Marrying Miss Kringle: Frost

by McConnell, Lucy

  “The elves know. Dad knows. They’ll help you.” Frost had to believe that. The elves paid attention to her methods; surely they’d picked up some of her preferences. “He did all this before I did.”

  “Dad’s busy with Lux and Quik trying to stabilize the magic room.”

  “Stabilize?”

  “Can’t you feel the floor tipping?”

  Frost stared at the desk where her purse sat precariously. Her perfectly level desk that wasn’t level now. “Balance needs to be restored.”

  Ginger nodded. “They’re adding shims under one side of the substation to keep it level. I can’t add this to Dad’s plate. I’ll bring Joseph in—he planned to take November and December off of carving.”

  Frost’s guilt doubled. Now she’d ruined her brother-in-law’s holiday. Not only that, but she’d hoped to be the one to get married and level everything out. She’d not only messed that up, but left a pile of reindeer droppings in her wake.

  Ginger took Frost by both hands. “You’d better get back before Christmas.”

  “How?” Frost stomped her foot. “How do I undo this?” She was so mad at herself for throwing away her family and Christmas and all that she held dear for a charlatan.

  Ginger pressed her lips together and smiled. “Restore Christmas Spirit.”

  “Where? How?”

  Ginger squeezed her hands. “Think, Frost. You read letters every year from all over the world—surely you can find a place that’s missing Christmas Spirit or know of a Grinch.”

  Frost gasped. A Grinch. A big, Tannon-sized Grinch. No. She couldn’t.

  The door flew open and slammed against the wall, making both sisters jump. Dad stood there, almost filling the doorway. He’d recently exhibited the ability to grow when he was angry, making him look more like a Viking king out to pillage than the mild-mannered grandfather who delights children the world over.

  “Frost.” Her name bellowed through the open room. “What have you done?”

  Frost shivered. And then a thought appeared that made her question just how far Christmas Magic could reach. With a firm plant of her shoe in the carpet, she shook her finger in the air. “Why now?” With a flip of her hair, she marched right up to Dad’s face and shook that finger at his slightly red nose. “I’ve been writing Tannon for years. Years. And Christmas Magic didn’t care until Ginger read my letter. Why now?”

  Dad shrank in size, his belly growing out and his shoulders growing in. He chewed on his lower lip as he thought, making his beard dance and pop. “Tannon? Tannon Cebu, the amputee?”

  Frost stuck her tongue to the roof of her mouth and nodded. They may have found out about the letters, but Dad didn’t know what was in them. If this letter was like the others Tannon had written, then Ginger would have a pretty good idea of what was going on.

  Dad tugged on his beard as he thought. “It could be that it didn’t mind so much because your motives were pure. I remember when you brought me his letter—you were so upset that we couldn’t fix his leg. I think Christmas Magic may have looked the other way because you were spreading Christmas joy to someone who needed it very much.” His blue eyes, so much like Gingers, sharpened. “What changed?”

  Frost cleared her throat. “I may have met him.”

  Ginger shook Frost’s arm. “Keep talking.”

  “And he was horrible, just horrible. He cancelled Christmas in Elderberry.”

  Ginger’s hands flew to her mouth and Dad clucked disapprovingly.

  Aware that she’d cast Tannon in the role of Christmas villain and that her family would never consider him for the good list, she backpedaled. “Not for the whole town—just at his paper plant.” Frost dropped her gaze to her red heels with tiny cherry blossoms on the fabric. Her black silk pants were set off by a green kimono shirt with the same blossoms stitched into the hem and around the neckline. “Which employs most of the town.”

  Ginger’s face suddenly brightened. “That’s fantastic!” She clapped her hands together, her red-and-white-striped fingernails flashing like a Christmas sale sign on December 23rd. A warm and calming breeze brushed Frost’s hair off her shoulder, and she sent Ginger a warning look.

  Dad’s white, full eyebrows lowered.

  Ginger didn’t wait for either of them to ask her what she meant. She plowed on ahead like she was in a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer. “Frost has to restore Christmas Spirit somewhere—she should do it in Elderberry.”

  “No.” Frost sliced her hand through the air. The last place in the world she wanted to be was anywhere near Tannon Cebu. Her heart wasn’t fully healed from the loss of the chance to love him.

  “Yes.” Dad struck his finger into the air, ceasing Ginger’s windy excitement. “It’s perfect.”

  “It’s not,” Frost insisted.

  “But it is.” Dad’s eyes twinkled, all merry and bright. His heart was so full of hope that Frost had a hard time not jumping on the one-horse open sleigh and heading for Oregon. “Tannon trusts you. He knows who you are. All you have to do is convince him that it’s true, restore his faith in Christmas, and get him to celebrate it with the plant.”

  Frost cocked a hip. “Oh, is that all?”

  Ginger and Dad gave her twin looks of confusion. Her cocked hip was more a Stella move than a Frost move, and she was rarely the sarcastic daughter—that was more of a Robyn thing. Well, she was entitled to her own feelings, and she’d kept herself folded into an envelope for years. She felt everyone else’s feelings; why not allow herself to feel hers, too?

  Ginger shook off her shock first. “You can do this, Frost. There’s no one jollier than you in all of the North Pole.”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “Exactly. You’ve always been so happy—like princess happy. You can spread some of that around Elderberry, and they’ll be singing like Whos around a giant tip-toppily tree in no time.”

  Frost liked the image Ginger painted, but she was at a loss as to how to make that happen. She’d always been happy because she’d had Tannon in her back pocket, a secret delight all to herself. Without him, without a letter to look forward to, she wasn’t sure she was as jolly as Ginger claimed and the task ahead seemed abominable.

  Dad took her hand and pressed a kiss to the back. “I believe in you, Frost.”

  Those words, which meant so much to Santa, were like hot pokers edging her towards the door. She reached for her Kringle bag, half expecting it to slide away from her like the letters. It didn’t, and she slipped the thin strap across her front. Maybe Christmas Magic believed in her too. Good thing, because she wasn’t feeling that confident in herself.

  Ginger and Dad hugged her before turning to the letters on her desk, which practically leapt into their outstretched hands as if they’d been dying to be read. Frost glared at them, traitors that they were, before making her way to the stables.

  The barn, normally a bustle with elves caring for the animals, was empty. The lack of jingle bells ringing was eerie, and Frost had to force her feet forward on the uneven ground. The slope was more pronounced here where the ice wasn’t covered by carpet and her feet slipped easily.

  She walked along the individual stalls, deciding which reindeer to take with her, the straw whispering under her feet as she walked.

  She would need an animal that could be closed up in a barn for as long as it took Frost to complete her mission. She wasn’t in a big hurry to get there, so speed wasn’t much of an issue. She stopped in front of Vixen’s half door with a sprig of mistletoe carved into the wood. His chin hair was silver and his coat was dull. He didn’t look like he could spend long periods of time away from the North Pole, the constant care the elves heaped upon him, and the large feedings of oats and carrots.

  She moved on. Prancer turned his nose up at her and flicked his antlers. “Well—we’re full of attitude and … scorn.” Now Christmas Magic was turning the reindeer against her. She slunk ahead.

  Kennedy huffed loudly. Dunder was sympathetic but no
t interested in her plight. Blitz practically laughed her out of her stall. Frost was beginning to wonder if she could make it back to Elderberry without asking someone to drive her when Max poked his head over the door. His big brown eyes, rimmed with blonde lashes, beckoned her near.

  Max wasn’t the best or brightest reindeer in the stable. His belly could rival Santa’s bowl full of jelly. He was known to just lie down when he was tired and not move until he was darn good and ready. He was also known to look at the ground when he walked and run into the stable walls. Maybe his lack of common sense was why he didn’t shun Frost.

  “Hey there, Max.” Frost rubbed his forehead, just below his forelock. “You wanna give me a ride?”

  He bumped her arm with his warm nose.

  “At least you’re in the mood to fly.” She unlatched the door, and Max followed her out of the stall, standing in front of a rickety old sleigh. “No, boy. We’re going to take one of the newer sleighs.” She stepped backwards, towards the same sleigh she and her sisters had taken to Elderberry.

  Max shook his antlers. He kicked the sleigh behind him as if to say, “This one.”

  Frost rubbed her lips together. “Will that thing even fly?”

  “It’ll fly, but you’re in for a bumpy ride,” said Selora as she approached with a harness.

  Frost eyed her warily as she harnessed Max. “Where are all the elves?”

  Selora’s hands only paused for a second, like her hands were stuttering. “They don’t take to outsiders.”

  Frost slumped against the old sleigh, earning a splinter in her arm. The sting in the flesh was nothing compared to the sting in her heart. At least she still had some of her Kringleness—healing and good health would come in handy. “I’m a Kringle.”

  Selora slapped the leather into place. “Then act like one.”

  Frost’s mouth fell open and she snapped it shut. “Elves are supposed to be jolly,” she snapped as she climbed aboard the sleigh and threaded the leather reins through her fingers. She hadn’t packed a bag, and she suddenly felt unprepared without her clothing. Tilly would have created a practical outfit for restoring Christmas Spirit. Every stitch was a stitch of love, and she was heading into the world without that love. Christmas Magic had been her champion throughout her life, and it was her turn to champion Christmas—and she was a poor knight in tinsel armor.

  The only thing she had packed was Tannon’s letter—still unread. She didn’t feel right reading something she knew was a farce. And yet she’d tucked it in her Kringle bag, carefully.

  Selora stalked away without another word.

  Frost didn’t blame her for the slight. Christmas Magic had broadcasted her indiscretion and she’d put them all at risk. No one expected the sugarplum-fairy sister to expose their world to a stranger or turn her back on a person in need of Christmas cheer. On top of that, she’d broadcasted an innocence she did not possess. She’d lied to her family and the elves for years. No wonder they considered her a stranger. She was beginning to wonder exactly who she was. Was she the Clark Griswold she’d professed to be, or was she something else? She didn’t know, but she knew what she wanted to be. She wanted to be a Kringle. And there was only one path back to the North Pole, and that path ran directly through Elderberry, Oregon.

  “On, Max!” she called. Max shuffled forward several steps before lunging against the harnesses and lifting them into the air. He stretched his neck forward and twisted it side to side like he was working out kinks in his muscles.

  Frost sat on the seat and a spring poked her behind—one more punishment from Christmas Magic. Seemed the mystical force was determined to make her miserable this year—and every year if she couldn’t bring Christmas into the heart of Old Tannon Cebu.

  The sleigh lurched to the left, a runner shaking with all the intensity of a Christmas storm. She corrected their course and the sleigh lurched to the right. Max turned his head and bellowed at her. “I’m doing my best, but this hunk of junk is in worse shape than you!” she yelled.

  Max snorted, and the next things she knew, they were going down, down, down, with nothing but trees and beach to break their fall. Frost screamed, gripping the leather so tight her tiny hands turned white. Max let out a strangled bugle call, and then they were down. Safe. Well, as safe as someone with a bump on the head and a bruise on her knee. She stumbled from the still-moving sleigh and landed on her hands and knees, breathing hard. “I understand Lux’s fear of flying now,” she said to Max.

  His blond lashes narrowed. He shook off his fur and took off running through the forest.

  “Hey!” Frost stumbled after him, her arm outstretched.

  Max took off, leaving her in a cloud of snowflakes.

  “Thanks for nothing!” she yelled at the sky. At least with her Kringle bag, she could improvise. There were huge trees all around her, planted close together. Yes, planted. Trees didn’t grow this close on their own. That meant she was on private ground, which also meant someone could come along at any minute. Not feeling particularly chatty—okay, she had a case of the Christmas blues—she reached into her Kringle bag and wished for a tent. She pulled one out, still in the protective bag. The charming red tag on the end said: Some Assembly Required. “Very funny.” This was going to be a rough night.

  Part of her believed she deserved everything that came her way. Part of her resented Christmas Magic, Ginger, and Max the grumpy reindeer for getting her into this predicament. And part of her needed some time alone to wallow in hot chocolate. After all, she had a broken heart and would have to face the cause of it all in the morning. If that didn’t earn her some points with Christmas Magic, then she was in deep reindeer doo.

  Chapter 10

  “Look at that!” Tannon pointed over Brody’s shoulder at the spouting mammoth gray whale. The sea was in turmoil today, gray and choppy far below them. The large rock, perched high on the cliffside overlook, was the perfect place to observe the whales without having to face the wild ocean. A light snow fell all around, adding to the magic of the moment.

  His heart yearned for Miss Kringle to share the moment with them. She would love the peace and the quiet and the wonder on Brody’s face. In order for Miss Kringle to spend time with the two of them, he’d have to tell her he had a son, and he wasn’t ready to do that. Having Ms. Cratchit look at him like the worst sort of villain, he wasn’t sure he was the man Miss Kringle thought he was or could be. The thought was unsettling. What if they met and she found him lacking? What would he do then? Who would love him as she did?

  “Whoa.” Brody was appropriately impressed with the blast of water and air shooting into the sky. His hazel-colored eyes went wide. He leaned back from the edge of their boulder as if the water shooting through the air, a hundred yards off the beach below, could reach him.

  Tannon placed a hand on his back to keep the boy from rolling off the other side. He’d intended to take Brody to the Enchanted Forest Amusement Park but didn’t think about the place closing for winter until they were already on the road. This lookout caught his eye and he pulled over out of a desperate need to entertain his son. An informational sign at the base of the rock told them that the whales could often be seen this time on year on their migration to South America. The moment he’d finished reading the words out loud, a whale had breached, drawing Brody’s attention and creating a complete fascination in his wonder-filled eyes.

  “I think there’s three of them.” Tannon continued to point. The water was dark and the sky gray, making it harder to see the large shapes. They could only be certain of the ones who made water spouts. If this was a group of three, then that brought the total sighting to six so far.

  Tannon had spent most of their time together watching Brody watch the whales. This was the most fun he’d had in ages, and all they’d done was sit on a rock and watch the water. But Brody had opened up, talking about everything from his mathlete competition to the upcoming junior basketball season.

  “It’s a baby.” Brody grabbe
d Tannon’s chin and turned his face to the water. Sure enough, there was a smaller lump gliding through the water between the two larger ones.

  Tannon was just about to point out that the two larger whales were the parents when Brody exclaimed, “It’s like me and Grandpa and Grandma.” He clasped his hands together in excitement, and Tannon’s heart sank all the way down the cliff and threw itself into the frigid waters below. His son associated a family image with Grandpa and Grandma more than he did with his own father. What a dreadful outcome of working hard—or working too hard. Not that he wasn’t grateful for all that his parents did for both him and Brody; he was. He just didn’t want to lose his place as a Brody’s father.

  Since he couldn’t contradict Brody without stripping away the child’s joy in the moment, he left the pronouncement hanging out there like rotting seaweed.

  Brody suddenly scooted right next to his leg. “Dad—there’s a lady watching us.” He pointed to the trees a short distance away. This part of Oregon was covered in trees, and these particular trees belonged to the mill. They grew right up to the side of the roads, creating a topless tunnel.

  Tannon blinked out of his sad state and stared into the trees, finding a woman in pink with a shock of white hair. It couldn’t be. Ms. Cratchit had said she didn’t want to see him again. Made it clearer than ice. Yet there she was, hovering on the edge of the forest like some kind of winter nymph.

  He glanced up and down the road, sure he would have heard a car approaching. The lookout was graveled, not paved, and the crunch of tires on rocks would have alerted him to her presence. The way she stood there, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as if she was unsure of the next step to take, made him nervous.