Page 136 of Santa Daddies
I’m baking cookies and you’re being very distracting. Don’t you have important Santa things you should be doing?
I clenched my jaw in frustration.
We’re going to have a long discussion when I get home and you’ll be lucky if that discussion doesn’t include some very important input from Daddy’s belt.
I waited for a minute for the backpedaling to start, but she was silent.
And really, didn’t that tell me everything I needed to know? Something was very, very wrong.
I still couldn't get anything from her. For a moment I considered how I could put cameras up in our house just so Icould see what she was doing, but just the thought made me feel like a creepy stalker. If it didn’t, I totally would have done it.
I hit the intercom button on my phone. “Bernie, can you call my parents and let them know I’m on my way over?”
“Sure thing, Santa. Should I tell them why?”
I considered the wisdom of telling her or maybe even taking her with me just to get another perspective on my current dilemma, but I really didn’t want any of the other elves to catch wind of anything. I hadn’t been joking earlier when I said the elves had a tendency to be a little bit overdramatic and we really didn’t need anything else for them to be panicking over this close to Christmas.
“Just tell them I need to chat about some family business.”
That was enough to give them a little heads-up and not enough to send anyone into an avalanche of emotion.
I was already stressed out enough. The last thing I needed was for the elves to get wind of our current predicament, and make everything a thousand times more stressful.
Shaking my head as if I could shake off the shame and confusion I felt, I left my office and headed to my parents’ cottage. It was time to do some damage control.
Chapter Six
Yule
“Did you just say your wife is on the naughty list?Again?Son, this is unacceptable. I don’t think there has been a Mrs. Claus in history that has been on the naughty list!” Papa Claus paced the floor, shaking his head as he muttered Christmas curses under his breath.
Maybe my father had spent too many years around panicking elves because the second I blurted out my issue, he’d spiralled.
“Calm down, dear. This is not the end of the world.” My mother tried to calm him, and I realized that was what she’d been doing for my whole life. For a split-second, I wondered if it was actually him, not the elves, that was the problem.
“Certainly not, but it could be the end of Christmas! The end of the Claus name! Call one of the legal team. We need to loop them in on this. We need to figure out how to get in front of this before things go south.”
Oh, brother. I’d come for some fatherly advice and he was about to turn this into a full PR crisis.
“Dad, we don’t need to loop anyone in! I just came for advice. She has completely blocked me out so I have no idea what she is thinking or feeling. No clue what she is up to or evenhowshe ended up on the naughty list between the time I left her in the morning and the time I got to the office.”
“See, there is nothing to fret about yet.” Mama waved in my father’s direction, then turned her attention to me. “Son, you need to go home and have a long conversation with your sweet wife. She needs your time and your ear. Take the day and give her that. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, the North Pole will not melt down around all of us if Santa takes the day off.”
I’d heard her say that exact phrase to my father multiple times growing up when he got sick or needed a day of rest around the holidays. I knew she was right.
“This has to be remedied by Christmas Eve.” Papa reminded me.
Sighing, I nodded my head. “I’ve done it before, I can do it again. At least I don’t have to worry about making her a believer before I get her off the list first, this time.”
“Thank the sugarplum fairies for small miracles," Papa grumbled.
Mama shot him a look. “Go to the kitchen and get a cookie. You’re grumpy.”
At the mention of cookies, my father beelined it out of there, grumbling the entire way.
Mama shook her head. “Ignore him. He is not handling retirement as well as he wants us all to think. You go home and give that sweet wife of yours the kind of attention she can only get from you. Everything will look brighter in the morning. Call us if you need anything else, but I have faith in you, son. You’re a good man and that girl loves you to the South Pole and back a million times over.”
“Okay, Mama. Thank you.”
