Miss Kane's Christmas (10 page)

“Do you want to say good-bye to him?”

Carol shook her head. “It’s better if we just leave.” She took her suitcase in hand and pointed to the window. “If we go out this way, it’s just a short jump to the roof.”

“Lead the way,” Jolly said.

Carol lifted up the window sash and swung a leg over the sill. A blast of cold night air hit her in the face just as the realization that she wouldn’t see Ben or the children again hit her heart. She inhaled. The bite of cold in the air reminded her of home. Home. She needed to focus on where she belonged and not on where she wanted to be.

She swung her other leg over to stand on the ledge. She then tossed her suitcase above her head before she made the small leap to the rooftop, steadying herself before reaching down to help Jolly up. They only needed to wait a few moments before they heard the sound of sleigh bells approaching. When the sleigh touched down they hopped in and Jolly gave the order for them to head back to the North Pole. As they lifted into the air, Carol stuffed her hands into her jacket pocket and closed her eyes. She could handle this. She could go back to her regular life and live without Ben and the children, even if she had to take it one painful, lonely moment at a time.

* * *

As soon as the sleigh was cleared for landing and Carol stepped foot onto the North Pole she was swept into a flurry of activity that befit Christmas World Headquarters on the twenty-third of December.

“Welcome home, Carol,” chorused dozens of Santa’s helpers as she walked down the long gleaming corridor that led to Christmas Central. She waved and smiled as she continued on her way but she didn’t stop to speak with anyone. Her heart was too heavy.

She stood outside her father’s double oak office doors and took a moment to compose herself as best she could. Her father wouldn’t be angry with her because she hadn’t convinced Ben to love Christmas, she knew that. She’d never seen Santa angry. Knowing him, he wouldn’t even be disappointed, which, somehow, made it all the harder to bear.

She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. Her heart felt a rush of warmth when she saw her father studying an old fashioned world map hung on the back wall of his office. She didn’t have to speak because he turned at the sound of the door.

A loving smile stretched across his face and his blue eyes shone. “Carol, my lovely girl, welcome home.” He held out his arms and she ran to him and hugged him more fiercely than she’d ever done before.

“Honey, honey, it’s all going to work out.” He held her at arm’s length and searched her face. “I promise we’ll sort through this.”

She shook her head and wiped away the few tears that escaped her eyes. “No Dad, there’s nothing to sort out. I’m sorry about-”

Santa held up a white gloved hand to stop her apology. “Hush, child. You’ve nothing to apologize for. In fact, your mother and I were just saying this morning that you did us proud with the way you handled everything at the Hanson’s. You saved Christmas for those two children and that is a precious gift. Now, do you want to talk about your Ben now or later?”

“He’s not my Ben, Dad.” Carol put her hand over her chest in a futile effort to stop her heart from aching. “What I really want to do now is get to work.”

“You’ve come to the right place then.” Santa crossed to his desk, took a sheath of papers from the top of a mountainous stack and handed them to her. “These are the conflicting naughty versus nice reports, and I need someone I can trust implicitly to make decisions.”

Carol nodded. This she could do. “I’ll just go and find Mom, say hello and then I’ll get right to these.”

“Thank you, my dear. Your mother is supervising the routine maintenance check on my sleigh, you know how she is about that.”

“You two are lucky to have each other.” She tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage, not while she was fighting back tears.

“Luck has nothing to do with it. It’s destiny.”

“Not now, Dad, please.” A change of subject was in order. Her younger sibling was always a safe distraction. “Where is Nicholas?”

Santa shook his head ruefully. “It seems as if both of my children have been busy falling in love. You with your Ben, and Nicholas with his new assistant. So, wherever the lovely Holly is, I wager so is your brother. Why you both couldn’t have waited until January I can’t fathom.”

She was saved from a discussion she didn’t want to have when the buzzer on Santa’s desk sounded. She waited while he went to answer it.

Santa pushed the intercom button, “Claus One, here.”

“We’re looking for Claus Three,” an elf responded.

Santa motioned Carol over to his desk. “Someone wants you.”

Carol pressed the button, “Claus Three. Go ahead.”

But she couldn’t hear the response for the loud banging on the doors to Santa’s office. “Hold, please,” she said before letting go of the intercom. She waited while her father went to see what the commotion was all about.

Santa threw open the doors and an irate cadre of red faced elves charged into the office. Stunned at the angry energy they radiated, Carol went to stand beside her father.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Santa asked, his voice calm yet authoritative.

Twenty angry voices chorused in a collectively irate response.

“One at a time,” Santa demanded. “What’s happened?”

Jolly pushed through the throng, dragging Rapz along with her. “Santa, we’ve got a situation.”

“Situation my slippers,” an elf in back shouted. “This is an emergency.”

Carol glanced at her father. He was generally impervious to what others called emergencies. She tried to look Rapz in the eye but he wouldn’t look up. That didn’t bode well. “What’s this all about, Jolly?”

The buzzer on the desk sounded again, it’s low, shrill tone buzzing insistently. Carol ignored it.

“Tell them, Rapz, go ahead,” Jolly ordered him. “I’m not doing your dirty work, start talking.” She held up her hand for the crowd behind her to quiet down.

Rapz opened his mouth to speak but he was interrupted by the intercom.

“Oh, for holiday’s sake.” Santa strode around the desk and pushed the button. “Claus One here, requesting you cease harassing me with this blasted intercom.”

“Sir, we need to speak with Claus Three. Immediately.”

Santa’s eyebrows rose. Immediately was usually an order he gave, not received. “Claus Three is busy. Out.” He yanked on the chord until it came out of the socket. He smiled in satisfaction when the blinking light on the intercom went out.

“Now, Rapz, let’s hear what you’ve done.” Santa sank into his chair and motioned for the mob to move forward. They did, and Carol went to stand behind her father’s chair.

“Sir, I was only trying to help.”

“Rapz, today is December twenty-third. It’s our last full day of pre-holiday operations so please just say what you have to say.”

Rapz gulped. “I umm, well, I brought Carol a Christmas gift.”

Carol and her father exchanged curious glances.

“Thank you, Rapz, but you know the rule,” Carol said in a gentle voice. “The world needs their gifts delivered first before anyone here even thinks about opening their presents.” She surveyed the seething group before turning her attention back to him. “Why is everyone so angry?”

“They don’t like what I brought you.”

This elicited deafening jeers that didn’t stop until Santa thumped his desk with his fist. Several times. “Silence,” he thundered.

Carol had never heard her father speak so sharply before, neither had any of the elves. Santa got his silence.

“Rapz, just answer my question. What gift did you get for my daughter?”

Rapz looked guiltily from Santa to Carol and then back at her father. “It’s not so much a what, Sir, as a who.”

“Who?” Santa repeated in confusion.

Before anyone else could speak, two small figures ran in through the open door and launched themselves at Carol.

“Hello, Miss Kane,” they happily echoed each other.

Stunned, Carol looked down at Hillary and Patrick Hanson’s upturned faces. The children were all but levitating with pure excitement but a ripple of dread ran through Carol. She stared at Rapz in disbelief and then tried to speak, but it took her more than one attempt to sound coherent. “You kidnapped Ben’s children?”

Chapter Eleven

Carol’s world swirled around her for a moment but any hope that this was all a bad joke vanished when Hillary tugged on her arm. She looked down. The children were really here, and in their pajamas no less.

“You woke them up?” she demanded of Rapz.

In answer, the elf stared intently at his upturned toes.

“No, he didn’t, Miss Kane,” Patrick said. “We couldn’t sleep. The sleigh ride was awesome.”

“You didn’t tell us you knew Santa Claus,” Hillary said, her gaze going back and forth between Carol and Santa as if she was trying to piece the whole picture together. “Do you know what the best part of this is? Daddy has to believe in Santa now.” Hillary and her brother exchanged high five’s.

“Ben is here?” Carol felt the world start to spin again. “He’s here at the North Pole?”

“Of course I brought him along,” Rapz snapped. “I might occasionally get my directions mixed up but I’m no kidnapper.”

Mixed up? This went far, far beyond a mix up.

“Where is he?” she asked the elf. “I need to see him, to explain.” Just how on earth she was going to do this she couldn’t begin to imagine, but she had to see him and try to help him make sense of…well…being at the North Pole.

When Rapz wasn’t forthcoming with an answer, Carol turned to Jolly. “Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”

Jolly nodded. “He’s in the infirmary but I think you should wait to see him until he regains consciousness.”

Carol’s eyes widened. She turned to her father, but his look of bewilderment was less than comforting.

“Now, children,” Santa said to Hillary and Patrick, “I want you to go with these nice elves for a tour of my workshop.” He motioned for Tinsel and Jolly to lead the way. “I’m sure there will be a few toys for you to test along the way.”

They turned their bright, shining eyes to Carol for permission and she nodded. “Just stay close to Tinsel and Jolly. And don’t worry about your Daddy, he’ll be fine.”

As soon as the children were out of ear shot she turned to Rapz. “Take me to Ben.” Half way out the door she turned back to her father. “No, Daddy, you stay here. You have enough work to do. I need to take care of this myself.”

After Rapz assured her that Ben wasn’t seriously injured, she was able to calm down enough to listen to his version of events as they wound their way through the corridors to the infirmary. According to Rapz, he’d only meant to take the children for a quick ride but Ben had climbed up on the roof and freaked out when he saw his children in the sleigh.

“He reached for them but slipped, fell and hit his head.”

“So you stuffed him in the sleigh and brought him here?” Carol asked.

Rapz shrugged. “I panicked.”

Carol raised an eyebrow. “You understand that the unauthorized use of a sleigh is grounds for immediate demotion, don’t you?”

Rapz nodded. “I know, I know. But the kids were really digging Christmas so I thought, hey, what could be better than giving them a spin around a few rooftops?”

“Rapz, children dig a lot of things. But that doesn’t mean they get to try them all.” Carol resisted the urge to box his pointed little ears. “I thought they were sound asleep with the forget-me dust.”

“Well, that’s just the thing. I came to pick you up but Jolly got there first. I didn’t know that, see? So I went in the window to see what was taking you so long, I found the kids in the hallway.”

They passed by the Naughty and Nice Records Department and Carol felt a pang of guilt that she’d not been able to help her father. “What was the silver sparkle supposed to do?”

“That was a bit of an experiment gone awry,” Rapz conceded. “You see, I was thinking-”

But Carol had heard enough. “You weren’t thinking, Rapz, and look what you’ve done.” She stopped outside the infirmary door. “We can’t have people here.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Rapz said. “Do you want me to go in there and explain everything to your boyfriend?”

Carol shook her head. “No, you’ve already done enough. I think you’d better get right back to my father’s office and do what you can to help him. We’ve only got a few hours before the countdown starts.”

Once he was out of sight, Carol took a deep breath. Her heart was racing and, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, there was a part of her that was thrilled that she was going to see Ben again. She held little hope, however, that the feeling was going to be mutual.

She gingerly opened the door and poked her head in the room. Her heart sank when she saw Ben’s prone form on the infirmary table. She slipped through the open and door and pulled it quietly closed behind her.

Wanda, an elderly female elf motioned for her to come closer. “Your friend here will be just fine, honey,” she said as Carol approached.

Carol looked down at Ben, her heart swelling in her chest. Even though she knew she was in for it when he came to, she was happy to see him again. “Will he be okay?” she asked Wanda.