Betting On Santa. Debra Salonen

difficult during the holidays. Is it serious?”

      The woman nodded, her lips pressed together as if fighting any outward display of emotion. Big Jim would have approved. His ex-father-in-law had once advised Cole that the key to selling real estate was to never let anyone past the outer wall. “Never let people know you’re emotionally invested. Show them your soft underbelly and they’ll gut you.”

      Cole had been gutted—once.

      He slid carefully off the chair and, as discreetly as possible, shook his beard into the towel his mother was holding.

      The woman noticed, and immediately stooped to collect her purse, which she’d dropped to the pavement. “I’ll pay to have the suit cleaned.”

      “Oh, don’t fret,” his mother said. “Don’t think for a minute this sweet child is the first to ever throw up on Santa. Ray—our usual Saint Nick—could tell you stories that would curl your hair.”

      “I think I nailed him when I was six or seven, right, Mom?” Cole asked. “And I still got a train set that year.”

      Before she could reply, the jaunty jingle of a cellular ring tone chimed. The stranger reached unerringly into an outer pocket of her Coach bag—one of his ex-wife’s favorite brands—and pulled out a high-tech-looking phone. Cole had always had the most up-to-date gizmos on the market when he’d been a Realtor. Connectivity meant opportunities. Opportunities meant money. Now, he didn’t even have a landline to his house.

      “Excuse us a minute,” he said, nodding toward his mother to take their cleanup efforts behind the dais.

      Tessa watched him amble away with a graceless gait that didn’t match his youthful voice. She knew by the musical tone that the caller was her mother. She also knew what Autumn’s question would be— “Did you find him? Did you find Cole Lawry?”

      Tessa could have answered, “Yes, Mom, I’m looking right at him.” But that would have revealed more than she was ready to discuss in such a public setting. She flipped open the phone. “Hi, Mom. How’s Sunny?”

      “The same as when you left. The doctor still hasn’t been in and nobody will tell me anything, but that’s not why I called. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry I lost my temper. I know you’re doing what you think is best and maybe you’re right. If that man is Joey’s father, then I guess he should be informed about Sunshine.”

      For the second time in five minutes, Tessa had to fight back tears. What’s wrong with me? A delayed reaction to everything that had happened, she figured, including the tense drive over the same road her sister had been traveling when she crashed her rental car and wound up in a coma.

      “It’s okay, Mom. We’re both dealing with a lot.”

      Understatement of the year.

      “Have you found him yet?” “Yes, but we haven’t had a chance to talk. Too much going on. He’s playing Santa at a holiday bazaar.”

      “How did you find that out?”

      “Joey and I stopped at a café and I asked our waitress about Cole Lawry. We left the car at the diner and walked the couple of blocks here.”

      “Must be a pretty small town if everybody knows everybody. So you talked to him? Do you think he’s the one?”

      Tessa glanced toward the ornate chair where she’d openly studied the man playing Santa Claus. “He’s wearing a white beard and has a couple of pillows stuffed around his middle, Mom. It’s kinda hard to tell what he looks like. But he has blue eyes.”

      Intriguing blue eyes.

      “Oh,” Autumn said. “Where is he now?”

      “Probably changing clothes. Joey threw up on his lap. Too much excitement, I think, although he might be coming down with something.” She put the back of her hand to her nephew’s forehead. “He feels slightly feverish.”

      “Oh, my poor bubba. Can I talk to him?”

      Tessa lowered her purse to the ground again, then stood Joey on his feet. She knelt in front of him. “Grams is on the phone, sweetie. Wanna tell her good-night?”

      He nodded and took the phone from her.

      Knowing how short his attention span was and that he tended to drop things he no longer wanted, Tessa hovered over him. The tiny respite gave her mind a chance to weigh the pros and cons of continuing her plan or trying to come up with an alternative.

      She looked around the church parking lot. The people who had been wandering among the booths when she and Joey first arrived were mostly gone. Only a few cars and trucks remained. A dozen or so women chatted in small groups, some calling out to each other as they carried stock to their minivans. Tessa couldn’t see any children.

      That made her realize how late it was. She looked up and saw that the stars were out. “Damn,” she muttered.

      Her rental car was three blocks away and the town didn’t look as though it had made streetlights a priority.

      “O…kay,” Joey said in the singsong way that meant he was done with whatever it was he’d been doing. He opened his hand.

      She caught the cherry-red phone inches from the pavement, her heart racing. This was her most immediate and tangible connection to the real world. The flight to Texas had been awful—made worse by the fear that her sister wouldn’t be alive when they got here; spending hours in a hospital watching Sunny confined to a bed, wires and machines attached to her body, was too scary to be real. Her cell phone, laptop and Black-Berry were Tessa’s touchstones of normalcy.

      She decided not to call her mother back to say goodbye. Instead, she’d phone from the motel. She’d booked the place online and used her credit card to pay for it, so hopefully they were holding a room even though she was late checking in. Pocketing the phone, she stood and held out a hand. “I guess we’d better head back to the car, pal. It’s getting dark. Maybe we can see Santa another time.”

      Joey looked toward the dais just as a lean man with sandy-blond hair and broad shoulders emerged from behind the curtained area. Santa’s changing room, she assumed. Instead of a red suit, he wore jeans, thick-soled work boots, a gray T-shirt and zippered sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed back on his well-muscled forearms. The sweatshirt bore a logo she couldn’t make out.

      “Oh, good, you’re still here,” he said, jogging toward them. His smile struck her as friendly and real. He seemed nice. Too nice to be the recipient of the news she was there to deliver.

      “We were just leaving. It sure gets dark fast around here.”

      “Yeah, I know. Mom said she thought she saw you walk up. Are you staying nearby?”

      “The Trail’s End Motel. But we walked here from the diner. The waitress said it was only a couple of blocks away, but they were really big blocks.”

      He gave her a rueful grin. “Yep, this is Texas. Everything’s bigger. I’m guessing you’re not from around here.”

      “Oregon,” she said, watching for some kind of reaction.

      “Wow. Long way from home. Can I give you a lift to your car? River Bluff isn’t exactly famous for its sidewalks.”

      A voice in her head warned against hopping into a car with a stranger, but she made a snap decision. “Sure. Thanks.” He was the man she’d come here to find. Although he didn’t know that or he might not have been quite so kind and generous. “I take it you’re off duty?”

      “Till six-thirty tomorrow. The regular you-know-who broke his hip. I’m a last-minute replacement.”

      Tessa was touched by his acknowledging Joey’s presence, although she could tell Joey wasn’t paying attention to either of them. When the little boy ran out of steam, he had a tendency to drop, wherever he was.

      “Is your car nearby?”