Page 46 of Call Sign: Thunder
The admission surprised Zach. “Whatever the reason, thank you. I’m enjoying being here with you and Allison.”
Allison moved closer to her father, giving him a tight hug before calling out, “Time to open gifts!”
As they moved closer to the fireplace to take seats near the Christmas tree, Zach tried not to panic. The Bensons were not just rich... they were super rich. They had the kind of money that made Zach feel like there was absolutely nothing he could give as a gift to Allison that could compete with the opulence her father could shower on her. He did his best to push down his insecurities as Allison picked up package after package from under the tree and started passing them out to the three of them.
By the time she had finished the job of elf, the men each had a decent pile of wrapped gifts while Allison had a pile twice as big.
One by one they took turns opening boxes and bags, each commenting on their gifts until they were each down to one final box.
Mr. Benson went first, opening the pair of tickets to the Broadway show he’d been wanting to go see, according to Allison. Zach had ordered and wrapped them before even boarding the plane to Colorado. Now that he was here, the gift seemed so inadequate.
“How in the world did you know I’ve been wanting to see this show?” he asked.
“Allison told me of course. She said you and your wife loved taking in Broadway shows together.”
“We did. But there are only two tickets here. You should have gotten us three so we could all go.”
Zach had thought about it, but had decided against it. “Naw… I think that’s a tradition you should keep up with Allison. I’m so grateful you are letting me be here with your family, but that doesn’t mean you two don’t still need quality time together.”
The senator’s eyes widened, clearly surprised with Zach’s answer. The elder man just nodded in his direction, barely getting out his emotional, “Thank you.”
Allison, anxious to keep opening gifts, called for Zach to go next. He’d been relieved that up until now he’d opened relatively inexpensive gifts of clothing and cologne, but the remaining box on his lap was much bigger and heavy, and when he opened it, there were several smaller wrapped gifts inside.
He knew Allison had spent way more money on him that he had for her when the first thing he opened was a new iPhone.
“Allie, I have a phone. I don’t need a new one,” he argued.
“Yes you do! I can’t FaceTime with you on that thing you call a phone. Now we’ll be able to do video calls too.”
He had to admit, that did sound good, although he hoped her father didn’t pick up on the fact they had talked about enjoying more phone sex after Zach had to return to the base.
He hid his sly smile by opening the next box, this time finding an iPad. “For crying out loud, I didn’t need the phone but I really don’t need an iPad.”
“Yes you do. We can FaceTime on this too but more importantly, you said your tablet died and so you haven’t been able to do as much reading as you used to do. You can read books on your iPad.”
He hated to admit it, but she was right. Still, she’d spent so much more money on him than he had her that it made him uncomfortable, especially when figuring in that almost every dollar she spent was most certainly money given to her by her father.
“There’s one more box in there,” she said excitedly, reaching in to help him pull out the smallest of the boxes. “This one is from my dad.”
When Zach opened the gift to find an expensive looking watch he suspected cost thousands of dollars, he protested. “This is too expensive. I can’t accept this.”
“Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t even be having a Christmas at all this year if you hadn’t saved my little girl. I can’t even imagine what my life would be like if you hadn’t found her and risked your life to get Allie out of Colombia when you did.
“And anyway, the watch is a submersible. Not only can you dive with it, but it should be a good watch for when you’re on missions with the compass, multiple stopwatches, and GPS functionality.”
Zach wasn’t a watch expert, but he knew enough to suspect the senator had dumped over twenty grand on this one. He still felt uncomfortable accepting it, but finally said, “Thank you. It’s very thoughtful and sounds like the kind of watch I’ll find very useful.”
A glance at Allison found her smiling, clearly happy to see the two men in her life getting along so well.
“Your turn, now, Allie,” her father said. “You have one more gift there.”
Zach was nervous. Thanks to Miguel Blanco’s escape, they had stayed hunkered down at the Benson home since his arrival. He’d brought a few small gifts for her with him, but he’d hoped to pick up additional gifts once in Vail. Now he just hoped she wasn’t disappointed.
Allison tore the wrapping paper off the first box and grinned with delight at finding the framed photo of her and Zach. It was a candid photo he’d taken of them when they were together at the Hyatt a few weeks before. “It was the only photo I had of us together at the time and well… I had it framed for both us so we could have it for when we’re apart.”
It sounded so corny now that he was saying it out loud, but if the smile on Allie’s face was to be believed, she really did like the small gift.
The second box held a gift he’d spent a bit more money on. But now that he’d seen Allie’s jewelry box upstairs and knew that she had more gold, silver, and diamond jewelry here at her vacation home than most women owned in their entire life, it wasn’t nearly enough. Still, he hoped the simple gold necklace with the heart locket would mean something to her.
