Love beneath the christm.., p.1
Love Beneath the Christmas Tree, page 1
Love Beneath the Christmas Tree
by Jae
Published by Ylva Publishing, legal entity of Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
http://www.ylva-publishing.com
Copyright 2013 Ylva Publishing
Smashwords Edition
Edited by Judy Underwood and Anna Genoese
Cover Design by Amanda Chron
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and locations are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Love Beneath the Christmas Tree
JAE
Table of contents
The Christmas Grump
Kissing Ms. Santa Claus
The Christmas Elf
About Jae
Other books from Ylva Publishing
Coming from Ylva Publishing in Spring 2014
The Christmas Grump
Rachel Lewis glanced at her wristwatch and groaned. Not even six. Wonderful. Five more hours in this seventh level of hell, otherwise known as the shopping mall one week before Christmas.
Jingle Bells blared from the mall’s sound system for the hundredth time. Rachel weaved around shoppers loaded down with bags, keeping an eye out for shoplifters and pickpockets. Normally, she stopped to chat with the cute barista in the coffee shop and the grandfatherly man working in the toy store, but today, the overworked salespeople were busy with the flood of customers, so Rachel just peeked in on the crowded stores and continued on her patrol.
Oh, yeah. Christmas—time of quiet contemplation. Right.
Her walkie-talkie flared to life. “Phillips to Lewis.” Mike’s voice was almost drowned out by Christmas carols and shouts in the background. “Where are you?”
Rachel pressed the button on her two-way radio. “Heading up to the food court.”
“Want to meet me for a quick break?”
“Sure.”
They met up in front of the pretzel stand, as they always did. Mike handed her a paper cup of coffee while Rachel bought two pretzels. “Thanks.” She sipped her coffee and, over the rim of the cup, let her gaze sweep over the crowd. “I can’t wait for this carnage to be over and for things to go back to the normal level of craziness.”
“Carnage?” Mike laughed. “Where’s your Christmas spirit?”
“Maybe one of the fourteen pickpockets and shoplifters I caught this week stole it,” Rachel said.
“Oh, come on.” Mike nudged her, nearly making her spill coffee over her light gray uniform shirt and the black tie. “Don’t be such a Christmas grump just because we’ve got a few more pickpockets and shoplifters than during the rest of the year.”
Rachel squinted against the blinking lights of the giant Christmas tree, wishing she had brought her sunglasses to work. “Oh, it’s not just the shoplifters. Or the hours of incident reports and paperwork we have to fill out for each of them. Look around. Does this look like a celebration of love, peace, and family harmony?” She pointed at a red-faced mother who yanked a little girl out of a store by her arm, making the girl cry as if she were being dragged over hot coals. They nearly collided with the stretched-out legs of a man who sat on a bench, surrounded by half a dozen shopping bags. With his glassy-eyed stare, his lolling chin, and his arms hanging limply down his sides, he looked as if he had just returned from a trip through the desert. In front of a jewelry store, a young couple was having a shouting match that nearly drowned out Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.
Mike waved around his half-eaten pretzel as if to wipe away her arguments. Crumbs landed all over the security services badge above his left breast pocket. “A few hours of stressful Christmas shopping is a small price to pay for the glow in your partner’s eyes or the happy laughter of a child when they open their presents in front of the Christmas tree.”
Rachel didn’t even have a Christmas tree. Her ex had taken her artificial Christmas tree with her when she left, and Rachel hadn’t bothered to get a new one this year. “Wow.” She forced a grin. “Were you always such a softie, or did having a family turn you into a big marshmallow?”
He flicked a piece of pretzel in her direction. “Maybe you should try it. Might help your attitude.”
Still keeping an eye on the shoppers around them, Rachel quirked an eyebrow at her colleague. “There’s one problem with that.”
“Your sexual orientation? Lame excuse! I have one word for you: sperm bank.”
“That’s two words. And it’s not the problem I was talking about.” Rachel threw her empty coffee cup into a nearby trash can and walked away from the pretzel stand.
Side by side, they patrolled the food court and then rode the escalator to the lower level of the mall.
“What then?” Mike asked after a while.
Rachel stopped in front of a store and let her gaze wander over a group of teenagers lingering in front of a locked glass display holding gaming consoles. “In case you forgot: I’m single.” After growing up as the only child of a hardworking single mom, she knew she would never have a child if she wasn’t co-parenting with another woman.
“Yeah, what’s up with that? Must be...what? Ten months since Jessica dumped your sorry ass?”
“Twelve,” Rachel mumbled.
Mike gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Shit, I forgot. Happened over the holidays, right? Is that why you’re moping around, being a Christmas grump?”
“I’m not moping around, and I’m not a Christmas grump.” Rachel folded her arms over her chest. The ugly end of her last relationship was just one more reason to hate this time of year.
A salesclerk joined the teenagers in front of the display case, so Rachel and Mike continued on their way down the row of stores.
“Why don’t you come over and have dinner with us on Christmas Eve?” Mike asked. “The kids would love to see you again, and Beth’s parents will be there too.”
Rachel shook her head. A pity invitation for the adopted spinster aunt. No, thanks. “Maybe another time.” She would order pizza, ignore the sappy movies on TV, and go to bed early.
Mike groaned. “Ah, come on, Rach. You can’t leave me alone with my in-laws.”
“Sorry, pal. You married the woman, so her parents are all yours.” She had never met Beth’s parents, but if only half of Mike’s stories were true, she had no desire to change that anytime soon.
They passed a toy store, and Mike slowed to look at something displayed in the window. “Hey, think Hannah would like that horse over there?”
Rachel glanced at the pink horse, took in its braided, glittering mane, and shrugged. “I haven’t got a clue what a six-year-old would want for Christmas. Why don’t you ask Beth?”
“Yeah, I better. She wasn’t happy when I bought Josh that radio-controlled hummer last Christmas.”
Rachel snorted. “Because Josh was barely two. The only kid playing with that hummer was you.”
The reflection in the store window showed her Mike’s rueful grin.
Something on the other side of the glass caught Rachel’s attention.
The aisles looked like Egypt during the locust plague. Children and adults swarmed the toy store, leaving salesclerks scrambling to restock. In the middle of all the hustle and bustle, one child stood motionless.
The boy—Rachel guessed him to be around six or seven—stared up at a box of Legos, not even looking away when other shoppers jostled him. Tousled black hair stuck out from under a knit cap, and a pair of gloves made of the same wool dangled around his neck. From where Rachel was standing, it looked as if the thumb of the left glove was a bit too long. The boy’s coat seemed to be clean and warm, but the colors were faded as if a succession of other kids had worn it before him, and his boots looked two sizes too big for a boy of his size.
His clothing told a story that Rachel knew only too well. Whoever the kid’s parents were, they couldn’t afford the brand-name clothes the mall sold. And they sure as hell can’t afford the overpriced toys and gadgets in that store.
“What are you staring at?” Mike had turned toward her.
Rachel didn’t glance away from the kid in the toy store. “That boy.”
“Boy?” Mike chuckled. “And here I thought you had an eye only for the ladies.”
“Very funny.” Rachel dragged him around by the shoulder. “Keep an eye on that boy over there. Look at how he’s staring at those toys. I think he’s about to become arrest number fifteen.”
“There you go again, being a Christmas grump,” Mike said. “Why do you always assume the worst? Maybe the Lego robot is on his wish list for Christmas, and he just can’t decide if he wants his parents to get the red or the blue one.”
“Yeah, right.” Christmas was turning her colleague into a sentimental fool, but she would keep an eye on the boy.
Their walkie-talkies crackled. A tinny voice shouted, “Phillips? Lewis? I need help in the parking lot. Someone’s jacking a car!”
One hand on the Taser hooked to her duty belt, Rachel started to run, Mike righ
When they passed the toy store again ten minutes later, dragging two cuffed teenagers to the security office, the boy was gone.
* * *
The EAS alarm went off at the exit of a toy store just as Rachel passed by. She rolled her eyes. Christ, that must be the twentieth time today.
With a neutral expression, she stepped up to the shopper who had just left the store. “Sir, would you mind walking through the gate again, please?”
“I didn’t steal anything,” the wide-eyed older man said. He lifted his hands in the air as if she was about to shoot him.
“I’m not saying you did.” Rachel kept her voice calm. “Just step through the gate again, please, and we’ll clear this up in no time.”
When he stepped back into the store, the alarm beeped.
“Is there anything you might have forgotten to pay for, Sir?” Rachel asked. That, of course, was security guard speak for “Did you, by any chance, try to rob the store blind?”
“No. I just bought a video game for my grandson, that’s all.” He opened his shopping bag and showed her the game and the receipt.
After working at the mall for three years, Rachel had developed a sixth sense that worked better than the unreliable EAS gates. This guy didn’t set off her personal alarm. “Do you mind if I take this back to the cashier? They might have forgotten to properly deactivate the security tag on the game.”
Nine times out of ten, that turned out to be the cause of the problem.
When the customer followed her to the cash register and they stood waiting for the cashier to check the tag, Rachel looked around the busy store.
Her gaze wandered along an aisle—then snapped back to the shelf with the Lego robots.
Right there, in the exact same place as the day before, stood the boy with the uneven gloves.
Rachel watched him, making sure that he wasn’t trying to conceal any of the toys beneath his worn coat, but he just stood there, staring at the robots.
Where are his parents? She looked up and down the aisle but found no adult who seemed to belong to the boy.
The boy couldn’t be older than seven, yet he was alone in the middle of the huge, crowded mall.
She took one step toward him, but before she could reach him, the cashier started to apologize profusely to the customer with the video game. At the same time, the EAS went off again.
Biting back a curse, Rachel whirled around to repeat the whole process.
* * *
Rachel rode the escalator up to the food court and nodded at a uniformed police officer who passed her. Her stomach rumbled when the aromas of pizza and Chow Mein wafted over. She glanced at her watch. Her shift was far from over, but things had been too busy for a proper lunch break. Maybe a quick burger while I walk.
She headed toward one of the fast-food places and was about to enter when the door was pushed open, nearly hitting her in the face.
A petite woman in the fast-food chain’s uniform rushed out. She almost collided with Rachel and paused in her mad dash. “Oh, Officer!” Fear-widened blue eyes looked up at Rachel. “Have you seen my son? He’s seven and about this tall,” she gesticulated with a trembling hand, “and he...he’s got...black hair.” She ran one hand over her long, black hair, which was pulled back into a ponytail that threatened to come undone any moment. A few strands already fell into her pretty face.
“Ma’am, calm down.” Rachel laid a calming hand on the woman’s upper arm. Beneath the odor of deep-frying fat, she caught a whiff of the woman’s scent—just shampoo and soap, no cloud of perfume or overpowering Christmas scents. Nice, she thought, then chided herself and directed her attention back to the problem at hand. “Where did you last see him?”
The woman bounced on her tiptoes and craned her neck as if hoping to catch a glimpse of her son. “I couldn’t get a babysitter this week, so I had to bring him to work. He was supposed to wait in the back room, but he somehow slipped out without me noticing and now he’s gone!”
Rachel’s thoughts returned to the many afternoons she had spent coloring in the back room of a diner while her mother worked one of her three jobs. “He probably just got bored,” she said in her most soothing tone. “Do you have a photo of him?”
“Oh, yes, sure.” Her hands still trembling, the woman opened her wallet, dug inside, and fanned out half a dozen pictures. “This is Tyler.”
A grinning boy, black hair mussed, looked back at Rachel with eyes the same startling blue as his mother’s.
Rachel squinted down at the photo. I’ve seen him before. Isn’t that...? She gently gripped the woman’s elbow. “Come with me, ma’am. I think I know where to find your son.”
* * *
“Ty!” The woman rushed toward the boy in the Lego aisle and wrapped him in her arms as if she never wanted to let him go again.
Rachel paused a few yards away, not wanting to interrupt their private moment.
Slowly, the woman let go of her son and crouched to his eye level. Her hand still trembled as she smoothed an errant strand of hair under his cap. “God, Tyler, you scared me half to death! Please, don’t ever do that again. You can’t just run around the mall without me knowing.”
“I didn’t run away, Mom,” he mumbled and pointed at the shelf. “I just wanted to look at the robot.”
The woman glanced at the toy. Her full lips compressed into a tight line. “I know.” She straightened and wrapped one arm around his shoulders. There was something vulnerable but at the same time strong about her. When she turned, her gaze fell on Rachel. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I—”
Rachel’s walkie-talkie chose the worst possible moment to interrupt. “Rach?” Mike’s voice came through the walkie-talkie. “Can you come over to the office? Winona is at it again.”
Dammit! The woman nicknamed Winona was caught shoplifting at least once a week, and while Rachel normally found her entertaining, she didn’t want to go and deal with her now. “I’m on my way,” she said into the walkie-talkie. She glanced down to find two sets of blue eyes looking at her and gave a regretful shrug. “I have to go.”
“Thanks again and take care,” the woman said, making eye contact.
“You too.” With one last glance over her shoulder, Rachel strode toward the office.
* * *
“Pretzel?” Mike asked when they met up for a quick break.
Rachel shook her head and lifted her lunch. “I already got something.”
“Fast food again? You got a thing for burgers now?”
“No,” Rachel said. Not for burgers. She had gone by the burger place twice in the last two days, but Tyler’s mother hadn’t been behind the counter either time.
They continued their patrol.
When they passed the toy store, Rachel’s gaze automatically zeroed in on the spot in front of the Lego shelf. She halted midstep.
Tyler stood in the middle of the aisle again.
“Hold this.” She pressed the burger into Mike’s hands and entered the store. “Hello, Tyler.” She stopped some distance away so she wouldn’t scare the boy.
He whirled around and stared up at her with his blue eyes.
“Did you get bored in the back room again?”
He shrugged.
“Does your mom or dad know where you are?” Rachel asked.
The boy hesitated but then said, “I don’t have a dad.”
Ah. So his old man cleared out just like mine did as soon as he found out Mom was pregnant. “I don’t have a father either,” she said so he wouldn’t feel so bad. “Your mom seems pretty great, though.”
“Yeah.” He shuffled his feet.
Rachel knew the expression on his face only too well. “She’s working a lot, huh?”
Tyler looked up at her and sighed. “Yeah.” He hesitated again, as if unsure about talking to a stranger. When Rachel just looked at him without trying to pressure him into conversation, he added, “She used to stay home with me before Mama Maggie died.”
