All I Want for Christmas

by Gina Wilkins

  Ryan smiled at the phrasing. “It’s time to go,” she said. “You said Mrs. Culpepper expects you by five.”

  Pip looked at his own watch. “Yeah, it’s time,” he agreed. He held out his hand to his sister. “C’mon, Kelsey, we better hurry.”

  Ryan placed a hand on Pip’s shoulder. “I’ll drive you.”

  Pip looked hesitant. “That’s okay, Ryan,” he said. “We don’t live far from here. We can walk.”

  “I’d really like to drive you.” She chose her words carefully, not wanting to hurt the boy’s pride. “It’s getting colder, and as Max just pointed out, Kelsey’s lips are turning blue. We wouldn’t want her to catch cold, would we?”

  She’d hit on the one argument Pip couldn’t refute. He looked a bit torn for a moment, then nodded shyly. “Okay. Thanks.”

  THE APARTMENT BUILDING Pip directed Ryan to was old and rundown, only a few blocks from the mall and the park, in a neighborhood Ryan always carefully avoided after dark. She didn’t at all like the thought of the children wandering these streets alone. She was more determined than ever to talk to their caretaker.

  As Pip and Kelsey struggled out of their seat belts, Ryan unsnapped hers and reached for the door handle. “I’ll walk you in,” she said casually.

  Pip’s eyes widened. “That’s okay,” he said a bit too quickly. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I would like to,” Ryan replied. “I want to meet your landlady.”

  Pip chewed his bottom lip. “She won’t like it if she thinks me and Kelsey have been any trouble.”

  Ryan held on to her smile with an effort. “I’ll make sure she knows you aren’t any trouble.”

  Max had already opened his door. “So will I.”

  Kelsey climbed out of the car without hesitation. Pip seemed a bit more reluctant, but he didn’t try any further protests.

  The entry hall was dim and stale smelling. Ryan wrinkled her nose, then immediately smoothed her expression, not wanting the children to see her distaste for their home.

  “This is our ‘partment,” Kelsey said, pointing to the first door on the right. “Mrs. Culpepper lives in that one down there.”

  “You have been staying with her, haven’t you?” Ryan asked, curious about the child’s wording.

  Kelsey shook her head. “We sleep at our place. Mrs. C. gives us our dinner and makes sure we get up for school, but we aren’t ‘xactly staying with her.”

  Appalled, Ryan looked at Max. This was even worse than she’d thought. The children were basically living alone. How could their aunt have left them under these conditions?

  Max’s expression reflected her own dismay. “I’d like to meet this ‘Mrs. C.,’” he murmured.

  “So would I,” Ryan said grimly.

  Pip still looked nervous. He twisted his thin little hands in front of him. “She isn’t going to like it that we talked to strangers.”

  “We won’t tell her we’re strangers. We’ll tell her we’re old friends, come to check on you while your aunt’s away,” Max assured him. “That sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it?”

  Pip nodded hesitantly.

  Ryan didn’t approve of teaching the children to lie, but she could see that Max’s tale had merit. It would keep the children out of trouble with their baby-sitter and give her and Max an excuse to make sure they were being well cared for.

  “Why don’t you and Kelsey go inside your apartment and wash up?” she suggested. “Max and I will visit with Mrs. Culpepper for a few minutes. We’ll let you know when we’re leaving.”

  “You won’t go without saying goodbye?” Kelsey asked, looking a bit anxious now.

  “Of course not,” Ryan assured her with a gentle smile.

  On impulse, she smoothed the little girl’s hair, noting how cool Kelsey’s skin felt. “Go into your apartment now, sweetie,” she urged. “You need to get warm again.”

  Ryan waited until the children closed their door behind them. Then she turned to Max, her fists clenched. “Let’s go talk to this landlady,” she said through gritted teeth. “I have a few things to say to her.”

  Max reached out and caught her arm. “Chill out, Ryan,” he suggested. “You won’t help the kids if you make their landlady angry with them.”

  Aware that he was right, she drew a calming breath. “It makes me furious that no one seems to care about their safety.”

  “We don’t know that yet,” he reminded her. “Not for certain.”

  She only looked at him.

  He made a sheepish face. “Okay, they’re obviously being neglected,” he conceded. “And it makes me mad, too. But we have to keep in mind that it isn’t really our business.”

  “Child abuse is everyone’s business, Max. It’s thinking like yours that allows the injustices to continue. You know the saying—the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men, or women, in this case, to do nothing.”

  “Edmund Burke,” Max commented. “But don’t overreact, Ryan. You said yourself that the children don’t seem to have been abused. Neglected, certainly, but—”

  “Is there really that much difference?” she asked him quietly.

  He fell silent. And then he shrugged. “Let’s go talk to the landlady, shall we?”

  She nodded and headed determinedly for the door the children had indicated.

  5

  THE FIRST THING Ryan noticed about the woman who opened the door was that she smelled like cheap beer and even cheaper perfume. She was heavyset, dour faced, badly permed and carelessly dressed.

  She looked at Ryan and Max in the hallway and immediately grew defensive. “What do you want?” she asked. “I know you ain’t interested in an apartment here.”

  Ryan forced a small smile. “Mrs. Culpepper?”

  The woman eyed her suspiciously. “Yeah?”

  “My name is Ryan Clark. This is my friend, Max Monroe. May we talk with you for a moment?”

  “What about?” the woman demanded, without moving from where she blocked the doorway.

  “It’s about Pip and Kelsey.” Ryan suddenly realized that she didn’t know the children’s last name. She hoped she would be able to bluff her way past that omission.

  “What about them? Have they been causin’ you any trouble? If so, I’ll—”

  “They haven’t caused us any trouble,” Max assured her, stepping forward with one of his patented smiles. “Please forgive us for disturbing you this afternoon. We’re friends of the children’s aunt Opal, and we promised her we’d check on them from time to time while she was away.”

  Some of the suspicion left the woman’s face—proving that even this old battle-ax wasn’t entirely immune to Max Monroe’s charm, Ryan thought resignedly.

  “You’re friends of Opal’s?” Mrs. Culpepper asked, looking surprised. “I never seen you around here before.”

  “No,” Max agreed without explanation. “We understand she asked you to watch out for her niece and nephew while she was on her vacation.”

  “Yeah. And I been doing it, too,” the woman said defensively. “Feed ’em dinner every night. Make sure they get up for school every morning. Pip takes pretty good care of the little girl, so they don’t need me hanging around every minute, but I’ve kept a close eye on ’em.”

  Ryan bit her tongue.

  Max’s smile never wavered. “They’re good kids,” he said.

  “They’re okay. But I raised my own kids and I don’t want to take on any more. Have you heard from that aunt of theirs?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard from her?” Ryan asked, startled.

  Mrs. Culpepper shook her head. “Not since she left. She said she’d call me and let me know when she was getting back, but I haven’t heard nothing from her in more than two weeks. That ain’t like her.”

  “I didn’t realize she’d been gone that long,” Max said thoughtfully.

  “Yeah. Said she had her a new beau and they was going to California to look for jobs there. Said she’d send f
or the kids as soon as she had a place. One of ’em, anyway.”

  “One of them?” Ryan repeated, frowning.

  Mrs. Culpepper nodded her fuzzy head. “She said the two of ’em was getting to be too much for her to manage. Kids are expensive, you know. Soon as she finds a place, she’s taking one of them and sending the other up East to be with her sister. They’ve been arguing over which one gets the girl.”

  Max rested a hand on Ryan’s shoulder when she would have burst out in protest of the plan to separate Pip and his sister. “Do you happen to have a number for Opal’s sister?” he inquired. “Perhaps she can tell us how we might reach Opal.”

  “You think I haven’t already tried the number I had for her? It’s been disconnected. I called information, and there ain’t no listing for an Essie Smith.”

  Ryan couldn’t stay silent any longer. “But what were you supposed to do in case of an emergency?”

  “There better not be any emergencies,” the woman said with a scowl. “If I don’t hear from Opal in a couple of days, I’m calling child welfare to come get the kids. I don’t like doin’ it, but I got no other choice. The rent runs out at the end of this month and I can’t be responsible for someone else’s kids.”

  “You don’t think she’s abandoned them, do you?” Ryan asked worriedly, tensing at the woman’s mention of child welfare.

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Culpepper replied wearily. “Wouldn’t be the first time it happened ‘round here.”

  “How does Opal seem to feel about the children?” Max asked. “Is she fond of them?”

  Mrs. Culpepper frowned. “Don’t you know?”

  He gave her another of his winsome smiles. “I’d just like your opinion,” he said.

  She shrugged. “She’s a young woman, not forty yet. And she likes men, you know? Not many of ’em are interested in a woman with two kids around. Her sister’s a couple years younger, been married twice and lookin’ for number three. Neither of them planned on raising their brother’s kids.” And who could blame them? her expression seemed to ask.

  “Why didn’t they give them up for adoption?” Ryan mused aloud.

  The woman shook her head. “I guess they thought they had an obligation to ’em or something. And then there was the kids’ Social Security checks….”

  Ryan was appalled that the children’s meager monthly checks could be the only reason their aunt had taken them in. Mrs. Culpepper seemed to accept it as a matter of fact. Ryan wondered just how much the woman had been paid to watch out for Pip and Kelsey these two weeks.

  “This is terrible,” she whispered.

  A world of unpleasant experience was in the older woman’s faded eyes. “Lady, compared to some of ’em, these kids got it good.” She shook her head, as though shaking off ugly memories. “Look, is there anything else you was wanting to ask? I got a stew on the stove for the kids’ dinner and I got to get back to it.”

  “There isn’t anything else for now,” Max said when Ryan would have spoken. “You’ve been very patient, Mrs. Culpepper. Thank you.”

  The woman nodded. “Send the kids on down if you see ’em on your way out.”

  “We’ll do that,” Max assured her. He started to pull Ryan away.

  She resisted. “Mrs. Culpepper,” she said, just as the other woman began to close the door. The landlady paused, her expression impatient.

  Ryan dug into the outside pocket of her purse and pulled out a business card. She hastily scribbled her home number on the back.

  “I can be reached at one of these two numbers if you or the children need me,” she said, pressing the card into the woman’s work-worn hand. “If you hear from their aunt, I would appreciate it if you would give me a call. And, please, promise me that you won’t call the welfare services without calling me first.”

  The woman sighed heavily. “All right. But at the end of the month, they have to go. That’s only four more days.”

  “I know. And I promise you, I’ll make arrangements for them if you don’t hear from their aunt by then,” Ryan vowed impulsively. “Just call me, okay?”

  The woman tucked the card inside the pocket of her too-tight knit slacks. “I’ll call you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Send the kids down for supper. It’s ready for ’em.” The landlady closed the door without giving Ryan another chance to detain her.

  Ryan rubbed her temples with both hands. “Oh, dear,” she muttered. “What a mess.”

  Max rested a hand on her shoulder. “Ryan, are you really sure you should be getting involved with this? I mean, you don’t know these people. You have no authority to interfere. You could be getting into all sorts of trouble—legal trouble, for that matter.”

  Ryan dropped her hands and rounded on him, her chin high, her temper blazing. “Look,” she said flatly. “For that matter, I don’t really know you. If you don’t want to get involved, fine. Leave. I can’t. Those children, for whatever reason, have decided they can trust me, and I’m not going to just walk away from them now that I know they might be in trouble. But no one’s expecting you to put yourself out for them. If you hurry, maybe you can get back to the park before Brittany and Marti leave.”

  Max’s eyes narrowed. For the first time in her presence, he lost that easygoing, isn’t-this-fun expression—and Ryan realized that he could look just a bit intimidating when he tried.

  She lifted her chin higher, refusing to flinch.

  “I felt that I had the responsibility to point out the hazards to you,” he said, his voice clipped. “Now that I have, I think we should go tell the children good-night. We promised we wouldn’t leave without letting them know.”

  “I didn’t intend to.”

  He nodded curtly. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  RYAN HATED TO LEAVE the children alone, knowing they would be spending the night in the apartment without an adult. “Why don’t you ask Mrs. Culpepper if you can stay with her tonight?” she suggested after she delivered the message that their dinner was waiting for them.

  “Why?” Pip asked curiously.

  “Wouldn’t you feel safer?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “We keep the doors and windows locked. And Mrs. C. checks on us at bedtime and gets us up in the mornings. We’re safe enough.”

  She hated it—truly hated it—but Max was right in one respect. Ryan had no authority to do anything more, unless she was prepared to contact the authorities. Which she wasn’t, yet. Not without talking to her brother first.

  “Is there a telephone here?” she asked them, looking around the surprisingly clean, but pitifully inadequate two-bedroom apartment in which they lived.

  Pip shook his head. “Aunt Opal can’t afford one,” he admitted. “We can use Mrs. C.’s sometimes.”

  “She has my number,” Ryan said, pulling out another card and writing her home number on the back. “You keep this, Pip. If you need me—anytime at all—you call me, okay?”

  “Okay. Can we come back to see you at the mall?” Both Pip and Kelsey looked at her beseechingly.

  Ryan glanced helplessly at Max. He waited silently to hear her answer.

  “I suppose so,” she said to the children after a moment, thinking that it was only a few blocks from their school to the mall. “But, please, be careful, Pip. You really shouldn’t be out on the streets alone.”

  “We’ll be careful,” he assured her.

  Kelsey threw her arms around Ryan’s waist. “’Bye, Ryan,” she said, trustingly lifting her little face.

  Swallowing a huge lump in her throat, Ryan leaned over to kiss her soft cheek. “’Bye, sweetie. See you soon, okay?”

  Max solemnly shook Pip’s hand, “Take care of your little sister.”

  “I always have,” Pip replied, sounding heartbreakingly matter-of-fact about it. “’Bye, Max. See you, Ryan.”

  Leaving them there was the hardest thing Ryan had ever done.

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. I just can’t believe the way those children are being r
aised. Doesn’t anyone care that anything could happen to them while they’re alone on the streets—or in their own apartment, for that matter? It’s just a miracle that nothing has happened yet. And as for this insane idea to separate them, hasn’t anyone noticed how close they are? How much they depend on each other? It would devastate them if they—”

  “Ryan,” Max interrupted gently. “Breathe.”

  She took a short, choppy breath, her hands so tight on the steering wheel that her knuckles ached.

  “Where do you live, anyway?” she asked, suddenly aware that she’d been driving aimlessly ever since leaving the children’s apartment building fifteen minutes earlier.

  “On the other side of town. How about if we stop and get a hamburger or something on the way?”

  She started to decline.

  He forestalled her by saying, “We could talk about the children, maybe come up with some ideas.”

  She slanted him a skeptical look. Would he actually use the children as an excuse to get her to have dinner with him? Or was that incredibly egotistical of her?

  She nodded. “All right—though I’m not sure what we could do for them without knowing a bit more about their situation.”

  “True,” he agreed. “But maybe we’ll think of something. And besides,” he added, “I’m starving. Even Mrs. Culpepper’s beef stew smelled inviting.”

  “I don’t know how you could smell it over her perfume,” Ryan grumbled.

  Max touched her arm. “The children will be all right for tonight,” he assured her. “Try to relax, okay?”

  “I’ll try,” she said with a sigh. “But it isn’t easy. I really hated leaving them, Max.”

  “I know you did. You’re a very caring person, Ryan Clark. Be careful that soft heart of yours doesn’t get you into trouble someday.”

  She couldn’t help wondering if his warning had to do with something other than the children.

  MAX WATCHED RYAN as they settled into a fast-food-restaurant booth with their food. He had ordered a chicken club sandwich, large fries and a jug-size soft drink; Ryan settled for a salad, baked potato—hold the sour cream—and a diet soda.

  She seemed to be the weight-conscious type, he thought as he took a bite of his sandwich. Surreptitiously eyeing her figure, he couldn’t imagine why she worried about it. She looked darned near perfect to him.