The Drifter's Gift. Lauryn Chandler
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Название: The Drifter's Gift
Автор: Lauryn Chandler
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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It turned her face into a work of art.
Sam continued to stare after she and her family had walked away. He spent the next forty minutes uttering Santa-isms and a half hour after that had changed out of his costume. He exited the employee lounge, then halted as abrubtly as his bum leg would allow.
Facing him on the opposite side of the wide hall was a community bulletin board crowded with notices about lost dogs, skis for sale and jobs wanted. Standing in front of the board were Timmy Harmon and his grandfather.
“Put on a blue one,” Timmy instructed, bouncing with approval when his grandfather stabbed a colored thumbtack into the corkboard.
“All right, that’ll do it.” Nodding, the older man stood to study the three-by-five card he’d posted. “She’s going to thank me for this. Eventually.”
He put a hand on top of Timmy’s red head. “Let’s see if your mother’s through shopping yet. She’s happier in a market than a gopher in a hole.”
Timmy giggled, and they moved off. Sam wondered if the little boy would recognize him as they passed, but he was chattering up a storm and didn’t even glance Sam’s way. Apparently, out of the red suit Sam was just a stranger with a cane—and Timmy’s mother’s cookies in a brown paper bag tucked in his hand.
Thinking of the cookies drew a growl from his stomach.
Thinking of Timmy’s mother drew him to the bulletin board.
He felt like a voyeur, looking at a board in which he took no interest except for the small card with the blue thumbtack at the top. His eyes first widened, then narrowed as he read the message.
WANTED Man to work on small organic farm. Able to relocate and live on premises for room, board (good food!) and small stipend with potential for future partnership. Must like children. Please reply to Gene, 555-1807
Sam leaned on his cane, staring at the notice. Seemed Timmy wasn’t the only one who thought they needed a man around the house.
Gazing down the hall, he felt a stirring of interest he hadn’t felt for anything in a long while.
When his stomach spoke up again, he unrolled the bag of cookies, reached in and extracted one thick, uniformly browned circle. He planned to have a late lunch or early dinner in the coffee shop next to his motel room, but in the meantime—
The first bite nearly brought a tear to his eye. He tasted oats and brown sugar. He tasted coconut and pecans and…home.
Standing in front of the bulletin board, he chewed slowly, letting the taste—and the feeling—linger.
Home. It had been a long time. It seemed like forever.
Sam stayed where he was until a couple of employees emerged from the lounge, arguing about which of the town’s two movie theaters they should visit Coming back to his surroundings, he pretended to scan the board. But his gaze never strayed, really, his attention never shifted, from the card stuck to the board with a blue thumbtack.
Leaning back in a desk chair barely large enough to support his big frame, Joe Lawson pointed a finger at his old buddy Sam and nodded. “You look good in a full beard. The white tended to age you, but…” He shrugged and a slow, deliberate grin spread across his amiable features.
Closing the door behind him, Sam entered his friend’s office with an expression more befitting the Grim Reaper than Santa Claus.
“Now, Sammy—” Joe held up a hand as Sam limped into the room “—if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were peeved. And that can’t be, because Old St. Nick is a jolly old soul.” Clasping his hands behind his head, Joe kicked his feet up on the desk and frowned. “Or is that Frosty the Snowman?”
One hundred percent certain now that the Santa job had been Joe Lawson’s pathetic attempt at a practical joke, Sam shook his head.
“Neither,” he corrected, approaching the desk. “Old King Cole was a merry old soul.” Smiling, he cocked his head. “I don’t suppose you remember the one about Humpty Dumpty?”
“Humpty Dumpty?” Joe looked bemused.
“Yeah. How did that go?”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.” Resting his cane against the desk, Sam folded his arms. “Recite it.”
Shrugging at his friend’s sudden interest in nursery rhymes, Joe recited, “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great—Hey!”
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, but not as great as the spill Joe took when Sam lifted his feet off the desk and shoved him backward. The cushy leather chair in which Joe liked to rock back listed all the way, right down to the floor, with Joe in it.
The big man’s hard belly bounced. Laughter rolled from his barrel chest.
Sam took a seat in a chair on the opposite side of the desk and let a genuine—albeit reluctant—smile curve his lips. “I should have known better than to put that suit on this morning. When they said you wanted me to play Santa, I thought it was a real job offer. I didn’t want to insult your sorry carcass by refusing.”
“It was a real job offer.” Joe climbed out of the fallen chair, righted it and sat down. “Our regular Santa has the flu.” When he grinned, his full mustache hugged his mouth like an upside-down U. “Good to see you, buddy.”
Sam shook his head and smiled. “Yeah, good to see you, too.”
“Seriously,” Joe said, “I know you’re ticked, but you did a good job today. I hid behind the canned pears display and watched. You’re good around kids. You want to do it again tomorrow?”
Sam grimaced. “I’d rather face a court-martial.” Tossing a paper bag on the desk, he said, “Here. Some kid’s mother actually made cookies for Santa. Can you believe that?”
“Yeah? What kind?” Joe reached for the bag. “My sisters always put a plate of oatmeal cookies and a glass of milk near the chimney on Christmas Eve.” Humor pushed his cheeks into rosy apples. “I left M&M’s. I didn’t think he could get them at the North Pole.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Didn’t you ever do that when you were a kid?” Unrolling the top of the bag, he peered inside. “Don’t tell me you didn’t try to stay up all night to catch Santa when he came down the chimney, ’cause everyone I know did that.”
“Sure. Of course.”
Watching Joe inspect one of the large cookies Timmy’s mother had made, Sam wondered why he’d just lied. He was not dishonest by nature, but suddenly he’d had such a strong image of Joe and his sisters secretly awaiting Santa’s big entrance, of their parents peering in from a doorway, smiling in the background, that a myriad of confusing feelings rumbled through СКАЧАТЬ