Page 6 of The Vampire and the Case of the Cozy Christmas

The men went to the piano. Okay, so Connor and Stan weren’t full of Christmas cheer and neither were Gunnar and Liv, but somehow that was what made it perfect: all families argue, and this imperfect family was mine.

I’d been amazed to discover that Connor, Gunnar and Sigrid could all play the piano. Gunnar had been practising since I’d found this goofy sing-along online story and had thought it might be fun – it was about a family that were trying to finish their Christmas shopping and get home before Santa arrived. The words were interspersed with Christmas songs.

I waited until Gunnar was warming up at the piano, then handed out copies to the others and we gathered round. Connor and Stan were eyeing each other and they both sang louder and louder as the songs progressed, their competitiveness rapidly zooming past amusing and landing firmly in hilarious territory. Thomas was sipping a coffee and watching with open amusement and Sidnee was crying tears of laughter as the two men bellowed songs about good cheer at each other.

Apart from Thomas and me – I was still on call – everyone was hip deep in wine or eggnog, so the atmosphere had gone from tense to light and tipsy. Everyone was talking – though Gunnar still kept a careful distance from Liv.

‘Who’s ready for gift giving!’ I shouted over the din.

Stan’s hand shot up first. ‘I am! Hop to it, Bunny!’ I could tell from his triumphant grin that he’d been waiting all night to say that.

I mock shot him with a finger gun and he grabbed his chest as if mortally wounded. ‘That’s the only bunny joke you get tonight, got it?’ I ordered.

‘Yes, oh great and powerful rabbit!’

I sighed, but Stan had been supplementing his nog with ’shine so it was no good talking to him now. He was battling his polar bear’s metabolism with enthusiasm.

I approached the Christmas tree and blinked: all the lights had gone from the tree. ‘What the heck?’ I said. ‘Where have the fairy lights gone?’

‘The same place as my gingerbread men!’ Sigrid scowled.

‘I said it wasn’t me!’ Stan protested.

Sigrid patted his hand. ‘I believe you, dear, but someone has definitely been stealing things!’

‘Let’s not worry about it now,’ I urged. ‘It’s present time!’

Connor was on his phone, eyeing his tree and barking instructions to the guards. Someone had breached his wards and he wasnothappy about it, even if all they’d purloined were gingerbread men and some fairy lights. When you considered that Connor had an entire room dedicated to fancy treasures, snatching the five-dollar battery-run lights and some cookies seemed a weird choice.

I tried to put it out of my mind as everyone gathered around our less-than-twinkling tree and started passing out gifts enthusiastically; we’d all brought some and there was a veritable mound of them.

It made my heart sing that all of these good people had gone to such efforts to make this Christmas party special.

Chapter 5

‘Shall we just dive in?’ Stan asked, his eyes eager like he was a kid and the presents were gnawing at him.

‘No, I want to see everything! We should go one at a time, oldest to youngest,’ Sidnee chimed in. Sig looked at her with maternal pride and I wondered if present giving had been done that way when Sidnee was a teenager.

‘Ah, come on!’ Stan grumbled. ‘We always do it that way!’ I guessed that it had.

‘So?’ Sidnee challenged him

‘Okay, okay, fine. We’ll do it your way, oldest to youngest – only who’s oldest?’

Liv slowly raised her hand. ‘I am, but I crashed the party, so…’

‘I have something for you!’ I said quickly. I did too; it was in my bag in Connor’s room. I had planned to drop it by her house the next day. I’d picked it up in Sitka on the one day I’d been able to shop during commander’s weekend. It had screamed Livto me, and since I thought it might help her get over my actions I’d bought the silly thing.

I plucked the wrapped package out of my bag and hurried back to hand it to Liv. She looked at it like she didn’t know what to do and I wondered how long it had been since she’d received a gift with no strings attached.

She carefully unfastened the tape and peeled off the wrapping then her face filled with wonder. The snow globe was heavy and large and I’d had Sig enchant it so the snow would swirl without shaking it. Inside were the Great Pyramids surrounded by sand and there was even a tiny sphinx. The Christmas star embedded in the glass twinkled when you moved it. As Liv looked at it, a warm smile crossed her face. ‘Thanks, Bunny.’

‘It doesn’t snow in Egypt!’ Stan snorted.

Liv fixed him with a stare and quirked one elegant eyebrow, ‘And you’d know this …. how?’

Stan’s face warmed and he gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘Well, everyone knows it’s a hot country.’

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