A Coldwater Warm Hearts Christmas

by Lexi Eddings

  It would have been great to have a socially savvy girlfriend at his side who could help cement those ties, but Angie was hopeless when it came to working a room. She’d have been cowering in a corner.

  Probably with her nose in a book.

  Or worse, correcting my grammar in public. Who needs that?

  In his more honest moments, Peter admitted to himself that he missed Ange. There was a sweetness, a vulnerability about her, that made him feel stronger. Angela had needed him.

  Sabine did, too. But only for one thing.

  “So before you go, tell me more about that UCFF case you think we can make in Oklahoma,” Sabine said as he stood.

  “Let’s not go there.” Peter pulled his Ralph Lauren polo shirt over his head. “The more I think about it, the less I like our chances.”

  “Why? It sounded like a slam dunk. A classic church and state deal.”

  She raised herself to her knees, pillows propped around her, her long blond hair tumbling around her shoulders. Peter looked away lest she seduce him back into the bed. He gave in to her wishes too easily when he was in a . . . suggestible state.

  “We could make a big splash with it, you know,” Sabine went on. “National news outlets love to cover this sort of thing every December. You can almost set your watch by it.”

  “I don’t know.” Peter sat down in a nearby chair and toed on his shiny black Ferragamos. He and Ange had lived together for most of a semester on less than the price of those shoes. And were ridiculously happy doing it. Peter shook his head at the memory. He wouldn’t be satisfied with that simple life now.

  But Ange sure was pretty first thing in the morning . . .

  “I don’t think we should pursue the case,” he said. “It might look like we’re picking on small-town America.”

  “Oh, who cares? Nobody gives a crap about flyover country.” Sabine waved away his objection. “We can make a national name for ourselves with this. Give me the details again.”

  “It’s just a Christmas pageant, Sabine.”

  “Bingo! They made our case with the name alone. If they had any brains at all, they’d call it a Winter Festival or better yet, something to do with the solstice. Can’t go wrong going pagan. And they are using public property, right?”

  “From what I gathered, they always have it on the courthouse steps. It’s tradition.”

  “And the director.” Sabine climbed out of bed, slipped into a silky robe, and cinched it closed with a tie belt. “You said something about the director being a public employee.”

  “A schoolteacher, yeah.”

  “Perfect. We might be able to get the NEA on board. Things like this just can’t stand.” Sabine’s face was flushed. She always got excited when she scented blood in the water on the opposing counsel’s side. “It’s un-American.”

  “Is it?”

  “They’re trying to impose a religion on people, Peter. I mean, how intolerant can you get?”

  Sabine had found her moral high ground. Peter wasn’t likely to talk her down from it. He needed a legal point to skewer her with.

  With which to skewer her, he heard Ange’s voice in his head, as he reordered his thoughts.

  “Don’t we need a complainant?” he asked. “I don’t think we can find anyone. It sounded like the whole town looks forward to this pageant each year.”

  Peter had overheard a number of conversations about plans for the Christmas pageant while he was in Coldwater Cove. From the college students at Bates to the night manager at the Heart of the Ozarks motel, everyone was chattering on about the pageant and what a fixture it was in the life of the place.

  “Without a local alleging a violation of his rights, we don’t have standing to bring a suit.”

  “Then we need to find one,” she said, undeterred. “Maybe you should go back there for a bit.”

  “What reason could I give for returning to Coldwater Cove?”

  “Why do you need a reason?”

  “Because in that little town, a new face gets noticed. I had to explain what I was doing there to everyone I met.”

  “Well, that’s not creepy at all.” Sabine rolled her eyes. “How in the world do people live there?”

  Quite happily, Peter almost said. The charm of the Town Square, the sparkling lake and green hills rising above it—there was a peacefulness about the place that washed away a little of the crusty cynicism that had built up around his soul.

  But only a little.

  “I’d go nuts there in a week,” he admitted.

  “Maybe a week is all you need. Look, why don’t you go back to that little Podunk college and talk to them about endowing an English chair.”

  “We don’t have the funds to do that.”

  “They don’t know that, do they?” she said. “Talk to the teacher who’s directing this sorry disruption of the American way. Maybe you can convince him—”

  “Her.”

  “Her,” Sabine repeated. She tapped her front teeth with her perfectly manicured fingertips as she studied him through narrowed eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you know this teacher from someplace else?”

  “Because I do.” He and Sabine had no secrets. She was going to wrangle it out of him anyway, so he might as well tell her. “She and I were at Baylor together.”

  “Don’t you mean you were together at Baylor?” Sabine guessed shrewdly. “Don’t forget. I know you, Peter. I can read you like a shoddily written deposition. Let the record show that you and this woman have slept together.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Do what?” she asked, batting her eyes at him, all innocence.

  “Make everything so . . . dirty.”

  “Because, darling, everything is.” She crossed the room to him, letting her robe flutter open, and slid a hand down the front of his trousers. “How did you ever make it through law school without learning that?”

  Peter roused to her despite his determination not to. He sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to go back to Oklahoma and build a case. There’s got to be a federal court somewhere near that Coldwater Cave place that we can file in.”

  In which we can file. He wasn’t the fanciful sort, but he could swear he heard Ange’s voice in his head for the second time that night.

  “Cove. Not Cave.” He could correct the town name at least. “Coldwater Cove.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, once we get ready to file, I’ll tip a couple of journalists who’ll eat this up with a spoon.” She flounced away from him and settled before her vanity mirror. “The camera loves me. Let’s aim for filing a couple of days before Christmas.”

  “The case isn’t likely to be resolved in time to let the pageant go forward if we lose.”

  “We aren’t going to lose. We don’t lose,” she snapped, a horrified expression on her lovely face. It was as though he’d suggested they contract Ebola just for fun. “But for once, the whole point of a lawsuit isn’t winning. It’s about stopping an egregious violation of religious freedom. All we need is a friendly judge who’ll issue a stay that keeps the display from happening.”

  “It’s not really a display. It uses real people, so I guess the Coldwater pageant is more like a play.”

  “I don’t care if it’s an off off-Broadway musical.” She picked up a brush and attacked her hair with vigor. “We just have to stop it from happening.”

  “You kinda sound like the Grinch right now.”

  “Well, the Grinch is more politically correct than the Baby Jesus. If the people in Oklahoma were doing a play about Who-ville, they wouldn’t be inviting a lawsuit,” Sabine said. “Honestly, how will people ever learn if we don’t use the law to smack them around once in a while?”

  Peter was glad she wasn’t his enemy and it wasn’t the first time he’d thought so. Sabine was a pit bull in the courtroom. When she thought she had a righteous cause, she fought even harder.

  But Peter wasn’t so certain they were on the side
of the angels this time. Sure, he gave lip service to the popular interpretation of the First Amendment, that it was actually a guarantee of freedom from religion. But deep inside, he was still a son of Texas whose grandmother had dragged him to Sunday School every week during the summers he spent with her, whether he wanted to go or not.

  It didn’t turn him into the preacher his grandma had hoped he’d be. In fact, he was hard pressed to remember much about her little church except that his granddad would never join them.

  But it hadn’t hurt him to go. In fact, the Bible stories he’d been exposed to had come in handy years later in more than one literature class.

  In the same spirit of pragmatic indifference to all things spiritual, if a bunch of hicks in Oklahoma wanted to dress up in bathrobes and reenact a bit of ancient history, it was no skin off his nose. He didn’t see the harm.

  And without demonstrable harm, how could they bring a suit against a town’s Christmas pageant?

  Sabine frowned at his reflection in her mirror. “I can see you’re undecided about this. How about if I promise to drop the case after the holidays? That way we won’t bankrupt Coldwater Crotch with legal fees.”

  “Cove. Coldwater Cove. At least get the name right, okay?”

  “Okay, we’re in agreement on filing, then.” She applied a fresh coat of lipstick. “In before Christmas, out by New Years. By then, media interest will have faded anyway.”

  “But we’ll still have made our names known,” he said.

  Your name is your bond, Peter, his grandma had often said. What will you give your name to?

  He knew his grandma wouldn’t like him giving it to this. But he knew just as surely that he’d still do it.

  Chapter 19

  Shepherds and wise men and angels, oh my!

  —Angela Holloway, who hopes she won’t run into any flying monkeys while she tries to cast the Christmas pageant

  “You certain sure you don’t want me to be a wise feller, Miss Holloway?” Junior Bugtussle twisted the ball cap in his hands so tightly that the Finklemeyer’s Feed & Seed logo stenciled across the front read Fink Fee & See. Angie had called most of her choices for the pageant cast and asked them to drop by her classroom after school was out for the day. She got the feeling Junior hadn’t set foot in the high school since he’d almost graduated over ten years ago.

  “No, I think you’ll be perfect for the role of Head Shepherd,” she explained. “If we use live animals, and I think we really should, we need someone who knows how to keep them under control.”

  Junior beamed under her praise. “Shirley Evans wouldn’t never let us use real sheep and cows and such. Said they’d stink up the manger.”

  “Well, if our goal is realism, I don’t suppose the original manger smelled like a hospital ward.”

  “No, I ’spect you’re right about that.” Junior scratched his head. “I could kinda hide a shovel in my robes, too. On account of, well, with real animals there’s always a chance one of ’em will decide to . . . you know, answer nature’s call.”

  “Ah! A wise precaution.”

  “See! I could, too, be a wise feller.”

  “Maybe next year, Junior.” Oh, my gosh, did I just say that? As if directing this thing once isn’t enough for any sane person’s lifetime! “I really need you to wrangle the animals this time.”

  “Then you got it, Miss Holloway. Now about them animals, I got me a Guernsey cow what’s about to drop a calf. She’s a purty little cow and biddable as you could wish. You want ’em both in the pageant?”

  “Why would we need both?”

  “It’ll make the cow more satisfied to have her calf next to her. If her bag gets heavy and she takes a notion that her baby might be hungry and it’s not where she can get to it, well, I can’t answer for the consequences.”

  Angie had a vision of a runaway Guernsey making a break for it and heading down Main Street as fast as her bovine legs could carry her. “All right. Maybe Seth could build a special stall for them inside the set of the stable.”

  “ ’Spect Seth Parker could build whatever you need. He’s a right handy feller.”

  Angie smiled. Seth had been handy every night for the past week. He’d pick her up at her place and take her for supper at the Green Apple. Or she’d make a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and they’d sneak them into the Regal, where they’d watch another oldie-but-goodie movie together. One night, he even took her dancing at the Opera House when the local Big Band was playing. It wasn’t clubbing by anyone’s standard. There was no strobe lighting or hipster DJ setting the pace, but slow dancing with Seth Parker, all tangled up with his hard body and fresh masculine scent, was more than romantic. It made her feel safe in a way she hadn’t in years.

  “He is pretty handy at that,” Angie said. Then because she was afraid Junior would catch her being sappy over Seth, she hurried on. “What other animals can you bring?”

  “As I recollect, Mary rode her a donkey all the way to Bethlehem. Don’t have one of them, but my neighbor up the road, he’s got a zonkey.”

  “What’s a zonkey?” Angie asked.

  “Sort of a hybrid. Some fool put a donkey in with a zebra just to see what’d happen and ’bout eleven months later this sorry critter popped out.” Junior shook his head. “Don’t see too many of ’em.”

  “I bet not.What does it look like?”

  “It’s about the size of a burro, but the head’s a little oversized for the rest of him and if you get him in the right light, you can see some faint stripes. The durn thing ain’t good for nothin’ except eatin’ and poopin’.” Junior’s ears went as red as the handkerchief poking out of his coveralls pocket. “Beggin’ your pardon, Miss Holloway. I shoulda said makin’ messes instead of poopin’. Dang, I did it again.”

  “That’s okay, Junior. Could the girl who plays Mary ride this zonkey?”

  “Guess so. It’s gentle enough. I seen my neighbor’s kids tryin’ to ride it.”

  “Trying to?”

  “Well, they ended up on their keesters most of the time,” Junior admitted.

  A striped burro dumping the Virgin Mary on her behind and going all rodeo through the crowd wouldn’t put anyone in the Christmas spirit.

  “But if we was to put a bridle on it, whoever you get to play Joseph won’t have no trouble leading it along, I’ll warrant,” Junior suggested. “Who you figurin’ to be Joseph, by the by?”

  “Ian Van Hook,” Angie said.

  “That’s good then. He’s been taking kids what have been bullied out to the Hackbart Riding Center to give ’em a bit a confidence like. He’s used to leading horses for them kids. The zonkey won’t be much different.”

  “Isn’t it stubborn?”

  “It’s a zonkey, not a mule. If Ian tucks a carrot in his pocket, it’ll follow him anywhere. ’Course he might have to go along at a good clip to stay ahead of it.”

  “Okay, we’ll give the zonkey a try.” Angie envisioned all the paintings of the nativity she’d ever seen. There were always a few sheep. “Have you any lambs?”

  Junior shook his head. “Wrong time of year. Lambs are born in the spring when the grass is fresh and there’s plenty of it. But I can get my son Aaron to bring a couple of our smaller ewes. Maybe that’d do, and Aaron can be a shepherd along with me. Unless you got someone else in mind?”

  Angie decided she could have as many shepherds as she needed to keep the folks who auditioned happy.

  “The ewes won’t wander off?” Angie imagined the courthouse lawn dotted with fuzzy sheep.

  “Not if we bring ol’ Bruno.”

  “Who’s Bruno?”

  “He’s my sheepdog. If he knows you want the sheep to keep still, he’s the one to make ’em do it. All he has to do is bare his teeth and they’ll be like statues.”

  “You think Bruno will understand what I want him to do.”

  “Sure, he will. He’s right smart. You want I should bring some goats too? Aaron’s been bottle-raisin’
a good-lookin’ little ram. He figures on showing him at the county fair next year.”

  Angie did a quick mental count of the livestock—a zonkey, a cow and calf, a couple of sheep, and a large hairy dog. “No, I think what you’ve already offered will do.”

  “Yeah, I think so, too,” Junior agreed. “Any more critters and nobody’ll see the baby.”

  “And that’s kind of important.”

  “Kinda? It’s the whole dadgum point.” Junior jammed his cap back on his head. “If it wasn’t for Baby Jesus, we wouldn’t have Christmas now, would we?”

  Angela nodded. It was easy to get caught up in the details of the pageant and forget the main thing. But there were so many details . . .

  “Well, if that’s all, I’d best get. Darlene takes on something fierce if I’m late for supper.” Junior headed for the door, but stopped short. “It’s getting a mite dark out. You want I should walk you out to your car, Miss Holloway?”

  “No, I’m waiting for one more cast member to come. I’ll be fine.”

  She was also waiting for Seth. They’d met for breakfast at the Green Apple that morning and he’d driven her to school. While she was meeting with a few of their chosen cast members in her classroom, Seth was trying to recruit Dr. Gonncu to be one of the magi even though he hadn’t auditioned. Still, Angie thought he’d be perfect. The math professor had a dignity and stately bearing that would bring a regal touch to the pageant. Since she’d committed a faux pas at their first meeting by offering to shake his hand, she thought Seth might have more luck convincing him.

  “He’s not a Christian,” Seth had said when she’d first suggested it.

  “Nobody at the first Christmas was a Christian either,” Angie had countered. “And Muslims regard Jesus as a prophet, so His birth would be important to them, too. Do your best to convince him.”

  She really hoped Dr. Gonncu would agree. Not that she was a fan of diversity for diversity’s sake, but she wanted the pageant to represent every aspect of the community, including those who hadn’t grown up in the area.