Little Miss Santa Claws

18. Nicole

CHAPTER 18

Nicole

ONE YEAR LATER - CHRISTMAS EVE

“ S hhh ,” I hiss over my shoulder as Abigail and I tiptoe downstairs, my camera hanging around my neck. “If you wake your mother, she’s going to scold us both.”

Abigail’s cherub smile lights up the dark. “I can be quiet. You shhhh .”

I laugh under my breath and nod, taking the small hand she extends to me. First, we sneak into the kitchen and swipe a few cookies and cold milk. Then, we carry them into the living room. We set the plate and cup on the coffee table before settling in on the couch, facing the fireplace. The lights from the Christmas tree softly illuminate the entire room.

When Abigail is halfway through the cookie in her hand, she turns to me, chocolate staining her fingers and face. “What if Santa doesn’t come? What if she forgot where we live?”

I smile. “Santa never forgets about good kids, and you’re a good kid, Abigail.”

She nods, soothed by that simple explanation, and finishes her cookie.

I’d told her the truth, and I had confidence that Missy would show up for Abigail, even if she wanted nothing to do with me. I’d sent hundreds of letters to Santa over the last year, and while I had no way of knowing if they were being delivered or read, I had enough faith to hold out hope, even if I hadn’t heard a single word in return.

Abigail insisted on staying up with me tonight, and I couldn’t bear telling her no, even if I have to carry her to bed in a few minutes when she inevitably falls asleep. I cherish every moment I have with her.

Being around her reminds me of how easy it is to find joy in the small things.

“How does Santa’s sleigh fly?” she asks after swallowing her final bite of cookie, licking her fingers before wiping them clean on her plaid nightclothes. I cringe at the streaks of brown left behind on her shirt. Grace is going to throttle me for letting her stain her Christmas pajamas.

“Well…” I lean back into the cushions and sigh, recalling the events of last year for the millionth time. “The sleigh is engineered with magically infused parts, but it’s like a car. The reindeer help steer the sleigh through the sky, but the actual flying power is maintained by machinery. Everything needs to be properly tuned, or it can be as dangerous as driving a car with faulty parts—you can crash. But you don’t have to worry about that, because Santa is trained to fix the sleigh if anything should go wrong. In fact, that happened last year. An elf called Jack Frost tried to tamper with the sleigh, but Santa crawled underneath it mid-air and fixed it.”

“Wow.” Abigail yawns, her eyes starting to droop. “I hope Jack Frost stays away from the sleigh this year.”

I scoff at the ceiling. “Yeah, me too.”

I hope Jack Frost stays away from Missy period. It’s been a year, though, and who knows what might have happened in that time. Maybe they made up. Maybe they’re back together. That would explain why none of my letters have been returned.

I shake my head, putting those thoughts away.

“In fact,” I murmur, pushing myself off the couch and circling the tree, searching for the ornament my mom brought. She wanted to look at it on Christmas, she said. It was a surprisingly sentimental gesture on her part, but that’s family. They always surprise you, for better or worse. I find the ornament Missy gave to Mom last year and smile when I see the threads of blue magic twirling within the glass. I carry it back to the couch and hand it to Abigail. Her eyes turn into saucers as she takes in the magical glow. “You see that glow? That means Santa is on her way.” Although, Mom didn’t seem to see it today when she was admiring it.

Maybe only true believers can see the magic.

Abigail clutches the glass orb to her chest, relaxing into the crook of the couch cushions. Within a handful of minutes, she drifts off to sleep, just like I expected.

“You sneaks.”

The whispered words slither in from the stairway, and I twist to find Grace gliding down the final steps into the living room.

I lift my hands in surrender. “Hey, I was simply doing my job as the cool aunt. Letting her stay up past bedtime is my right, and if you have an issue with that, take it up with Auntie Julie. I think there’s a Ouija board up in the attic.”

Grace rolls her eyes but perches on the armrest of the couch with a smile. I know she doesn’t really care about us sneaking down here. “I think it’s sweet of you to do this whole Santa thing with Abigail. You made this Christmas really special for her. It’s sad to think that pretty soon, she’ll be too old to believe in it anymore.” She frowns down at her daughter nestled into the corner of the couch.

Her dark brown, curly hair is wild right now—she went to bed without drying it first. We have the same hair, but her eyes are blue like Mom’s. She’s wearing a matching set of those red plaid pajamas, the wooly material clinging to her lush curves. She has gotten even prettier since we were teenagers, but she looks more at peace now. We’ve both done a lot of healing this year.

I sit up, cradling my camera against my stomach. “You’re never too old to believe in Santa.”

Her delicate eyebrows raise. “Is that right? Do you?”

“Don’t you?” I ask with a half-smile. “At least a little bit?”

Grace smirks and then looks between me and Abigail as a genuine smile grows out of her amusement. “This year has been incredible, Nicole, having you around like this. Abigail and Corey love you to pieces—we all do. I really missed you.”

My heart twinges with the reminder of all the time we lost. “I missed you too.”

“Do you have to leave us again so soon?” She grimaces. “I feel like I only just got you back.”

I lick my lips, searching for the right response. “It won’t be forever,” I say slowly. “And I don’t even know if the job is going to work out yet, so let’s not talk about it.”

“You’ve barely said a word about this year-long trip as it is. I have no idea where you’ll even be going, or who exactly you’re going with.”

“I told you about Missy.”

She gives me a withering stare. “You told me about a woman who doesn’t seem to exist.”

“She exists,” I say, a bit more forcefully than I intended.

It’s her turn to lift her hands in surrender. She’s unaffected by my sharp tone, smiling because she’s my little sister, and sometimes, she enjoys ticking me off. “Then maybe you should invite her to Christmas tomorrow.”

“Maybe I will,” I mutter.

“Good.” With that, she stands and turns around to lift her slumbering daughter off the couch. “Night, Nicole. Love you.”

“Love you,” I whisper to her departing form.

Then, silences falls, and it’s filled with all my lingering anxiety and worry, all the fears I cannot voice. What happens if I see Missy again and things have changed between us? What if she fell out of love with me? We’ve been apart for so long… It’s possible.

Let the love in, and when you’re finally full again, give it to someone else.

I’m ready now, but she’s the one I most want to give my love to. So, I have to be brave. I have to have faith in myself. I am worthy of loving and of being loved, and I’ll keep hoping it will be with her until she tells me otherwise.

I put away my doubts and wait.

At exactly half-past midnight, I hear something land on the roof. Clopping hooves, tinny bells. I wiggle upright from where I’d sunk back into the couch. I remove the cover from my camera lens and move to a corner of the room where I’m partially hidden but still have a clear view of the tree. Kneeling, I prepare to capture the moment.

Footsteps echo overhead, drawing a line across the roof to the fireplace flue. Then, the atmosphere in the room shifts.

Soot trickles down the flue.

A soft blue glow appears, pouring out of the hearth and gathering like a cloud in front of the mantle. Then, she walks out of it, looking as beautiful as the day I met her.

Missy .

Her silver hair glistens as she leaps into action, letting the Santa bag roll off her shoulder and land on the floor in front of the Christmas tree. She hemmed her father’s coat—it no longer drags on the ground behind her. Instead of the red shirt she wore last year, she’s wearing a dark camisole with lacy black straps and peek-a-boo stripes that show off the tattoos on her abdomen.

As she crouches next to the bag, I snap a picture, the room lighting up from the flash.

She startles, blinking rapidly in my direction as I straighten to my full height in the corner. I step into the light, and her eyes widen as she stands as well. For a few long moments, we just stare at each other. I can’t bear to be so far away from her, so I step forward, moving slowly.

“Nicole.”

Missy simply says my name, and it’s like my entire body comes to life. My limbs begin to tremble, and my heart flutters like a hummingbird’s wings.

“Fuck,” I exhale. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

Her head tilts to one side, almost in agreement, but she doesn’t come any closer. She only says, “I got your letters. I think you might have beat out little Timmy Turner for the most Santa letters sent in one year. Pretty impressive, actually.”

Her eyes are guarded, but her gaze is intense.

Every day, I wrote to her. And she got the letters. I can’t determine whether or not she read them, though, and I can feel my uncertainty scraping against my nerves.

I chuckle nervously, shifting on my feet.

“Yes, well, I had little else to do all year. I don’t know if you read any of my letters, but I quit my corporate job. I’ve been living here in Wyoming, started a small photography business, and I’m feeling… better . Thank you for the camera, by the way. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me, the pictures especially.” I’m rambling now, but I just can’t stop. I have to fill the silence with as much about my progress as I can, because then, maybe she’ll see I’m good again. Maybe she’ll look at me the way she did in the North Pole—like she wants me. “I’ve uploaded them all to a computer and shared them, so no chance of losing them again. My family was just as excited as I was to have them back.”

The ghost of a smile dances across Missy’s lips, but then she purses them, as if trying to hold on to her composure. She takes a step away from me, and my heart drops.

She nods at the camera in my hand. “I’m not sure I can let you keep that picture.”

“Take it with you then,” I whisper, taking another step toward her, not caring about anything but sliding back into her orbit. I have faith in what we had. I have faith in myself, and my heart is telling me to leap. “Take me with you.”

Her perfect rosy lips part, and a shaky breath saws out of her. “Nicole…”

“Please don’t,” I interrupt, my voice stronger than ever. “Don’t say no. Don’t leave me here. All I can think about is you, Missy. I get up in the morning, and I wipe dreams of you from my eyes. I take pictures of happy couples and beautiful families every day, but in their place, I imagine us —someday, somehow. Don’t say no to this, to us . Say yes. Give me one more chance to love you.”

Missy bursts into motion, crossing the room in a second, and takes my hands in her own. Her composure is crumbling. Gray shadows and her usual rosy complexion battle across her features, and a certain glassiness swims in her eyes.

She speaks, and her voice is a balm to my heart. “I was only going to say that you probably should come home with me tonight, seeing as you left your eyeglasses at my house last year.”

Then she smiles, and the room around us fades away.

I huff a laugh, pulling her toward me by our conjoined hands. “Classic move, right? I’m so lame.”

“No,” she disagrees.

The sharpness of that word gives me pause. “No?”

“You are Nicole Strobe,” she says, her blue eyes sparkling. “You’re 30 years old. You started believing in Santa again exactly one year ago tonight, and from this day forward…” She inches forward slowly, deliberately, until we are chest-to-chest, breathing each other’s air. “You’re mine .”

Santa kisses me, and I am lost again to her orbit.

Her tongue slides into my mouth, and I let her take control. I surrender, letting her have every inch she wants of my body and my heart—because it’s all already hers.

We somehow manage to stumble our way to the couch, and I don’t know how long we lay there kissing and touching and holding one another, but when she finally pulls away, my lips are swollen. I love how she kisses me with the force of a scorching sun, the strength of a beast. It would be a privilege to be kissed by her for the rest of my life.

The rest of my life begins today.

“How do you feel about spending Christmas Day with my family?” I blurt out. “I think they’d like to meet the woman I’m about to disappear with for an entire year.”

Missy blinks, equally surprised and delighted by my question.

“I think that sounds perfect, precious.” She jumps up and extends a hand to help me off the couch. “I do have a few more continents to deliver presents to first, though. Join me?”

Suck it, Grace. The love of my life is coming to dinner.

I take Santa’s hand, grinning so wide that my cheeks ache. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”