A Father for Christmas: A Veteran’s Christmas, #1 Read online

  A Father for Christmas

  A Veteran’s Christmas, #1

  Rachelle Ayala

  http://rachelleayala.net

  Contents

  A Veteran’s Christmas Series

  Description

  Praise

  1. ~ Kelly ~

  2. ~ Tyler ~

  3. ~ Kelly ~

  4. ~ Kelly ~

  5. ~ Kelly ~

  6. ~ Kelly ~

  7. ~ Kelly ~

  8. ~ Kelly ~

  9. ~ Kelly ~

  10. ~ Tyler ~

  11. ~ Tyler ~

  12. ~ Tyler ~

  13. ~ Kelly ~

  14. ~ Kelly ~

  15. ~ Kelly ~

  16. ~ Kelly ~

  17. ~ Kelly ~

  18. ~ Kelly ~

  19. ~ Kelly ~

  20. ~ Kelly ~

  21. ~ Kelly ~

  22. ~ Kelly ~

  23. ~ Kelly ~

  Excerpt - A Pet for Christmas

  Excerpt - Christmas Stray

  Excerpt - Christmas Lovebirds

  Reading List

  Many Thanks

  Meet Rachelle

  A Veteran’s Christmas Series

  A Father for Christmas

  A Pet for Christmas

  A Wedding for Christmas

  Description

  Single mother Kelly Kennedy can't afford lavish gifts for her four-year-old daughter, Bree. Homeless veteran Tyler Manning doesn't believe he deserves a Merry Christmas. When Bree asks Santa for a father and picks Tyler, both Tyler and Kelly vow to keep Bree from being hurt while fighting their feelings for each other. Tyler struggles with frightening flashbacks that scare Kelly. Meanwhile, Kelly's criminal past threatens her chance for happiness.

  Tyler and Kelly must believe in the power of love to give Bree her best Christmas ever.

  Praise

  “Heartwarming story of hope and second chances.”

  – Ruth Davis

  “Absolutely breathtaking love story.”

  – Amber McCallister

  >>><<<

  A Father for Christmas won the 2015 Readers’ Favorite Gold Award for Christian Romance

  Copyright © 2014 by Rachelle Ayala

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real events or real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All trademarks belong to their respective holders and are used without permission under trademark fair use.

  Contact Rachelle at

  http://rachelleayala.me/author-bio/contact/

  Dedication

  To all the veterans who gave so much.

  1

  ~ Kelly ~

  “I want a papa for Christmas,” my four-year-old daughter, Bree, tells Santa. She bounces in his lap and tugs his beard. “A real live papa to play with me and take me to the zoo.”

  “You mean a puppy,” I cut in, my face flushed with heat. Ever since I put Bree in preschool, she’s realized she’s missing a father and bugging me to find one. She even suggested we put up posters on telephone poles like they do for lost pets.

  “No, silly mama.” Bree crosses her arms and shakes her blond ringlet curls. “I want a papa with two legs and two hands.”

  The mall-supplied Santa chuckles. “Ho, ho, ho. And a papa you shall have.”

  Giggles and titters spill from the women behind me.

  “I need me one of those, too,” a young mother holding a baby boy says. “Let’s see, six-foot-six, blazing hot and built like a fire truck.”

  “Oh, yeah,” another mother with two squirmy toddlers replies. “Do they have a catalog? I can spend hours drooling instead of wiping up drool.”

  Much like the hours I spent perusing anonymous sperm donor profiles back when I was a successful investment banker worried about aging eggs and the probability of getting struck by lightning without hitting the husband jackpot.

  Bree hugs Santa. “Will he be under the tree? Pwo-mise?”

  “You bet.” Santa high fives her.

  “Picture?” I scramble with my camera, an old Canon point-and-shoot borrowed from my mother, but the battery light flashes and the camera shuts off. Meanwhile, the elf manning the professional camera snaps a few shots of my sweet daughter kissing Santa. Ugh, I wonder how many germs are embedded in that polyester beard?

  Santa hands Bree to me and winks. “Shall I put a smartphone under the tree for you?”

  I’ll need a lot more than a smartphone: try rent, utilities, and car payments. Not only was I a former investment banker, I was stupid enough to believe my own research and ended up losing everything on a bad tip.

  “No, she wants a papa, too.” Bree tugs my coat sleeve. “I hear her praying for one every night.”

  Thankfully, Santa doesn’t answer. He’s already receiving the baby from the woman behind me. And actually, no, I’m not praying for a man, but Bree hears what she wants to hear, and in her little mind, all of our problems will be solved when the handsome princely father figure emerges to sweep her off her feet in a cotton candy sleigh drawn by a team of rainbow reindeer.

  As for me, I’ll settle for responsible, solvent, and well-endowed, although in my profession, er, former profession, I never saw a need for a man, especially the banking types who kept half the strip clubs in Manhattan in business. No thank you.

  The picture-taking elf smirks at me and hands me a ticket for the picture. “It’ll be twenty bucks for a five-by-seven or thirty-five for the package.”

  “I want a train ride.” Bree squirms from my arms and points to the Holiday Express miniature train making the rounds inside the enclosed winter wonderland play area in the mall. “When my papa shows up, he’ll take me on the train and we can wave at you.”

  Clutching the ticket for Bree’s picture with Santa, I bypass the photo booth conveniently placed near the line for the Holiday Express train. My meager paycheck has to be stretched for the holiday season, the first one since my insider trading conviction. Unable to land a job anywhere close to the financial services industry, I’ve been picking up shifts after-hours, cleaning the very office buildings I’m not allowed to enter as a banker.

  But I can afford five dollars for a ride on the Holiday Express. Bree looks at me expectantly and points to the monitor behind the cash register. “Mommy, there’s my picture with Santa.”

  “There you are, and don’t you look cute?” I say, dreading her next request to buy it.

  The cashier flashes a toothy smile. “We can have it printed while you wait for the Holiday Express.”

  “Can we?” Bree bounces on her toes. “He pwo-mised me a papa for Christmas.”

  “Maybe after the train, sweetie.” Going for distraction over chancing a meltdown, I hand the cashier a ten dollar bill for our two tickets.

  Fortunately, the screen behind her cycles to a baby boy crying on Santa’s lap, and Bree’s attention turns to the candy cane man.

  “Mommy, candy cane’s my fa-wor-ite.”

  “We have some at home.”

  “Those are teeny tiny. I want a big red and green one.”

  “We can’t lose our place in line. Oh, look, see the fairy princesses?” I direct her toward three teenaged girls wearing princess outfits.

  “They’re so pretty.” Bree’s mesmerized, and I breathe easier. My phone chimes with a text message. I flip it open. It’s my mother reminding me
to be on time for Wednesday night church. We’re singing a special together, and she wants to rehearse before the service.

  The line inches forward as I text her back. Mama’s nervous about the piano at church not responding like hers. Could I get to church half an hour early to do a dress rehearsal? I’m not sure why she’s so nervous. Maybe it has to do with the handsome widower who recently joined the congregation. I tell her I still have to finish shopping and prepare dinner for Bree, but mother says that’s not a problem. She’ll bring macaroni and cheese and juice boxes to church, and Bree can eat in the multipurpose room. I agree, and Mama replies with her classic line to give Bree a kiss from her.

  I text my goodbye and put my phone away. “Bree, Nana’s giving you a kiss.”

  She’s not standing anywhere near me. A hot dagger of panic shoots up my chest. “Bree? Oh no, where’s Bree?”

  She was here a minute ago. The line hadn’t gone forward by much. Surely, she surged ahead to gawk at the train and the princesses. I jump out of line, looking toward the fairy princesses.

  “Bree!” My voice rises to a high-pitched shriek. People are staring, and I’m running in circles. “Have you seen my daughter? Bree! Blonde, wearing a pink Hello Kitty jacket. Bree!”

  I rush headlong to the picket fence separating the train tracks. What if she’s on the tracks? “Stop the train. My daughter’s missing.”

  A uniformed security guard heads toward me. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “My daughter’s missing. She was right here, and now she’s gone. Bree!” My arms flail, and I tear through the line.

  “I need a description.” The guard corners me. “Height, weight, what she was wearing.”

  “She’s four years old. Name’s Bree Kennedy. Curly blond hair, I don’t know, maybe forty pounds and three-and-a-half feet tall.” My heart pounds in my chest. “We have to find her.”

  “We’re trying, ma’am.” He calls into his walkie-talkie. “Missing child. Four-year-old girl. Blonde. Answers to Bree.”

  “She was wearing a pink jacket and blue jeans. Dora the Explorer shoes,” I add.

  The guard reports into his device, then turns to me. “Why don’t you come to the security office? Maybe someone’s turned her in.”

  “No, I want to keep looking.” My eyes are scanning the crowd. “I can’t believe I lost her.”

  “It’ll be okay.” He hands me his card. “Give me your number so we can call you.”

  I hastily give my number and tuck the card into my purse. Wiping my eyes and trying hard to keep under control, I run around the train ride and check the line of children waiting for Santa. No Bree. No where.

  “Have you seen my daughter? Blond hair, blue eyes? Four-year-old?” I’m frantically tapping people’s shoulders. A middle-aged man and his wife join me on my search.

  “It shouldn’t be hard to spot a blonde,” he says as his wife nods.

  He’s right. My daughter stands out at her preschool where the vast majority of children are ethnic Chinese, East Indian, or Hispanic. I’d noticed that earlier this year when we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to be close to my mother after I was released from prison.

  “What am I going to do?” I wail, my heart galloping with fright. “Bree! Where are you? Mommy’s looking for you.”

  So many children and parents mill around, making it hard to spot a little girl on her own. Sympathetic faces turn to me and people murmur. The guard returns to my side and shrugs. “No sign of her. We’ve called the police. Do you have a photograph?”

  My legs weaken and I stagger, dropping my purse on the floor. I turn it upside down and scramble through it for my photo wallet. Fat tears drop on my hands.

  “Here, here.” My fingers tremble as I give him the wallet-sized photo taken last year back in New York City with the Macy’s Santa Claus.

  “We’ve put out a lost child alert to all of the guards and merchants. Every exit has a camera, so if anyone tries to take her out, we’ll have it recorded.” The guard attempts to reassure me.

  “What if someone’s taken her to a restroom? What if they’re hurting her?” Sharp pains pierce my gut as I push away horrifying thoughts. “My baby. Oh, God, please bring her back.”

  “We’re checking all the restrooms and notified all the stores already,” the guard says. “Please, come to the security office. The police will meet us there.”

  I shove my things into my purse and stumble after him, crying uncontrollably. “God, please, God. Help me find Bree. Oh, Bree, where are you?”

  2

  ~ Tyler ~

  Tyler Manning strolled through a coffee shop at the mall and scored a half-filled cup of coffee from a recently vacated bistro table. Still warm and black. He wiped the lipstick off the rim with a napkin and took a sip before adding a packet of sugar.

  Being homeless and without a steady job meant he had to be on the lookout for leftovers. The pickings were good today.

  It was two weeks before Christmas and shoppers were out in force. Canned Christmas music piped through the sound system, and a giant, eighty-foot Christmas tree was erected under the stained glass dome of the mall. Every arch was festooned with multi-colored strobe lights, and a dazzling amount of golden ornaments and fake snow decorated the windows.

  Christmas season. A time of fake cheer and phony laughter. Just another excuse for businesses to bleed people dry. Especially during the worst recession he’d seen since returning from Afghanistan.

  Tyler’s hands shook as he tipped the coffee cup to his lips. Here he was, back in a country where people had their heads up their asses, unconcerned and ungrateful to chumps like him who’d believed the rhetoric and put their miserable lives on the line.

  Ten years ago, he’d left his hometown a hero, quarterback of his college football team and a draft pick to play pro ball. He’d given it all up for a chance to serve his country, to fight for freedom and protect his homeland. Now? He was a big zero. A head case, hearing roadside bombs and men’s screams in his head, haunted by the internal movie of buddies dead and missions failed.

  Tyler wandered among the shoppers, almost tripping over a small boy clutching a toy fire truck as if the sum of all happiness resided in that piece of plastic, made in China. The boy’s mother grabbed her son’s hand and shot Tyler a suspicious glare. Guess letting his hair and beard grow while wearing cast off clothes from a veteran’s charity was too much of a contrast to the upper crust folks at this upscale mall so close to the San Francisco Financial District.

  He could walk around here if he wanted to. There was no better place to scrounge food than at an affluent shopping center where women watched their waistlines and picky children limited themselves to a single food group. Since the customers here were accustomed to maids picking up for them, they oftentimes left entire plates of food on the table without throwing their leftovers into the trash or busing their own trays. As long as he didn’t look too much like a bum, he could simply sit down at the table and pretend he’d gone to get a napkin or several packets of ketchup before returning to his meal.

  Most people had their noses too far in the air to care, so besotted were they by the imposing architecture, combining an old-world grandeur with futuristic glass and gleam underneath an ostentatious centerpiece dome. The glass panes above were wired with strings of colorful lights for the nightly holiday light show. Whoop-dee-doo.

  Underneath, in the large courtyard, a gigantic winter wonderland playground was set up to indoctrinate children into greed and excess at their most impressionable age. People dressed as ornaments, princesses, nutcrackers, elves, candy canes, and wrapped presents posed for pictures with children as they lined up to sit on the lap of an old fake Santa. A twenty dollar sitting fee plus another twenty-five or thirty for the picture. About the price for a lap dance at a seedy strip club.

  Tyler wanted to plug his ears as he passed the line of whiny children. “I wanna,” “I wanna,” “I wanna.”

  As if the animatronics, light
show, and electronic holiday music weren’t enough to send a child into stimulus overload, the amount of sugar harbored by the candy canes, gingerbread snacks, and sugar cookies fueled the ferocity of temper tantrums of children being dragged away from the dazzling array of toy porn displayed prominently in the surrounding store windows.

  Tyler quickened his steps and cut behind Santa’s plastic throne.

  “I want a papa for Christmas,” a child’s voice warbled from the fat man’s lap.

  Good luck with that, Tyler whispered under his breath. The hopeful innocence of the little girl’s voice brought back his nightly prayers, kneeling at his bedside and believing God would bring his father back. Eventually his father had returned—in a body bag.

  He couldn’t help but peek at the source of the tiny voice. She was a sweet little girl, dressed in pink, with a mess of silver-blond curls. But what caught his eye was the woman standing behind the line, the girl’s mother. She carried the air of authority and insisted her daughter meant to have a puppy. Her business-like demeanor contrasted to the fierce blush coloring her face, as if she too, had secretly wanted a man, not for a father, but for recreational purposes.

  Despite her confident, upper-class aura, her clothes were ordinary: jeans, a pink sweater, and running shoes, unlike the designer outfits sported by the myriads of Christmas shoppers dripping with status symbols—diamond crusted watches and designer handbags. The woman was a looker, although not pretty in the delicate sense. Her warm brown hair was cropped in the efficient manner of a female Army officer in contrast to her elegant, fine-featured face, tiny pink lips, rosy cheeks, and a pert nose. Serious woman though. She marched her daughter away from Santa, probably upset that Jolly Ol’ St. Fake had promised to grant her daughter’s wish.