Breakfast With Santa Read online

  “Why have you singled me out?” she blurted

  “I like a challenge,” Tom said with an easy grin. His eyebrows rose inquiringly. “What would get you interested?”

  “Nothing at the moment,” she told him, ignoring the thread of awareness that had been spinning between them all night.

  “That’s hardly encouraging,” Tom said wryly, but his eyes were merry.

  “It’s late,” she said. “I should go home.”

  “Let’s relax for a few minutes. It’s not even midnight yet.” Tom removed two coffee mugs from the cabinet. “Sugar? Cream?”

  “Lots of both,” she answered. She had no idea why her heart should be racing. Maybe it had something to do with being the focus of attention of a real, live, handsome guy who—unlike the only other man in her life—wasn’t a mere five years old!

  Dear Reader,

  I like small towns. I’ve lived in one after another—places named Jupiter, Lake Park, Hartsville, Kinston, Grassy Creek. I’ve resided in big cities, too—Chicago, Charlotte—but I find life more manageable when scaled down to small-town size.

  In a small town it’s easier to stand out. People know who you are. You can see where you’re going, and you know where you’ve been. Of course, not everyone agrees that this is a good thing. Small-town life has its disadvantages—mainly that everyone knows everyone else’s business.

  When I wrote Breakfast with Santa, I wanted to tell the story of a little boy from a small town who was desperate enough to ask Santa Claus for a real dad. He introduced me to his mother, Beth, who had been searching for love all her life but had never found one that lasted. She deserved a wonderful guy, one who took his responsibilities seriously and wouldn’t let her down, and so I created Tom.

  Christmas is a season for miracles, but everyone knows that Santa can’t bring us love. However, when Santa and the hero are the same person, maybe he can.

  So make yourself a cup of hot chocolate, curl up in a comfortable easy chair, pull up that warm afghan against the winter’s chill and mosey along with me to Farish, Texas, to find out how.

  With love and best wishes,

  Pamela Browning

  P.S. Please visit me at my Web site,

  www.pamelabrowning.com.

  Breakfast With Santa

  Pamela Browning

  This book is for my parents, Helen and Jack Ketter, who made me believe in Santa Claus, though I never did quite believe that you could talk to him down the kitchen drain.

  Books by Pamela Browning

  HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

  854—BABY CHRISTMAS

  874—COWBOY WITH A SECRET

  907—PREGNANT AND INCOGNITO

  922—RANCHER’S DOUBLE DILEMMA

  982—COWBOY ENCHANTMENT

  994—BABY ENCHANTMENT

  1039—HEART IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE

  1070—THE MOMMY WISH

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Bah, humbug!

  The Santa suit was too short.

  Tom Collyer stared in dismay at his wrists, protruding from the fur-trimmed red plush sleeves. He’d get Leanne for this someday. There was a limit to how much a big brother should do for a sister.

  The pancake breakfast was the Bigbee County, Texas, event of the year for little kids, and when Leanne had asked him to participate in the fund-raiser for the Homemakers’ Club, he hadn’t taken her seriously. He was newly home from his stint in the marine corps, and he hadn’t yet adjusted his thinking back to Texas Hill Country standards. But his brother-in-law, Leanne’s husband, had come down with an untimely case of the flu, and Tom had been roped into the Santa gig.

  He peered out of the closet where he was suiting up at the one hundred kids running around the Farish Township volunteer fire department headquarters, which was where they held these breakfasts every year. One of the kids was hammering another boy’s head against the floor and a mother was trying to pry them apart. A little girl with long auburn curls stood wailing in a corner.

  Leanne jumped onto a low bench and clapped her hands. “Children, guess what? It’s time to tell Santa Claus what you want for Christmas! Have you all been good this year?”

  “Yes!” the kids shouted, except for one little boy in a blue velvet suit, who screamed, “No!” A nearby Santa’s helper tried to shush him, but he merely screamed, “No!” again.

  Tom did a double take. The helper, who resembled the boy so closely that she must be his mother, had long, gleaming wheat-blond hair. It swung over her cheeks when she bent to talk to the child. Tom let his gaze travel downward, and took in high firm breasts under a clinging white sweater, a narrow waist and gently rounded hips. He was craning his neck for a better assessment of those attributes when a loudspeaker began playing “Jingle Bells.” That was his cue.

  After pulling his pants down to cover his ankles and plumping his pillow-enhanced stomach to better hide his rangy frame, he drew a deep breath and strode from the closet.

  “Ho-ho-ho!” he said, making his deep voice even deeper. “Merry Christmas!” As directed, he headed for the elaborate throne on the platform at one end of the room.

  “Santa, Santa,” cried several kids.

  “Okay, boys and girls, remember that you’re supposed to sit at the tables and eat your breakfast,” Leanne instructed. “Santa’s helper elves will come to each table in turn to take you to Santa Claus. Remember to smile! An elf will take your picture when you’re sitting on Santa’s knee.”

  Tom brushed away a strand of fluffy white wig hair that was tickling his face. “Ho-ho-ho!” he boomed again in his deep faux–Santa Claus voice as he eased his unaccustomed bulk down on the throne and ceremoniously drew the first kid onto his lap. “What do you want for Christmas, little girl?”

  “A brand-new candy-red PT Cruiser with a convertible top and a turbocharged engine,” she said demurely.

  “A car! Isn’t that wonderful! Ho-ho-ho!” he said, sliding the kid off his lap as soon as the male helper elf behind the tripod snapped a picture. Was he supposed to promise delivery of such extravagant requests? Tom had no idea.

  For the next fifteen minutes or so, he listened as kids asked for Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, Bratz dolls, even a Learjet. He was wondering what on earth a Crash Bandicoot was when he started counting the minutes; only an hour or so and he’d be out of there. “Ho-ho-ho!” he said again and again. “Merry Christmas!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tom spotted the kid in the blue velvet suit approaching. He scanned the crowd for the boy’s gorgeous mother, who was temporarily distracted by a bottle of spilled syrup at one of the tables.

  “Ho-ho-ho!” Tom chortled as a helper elf nudged the kid in the blue suit toward him. And when the kid hurled a heretofore concealed cup of orange juice into his lap, Tom’s chortle became “Ho-ho-ho—oh, no!” The kid stood there, frowning. Tom shot him a dirty look and, using the handkerchief that he’d had the presence of mind to stuff into his pocket, swiped hastily at the orange rivulets gathering in his crotch. With great effort, he managed to bite back a four-letter word that drill sergeants liked to say when things weren’t going well.

  He jammed the handkerchief back in his pocket and hoisted the bo
y onto his knee. “Careful now,” Tom said. “Mustn’t get orange juice on that nice blue suit, ho-ho-ho!”

  “Do you always laugh like that?” asked the kid, who seemed about five years old. He had a voice like a foghorn and a scowl that would have done justice to Scrooge himself.

  “Laugh like what?” Tom asked, realizing too late that he’d used his own voice, not Santa’s.

  “‘Ho-ho-ho.’ Nobody laughs like that.” The boy was regarding him with wide blue eyes.

  “Ho-ho-ho,” Tom said, lapsing back into his Santa voice. “You’re a funny guy, right?”

  “No, I’m not. You aren’t, either.”

  “Ahem,” Santa said. “Maybe you should just tell me what you want for Christmas.”

  The kid glowered at him. “Guess,” he said.

  Tom was unprepared for this. “An Etch-a-Sketch?” he ventured. Those had been popular when he was a child.

  “Nope.”

  “Yu-Gi-Oh! cards? A Crash Team Billy Goat…uh, I mean Bandicoot?”

  “Nope.”

  Beads of sweat broke out on Tom’s forehead. The helpers were unaware of his plight. They were busy lining up the other kids who wanted to talk to Santa.

  “Yu-Gi-Oh! cards?”

  “You already guessed that one.” The boy’s voice was full of scorn.

  “A bike? Play-Doh?”

  The kid jumped off his lap, disconcerting the elf with the camera. “I want a real daddy for Christmas, so there,” the boy said, and stared defiantly up at Tom.

  “A daddy? I can’t bring you a daddy,” Tom said, with as much jocularity as he could muster.

  “That’s what I figured,” said the kid as he hopped off the side of the platform near an open door.

  “Hey, come back here,” Tom shouted, leaping to his feet and grabbing a fistful of blue velvet. But the kid was quick. The next thing Tom knew, he was sprawled on the floor with the boy squashed beneath him. Tom’s right hand and wrist had taken the brunt of his fall and pain was shooting up his arm.

  “Oomph,” said the kid, struggling to get out from under. “Mom—Mom—Mommy!”

  The helper elf with the beautiful blond hair erupted from the stunned group of kids.

  “Mitchell!” she cried, all concern. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

  Tom could have sworn that Mitchell tried to knee him in the groin before crawling out from under the folds of red plush.

  “Santa hurt me,” he said, his lower lip quivering.

  The blonde pursed her lips. Her eyes now had a feisty sheen, at least as seen by Tom, who was by this time grimacing up at her from the floor. Her legs were shapely and smooth. Even in the depths of his pain, Tom noticed.

  “Listen, lady,” he said when he could talk. “Your son tripped me.”

  Mitchell, safe in the circle of his mother’s arms, growled, “Did not.”

  “Santa didn’t mean to hurt you,” said Mitchell’s mother.

  “Santa never hurts little children,” added the photographer elf.

  Maybe not, thought Tom. But Santa certainly has the urge sometimes.

  Leanne was wielding a bullhorn nearby. “Quiet, boys and girls, quiet! Santa will talk to you in a minute. Santa, are you all right?” She frowned anxiously at Tom.

  “No,” Santa said, clearly and distinctly.

  A few children started crying, and two boys slipped out of their chairs and began to chase each other around the room. Another crawled under a table and began to suck his thumb.

  Mitchell’s mother was staring at Tom’s injured hand. “Is—is something really wrong?”

  “I’ve twisted my wrist. It hurts.”

  Leanne had rushed over and now helped him to stand up. She was the mother of five and knew what she was doing in the first-aid department. Her eyes were full of concern. “Can you move your hand? Can you bend your arm at the elbow?”

  “I can bend it at the elbow. Which reminds me, I could use a good stiff drink right about now,” he said grimly.

  “Very funny,” said Leanne.

  “Is there a doctor here? Santa is in severe pain,” Tom managed to ask.

  “He hurt me,” said Mitchell.

  “Quiet, kid,” said Tom. Mitchell’s mother gasped and drew her son closer.

  Leanne heaved a sigh and shook her long straight brown bangs off her face. “Tom, you’re incapacitated. You obviously can’t continue as Santa.”

  “But, Leanne, what are we going to do? All the children…” The helper’s voice tapered off when she saw the murderous expression on Tom’s face.

  Leanne turned to Tom. “You’d better go to the emergency room. Your wrist is swelling.”

  “I rode here with you,” he reminded her.

  “Oh, I forgot,” his sister said distractedly.

  “Where are your reindeer? Where’s Rudolph?” asked Mitchell with interest.

  Tom ignored him.

  “Beth,” said Leanne, sounding as if she was at the end of her rope, “could you drive Santa to the hospital?”

  “Me?” Mitchell’s mother registered surprise.

  “Well, it is on your way home,” Leanne reminded her. “And Mitchell has already had his chat with Santa.”

  “Never mind, Leanne,” Tom said rapidly. “Mitchell’s mom doesn’t even know me.” Beth was pinning him with a glare that would have stopped a tank.

  “Oh, sorry. Beth McCormick, this is my brother, Tom Collyer. Tom, my friend Beth. That takes care of that. Now, Beth, will you please take him to the hospital?”

  Beth all but rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll do it,” she replied, and Tom knew how she felt. Leanne had a way of extracting favors.

  “Don’t want to be a bother,” Tom said through the pain.

  “My car’s in the parking lot,” Beth said curtly, making it clear that she wasn’t happy about this situation. She wheeled and hurried toward the exit, grabbing a coat off a chair back as she went, her son in tow. Mitchell turned around and bestowed an impish grin upon him.

  By this time pain was shooting up Tom’s arm all the way to his shoulder. Beth put on her own coat first, then stuffed Mitchell into a windbreaker with a hood. Once outside, Beth, her lips drawn into a tight line, silently led Tom to a blue minivan that had seen better days. To the door was attached a magnetic sign; it said Bluebonnet Interiors and was slightly crooked.

  Beth strapped the kid into the back seat. Tom folded his tall frame into the front seat beside Beth, noting that the minivan smelled of pungent fresh evergreens, of Christmas.

  Tom silently nursed his arm close to his side, wishing he were anywhere but there. Dressed the way he was, his body, toned by strict adherence to military fitness exercises, felt fat. For two cents, he’d shuck the pillow he’d stuffed under the Santa jacket, though he knew he’d better not disillusion Mitchell about Santa Claus. On the other hand, Mitchell probably wouldn’t notice. He was playing with a talking storybook, yanking on the string and speaking along with the words.

  Beth rammed the minivan into gear. “So you’re Leanne’s brother?” she said, glancing sideways at him as she wheeled out of the parking lot.

  Tom noticed that she had very high cheekbones, exquisitely formed. Like the rest of her. But she had asked him a question. “Her older brother,” he said.

  “You must be the one who just moved here. The marine.” She gunned through the intersection.

  “Right. I’ve bought a house out on Wildeboer Road about half a mile from the elementary school.”

  “I go to school,” said Mitchell. “Day-care school. We take naps there. And make Jell-O. And every stuff.”

  “And everything,” Beth corrected him absently. She hung a left turn in front of the Bigbee County Hospital sign that said Emergency. They stopped under a wide portico.

  “I have to go to the bathroom, Mommy,” Mitchell announced suddenly as Tom prepared to get out of the car.

  “We’ll be home in a few minutes, darling,” Beth said, eyeing the portly security guard strolling in their
direction.

  “I really have to go,” Mitchell said with an expression of foreboding.

  Beth twisted in her seat and focused worried eyes on his face. “If you can wait a few minutes…” she began.

  “Right now, Mom.” Mitchell fidgeted ominously.

  Beth drew a deep breath and said in a tone of resignation, “All right, we’ll go in.” She reached for the door handle.

  “Ma’am, you can’t park here,” said the security guard, glaring suspiciously at Tom, who was by this time standing on the curb in his Santa suit. “This spot is for drop-off and pickup only. No matter who you are.”

  Beth leaned over so that she could talk to the guard through the passenger window. “My little boy has to use the bathroom,” she explained.

  Tom’s gaze darted from Beth to Mitchell to the security guard. His wrist was throbbing now.

  “You’ll have to move to the parking lot,” the guard said to Beth. “Unless you know how to land on rooftops. We’ve got a helicopter pad up there. Might work if you were in your sleigh,” he told Tom.

  Mitchell laughed at this, but then his face went blank and he clutched his blue velvet suit in a strategic place.

  “Mom-my,” he wailed.

  The security guard eyed Mitchell. “Why don’t you let your husband take the tyke to the restroom. It’s right inside the door.”

  “He’s not my husband,” Beth retorted indignantly at the same time that Tom said, “We’re not married.”

  The guard’s eyebrows quirked upward. “Oh, I thought you were. As in ‘I saw Mommy kissing you-know-who’ in the song.”

  Beth was beginning to appear slightly frantic, and Tom took pity on her. Being Mitchell’s mother probably wasn’t easy.

  “I could take Mitchell inside for you,” he offered recklessly.

  Beth glanced doubtfully at Mitchell, who was anxiously chewing on his lower lip.

  “Oh, dear. All right. If you promise not to yell at him,” she said.

  “Yell at him? I won’t yell at him.”

  “You were yelling back at the fire station.”

  “Beth, I’m an ex-drill sergeant. That was what I consider gentle admonition. And if you don’t want your kid to go to the bathroom, it’s fine with me. Just warn me so I can start building an ark.”