Page 122 of Falling for the Grinchy Bad Boy

The kid frowned at me.

I winced. “Sorry, that sounds like a lot of fun.”

“I want a dinosaur that plays the piano,” a little girl next to the cotton candy kid chimed in.

“Oh? Is that something you buy in a store?”

I was bombing this. I clearly needed to go to a toy store. Although if I saw a fucking dinosaur playing a piano, tuba, or dancing, I wasn’t sticking around to see if they were any good.

Kids were weird.

I worked my way down the line, engaging with families and keeping spirits high while secretly praying that Pat would arrive soon. The conversations were adorable and distracting, exactly what I needed to keep from panicking about our missing Santa.

“What about you?” I asked a little boy who’d been quietly listening to the other children’s wishes. “What’s on your Christmas list?”

He looked up at his mother with the look of childhood innocence. “Mommy wants a Brazilian butt lift.”

The adults within earshot burst into laughter while his mother turned approximately seventeen shades of red.

I had no words. I gaped at the kid and did my best not to look directly at the mother.

“Tommy!” she hissed, covering her face with her hands.

“You said you wanted your butt to look like the lady on the TV,” Tommy protested innocently.

“I think Santa might need to talk to your mommy about that one,” I said diplomatically, trying not to laugh. “Maybe you could ask for something for yourself instead?”

“Okay. I want a truck that turns into a robot that makes pancakes.”

“Now that sounds like something Santa’s elves would be very interested in building.”

As I continued down the line, chatting with families and keeping the mood light, I became aware of a subtle shift in the crowd’s energy. Conversations were becoming more hushed, and I could see people checking their phones and glancing toward the workshop with increasing concern.

A volunteer hurried past, and I grabbed her arm gently.

“Sarah, what’s going on?” I asked quietly.

She leaned in close, her voice barely above a whisper. “No one can find Santa. Pat was supposed to be here by now, but he’s not answering his phone. People are starting to say he isn’t coming.”

My stomach dropped like a stone. No Santa meant disappointed children, frustrated parents, and the kind of festival disaster that would be talked about for years to come. All my careful planning, all the successful events we’d pulled off over the past week, and it could all be overshadowed by one missing Santa.

I looked around at the crowd, which was indeed getting restless. Parents were checking their watches, children were asking increasingly frequent questions about when Santa would arrive, and I could see the volunteer coordinators starting to look panicked.

There wasn’t going to be a riot in Calton Hill—we were too polite for that—but there was definitely going to be some serious hooting and hollering if I didn’t figure out a solution fast. I would flee to New York, but my poor aunt would have to go into witness protection.

“Keep trying Pat’s phone,” I told Sarah. “Call his house, his wife, anyone who might know where he is. Check the North Pole if you have to.”

Sarah nodded and hurried away, pulling out her phone as she went. I stood in the middle of the square, surrounded by the evidence of everything we’d accomplished over the past three weeks, and felt like everything was spinning out of control.

There was always a disaster looming.

The choir was ready to perform. People were soaking up the Christmas atmosphere, but without Santa, the evening would end on a massive disappointment.

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to think. There had to be a solution. There was always a solution. I had to find a way to make this work.

I started cataloging available resources. I knew we had a Santa costume in the workshop storage area and approximately fifty adults who cared about making children happy. I was willing to bet several of these guys had donned a Santa costume before.

The question was: who could step into Pat’s considerable boots on such short notice?

Hell, I would put it on if I had to. Whatever it took. I would fluff up with pillows. And not talk. Definitely no talking.

I opened my eyes and scanned the crowd, looking for potential Santa candidates. There was the guy from the hardware store. He was scrawny but I knew he laughed a lot. But I had seen him hitting the spiked cider pretty hard earlier.

No drunk Santas.

I spotted another man, rotund and who seemed to be relatively jolly. But he might have been just a little too naturally portly. I wasn’t sure if we could stuff him into the suit. And the only thing worse would be a wardrobe malfunction involving a grown man’s pants splitting.

Shit, shit, shit.

What was I going to do? Damn you, Pat Samson.