All I Want For Christmas (14 Christmas Novellas to Benefit Diabetes Research) Read online

  A few minutes later Ryan walked back into the kitchen, where Mary was peeling potatoes for dinner, and showed her what he’d made. The reindeer was rather primitive looking, but it was unique. And fun. Just like her easygoing son. Most people never saw beyond Ryan’s athletic talents, but Mary had always known he was bright and funny and quite artistic, as well. Now, as a grown man, he brought all of that to his career as a Major League Baseball pitcher.

  After making sure she hung his reindeer so that it wouldn’t blend in with the rest of the branches on the tree, Mary reached back into the box and drew out the next ornament.

  Her other middle son, Zach, had always been a practical joker. From birth he’d been such a shockingly beautiful boy that he could get away with anything simply by smiling. He had all the girls in his class under his spell, his teachers wound around his little finger and the other boys clamoring to be his friend. Now he ran a chain of auto repair shops throughout California and raced cars in his spare time.

  One Christmas, Mary had just finished making a large tray of gingerbread cookies and had left them on the counter to go and help bandage one of the little ones who had fallen off their tricycle in the backyard. That was when one of the kids snuck into the kitchen and took a bite out of each cookie.

  How could she do anything but laugh when she returned to the kitchen? None of the kids would fess up to the Christmas crime but, come Christmas Eve, when Zach announced he had one more ornament for the tree, lo and behold, it was one of the gingerbread men with a bite taken out of him. Zach had coated the cookie in a thick layer of rubber cement so it wouldn’t fall apart and had pushed a paperclip through the center of its forehead to use as a makeshift hanger.

  Life with her kids had never been dull, that was for sure, she thought with a chuckle as she hung the fun ornament on the tree. And she wouldn’t have traded a minute of those crazy years when they were all together in the ranch house in Palo Alto for anything in the world.

  The next set of ornaments was also in its very own box and Mary made sure to pull each one out with extreme care. Her youngest son Gabe had always been intrigued by fire, so it was fitting that he’d become a firefighter. He’d barely been four when Jack brought home a little Bunsen burner and suggested they try to blow some glass ornaments by hand. Mary had loved the way Jack had told the history of the first-ever Christmas ornaments to the kids, explaining that they had been made just like this.

  Mary remembered the two of them, standing side by side, focused intently on the job at hand. She recalled how Jack took absolute care to make sure his son didn’t get hurt, just as he always had with all of his children and her, as well.

  The resulting small glass ornaments were lopsided and imperfect…and utterly precious to her as she hung them on the tree now and every year.

  When Mary returned to the box and pulled out a large ball wrapped in pink paper that rattled in her hands, she knew exactly whose this was. Lori—aka “Naughty”—was one of her twin girls. Mary and Jack had already had six boys, who were more than enough to keep them busy from sunup to sundown, but that didn’t stop both of them from longing for a girl.

  She stopped unwrapping the ornament as she thought about that Saturday morning so long ago when Jack had realized Mary was pregnant again. The house was still quiet—an amazing and rare feat with so many rowdy kids. Jack woke her with his sinfully sweet lovemaking, and, oh, how she’d loved those sleepy moments in his arms, when pleasure would drift over and through her in gentle waves.

  She had almost fallen asleep again in his arms, when she heard Gabe call out from his bedroom down the hall. Only two years old, he was the earliest riser in the house, especially when he was hungry. And as a little firefighter in training, he was always hungry.

  She was just climbing out of bed when Jack stopped her with a gentle arm around her waist. His dark eyes were full of so much love it stopped her breath.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  She had been so busy with her six boys that she suddenly realized she’d missed the signs this time around. Now she could see that her breasts were fuller, her waist slightly thicker.

  Jack splayed his hands over her belly. “You’ve always glowed during pregnancy, but this time you’re more beautiful than ever.” He drew her close and whispered against her lips, with utter certainty, “We’re finally going to have a girl.” It was crazy, but she swore she felt it, too—the slightly different energy inside of her compared to the six boys she’d carried.

  But there were more miracles to come when they found out they were having twins! And what lucky little girls Lori and Sophie were to have six older brothers to protect and care for them.

  A gust of wind through the trees outside the cabin brought Mary back to the present. Realizing she was still holding Lori’s wrapped ornament in her hands, she laughed with delight when she finished opening it.

  Dozens of plastic goggle eyes stared out at her from the round ball. Only Lori would think to glue moving eyeballs all over an ornament. As a professional dancer and choreographer, Lori was always in motion—but, at the same time, she didn’t miss a thing. More often than not, she was the one moving from one sibling to the other giving expert advice. Neither her twin sister nor her older brothers escaped her notice. Her intuitive comments were always delivered in her typically sassy way, of course.

  Mary hung Lori’s ornament on the tree, then moved back to the box to take out a small, white felt bag. Sophie—aka “Nice,” as Chase had christened her so many years ago—had quite possibly put the most thought into her ornaments. Sophie was now a librarian, but even as a small child she’d think things over for a long time before taking action. She was quiet enough that people sometimes made the mistake of discounting her. But Mary never had. Sophie was incredibly sweet, extremely wise, and she’d always had a gentle patience that Mary still worked hard to attain most days.

  She remembered the day Sophie had asked to be taken to the local sewing shop, right before Christmas. Mary had tried to teach all of her kids to sew, but the only two who had any interested in needles and thread had been Smith and Lori, probably because they were always putting together costumes for plays, musicals and dance recitals. Of all her kids, Sophie had had the least interest in sewing, so when Sophie made her request Mary wondered if her daughter could have had a sudden change of heart.

  The minute they walked into the store, Sophie made a beeline for the button drawers. One by one, she carefully studied the buttons before making her choices.

  Mary loved to sit back and watch her children’s minds work. They never ceased to surprise and delight her. Keeping an eye on her daughter as she chose new fabric for bedroom curtains, Mary watched Sophie take her pile of buttons to the counter to pay. When the woman at the register asked what they were for, Sophie told her, “They’re a Christmas surprise for my family.”

  Mary nearly laughed out loud at the confusion on the woman’s face. Clearly, the woman believed Sophie would be giving out buttons for Christmas presents. Mary couldn’t wait to discover Sophie’s plans.

  When they returned home, Sophie disappeared into her bedroom with her bag of buttons and Mary’s sewing kit. For the rest of the day, Mary was so busy baking treats and wrapping presents in preparation for Christmas Eve that she was surprised when Sophie stood up after dinner and announced, “I’ve made a special Christmas ornament for everyone in the family.”

  Reaching into a little bag she’d made out of white felt to hold the buttons, Sophie walked slowly around the table and placed one button on a string in each of her siblings’ hands.

  Marcus was the first to hold his up. The large black button with flecks from all the colors of the rainbow swung from a dark string Sophie had threaded through one of the holes. Smith’s button ornament was a bright red and silver that caught the eye at every angle. Chase’s was a simple yet masculine navy blue. Ryan grinned at the way his button had been painted to look like a baseball. Zach’s button was sleek black, like one of the race cars he dreamed of driving. Gabe’s button had flames etched onto the front of it. Lori’s was the flashiest of all, covered in sparkles and glitter. The button Sophie had chosen for herself was a rectangle that looked like a miniature hardcover book.

  “What a fantastic surprise,” Mary said as she marveled at the way Sophie had managed to brilliantly capture each of her siblings’ personalities with buttons, of all things. Each of the kids agreed as they headed over to the tree to hang up the ornaments.

  Sophie slid onto Mary’s lap. “This one’s for you, Mommy.”

  Sophie had placed a heart-shaped button in Mary’s palm. Her eyes were already full when Sophie took one more button out of the bag.

  “I made one for Daddy, too.” This final button was covered in brown corduroy and was warm and solid in Mary’s hand. “Do you think he’d like it?”

  Mary hadn’t been able to prevent two tears from spilling down her cheeks. “He would have loved it.”

  As a burst of wind shook the tall pines outside the log cabin and Mary came back to the present, she realized she was standing in the middle of the living room, holding the felt bag against her chest, over her heart. Moving back over to the tree, she carefully hung each of the buttons in a group on the thick green branches, then placed the bag back into the box.

  Only two ornaments were left—the first ones that Mary and Jack had ever given each other as a young married couple. She lifted them out and went to sit in the chair by the fire. After unwrapping them carefully, she placed them side by side on her lap and ran her fingers over the familiar contours.

  And as Mary closed her eyes to savor her memories of falling in love with Jack Sullivan, the first snowflakes of winter began to fall….

  Chapter One

  Early Decembe
r, nearly forty years ago…

  Jack Sullivan needed a Christmas miracle.

  “There’s no question that the Pocket Planner is a great and cutting-edge product. That’s why we agreed to manufacture thousands of units in anticipation of big Christmas orders,” Allen Walter explained. The distinguished gray-haired man who had founded Walter Industries held Jack’s invention in his hand. “Unfortunately,” Allen said as he put it on the table and slid it a couple of inches away, “our sales reps have all reported in to let us know that their accounts are far more interested in ordering toys like the Pet Rock and posters of sex symbols such as Jacqueline Bisset for the holiday sales rush. My company has already lost a great deal of money on several great products this year. What we need to sell this Christmas is a sure thing, so we’re going to have to cut our losses now. I’m afraid this is the end of the road for the Pocket Planner.”

  Ten years ago, Jack had just begun the Ph.D. program in electrical engineering at Stanford University when he’d woken up in the middle of the night with a crystal-clear vision of a portable electronic device that would help people keep track of their appointments and to-do lists. His colleagues had thought he was crazy at first, but he’d held on to that vision with unwavering focus. By the time he’d graduated with his doctorate, three of his fellow Ph.D. candidates had joined his quest to develop the Pocket Planner.

  In classic Silicon Valley style, Jack, Howie Miller, Larry Buelton and James Sperring had left the campus labs and set up shop in the garage of a house Jack was renting on a suburban Palo Alto street. James married a year later and left the group to take a steady job with a paycheck. But Larry and Howard had stuck with Jack through hundreds of cold slices of pizza and cups of coffee while they sweated it out over their computers and calculators. They’d had plenty of failures and had made endless mistakes over the years, but there’d been enough success—along with part-time engineering jobs to keep the bills paid—to continue moving forward with their plan.

  This morning, when the three of them had put on suits and ties to come to this meeting with Allen Walter, they’d assumed he had great news to share with them about how things were shaping up for their big holiday product launch. Walter Industries had been one of the early investors in Hewlett Packard and, as far as Jack was concerned, they were the only partner he would have trusted with his baby. It had been a thrill when Allen’s company had signed on earlier in the year to manufacture and distribute the Pocket Planner to retailers this Christmas.

  Jack had worked too long and hard to let Allen and Walter Industries pull the plug. Even if several other new products had underperformed this year, he knew his wouldn’t. Fortunately, he’d done extensive research and he knew exactly what had underperformed and why.

  “The Factomatic doesn’t appeal to a broad enough market," Jack said. "And the Playerphone is too similar to the Stylophone. But our Pocket Planner isn’t just a gadget for men to get their tech fix with. Women will love using it, too, because it will make their busy lives easier. Even kids can use it to keep track of homework and after-school games.” Jack remembered how busy his mother had been raising four boys while putting in part-time hours at the school district office. She would have loved having his invention at her disposal to keep track of household purchases and school schedules. His father would have used it to track his favorite sports teams and investments.

  “I don’t doubt that you’re right, Jack,” Allen agreed. “The problem isn’t whether or not people would enjoy using your invention. I’m sure they would. The issue is getting the retailers to stock it in the first place. Between rising inflation and slowing economic growth, we’re finding it more and more difficult to get stores to give a new product a chance. They truly have to believe that people will want to part with their hard-earned dollars to buy it.”

  Jack could see his partners, Larry and Howie deflating more and more with every word out of the chairman’s mouth. But it would take a heck of a lot more than a couple of lukewarm sentences to make a Sullivan give up.

  “We appreciate your concerns, Allen, and would like to come back in twenty-four hours with a marketing and publicity plan that will convince you that our invention can be extremely profitable for your retailers.”

  Howie shot Jack a look that he could read without needing to hear him speak aloud: Why are you volunteering to come up with a marketing plan? We’re engineers, not PR people.

  Larry’s expression was even easier to read: It’s over.

  Allen shook his head. “I admire the work you’ve put into this, Jack, but times have changed—too fast, if you ask me. People aren’t interested in wholesome or helpful anymore.” He picked up the Pocket Planner again. “Tell you what—if you can figure out a way to give this device sex appeal, we may be able to continue the conversation.”

  Jack could have easily proved its usefulness. And he could have definitely detailed its time-saving benefits.

  But sex appeal?

  Even Jack knew when he was staring straight into a dead end.

  Still, he’d bought them twenty-four hours. Now it was time to use those hours to make absolutely sure he and his two partners came up with something big enough, reassuring enough, and “sexy” enough, that the retailers couldn’t say no.

  Careful not to let his doubts show, Jack stood up to shake hands with Allen and the other board members. Then the clock began to tick.

  In silence Jack and his two partners took the elevator down from the twentieth floor to the lobby. None of them said a word until they’d stepped out of the large glass doors and onto the sidewalk. Ten in the morning was a busy time of day in San Francisco’s financial district, and they had to speak loudly to be heard over the noise of the traffic and the suited businessmen and women rushing around them.

  “How are we supposed to give the Pocket Planner sex appeal?” Howie asked, clearly frustrated.

  “If we could have gotten it out two years ago, before the economy started to tank, the retailers would have taken it on without blinking.” Larry’s mouth was turned down at the corners as he spoke. He was a genius, but more than once he’d reminded Jack of Eeyore, the morose donkey from the children’s books his mother had read to him when he was a young boy. “But now? It will take a miracle to convince them to stock it.”

  Howie was the realist. Larry was the pessimist. And Jack was the energy that kept their inventive and brilliant motors running, no matter what.

  “The three of us are going to grab a cup of coffee and start brainstorming.”

  They’d been planning to pop open champagne right now, not down more java. Jack pushed the thought away to focus on the problem at hand: making their device “sexy,” not only for men but for women, too.

  Of all the problems Jack had faced over the past decade, worrying about sex hadn’t been one of them. He had a great appreciation for women. He liked to watch them move, liked to feel them soft and warm beneath him and enjoyed the way their minds worked. And yet, just as eating and sleeping had always played second fiddle to his work, so had women and sex.

  Larry sighed as they got off the trolley and rounded the corner into Union Square, which was fully decorated with lights in every store window and huge green wreaths hanging from the lampposts. “If we can’t convince the retailers to carry our product this Christmas, we’ll officially be out of money. And I’m getting too old to keep living on the edge of completely broke like this, guys.”

  Howie gestured toward the center of Union Square, where there was a portable trailer on the corner. Several large lighting rigs had been set up around the area to shine down on the snow that had been brought in for the scene. Flakes of fresh snow fell from another rig positioned above the brightly lit stage.

  “Imagine having the funds to put something like this together to sell our invention.”

  Their usual coffee place was just ahead but, instead of heading inside, Jack detoured toward the crosswalk.