Small Town Christmas

It was almost comical the way Dale managed to stare down his nose while simultaneously looking up at the sergeant holding the kitten. The situation was sort of like a Chihuahua playing alpha dog to an adorable collie.

Matt Jasper wasn’t intimidated by Dale though. He simply stared down at the choir director out of a pair of dark, almost black eyes. His eyebrows waggled. “Sorry to bust up your choir practice, sir, but I found this cat in your manger. If I hadn’t picked it up, it probably would have broken your baby Jesus. So I figure the cat’s yours. I need to get going. I’ve got an errand to run, and I-”

“Well, it’s not my cat.” Dale turned to the choir. “Did any of you bring your cat to choir practice?” There was no mistaking the scorn in Dale’s voice.

The choir got really quiet. Nobody liked it when Dale lost his temper.

“See? The cat doesn’t belong to anyone.” Dale gazed at the bundle of fur in the soldier’s hands and sniffed. “It’s probably a stray. Why don’t you leave it outside and get on with your errand?”

“He can’t do that,” Annie said, and then immediately regretted her words. She did not want a cat, no matter how lonely she felt sometimes.

On the other hand, she wasn’t going to stand by and let Dale Pontius and Sergeant Jasper drop a stray in the churchyard and walk away. That was inhumane.

Dale turned toward Annie, his displeasure evident in his scowl. Dale could be a tyrant. She should keep her mouth shut. But for some reason, the little bundle of fur in the big soldier’s hands made her brave. “It’s cold outside. It’s supposed to rain.”

She pulled her gaze away from Dale and gave the soldier the stink eye. She wasn’t intimidated by that uniform or his broad shoulders. He needed to know that she frowned on people leaving stray cats in the neighborhood.

Jasper’s full mouth twitched a little at the corner. “Ma’am,” he said, “you can rest easy. I’m not going to leave it outside to wander. I’d like to find it a good home.” His gaze never wavered. His eyes were deep and dark and sad, like a puppy dog’s eyes.

She didn’t need a puppy either.

The cat issued a big, loud meow that reverberated in the empty sanctuary. The church’s amazing acoustic qualities magnified the meow to monumental proportions.

“Get that thing out of here.” Dale was working himself into a tizzy.

“Uh, look,” the soldier said, “can anyone here tell me where I might find Ruth Clausen? I went to what I thought was her address, but the house is all boarded up.”

The choir shifted uneasily. “Ruth’s in a nursing home,” Annie said.

The soldier’s thick eyebrows almost met in the middle when he frowned. “In a nursing home?”

“Yes, she’s very old and quite ill,” Dale said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have a choir practice to get on with.” Dale strode past the man in the aisle and back to the front of the church.

“That was very nice, Annie, Clay.” Dale turned toward Clay Rhodes, the choir’s main instrumentalist. “I’d like one more run-through on the Handel.”

Annie resumed her place with the altos, and Clay put his guitar in its stand and took his place at the organ. He flipped through a few pages of music and began the opening chords of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

Annie sang her part and watched as the cat-packing soldier ignored Dale’s request and took a seat in the back pew. Halfway through the choir’s performance, Sergeant Jasper must have remembered that he was in a church, because he finally took off his beret. His hair was salt-and-pepper and cut military short.

For some reason, Annie couldn’t keep her eyes off him. She wondered if he might have been one of Nick’s friends.

It seemed likely, since he’d come in here asking after Ruth, Nick’s grandmother. She didn’t want to be the one to tell him that he’d come on a fool’s errand.

Matt settled back in the pew and listened to the music. This little town was way in the boonies, but the choir sounded pretty good. Not that he was a student of religious Christmas music. Matt had never been to church on Christmas. In fact, he’d pretty much never been to church in his life.

Not like Nick Clausen. If Nick’s stories were to be believed, his folks had practically lived at church.

That’s why Matt had come here to the church after he’d discovered that Ruth’s house was boarded up. He’d known that someone at this church would know where to find Nick’s grandmother.

Just like he’d known that the altar would have big bunches of poinsettias all over it, and the stained-glass window would have a picture of Jesus up on his cross.

It struck him, sitting there, that Nick had gone to Sunday school here. Nick had been confirmed here. He’d come here on Christmas Eve.

Matt took a deep breath. Boy, Nick sure had loved Christmas. Matt could kind of understand it, too, listening to the choir.

Matt’s Christmases had been spent in a crummy apartment in Chicago while his mother and father got drunk.

He closed his eyes and let the music carry him away from those memories. He’d gotten over his childhood. He’d found a home in the army. He’d made something of himself.

He buried his fingers in the stray’s soft fur. It licked his hand with a rough tongue.

He needed to find the local animal shelter, followed by the nursing home. Then he planned to get the hell out of Dodge before the urge to stay overwhelmed him. Because a guy like him didn’t belong in a place like this. This was Nick’s place, not his.

The music ended, and the choir director finally let everyone go. Matt stood up and slung his pack over his shoulder. Maybe the brown-haired woman with the amazing voice could help him. He’d heard her singing from out on the lawn, after the cat had stopped howling. The sound had called to him, and he’d followed it right into the church.

The choir members seemed thrilled to be dismissed. Probably because the choir director was a jerk, and they had shopping, and cooking, and a lot of other holiday crap to do. People in Last Chance would be busy like that, cooking big meals, wrapping presents, decorating trees, and stuff.

He found the brown-haired woman who’d spoken up in the cat’s defense. “Ma’am, I was wondering, could you help me, please?”

She was shrugging into a big dark coat that had a sparkly Christmas tree pin on its collar. She gazed at him out of a pair of dark blue eyes. She had very pale skin, a long nose, and a thin face.

“I’m not taking your cat,” she said in a defensive voice. “But if you’re looking for Ruth, she’s in the Golden Years Nursing Home up in Orangeburg.”

He frowned. “Where’s that?”

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, ma’am. I’m originally from Chicago. Since I joined up, I’m from wherever they station me.” Except, of course, that wasn’t true anymore. He hadn’t re-upped this time, and he had nowhere permanent to go. He’d come to deliver Nick’s present, and then he had some vague plans for spending New Year’s on a beach somewhere- maybe Miami.

“Well, Orangeburg is about twenty miles north of here. But I need to warn you, Ruth’s been in the nursing home for the last year, and she’s pretty ill. I know because I work for her doctor.”

“I see.”

“Are you a friend of Nick’s?” she asked.

He smiled. “Yes. Did you know him too?”

“I went to high school with him. I had a bit of a crush on him.” She blushed when she said it.

“And you are?”

“I’m Annie Roberts.”

He blinked and almost said I know you. But of course he didn’t know Annie, except from the things Nick had told him. Annie had been Nick’s girlfriend in high school. They had broken up the night of their senior prom.

“You studied nursing at the University of Michigan,” he said.

“How did you-Oh, Nick told you that, didn’t he?”

He grinned. “He told me you were looking forward to going someplace where it snows.”

She frowned at him. “Why are you here? Nick died more than a year ago.”

“I know. I was with him when it happened.”