Nick of Time

Mary’s shoulders sagged and her heart sank into her boots. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, ma’am. I wish I wasn’t.” He glanced down the line of rental car counters. “Have you tried the other services here at the airport?”

“Yes, and they all said the same thing.You were my last hope.”

“We just rented out the only car we had left to that gentleman.” He nodded to the man wearing the ridiculous cowboy hat walking away with the last set of keys. “I’m sorry. Perhaps you could find a hotel shuttle to get you to a hotel for the night and see if someone turns in a vehicle in the morning.”

“That’s not an option. I’m not staying in Fairbanks.” Her gaze locked on the man with the last rental car key. Hadn’t he said he was heading for North Pole? If she hurried, maybe she could catch a ride with him. Once she was there, her father would make sure she had a vehicle to get around in.

Balancing her bag of presents in one hand, she turned her rolling suitcase and raced through the airport.

She caught up with him just as he stepped out the door into the continuous twilight of an Alaskan December afternoon. “Sir!”

A bitter wind blew her words away, or the man was ignoring her. He didn’t slow one bit until his cowboy hat flipped off his head and blew straight at Mary.

She let go of her suitcase handle and dove for the hat, catching it before it dropped into a pile of dirty snow. She held it out, pasting a smile on her face. She could have tripped on her own snow boots when the man turned his brown-eyed gaze onto her.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She bit back a smart remark about how most people didn’t wear cowboy hats in December in Alaska. She didn’t know if he had a sense of humor and she definitely didn’t want to make him mad when she planned on begging a ride from him. “Are you headed for North Pole?”

He plunked his hat on his head and didn’t answer for the first five seconds. “Yes.”

Good. He was headed her direction as she’d thought. Mary breathed in a gulp of the icy air. “I’m headed that way myself and you just happened to get the last rental car in the airport. Is there a chance you could give me a lift there?”

His frown deepened. “Yes.”

“I’ll pay you half of your daily rate for today.” Mary stopped and stared at him. “You will?”

“I said yes.” He continued toward the nearly empty rental car parking lot.

Mary scurried after him, wrapping her woolen scarf around the lower part of her face and pulling her hat more firmly about her ears. She’d forgotten how unforgiving the wind blew in Fairbanks.

When they’d settled in the front seat of the sedan, Mary tugged her glove off her right hand. “I’m Mary Christmas. And you are?”

Instead of taking her hand, he stuck the key in the ignition and started the car. “Nick.”

“Nick?” She closed her eyes so that he couldn’t see her rolling them. “Do you have a last name?”

At first she didn’t think he was going to answer. He pushed the shift into Reverse and brushed her arm when he braced his hand on the back of her seat. He was close enough that Mary could smell his aftershave, a potent woodsy, spicy scent. His brown eyes glowed in the light from the dash. “St. Claire.”

Mary caught her breath and stared straight forward.

When Nick had the car in gear, he asked, “Do you know how to get to North Pole?”

“Yes, I lived there most of my life.”

“Then you can navigate.”

“Fair enough.” Mary gave him directions and leaned back in her seat, letting the heat warm her hands and cheeks.

A small smile curled the corners of Nick’s lips. “Aren’t you afraid to ride with strangers?”

“If we’d been in Seattle, I would never have imposed on you, but here in Alaska, it’s probably a fair bet you’re not a mass murderer.”

“I thought people with questionable pasts moved to small towns in Alaska to escape their lives in the Lower 48.”

Mary snorted. “They might think they can escape, but the population is so limited in smaller communities, everyone knows everyone else.”

“Therefore, if a stranger comes to town, everyone would know him as a stranger?”

“Right.” She smiled his way. “You’d definitely stick out as a stranger, especially this time of year. In the summer, not so much. Droves of tourists visit North Pole in their RVs and on tour buses, but they eventually leave. Not many people come in the darkness and freezing temperatures of winter.” Her smile slipped. Some people left Alaska on business trips to warmer climates and greener pastures.

Her lips pulled into a straight line. She’d been so naÏve. That was old news. She’d since moved to Seattle and two years had passed. Mary shook her head to clear the cobwebs and concentrated on the man beside her. “Why are you coming to North Pole? Looking for a place to escape?”

“Would you believe I have business with Santa?”

“Maybe.” Mary stared hard at him. Something about the way he said the words didn’t ring true, but she hadn’t heard much from her father in the past few months. Since her father had found a life of his own and the new wife. Kim.

Nick glanced at her. “What’s Santa’s real name?”

The smile returned to Mary’s face. “Santa Claus.”

“No, really. What’s his real name?”

“For as long as I can remember, he’s always been Santa Claus. I’ve asked him hundreds of times what his real name was, but he never told me. He signs his name as Santa and his Social Security card and driver’s license all say Santa Claus.”

Nick shook his head, a frown dipping between his brows. “I don’t get it.”

Mary shrugged and settled back against her seat, refusing to fall into the trap of trying to explain the whole North Pole, Alaska, and the Christmas Towne phenomenon. Some people didn’t get it. The man next to her probably never would. His loss.

Bradley, the two-timing-bigamist, never understood it either. He’d laughed at the whole concept. He’d probably been laughing at her all along as well. Look at the dumb bumpkin from the sticks of Alaska, too stupid to see through his lies.

The fifteen miles to North Pole flew by. Her heart banged against the inside of her chest when her hometown came into view. Colorful Christmas lights sparkled year-round on the houses and the candy cane lampposts. She never tired of bright colors. Living in Seattle, she missed the cheery lights even in the summertime. As the Christmas Towne store came into view, tears welled in her eyes. Red and white diagonal stripes graced the boxy entrance. Pictures of reindeer and Santa’s sleigh stretched across the whitewashed exterior walls. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed home until she came back.

“This is my stop.” She stared at the building trying to imagine the first impression of a stranger to what she considered home. It looked like a red and white fantasy castle in the middle of the Alaskan landscape. The house beside the store was painted brown and trimmed with fake gumdrops and candy canes; the two buildings could have been out of any child’s most elaborate dream. The little cottage beside the store looked like a gingerbread house good enough to eat, covered in a fluffy foot of snow with drifts up to the windowsills.

A light still shone inside the store. Had her father kept the store open late for the Christmas season? Several cars and a North Pole police SUV stood out front. Christmas Towne had some of the best coffee in North Pole. Many people came all the way out from Fairbanks to eat dinner and buy gifts from the diner and store. They made it a shopping expedition complete with small children anxious to sit in Santa’s lap and tell him all their wishes.

“If you’ll park in front of the store, I’ll introduce you to my fa—Santa.” When he shifted the car into Park, she grabbed for the handle and jumped out, anxious to ask her father what was so important she had to fly home at the drop of a hat. At the same time, she didn’t want to let Nick get away without finding out what business he had with Santa.

Nick popped the latch on the trunk and lifted her suitcase as if it weighed nothing. “I’d appreciate that introduction.”

She led the way to the glass doors and entered. Inside, it wasn’t a mob of shoppers she ran into. Instead, she was met by North Pole police officer Trey Baskin and Chris Moss, one of Christmas Towne’s employees, Betty Reedy, the Christmas Towne baker, and her stepmother, Kim Claus.

They stared at her, their gazes shifting to the man beside her as though seeing her with a man was so unusual they were stunned into temporary silence. Mary sighed. So it had been a while since she’d brought a man home to North Pole—two years to be exact. And this one wasn’t even her man. “Trey Baskin, Chris Moss, Betty Reedy and Kim Claus, this is Nick St. Claire. He was good enough to give me a lift from the airport.”

Chris Moss, the teenager her father had befriended and hired on as full-time staff, was first to stumble forward, his face creased in a worried frown. “Mary, I’m so glad you’re here.” The pale tinge to his young skin set off alarms in Mary’s subconscious. Chris had been the most optimistic teen she’d ever known since her father took him under his wing.