Page 2 of Santa Daddy, I'm Not the One

“I’m coming home,” he said.

“Hurry,” Njal said. “We’ll be waiting for you. Leave your clothes at the door.”

With a moan, Eirwyin ended the connection and blew out a gust of air. He quickly fixed his clothes and sprayed fine snow dust on his hands that instantly cleaned them. When he was decent again, he slipped out of the restroom as if nothing had happened.

A chilly breeze swept through the workshop, and Eirwyin shivered as he walked back to his desk. Frowning, he followed the direction of the draft. A window stood open. How strange. Had a wind blown it open? He hurried over and peered outside. No one was there, but he could make out faint footprints in the snow.

“Hello!” he called out. “Anyone there?”

An unsettling feeling filled his gut, but he shrugged it off. How many times had one of the elves played a cruel trick on him? He closed the window and dashed back to the desk. He grabbed a rolled-up parchment paper secured with a ribbon and ran over to the chute, a silk piece of elfin tech linking the chamber to the expedition elves’ workspace.

The last task of the day complete, Eirwyin cleared up the station. He was off for two weeks. Though the frigid realm of the North Pole would always be home, he was longing for the warmth a tropical paradise would bring. A pen fell from the desk and rolled beneath it. Eirwyin went down on his knees and stretched under the desk, feeling around. But instead of the pen, he came up with a rolled-up parchment.

He frowned. What was this doing here?

He removed the red ribbon around the parchment and unrolled it. A photograph on the right showed who the parchment belonged to. David Masterson. The name he should have sent down the chute. Eirwyin froze. If this was David’s, whose name had he sent?

The door to the workshop creaked open, and in came the imposing figure of his supervisor, Thaldor. He was tall for an elf, with icy blue eyes that seemed to pierce through you, and his silver hair was pulled back in a strict braid, accentuating his stern features. The air seemed to chill further.

“Ah, Eirwyin.” Thaldor’s voice was as cold as the breeze that had swept through the workshop earlier. “Finishing up, I see.”

“Yes, Thaldor. I’m leaving now, but there’s something—”

“What nonsense have you done now?” Thaldor’s lips pinched into a tight line as he stepped fully inside the room. “I told Santa I did not want you working in my department.”

Eirwyin’s heart thumped hard, and he swallowed the lump in his throat. His hand trembled, and he opened his mouth to speak, but no word came out. Thaldor’s chilling gaze cowered him into silence.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Good. Lock up when you’re on the way out. There have been reports that Frostheart is on the prowl. We cannot have him ruin Christmas like he did from 1644 to 1660.”

Frostheart?

The footprints in the snow outside the window came back to mind, but Eirwyin kept his lips firmly pressed together. If something went wrong, they would pin the blame on him. Maybe he would get lucky and the name he’d sent down the chute had been from the List of Hearts.

If it had been from the Shadow Ledger…he shuddered to think about it.

Either way, he wouldn’t be around for whatever happened. For two weeks, he would have nothing to do with whatever happened in Twinkle Glen.

“Everything’s in order,” he said, forcing a smile to his lips.

1

LANDON

The last rays of the winter sun filtered through the windows of my upscale toy store, casting long shadows over shelves lined with the season’s must-haves. There was a reason Landon’s Luxury was the most sought-after toy shop in the entire town. With a good eye for toy selection, each year, I predicted which toys would be the most popular, then spent a fortune acquiring most of those toys. When they were sold out elsewhere, they appeared on my shelves, often for four times the profit. Some called me a genius, and others loathed me for my business practice, but was it my fault they all bought into the commercialization of the holidays?

If they wanted the toys so badly, they could spend the money to pay for them.

The bell above the door jingled, signaling the entrance of a tired-looking man. He scanned the rows of toys with a mix of desperation and hope. I frowned. In his shabby-looking worn-out coat, frayed at the edges, and battered boots dusted with fresh snow, he seemed out of place amid the polished mahogany counters and displays.

“You’re letting in a draft,” I said in a clipped tone when he just stood with the door open.

“Oops, sorry.” He let the door swing shut with him on the wrong side.

As he moved closer, I saw the lines etched deeply into his face, each one telling a story of hard work. His eyes carried a certain haunted look that spoke volumes about lost dreams, but also a spark of stubbornness that refused to extinguish.

Stubborn old fool. He should give up.

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