Silhouette Christmas Stories

Kyle grinned and stood up, stretching fully. Flying in a cramped combat jet from New York to California wasn't his idea of pleasure. 'I promise, your secrets are safe with me.'

With a smile, Gale reached for his emptied mug. 'I don't know how you've put up with me through the years, Major Anderson. I've been a royal pain at times.' Some of the depressing letters she'd written to him, in which she'd let her fear for Mike and the real possibility he was dead surface, weren't her idea of chatty letters to a friend. Kyle had fielded her tough, hard questions and issues addressing her trepidation for Mike. He'd counseled her on how to stay sane and try to lead a normal life while she remained in a painful limbo of not knowing.

'Never a pain,' Kyle told her, working at keeping his tone light and teasing when it was the last thing he wanted to be with her.

'More coffee?'

'Yeah, please. Hey, you got an old cardboard box sitting around here somewhere?'

She gave him a strange look. 'Yes. Why?'

With a shrug, Kyle pointed to the main desk. 'I think we ought to put a Christmas tree up, don't you?'

Kyle's enthusiasm was contagious and just what Gale needed. 'I think you're right. But cardboard…?'

'Sure.' He followed her back to the Teletype room. 'When Mike and I were kids in Arizona, we had this tree house in this huge old sycamore in his backyard. A couple of days before Christmas, we'd go up there and make a Christmas tree and leave it in the tree house. You must have seen it when you stayed with the Taylors.'

'Mmm. Mike's mother told me how you two used to spend hours playing in that old tree. The view from their home is breathtaking.' The surrounding country-the wide, flowing creek and pine forest-was a salve to her spirit when she visited there. Smiling wistfully, Gale straightened, handing him the mug. 'That sycamore is still standing out back, you know.'

'It must be at least a hundred and fifty years old.' Thoughts of the tree brought back a wealth of good memories.

'What did you two do out there with that sycamore?'

Brightening, Kyle spotted an empty Teletype-paper box in the corner. 'As I said, Mike and I would make a cardboard Christmas tree for our tree house every year. We'd sit up there with crayons, paper, glue and string for hours putting it together.' With a grin, he walked over and picked up the box. 'And we're going to do that tonight. A good-luck charm to get Mike back home alive. Ready?'

Gale didn't have time to protest. With a small laugh, she nodded, walking back to the forecaster's desk with him. She watched as Kyle searched through several drawers until he found some colored felt-tip markers.

'Perfect,' he muttered, pulling up another swivel chair and motioning for her to sit beside him. 'Come on, we've got a lot to do. Normally, this takes a whole day to do up right, and we only have seven hours left before your watch ends.'

Sitting down, Gale watched as he placed the markers and white paper in front of her. 'You mean, you're planning on staying up all night with me?' Kyle had to be tired from the flight. She saw dark shadows beginning to form beneath his eyes.

'You've got to stay up all night,' he pointed out blandly.

'Well… that's different, I have the duty. Kyle, you've got to be dead on your feet. Don't you think you ought to go over to the B.O.Q. and get some rest?'

He shook his head. 'No way. I want to be here when you get that phone call telling you Mike's alive. I wouldn't miss that for the world, lady.'

Fighting the urge to throw her arms around his shoulders and hug him for his thoughtfulness, Gale didn't do anything. Instead, she muttered, 'You're such a glutton for punishment.'

Kyle grinned lopsidedly. 'Yeah, I know. Now, come on, you've got to help me here.'

'Do what?'

'Well,' Kyle murmured, picking up the box, 'we used to make Christmas decorations of things we liked. You know, planes, cars and stuff like that. Whatever we made had to mean something important to us. Usually we made decorations of toys we wanted to get for Christmas.'

Laughing, Gale drowned in his amused look. 'So, if I wanted Mike, I draw him-'

'And cut him out and put a string at the top of him and then hang him on the cardboard tree I'm going to make for us. Yeah, you've got the idea.'

Touched, Gale felt the intensity of Kyle's happiness. Suddenly, they were like two children rediscovering the joy of simple things like playing. 'Okay,' she whispered, 'that's my first decoration, Mike coining home safely to me. To us.'

Giving her a wink, Kyle said, 'I've never given up on him being alive.'

'I-I haven't been as positive as you,' Gale hesitantly admitted. She began to make an outline of a man, her husband, on the white paper. As much as she wanted Mike to be alive, she just couldn't shake the awful feeling she was a widow. Still, for the Taylors' and Kyle's sakes, she fought her pessimism.

'No one is going to go through five years without having a few bad days,' Kyle said gently. Whistling softly, he tussled with the box and cut off the top and bottom of it. Next, he opened it out and laid it flat on the desk. Glancing down at Gale, he saw her completely immersed in her first decoration.

'Hey, you ought to have been an artist. That really does look like Mike.'

Blushing, she managed a quirked smile. 'Thank you.'

Taking a black pen, Kyle drew the main trunk of their 'tree,' and then four smaller cardboard branches. 'I can remember Mike and I laying on our bellies for hours up there in that tree house, making these decorations. Our moms used to call us down for dinner, but we never came, so they ended up bringing it up the ladder to us.'

'Mike mentioned that you two spent a lot of time up there.'

'Yeah, we used to talk for hours about what we were going to be and do.'

Gale sat back, examining her handiwork. She had drawn Mike in his blue officer's uniform.

She sat back, watching Kyle fashion their tree. He took some tape and fastened the four branches to the trunk. With some extra cardboard, he shored up the bottom so the tree would stand-at a bit of an angle.

'There,' Kyle said proudly, studying his creation. 'It looks a little naked right now, but when we start hanging the stuff on it, it'll look great.'

Stifling a giggle, Gale looked at the tree and then at Kyle. 'Doesn't it look a little… scrawny?' As a matter of fact, it looked like a multiarmed scarecrow.

'Nah.' Kyle sat down, grabbing some paper and a red marker. 'Come on, Major, quit laughing at my artistic efforts and get to work.'

Giggling, Gale carefully cut out the drawing. 'Now what?'

'You got any string around this place?'

Rummaging around in one of the lower desk drawers, she drew out a small ball of it. 'Here you go.'

Taking the string, Kyle cut off a small piece. 'Just take a bit of tape and put it on the back of Mike, and then hang him.'

'Hang him? Do you think Mike would like your choice of words?' She burst out laughing.

'He was always hanging around,' Kyle muttered good naturedly as he showed Gale how to make a loop that could be slipped onto the branch of the tree.

'Mike said you were always on his heels,' Gale parried.

'It was the other way around.'

'You two were inseparable.'

'Yeah, we were shadows to one another, that's for sure.'

She surveyed Kyle's handiwork. 'Nice. Now what?'

'Well,' Kyle said with great seriousness, 'we always put what we wanted the most on the top limb, and then we'd put other decorations in descending order of importance. The lowest branch represented what we wanted least.'

Getting up, Gale gently put Mike on the uppermost limb on the right. 'There,' she whispered, staring at it.

'Looks good,' Kyle said, giving her a game smile. He saw the tears in her eyes. 'Come on, what's your second wish for Christmas? A fur coat? A new car?'

She smiled and sat down. 'I'm not telling. I'm going to watch you for a minute. What's your first choice?'

Kyle saw flecks of gold in the depths of her green eyes. Swallowing hard, he tore himself away from his own need of her. These next few days were for Mike and for her, not for himself.