Page 117 of Christmas Kisses

Ty said, “I wrote you a letter. But I want to make sure you got it, cause it’s super important this year.”

“I’ll bet it is. Well, my boy, I get so many letters that I probably don’t remember off the top of my head. Getting older, you know. And my list is home at the North Pole. So you’d better tell me now, just in case.”

Tyler crooked a finger. Santa leaned closer, and Ty whispered into his ear. As he did, he pointed. He pointed right at Kara, and Santa looked her way too, and she could’ve sworn his lip quivered just a little bit behind his snowy white whiskers. Her heart melted, and her eyes met Jimmy’s, tried to read what was there. But it was a mystery to her.

* * *

Tyler didn’t cry or complain about going to PT once all morning. Not even when they were on their way to the clinic, though Jim had fully expected he would. Once there, Tyler refused to let Kara stay in the waiting room, insisting she come into the treatment area with them. And while he did his exercises, struggling through them without a whimper for the first time ever, Kara kept bringing up the ponies. “Only another half hour, Ty, and then we get to see the ponies,” she’d say. “Just another fifteen minutes, Ty. I wonder if she has a brown one. I like brown ponies best. What color do you like?” And, “Maybe we’ll have to get you a cowboy hat, Ty. If you’re going to ride ponies, you really ought to have a cowboy hat, don’t you think?”

Every time it got tough, every time it hurt, every time Tyler floundered, she was there. Kara Brand was reading his kid as well as he did, and jumping in to distract him or soothe him at all the right moments. And then, finally, it was over. Tyler was red-faced, sweating, but dry-eyed and smiling. He hurried ahead of them to the pickup, and Jim put a hand on Kara’s arm to slow her down.

She turned to look up at him. He sighed, shook his head. “You can’t possibly know what you did for him today, Kara. These sessions... they’re usually hell. He’s never managed to get through one without getting angry and frustrated, without crying and begging to stop. It’s like a miracle.”

She lowered her head. “I’m just glad it was easier on him this time,” she said.

“I know you are.” He stared at her, at a loss for words.

She put a hand on his arm. “Let’s get him to the farm, Jimmy. He’s really earned it.”

He nodded, not sure how to make her understand the magic she’d performed today. And then they got to the farm and the magic multiplied tenfold. Tyler was in heaven when Barbara Jean Collins led the way to the pasture where a half dozen miniature horses grazed by the edge of a stream. She was a solidly built woman, dressed in bib overalls and a big flannel shirt.

She looked down at Tyler. “Do you know how to whistle?”

He nodded, puckered up his lips and blew. The resulting sound was faint and mostly air. Barbara Jean patted his shoulder. “Okay, pal, we’re gonna have to work on that whistle. Meanwhile, let’s try one together, huh?”

Tyler nodded. Barbara put two fingers to her lips, and when Ty whistled again, she did, too.

The little animals’ heads came up, then they trotted right to her—and to Tyler since he was standing right beside her.

Jim watched, his heart swelling as his son’s face lit up and the woman led him from one animal to the next, introducing them as Corky and Snuffy and Baby Jane and Rusty and... he lost track of the names after that. He watched Tyler point to the one he liked best, Rusty, and then Barbara nodded and took that horse by its halter, leading it into the nearby stable with Tyler right on her heels.

“You guys find a comfy spot and take a break,” Barbara Jean called back to Jim and Kara. “Ty and I are gonna have a lesson in saddling a horse. We’ll be back in a flash.”

Jim nodded, even though it was against his instincts to let anyone, particularly a strange woman, take his son out of his sight

“It’s okay,” Kara whispered.

He looked down at her. And he knew when he met her eyes that she was seeing right through him. That uncanny empathy of hers again. She couldn’t just read his son, he realized. She could read him, too.

“Mom’s known Barbara for fifteen years. She’s a good woman, Jimmy. Raised three sons of her own.”

He nodded. Kara took his hand and led him to a bale of hay by the fence, and they sat down on it to wait.

A few minutes later the red-brown mini-horse with the shaggy cream-colored mane came plodding out of the stable with Tyler on his back, and Barbara Jean leading him. Tyler had never in his entire life looked the way he looked right then.

Jim stood up, not quite aware of doing so, and Kara stood beside him. And as Tyler rode past, laughing and waving, the sunshine gleaming in his hair, Jim put an arm around Kara’s shoulders and pulled her close as he tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

“I’m riding, Dad! Look at me! I’m riding a real pony!” Jim waved again, unable to speak. And then he looked down at Kara. Her eyes were fixed on Tyler as he rode, and he thought she might have been as moved as he was. And he knew then that he needed this woman in his life. His son needed her. And he was going to do whatever it took to make her a part of their lives. Permanently. Kara wasn’t just too good to be true. She was far too good to let slip away.

* * *

Vinnie had gone out and he wasn’t back yet. He’d been stingy this morning. Given her just a little sniff, and it hadn’t been nearly enough. Angela was nervous, damned emotional, and that wasn’t a way she enjoyed feeling. She’d been through every suitcase Vinnie had brought along, but she couldn’t find a thing. And dammit, if she didn’t do a couple of lines soon, she was going to pull her hair out.

She tried to go back to bed but was too restless to sleep. So she got up and hunted some more. By the time Vinnie came back, she’d torn the lining out of his suitcases, stripped the motel room’s bed and shoved the mattress off.

He came in the door, looked at the mess around him and shot her a dangerous glare.

“I’ll clean it up. Dammit, Vinnie, where’s the stuff? You said you brought some, but you barely gave me enough for a buzz this morning. Where is it?”

---