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Chapter One
Noelle
“Next year, all our troubles will be miles away,” Bing Crosby warbled from the television.
I snorted. “Easy for you to say, Bing.”
I hunkered deeper into the couch, burying myself in a snowdrift of blankets. The twinkling lights on the Christmas tree blurred through my melancholy haze.
Another holiday season come and gone. And here I was, twenty-five years old, lounging alone on Christmas Eve in fuzzy Rudolph pajamas that had seen better days.
I took a long swig of spiked eggnog, leaving a mustache above my frown. At least I had the company ofWhite Christmastonight, one of Gram’s favorites.
Oh, how I missed Gram. She always knew how to comfort me with sage advice like “Don’t worry, love. The right one will come along when you least expect it.”
I sighed, my breath rippling the surface of the eggnog. I wanted to believe that was true, but as another Christmas came and went, loneliness gnawed at me like a hungry mouse.
It didn’t help watching my siblings pair off into blissful marriages and kids. Even my younger sister, Star, had beaten me to the altar. Meanwhile, my woeful romantic history could be summed up in one word: duds.
There was Mark, the mammalogy PhD student who preferred the company of his dorm mice over me. And Jordan, the wannabe drummer who considered his garage band the priority in the relationship. At least my stint with Alex the software engineer had given me the coding skills to build my own dating app. Not that matching with randos on Tinsel had yielded any keepers yet...
“Oh, Gram,” I murmured into my mug, “I wish you were here. I could really use one of your Christmas miracles right about now.”
The twinkling lights blurred into a kaleidoscope of color as I blinked back wistful tears.
Thump.
What was that? I paused the movie and listened again. Thump scritch. Was that...on the roof?
I tossed off my blanket cocoon and crept to the front window, peeking out suspiciously. Ever since that blasted raccoon had tipped over my trash cans last week, I’d been on high alert. I was not about to let that furry Grinch ruin Christmas morning with garbage strewn across the lawn.
Thump scritch scritch. There it was again!
I grabbed the broom from the closet, determination steeling my nerves. I knew I’d never actually conk the little bandit on his furry head, but surely the sight of me waving this broom would scare him off for good. Hopefully.
Clicking off the porch light, I slipped outside into the silent night. My breath puffed out in frosty clouds as I circled around to the side of the house, broom poised for action.
There was that scritching sound again, louder now. It seemed to be coming from the...garage roof? I squinted into the darkness, edging closer. The roof was pitch black except for a pale glow near the peak.
I froze, blinking hard. The glow was getting brighter, silhouetting a bulky shape against the night sky. It almost looked like...a sleigh? And, what, reindeer?
Okay, the spiked eggnog was clearly getting to me. I shook my head sharply, but the vision remained. The sleigh-like shape slid down the roof on invisible runners, coming to rest at the edge above the driveway.
Now the glow brightened into a full-on shine, illuminating the yard in twitching shadows. Shielding my eyes, I stumble-stepped backwards and suddenly, I was staring straight into the face of a bearded man poking his head over the gutter.
“Well, hello there!” he bellowed in a deep, jolly voice. “Sorry for the clumsy landing, seems we’re a touch off course this year.” He vanished back onto the roof with a scrape and a thump.
I stood frozen, clutching my broom in white-knuckled disbelief, wondering if I had finally gone off the deep end. I had to be dreaming, right? This simply could not be real.
Because that jolly red-suited man tromping across my garage looked an awful lot like.... Santa Claus?
I rubbed my eyes, wondering if the spiked eggnog was making me hallucinate. But when I looked up again, the bearded man in the red suit was still perched on my garage roof next to a glowing sleigh and prancing reindeer.
“Sorry for the intrusion, miss!” he called down to me cheerfully. “Seems we’ve gotten a mite off course this year. Comet didn’t properly calculate the rotational velocity when we added St. Louis to the route. Rookie mistake.”
He vaulted off the roof with surprising agility for his considerable size and ambled over to me, boots crunching through the fresh snow. Up close, his thick white beard and rosy cheeks looked oddly...natural. And were those pointed ears peeking out from under his red cap?
“I don’t believe we’ve met before. The name’s Xanther Claus.” He extended a massive hand encased in a black leather glove.
