. It’s Christmas that’s in two weeks.”

  “You didn’t know? Beckham’s a Christmas baby. He told me himself.”

  Quentin’s face went white. “Oh God. At the rate Charlotte’s going downhill, what if…?”

  “Don’t think like that. Instead, I’ll start planning a birthday party and we’ll celebrate Beckham’s fourteenth birthday like a town event.”

  “That’s a great idea. I just hope it doesn’t turn into…anything else.”

  Thirty-Five

  The Christmas Festival kicked off on Tuesday night in front of Phillips Park. Thirty booths lined Main Street. Foot traffic was brisk as people came from all over the area. Eastlyn and Brent had their hands full directing cars into parking lots that were filling up fast.

  Eager parents with children streamed along the sidewalks to browse through booths, looking to fill wish lists, grab stocking stuffers, or just plain shop for themselves.

  Street vendors from young to old were busy hawking candy, peanut brittle, cakes and pies, homemade yard decorations, cleverly fashioned dolls and teddy bears along with a host of their own craft items they’d been working on for more than a year.

  Troy put out his handmade wooden jewelry boxes. Greg Prather set up his card table, spreading out all the jewelry he’d designed during the year. There were afghans, quilts, mittens, and knitted hats made by a contingent of ladies from church. Wade Hawkins brought out copies of his book and sat behind his table autographing them.

  Cord and Keegan were at the far end of the line. They’d set up a portable wire corral for critters. It contained stray dogs and cats looking for a home for the holidays, as well as two rabbits and an abandoned potbelly pig. Cord had found the pig at the side of the road, suffering from injuries after having been thrown from a moving car. He’d named her Jasmine because she’d likely crawled under the fragrant shrub to die.

  While most of the kids hung around the animals, businesses refused to be left out of the action. Layne’s Trains set up a train display on the sidewalk. Drea rolled out a cart with her seasonal flowers. The Plant Habitat put their Christmas related items on sale.

  That’s one reason people milled about the streets in the mood to buy. Others were there for the entertainment.

  With guitar in hand, Malachi Rafferty brought his daughters and their violins. The trio set up near Santa and Mrs. Claus, playing Christmas songs for the crowd. On the other side of the park, the carolers were making their way into the streets. The game plan for them was to promenade through the square charming the crowds.

  “Not bad for our first year,” Murphy bragged to Nick. “Next year we’ll try for fifty booths.”

  “Next year at this time we’ll have a hospital,” Nick returned. “The hospital will create good jobs. This town is growing, Murph. The people here are excited about it. Just look at those faces. We’ve been doing something right all these years.”

  “Since you took over the bank, that’s for sure. Getting rid of the riffraff like Kent Springer and that Carr family was the best thing that ever happened to this town. We owe you for that.”

  Nick shook his head. “Not me. You owe that to Scott. You seem to forget how my life had unraveled after coming back from the war. Without all those memories and Scott weighing on me, I’d never have had the courage to head up this way. I’d still be sitting in L.A., miserable. I wouldn’t have the family I have now. The most important thing to me is my family. But it doesn’t hurt to see the town prospering like it is.”

  Murphy slapped the banker on the back. “I thank Scott for a lot of things. One of them is how he brought you into my store that day.” He rocked back on his heels, indicating he could chat for a while. “What do you think of the new doctor?”

  “He’s good. He knows his stuff. We lucked out getting Jack Prescott. Truth is, I was skeptical that we’d get that lucky two times in a row. What are the chances of that happening? It seems we did. And I’m grateful for it. The day he walked into the bank and told me about turning that cannery into a hospital, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”

  “Took me by surprise, too. Can it be done though?”

  Nick laughed. “You know Ryder, Zach, and Troy. Those guys will tackle anything. They have an order sitting on the table for a yacht, one of those expensive jobs, for some multi-millionaire up in Seattle. Ryder told the guy they wouldn’t be able to get to it until after they’d finished the hospital, probably sometime around March of next year.”

  “Oh no. They had
to turn down a job? I hadn’t heard that.”

  “That’s just it. The guy said he’d wait until they were free to build his boat.”

  “So they didn’t lose the contract?”

  “Nope. Things are looking up, Murph. Things are definitely looking up.”

  Thirty-Six

  The Donnelly household was in a festive mood. Good cheer went a long way to pulling off a Christmas party for what seemed like the entire town.

  Logan looked over at his wife, wearing only a bra and panties. “We should’ve used the lighthouse, or maybe the movie theater for this shindig,” he groused as he pulled on his pair of navy blue Dockers.

  Standing in front of the bathroom mirror applying her makeup, Kinsey waved off the suggestions. “The problem is you can’t have a real open house and make it feel homey at either of those places.”

  “But thinking we can squeeze the entire town into our house is just plain nuts.”

  Kinsey patted Logan’s shoulder and breezed past him into her closet to grab her party dress. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see. It’s a nice night. All we have to do is open the patio door and let a few guests drift outside with their plates.”

  Logan snatched his wife around the waist and swept her up in a kiss. “How did I get so lucky that you’d agree to marry me? You’re always so calm and level-headed, even when there’s a crisis.”

  She nipped his lip. “And you’re not. But that’s okay. I’m enough even keel for the both of us.”

  “It’s still early yet. Abby Bonner is babysitting the kids at her house.” He slipped the strap of her bra down and placed a kiss on her bare shoulder. “We have just enough time to…”

  The doorbell rang indicating guests were starting to arrive…early. He sighed and patted her on the fanny. “We’ll finish this later. You put on that slinky red dress while I go put on my hostess cap.”

  By the time Sydney pushed Charlotte’s wheelchair into the entryway, the party was already in full swing. She’d worn her little black dress and noted she might be the only woman in the room not dressed in red or green.