All I Want for Christmas

by Gina Wilkins

  Pip and Kelsey readily agreed. They seemed to like both Cathy and Lynn, though they obviously hadn’t taken to either of them the way they had to Ryan and Max, for some reason. Ryan waved them off, telling them she’d call Mrs. Culpepper to inform her that the children had arrived safely.

  Mrs. Culpepper answered the telephone on the fifth ring. Her voice was thick and surly. “I’m sick,” she announced rather belligerently. “Told you a couple of days ago I thought I was gettin’ a cold.”

  “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?” Ryan asked.

  “Just keep them kids away from here. I don’t feel like takin’ care of ’em and they don’t need to be around my germs, anyway.”

  Ryan bit her lip. “What do you want me to do with them?”

  “I don’t care,” the woman answered wearily. “Take ’em home with you, I guess.”

  “But I don’t have permission to do that.”

  “You got my permission. Opal left ’em with me, so I guess I’m in charge of ’em for now. You don’t take ’em, I’m going to have to call the welfare services. Rent’s due tomorrow, anyway, and I got people waitin’ for that apartment.”

  “But, Mrs. Culpepper, I—”

  “Look, you don’t sound like you want to be bothered with ’em, and I can’t say as I blame you. I should never have agreed to watch out for ’em, either. I’ll call the welfare office now, tell ’em the kids got no place to go. They’ll—”

  “No!” Ryan said quickly, more sharply than she’d intended. “Don’t call anyone. Please. I’ll take them.”

  Mrs. Culpepper sniffed thickly. “You comin’ after their stuff? I want that apartment cleaned out.”

  “The rent is paid through tomorrow, Mrs. Culpepper,” Ryan reminded her coolly. “We have until then to pack their things.”

  “Yeah, well it better get done.”

  “You have my number if you hear from their aunt?” Ryan asked. “You’ll call me?”

  “Yeah, I got it. But I don’t think I’ll be hearing from her if I ain’t heard by now.”

  Ryan privately suspected the woman was right. She didn’t say so, however. She merely repeated that she wanted to be notified if anything happened, and then rather curtly concluded the call.

  “Problem?” Lynn asked from nearby.

  Ryan quickly summarized the call for her friend.

  Lynn winced. “This is getting pretty sticky, isn’t it? I hate to say it, Ryan, but it really does sound as though the children have been abandoned.”

  “I know,” she whispered, making sure the few customers in the shop were out of hearing. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  Lynn looked worried. “The best thing to do would be to call the authorities.”

  Ryan scowled. “Everyone keeps saying that.”

  “Only because it’s right.”

  Ryan shook her head. “I can’t, Lynn. I can’t just hand them over to strangers and forget all about them.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  “For tonight, I’m taking them home with me,” she said firmly. “I’m going to buy them both a few warm clothes and drive them to school in the morning. Maybe Nick or Juliana will have found something out before school is over tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Ryan.” Lynn looked as though she were phrasing her words with care. “Are you sure you’re being fair to the children? They’re already so taken with you. What will happen when you have to let them go?”

  Ryan hadn’t thought of that. She opened her mouth to dismiss the question as irrelevant, but found that she couldn’t brush Lynn’s concern off quite so easily.

  She moistened her lips, then lifted a hand in a bewildered gesture. “I don’t know, Lynn. I guess I’ll have to deal with that when we get there. For now, for some reason, they seem to need me. And I feel that I have to be here for them.”

  “I can see that you’re very fond of them. That the three of you have bonded very rapidly. I’m just…well, I just want you to be careful. For the children’s sake—and for your own.”

  Ryan nodded thoughtfully.

  AS SOON AS CATHY returned with the children, Ryan ushered Pip and Kelsey into her office. “Mrs. Culpepper is ill,” she announced, closing the door behind her. “She has a very bad cold and she’s concerned that you two will catch it. She’s asked me to let you stay at my place for a few days.”

  Kelsey’s eyes grew comically wide. “We can come stay with you?” she asked in a little more than a whisper. “At your house?”

  “At my apartment,” Ryan corrected. “And, yes, you’re welcome to stay with me. If you want to, of course,” she added, turning again to Pip.

  He looked anxious. “Are you sure we wouldn’t be too much trouble? It’s okay, you know. I can take care of Kelsey if Mrs. C. isn’t feeling so good. I’ve done it before when Aunt Opal had dates and stuff.”

  The familiar ripple of anger surged through her; Ryan forced herself to ignore it. “I would love to have you,” she assured him. “Really.”

  “But what about your work?” Kelsey asked.

  “I’ll take you to school in the morning and then come to the store,” Ryan answered. “After school, I’ll either pick you up or you can walk directly here.”

  She could always hire a sitter if the children grew bored, she decided. She’d been staying after closing hours to stock the shelves and do paperwork, but she could work the stock during slow periods and take the paperwork home to complete after the children had gone to bed. Cathy had been hinting about coming to work for her full-time; Ryan could free up more hours for herself if she gave more responsibility to Lynn and Cathy.

  It occurred to her that she was making a lot of plans, considering that she might not have the children for more than one night. She pushed the thought away, unwilling to dwell on the possibility.

  “What do you say?” she asked, looking from Pip’s cautious face to Kelsey’s delighted one.

  “Yes!” Kelsey said, then looked hesitantly at her brother. “It’s okay, isn’t it, Pip?”

  “Sure,” he said after a moment. “That sounds real nice.”

  Both Ryan and Kelsey heaved sighs of relief.

  Ryan was rather amused that she’d found herself waiting as anxiously as Kelsey for Pip’s approval.

  “I have to get back to work,” she said. “Why don’t you watch television until dinnertime?”

  She left them contentedly engrossed in a cartoon. She envied them their easy acceptance of their rapidly changing circumstances.

  As for her—she was beginning to feel as though her life was spinning out of control, and that it would never be quite the same again.

  LYNN PERSUADED RYAN to leave a little early that evening. “You have to stop and get the children’s things, and Kelsey already looks sleepy,” she insisted.

  Ryan frowned. “I’ve been gone so much this past week. This is the worst possible time of the year for me to be away from work.”

  Lynn smiled and patted her arm. “Those children need you worse than I do tonight. I just talked to Jack, and he’s on his way over to help me close up. And I called Cathy, as you suggested. She’s delighted that you’ve asked her to come work full-time. She needs the extra money for Christmas. And her sister agreed to work part-time when we need her. It’s going to work out just fine.”

  Ryan hoped her friend was right. She hoped the extra sales from Christmas shoppers would offset the extra expense of adding some twenty hours a week to Cathy’s pay, as well as another part-time employee. But mostly, she hoped she’d done the right thing by getting involved with these two endearing orphans who’d wandered into her life only five days earlier.

  Strangely enough, there was an almost inevitable feel to the whole situation. It was almost as though the children had been meant to find Ryan. As though she’d been waiting for them…

  She didn’t even want to think about how Max fit into destiny’s plan.

  Telling herself she must be more tired than she’d
thought, she pushed her hair away from her face and smiled at Lynn. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said simply. “But if there’s any way I can do it, you’re going to have a big bonus at the end of the year.”

  “I’m not doing anything for a bonus.” Lynn wore a stubborn look. “This is my job, Ryan, and you are my friend. If you need me, I’m here for you.”

  Ryan’s eyes burned, whether from emotion or weariness, she wasn’t quite sure. She touched Lynn’s hand. “Thank you,” she said simply.

  Lynn nodded. “Take the kids home and put them to bed. And then you might think of turning in yourself.”

  “I will. You get some rest, too. You’re sleeping for two now.”

  Lynn chuckled politely at the lame joke and turned to help a customer. Ryan helped the children gather their things and ushered them out of the store.

  She stopped by their apartment building on her way home to pick up some clothing for them to wear to school the next day. She looked around as they packed some things into paper grocery bags, the only luggage they had available.

  There weren’t many personal items in the place, she realized. It wouldn’t take long to clean the apartment out for the tenant Mrs. Culpepper supposedly had waiting.

  What should be done with Opal’s things? Who would be responsible for them if no one showed up to claim them? What would happen to the children?

  Trying to push her worries out of her mind, Ryan forced a smile for the children, who’d emerged from their bedroom with their little arms loaded. “You have everything you need? pj’s? Toothbrushes? Clean underwear?”

  “We have everything,” Pip said confidently.

  “I’m sure you do,” Ryan said, conceding to his competence.

  Though not as upscale as Max’s place, the apartment complex where Ryan lived was in a nice neighborhood made up mostly of young working singles and newlyweds. Pip and Kelsey looked wide-eyed at the impeccable landscaping, the closed-for-the-season pool, the tennis courts and the picnic tables set out for outdoor entertaining when the weather was warm. Cheery Christmas decorations were strung everywhere, and many of the apartment windows were already filled with glowing Christmas trees.

  Moderate though the complex was, it was still a far cry from the dingy, run-down building where Pip and Kelsey had spent the past eighteen months.

  “Do you have a Christmas tree, Ryan?” Kelsey asked, pointing to a brightly colored one in an apartment near Ryan’s parking space.

  “Not yet. I haven’t had time to get one yet. I had hoped to be able to put one up this weekend.”

  “Maybe we can help you,” Kelsey suggested, her sleepy eyes glowing. “We didn’t have one last year. Aunt Opal said it wasn’t worth the trouble.”

  “Of course you can help me,” Ryan declared recklessly, ignoring a twinge of misgiving. She promised herself that whatever happened during the next few days, she would find a way to have Pip and Kelsey help her with her tree.

  She’d put her tree up alone last year. And then she’d found herself wiping tears from her cheeks, keenly aware that Christmas wasn’t a time to be by yourself. Christmas was a time for family. For children.

  Maybe this year she wouldn’t be alone.

  Still struggling with her doubts, she unlocked the front door of her ground-level apartment. “Here we are,” she said. “Make yourselves at home.”

  The children almost tiptoed into the apartment, looking around with shy curiosity. Ryan tried to see the place through their eyes. The Shaker oak furniture. The country decor—Amish prints, hand-crocheted afghans, colorful pillows, antique oil lamps on the mantel. A few handcrafted items she had picked up on her travels.

  Far from elegant, of course—Ryan couldn’t afford elegance. But it looked like a home.

  “It’s beautiful,” Kelsey whispered.

  Ryan smiled. “Thank you.”

  She led them into the spare bedroom, which was furnished with the twin-bed set that had been in Ryan’s room when she was growing up. Her father had given it to her—along with her oak dining set and a few other pieces—after her mother died, when he’d moved into an apartment building for senior citizens.

  “My room is just across the hallway,” she said. “I’ll be able to hear you if you need me in the night.”

  She knew they were accustomed to spending nights alone, with no one but each other to depend on, but she wanted them to know it wasn’t that way tonight. Someone cared about them now. Cared very deeply about them. So much, in fact, that it scared her.

  “We’ll be fine,” Pip assured her.

  “I know you will, Pip,” Ryan told him with a rueful smile. “But I’ll still be here.”

  The children brushed their teeth, changed into pitifully ragged nightwear and crawled into the beds. Ryan tucked Kelsey in, making sure her old teddy bear was nearby. And then she leaned over to kiss the child’s freshly washed cheek. “Good night, sweetheart. Sleep well.”

  Kelsey was smiling. “This is nice,” she murmured, already half-asleep. “You make a very good mommy, Ryan.”

  Ryan felt her heart jerk. “I—er—good night, Kelsey.”

  “’Night.” The child snuggled into the soft pillow, her teddy bear in her arms, and closed her eyes.

  Still shaken, Ryan turned to Pip, who was watching her solemnly from his own bed. She wondered if he considered himself too old and self-sufficient to be tucked in. She moved close to his bed, looking down at him. “Do you need anything else?”

  He shook his head. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

  Ryan wanted very much to take him in her arms and tell him it was okay to be a little boy again. That he wasn’t alone now. She contented herself with a quick kiss on his cheek. “Good night, Pip.”

  “’Night, Ryan. Thank you again. For everything.”

  Her smile felt tremulous. “You’re welcome.”

  She left the bedroom door open a few inches, just so she could hear them if they needed her during the night.

  She had to acknowledge, if only to herself, that it felt good to be needed.

  IT WAS JUST AFTER TEN when the telephone rang. Ryan had been sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothing moisturizer on her legs, preparing to turn in. She snatched up the phone before it could ring a second time and disturb the children. “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s Max.”

  The plastic bottle of moisturizer fell unnoticed to the carpet. “Oh. Hi.”

  “I, uh, just called to see how you are.”

  “I’m fine. And you?” If he could be bewilderingly polite, so could she.

  “Yeah. Fine. Um, did you hear from the kids today?”

  “They’re with me now. They’re asleep.” She told him what had happened.

  “What are you planning to do with them tomorrow?” Max asked after he’d gotten over his initial surprise that she’d taken the children in.

  “I don’t know,” Ryan admitted. “It’s the last day their rent is paid, and Mrs. Culpepper insists she wants everything out of the apartment by tomorrow evening. If we haven’t heard from one of the aunts—well, I just don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “You haven’t reconsidered calling the child welfare services?”

  “No. I can’t call them. Not yet.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to keep them with me. At least until we find one of their aunts.”

  Max paused a moment. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll tell Juliana that speed is of the essence. Not that I’ll have to—she’s pretty compulsive when it comes to a challenging case.”

  “You’ve, um, known her awhile?”

  “Since she was a toddler. Her older brother was my best friend.”

  “Was?”

  “He died.” Something in the stark words told Ryan not to ask any further questions.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. I guess I’d better let you go. I’m sure you’re tired.”

  “Yes. I was just about to go to be
d.”

  The pause stretched longer this time. Ryan moistened her lips.

  When Max spoke again, his voice sounded just a bit husky. “Sleep well.”

  “Good night, Max.”

  Her hand wasn’t quite steady when she hung up the phone. She climbed beneath the covers, turned off the lamp and lay in the darkness, achingly aware of how empty her bed seemed tonight—and wondering if Max would ever kiss her again.

  9

  RYAN RECEIVED A RESPITE of sorts the next day. Though she dreaded doing it, she called Mrs. Culpepper midmorning to talk about the apartment. The landlady told her that she’d already rented the place, then added that the new tenants had put down a deposit, but wouldn’t be moving in until the middle of December.

  “You’ve got that long to clean it out,” she added. “After that, I’m going to have to get rid of the stuff.”

  “You’re being very generous,” Ryan said, though it galled her to say so. “We’re doing everything we can to locate Opal and Essie, and I promise we’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.”

  “Yeah, okay. You’re takin’ care of the kids?”

  “Yes, I’m taking care of them,” Ryan said, softening a bit. At least the woman had asked about the children, whether she was sincere or not. “How are you? Is your cold any better?”

  “Not much,” she replied, sniffling. “But I’ll be all right. Got somethin’ here to take for it.”

  Ryan was sure she did. Probably the kind of “medicine” that came in a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. And then she chided herself for being ungracious. “I’ll be in touch,” she promised.

  The next number she dialed was her brother’s office. “I have the children,” she told him, and then explained the situation.

  Nick sounded resigned. “I didn’t think it would be long before you took them home with you,” he admitted. “So I’ve been calling in some favors. I have legal permission for you to take care of the kids for the next couple of weeks, or until one of the aunts is located.”

  “You do?” Ryan asked, startled. “But how—”

  “The juvenile judge is a good friend of mine. As I said, he owes me a few. This isn’t permanent, you understand, and you have no real authority when it comes to the kids. You’re simply the official baby-sitter for a couple of weeks.”