Three Nights before Christmas (23 page)

Dusk had settled over the mountains as she arrived at the old station house. Judging by the number of parked cars, a good crowd of families were enjoying Santa’s Wonderland. And why not? It was three nights before Christmas. School was out. People were either off work or slacking off. It was the season for festive fun.

She was about to bypass the annex and head for the dark station house when she heard her name shouted by a boyish voice across the snow. “Laaaacey!”

The sound stopped her, and she glanced around for its source.

“Laaaacey!”

The voice cracked as it drew out her name, and she racked her brain for any pubescent boys she might know—or boys who’d been youngsters when she was sent away but would’ve started the awkward transition into manhood by now. She couldn’t think of a single one, so she went in search of the boy-man.

She thought the voice was coming from the annex, but with “Jingle Bells” playing loudly and sound bouncing off the trees all around her, she couldn’t be sure. She took a few tentative steps in that direction anyway, figuring the voice would guide her if she was wrong. Inside the annex, a few groups of people milled around, drinking hot apple cider and keeping warm. She guessed it was probably too cold to wait for Lucinda outside on the platform. The annex looked huge—and empty—without Lucinda on the track running through the center of it. The sight sent a pang through her heart, as if she’d nurtured a precious new being, prepared it for a life beyond her, and then had to learn how to accept its freedom.

She didn’t see Austin anywhere so she stepped farther inside and found Josh Dekker sitting in his wheelchair next to the annex’s entrance. His lips were chapped but smiling, and his cheeks were rosy. “Finally!” he said.

“Josh.” She couldn’t hide her surprise. She’d never actually met him. The closest she’d gotten was seeing him at the stroll. It startled her that he knew who she was. “How are you?”

“Freezing my nuts off, but otherwise good.”

Her slow smile bloomed into a startled chuckle. Oh, she liked this kid already. She’d figured she would, but she really did.

“How ’bout you?”

“My nuts froze off a long time ago,” she replied. She nodded toward the people waiting for Lucinda. “How’s it going up there?”

His voice overflowing with boyish excitement, he said, “It’s the coolest thing
ever
. There are reindeer and a sleigh and a guy I
swear
is the real Santa.” He cleared his throat. “Or, I would, y’know, if I still believed in Santa.”

She tried to school her expression so he wouldn’t think she was laughing at him, but hell, it was tough. His enthusiasm was infectious.

“And some billionaire guy gave Gabriel a huge donation, so we’ll really be able to start the camp! How cool is that!”

“So cool.” She clasped her hands and gave them a rub. She hadn’t put on her gloves, since she’d just intended to walk a few steps from the taxi to the station house. And she didn’t want to dig into her pockets to put them on because that would imply she was sticking around out here.

She wasn’t.

“Gabriel said he thought the billionaire was trying to impress a woman,” Josh explained. “I hope she marries him.”

“Well, if he’s a good guy, then I hope so, too.”

Josh smacked the arm of his chair. “Of course he’s a good guy! He’s a billionaire. He gave us a ton of money.”

She didn’t dare contradict him. She tried to stop her eyes from darting over his head in search of Austin, but time and again she failed. She didn’t know what would be worse—seeing him or not seeing him.

Better not to find out.

She pasted a grin on her face. “Well, I’m glad it’s all going well. I’d better get inside. If I stay any longer, I don’t even want to guess what parts of me will freeze off.”

He gave her hands a critical look. “Why aren’t you wearing gloves?”

“Didn’t know I’d be seeing you.” She took a step back. “Have fun with the rest of the event.”

“But you haven’t been up the mountain yet. You haven’t seen all the cool stuff.”

She drew in a deep breath and tried to hang onto her patience as she lied through her teeth. “I’ll go up there sometime. Probably tomorrow. I’m completely wiped out tonight.”

He grabbed her hand and tugged with surprising strength for a kid his age. Completely unprepared for the move, she tumbled onto his lap and found herself being propelled through the annex and up a ramp onto the platform at breakneck speed. Breathless, she clutched the arm rests as Josh shouted, “Move it, people!” and families scrambled to get out of their path.

“
Josh
—”

“Sorry, Lacey, but we tried this the easy way,” he said, not out of breath at all as he did three-sixties on the platform, making it impossible for her to jump off his lap. “Mom told me you fixed the
Copper Mountain Express
for us, but you haven’t even taken a ride in it.”

Lucinda
, she wanted to correct him.
Taken a ride in
her.

But he was right. She hadn’t, and it just about killed her to know so many people had.

Just then a deep, throaty whistle battled the sounds of Christmas music. The whistle sounded again, louder until it dominated the country air. The night was clear and crisp, and Josh stopped his three-sixties in time for Lacey to watch in awe as Lucinda appeared around a curve in the mountainside. She chugged beautifully along, thick puffs of black smoke bursting from her chimney. Lacey’s breath caught in her throat.

I did that. I made her.

The thought filled her with such agonizing pride that it overflowed and dripped from her eyes.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Josh whispered.

“She,” Lacey corrected without thinking. “Isn’t
she
amazing.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “She is.”

When Lucinda came to a smooth stop at the platform, Gabriel jumped out from the cab, where he’d been shoveling coal. He didn’t look at all surprised to see Lacey, but he did do a double take at the fact she was on Josh’s lap. She scrambled off.

Gabriel chuckled as he approached. “Don’t worry. I know who to blame for that. We’re going to have to start watching this kid more closely.”

“Jeez, I’m already practically on lockdown,” Josh groused, making Gabriel laugh.

“Buddy, if you had any idea how much freedom you get…” He opened the doors of the three passenger cars, and several families stepped out, only to be replaced with others who’d come from the annex. While they were boarding, Gabriel set up a metal ramp between the platform and the first car, and gestured for Josh.

Josh grabbed for Lacey’s hand, but this time she was ready for him and stepped back. “Oh no, mister. First lesson of being a man—if you want a girl to go on a date with you, you ask her.
Nicely
.”

He gave her an angelic look. “Lacey, would you be my date to Santa’s Wonderland?”

She glanced up at the mountain. If Austin wasn’t down here, he was definitely up there.

“He’s not there.”

She blinked at Josh. “What?”

“Austin. He’s not there. I promise.”

Eyes narrowing, she said, “How did you know that’s who I was thinking of?”

“I’m young and in a wheelchair,” he pointed out. “Neither of those things makes me stupid.”

She sighed. “In that case, let me talk to you as a woman to a man. Some things happened between me and Austin, and I’m not ready to face him yet. I need space—”

“You can have it. Plenty of it. I told you, he’s not there.”

Okay, she didn’t want to outright call the kid a liar, but her face must’ve done it for her because he leaned forward and said earnestly, “Why would I lie? If I do, Santa won’t bring me any presents.”

She gave him a squinty, bullshit-detecting stare. “I thought you didn’t believe—”

“Shhhh!” He threw a panicked glance around, dropping his voice to a whisper. “There are little kids here.”

She raised both brows, not for a second fooled by his change of subject. “You swear he’s not up there.”

Raising three fingers of his right hand, he said, “On my honor as a scout.”

She capitulated. What else could she do? “Fine. But I’m calling Santa myself if you’re lying.”

“I’ll give you his phone number. He’s working for me up on the mountain this week.”

She followed him to Lucinda’s first car but a shiny metal plate attached to the locomotive’s boiler made her pause with one foot in and one foot out. She leaned back and craned her neck. The plate’s background was shiny black, and a single word stood out in silver relief:
Lucinda
.

Lacey’s heart surged. Only one man would’ve ordered a nameplate for the locomotive, and he must’ve done it soon after they’d started working together.

Swallowing her heartbreak, she stepped inside the car and looked around in wonder. The restoration volunteers had managed to make the train look just as she might have in the 1910s—except much better. Back then she would’ve had scarred, empty cars for transporting copper. Now she had sumptuous leather seats, old-fashioned stained glass light sconces on the walls, and several wide-open spots where wheelchair users could strap their chairs to the wall for safety.

“All aboard!” Gabriel shouted before slamming the doors shut and—she assumed—going back to his station to shovel coal. Within a minute, Lucinda’s whistle blasted again, and she chugged slowly into motion.

Josh didn’t try to speak to her during the journey. He let her stare out the window at the snow-capped trees and heavenly twinkle lights in the dark sky, lost in her own thoughts. Sickeningly, those thoughts were spoken by Sawyer’s voice.
You trusted the wrong person once, but you paid a stupidly heavy price for it. I’ll be really annoyed if you keep paying that price for no good reason.

Then her own voice kicked in.
Me too, big brother.

She and Austin had built something together, something that extended beyond the two of them and the locomotive. The excited chatter all around her was evidence of that. They’d come so far from the place where they’d first started, not just three years ago but a month ago.

And yet… and yet…

And yet the prospect of having her past mistakes dredged up again, combed through and discussed so a jury of her peers could decide whether she deserved condemnation and punishment… it shoved her back in the emotional prison where she wouldn’t allow life to hurt her.

Austin had been there for all of it—and not in a loving, supportive way. Not the first time around. Perhaps he could become that for her. He’d certainly started to. But the specter of his testimony hung over her. As much as she wanted to believe she could get beyond it, see him as someone who would never think her capable of purposely trafficking drugs, she wasn’t sure she could.

Lucinda wound around mountain curves and through an old tunnel, whistling into the air every now and then just for the hell of it. When they pulled into the station at the top, Gabriel threw open the doors and laid down the ramp. She and Josh were the first to exit. The mountain air was even colder and crisper than below, and she pulled her gloves from her pockets, finally putting them on.

“Welcome to Wonderland,” Gabriel said, giving her an encouraging smile.

“Thanks.” She glanced around, amazed at what he, his brothers and Molly had been able to accomplish. White fairy lights hung like icicles from the station’s eaves, throwing rainbows of light against the real icicles. All the trees lining a snowy pathway had been lit with blue and white lights. Part of the path had been overlaid with a wooden walkway, making it wheelchair friendly. She walked alongside Josh as he led her down the path, pointing out hand-painted signs along the way. “The reindeer are down there. You can feed them if you want, and there’s a sleigh ride every hour. And over there is the food village.”

He hadn’t needed to point that one out. Though she only caught glimpses of the simple wooden kiosks through the trees, they didn’t block the wafts of cinnamon, sugar, and mulled wine.

“This is amazing,” she said breathlessly.

“Gets even better. Wait till you see Santa. I swear, he’s so, so real.”

The path curved around, taking them into a clearing where a fairy-tale hut stood. It could’ve been a gingerbread house come to life. A line of excited families waited to enter.

“We’re going to sneak in the back way,” Josh said, giving Lacey a look of warning that she’d be yanked onto his lap again if she didn’t obey.

With a sigh, she followed. Truth be told, she actually wanted to see what magic lay inside Santa’s cottage, since the outside was so quaintly festive. They made their way around it and found an almost invisible door, presumably there so Santa could sneak out every now and then for a cigarette and shot from his hip flask.

But maybe that was the cynic in her speaking.

Josh softly knocked in a pattern, three slow raps followed by a rapid-fire series. The door nudged open.

“You go in first,” he said. “My chair won’t fit through the door frame, so you’ll have to help lift me in.”

Hoping he didn’t weigh more than a Douglas fir, she stepped inside the hut—only to hear the door click closed behind her. Whirling around, she found Austin dressed in a Santa hat, sitting on a stool with the toe of his boot against the door. Her nostrils twitched, and she stared at the ceiling, biting the tender insides of her cheeks to keep her anger in. She’d been fooled. Again. This time by an eleven-year-old boy.

How humiliating.

But even worse was the niggling thought that deep, deep down she’d wanted this.

“Ho, ho, ho,” Austin said softly.

She couldn’t look at him. She was too annoyed with herself. Instead, she focused on her surroundings. This part of the hut had been sectioned off from the rest and was acting as a storage room for stacks of wrapped gifts. A wooden wall separated her from the real Santa’s area, but his
ho-ho-ho
s seeped through. She didn’t know if he looked authentic, but he did sound jolly. And old.

“Lacey,” Austin started.

She just shook her head. “Josh isn’t getting anything from Santa this year.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Are you kidding? That boy’s lump of coal was guaranteed months ago.” He held out his hand. “Come here. Please.”