Stranded With Santa. Janet Tronstad

I want to talk to Santa.”

      “But, Mom,” the boy persisted. “I gotta—”

      “Later. I need to talk to Santa alone.” The young woman used her best mother voice. Gentle but firm.

      Zach forgot all about the candy canes. Maybe Santa did have a little sex appeal if an attractive young woman was willing to take a walk in freezing temperatures just to talk to him privately. But he knew that a woman like her was trouble. He’d feel hog-tied after the second date. He’d have to tell her he was just passing through.

      Zach took another look at the woman’s face and hesitated. Maybe he was being too cautious about dating. Just because a second date was out of the question, that didn’t mean a first date was impossible. Even a woman like that wouldn’t have expectations on a first date, would she? A first date was a test with no commitment whatsoever. And that’s all it would be. One date. He could put off starting down to Vegas until morning and still make it. Maybe he should ask her out for dinner tonight. He didn’t see any restaurants in Deep Gulch, but people must go out somewhere.

      “Where do people go around here for fun?” Zach asked as he opened the door for the woman.

      It was only four o’clock in the afternoon, but the cold pinched at Zach’s nose and he was grateful for the warmth of that beard on his face. The temperature had dipped a few degrees just in the time they had been inside. A full-fledged storm was coming.

      “Fun?” The woman looked at him blankly. She crossed her arms against the cold and walked out the door, headed toward the postal truck.

      Zach closed the door and hurried to follow. He could see the goose bumps on her neck in the strip between her collar and her hair. Pinpricks of snow still swirled around in the wind. “You need to wear something heavier than that flannel shirt when you’re outside.”

      The woman walked faster. Her teeth chattered so he could hardly make out her words. “It’ll do.”

      Zach opened the passenger door to the postal truck. The handle was icy to his touch. “Here. Sit inside.”

      Zach closed the passenger door and quickly walked around to the driver’s side.

      “You’ve heard of the North Pole?” the woman asked when Zach was inside and seated.

      “That some kind of night club?” Zach was feeling more hopeful. Now they were talking fun. She didn’t look like the kind of a woman to go to some pole-dancing night club, but you never could tell. Maybe he wouldn’t even need to go to Vegas to find some Christmas cheer. Pole dancing was as good as the showgirl stuff anyday.

      “Huh?” the woman looked bewildered.

      “The doc could watch the kids,” Zach thought out loud. He felt a little bad about the kids, but the old doctor would treat them fine. He probably even had more of those candy canes. The kids could do without their mother for one night. Shoot, some kids would be glad to spend a night apart from their mother.

      “The North Pole,” the woman repeated as if she had doubts about his mental abilities. “You know—that place where Santa Claus makes his toys.”

      “Oh.” So much for pole dancing. Zach reached up and turned on the heat. The engine was still warm and gave off a soft wave of hot air. “I didn’t know you meant that North Pole. Sure, I know it.”

      “Well, Andy is going to give you a letter to deliver to Santa Claus at the North Pole. Just go along with it, okay?”

      “Sure,” Zach shrugged. “I’ll tell him I ride my horse, Thunder, right up there every night.”

      Jenny frowned. “Don’t overdo it. He’s four, but he’s not gullible.”

      Zach refrained from pointing out that the boy still believed in Santa Claus. “Anything you say.”

      Zach smiled.

      Jenny frowned.

      Zach got a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror and frowned, too. No wonder the woman was still cool to him. He looked like a lunatic. His beard was crooked and, instead of hair, it looked as if it were made of yarn that some cat had chewed. Zach pulled the beard down past his chin and let it settle around his neck. He pushed the Santa hat far enough back on his head so that she could see his hair. That should make her relax.

      It didn’t.

      Jenny’s frown turned to an expression of alarm. “You look just like that…that cowboy on the cereal box.”

      Zach relaxed. He was home free. She’d seen the Ranger boxes. “He’s me—I mean, I’m him.”

      “But you can’t be.”

      Jenny tried not to stare at the man’s face. His cheekbones were high; his eyebrows black and fierce looking when he wasn’t smiling. It was the middle of winter and his tan was only partially faded. The golden flecks in his brown eyes saved his face from being too severe. Nothing saved it from being the handsomest face she had ever seen.

      Jenny had dreamed of that face ever since Andy had convinced her to buy the first box of that cereal a year ago. She must have bought three dozen boxes this last year alone. And that wasn’t the worst of it. She’d been talking to the box.

      Jenny was a private person and she didn’t admit her unhappiness to anyone. But, one morning at a solitary breakfast, she’d poured out her troubles to the face on the back of the box and she’d been talking to it ever since. Only the face on the box knew of her disappointment with her marriage. To the rest of the world, her marriage was fine and her husband was the good-natured man he appeared to be to others. But the box knew the truth.

      She’d told that box things she wouldn’t have admitted to a priest, and now it sat before her. She felt betrayed. Pictures on cereal boxes were not supposed to spring to life in front of your eyes.

      “—you just can’t be him.”

      “Well, everybody’s got to be somebody.”

      Jenny panicked. Not only was the face here, it was—unless she missed her guess—also teasing her. Maybe even flirting with her. It was awful—like the Pope asking you out on a date. “You’ll have to go.”

      Okay, Zach thought to himself. Definitely not a pole dancer. Which was fine. He had his good time waiting in Vegas. “Just give me a minute to find another one of those candy canes and I’ll be happy to head out. I need to get back before the storm hits anyway.”

      Jenny looked up. “I thought you said you’d take a picture with Andy.”

      “I did, but I thought you were, well, in a hurry for me to leave.”

      “No, I’m just, well, I don’t want to take more of your time. But a picture only takes a second.”

      Jenny forced herself to look the man in the face. It wasn’t his fault she’d started talking to his picture.

      “Okay. Fine. Whatever you want.”

      Jenny forced herself to smile. “It’s just that you’re the only Santa around.”

      Zach grunted. “No problem.”

      “And I appreciate you bringing out everything for Delores. And the candy canes, too. That was very nice of you.”

      “Delores bought the canes. I’m just passing them out for her.”

      “Still…”

      Zach noted that the woman’s face had relaxed. The goose bumps had left. The air inside the truck wasn’t white with trails of exhaled air. “Not a problem. I’ll even tell that boy of yours I’ll take his letter to Santa.”

      “I’m sorry I can’t—I mean, I don’t date anyway—not that you were asking me out.” Jenny stopped in embarrassment.

      “Oh, but I was asking you out. At least I was heading in that general direction.”

      Jenny