Page 24 of Mountain Daddy
I duck behind the town’s old gazebo — the one they decorate every December with twinkling white lights — and lean against its rail.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I was the one who said just until Christmas.I was the one who said we shouldn’t think about the future.
So why does it feel like something just cracked open inside me?
The wind shifts, carrying faint music and laughter from the square. I sink onto one of the gazebo benches, head in my hands.
“You look like someone stole the star off of your Christmas tree.”
I freeze.
A man sits at the other end of the bench. I didn’t hear him approach. Didn’t see him. He’s wearing a Santa suit — not Henry’s cheap mall version, but a heavier, richer one, the kind that looks handcrafted and warm and impossibly well-kept.
He has kind eyes. Deep laugh lines around his mouth and eyes. And a beard that could either be real or the best fake I’ve ever seen.
For a moment — just one moment — he looks exactly like every storybook illustration I grew up with.
But that’s ridiculous.
I clear my throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… cry.”
“You’re not crying,” he says gently. “You’re thinking. Very hard.”
I laugh weakly. “It’s that obvious?”
“To someone who’s done a lot of thinking in his time,” he replies.
I glance at him. “Do you know Wells?”
His eyes crinkle. “Know of him. Good man. Strong back, soft heart.”
A lump rises in my throat. “He didn’t look like he wanted me anywhere near him tonight.”
“Is that what you saw?” Santa asks softly. “Or what you were afraid of seeing?”
I blink. “He grabbed Elsie and bolted.”
“He grabbed his daughter,” the man corrects gently. “A single father whose whole world suddenly got told he’s marrying the woman he’s terrified to lose.”
I swallow.
“I don’t… I don’t want to hurt him. Or Elsie. Or myself.”
“Then talk to him,” the man says simply. “You’d be surprised how much can be fixed with a little Christmas courage.”
A soft wind blows snow across the gazebo. I blink — and when I look back at the bench, he’s gone.
I stand quickly, looking left, right — but no footprints trail away from where he sat.
Just perfectly smooth snow.
My heart beats a little faster.
Probably nothing.
Probably just my imagination.
