Holiday Lights and Cocoa Cookie Nights (Christmas Kisses & Cookie Crumbs)

Chapter 1

THE COVERT ART OF CHRISTMAS CHEER

Hammy

I glance at the group of us who’ve gathered at the Cipher Springs Public Library , toward the front doors, and then to the nearby stacks, casually looking for people trying to conceal their actions. Like the librarian who just innocently pushed her cart into the stacks furthest from the front desk while her secret love interest meanders toward the same area.

Why am I scanning the area? Because old intelligence operative instincts never really die, even though it’s been a dozen years since I was last in the field and I’m living in a town where the most exciting things that happen are whatever antics the Barton teens are up to.

Those instincts made me a good operative. They’re also the reason I’ve made it to age fifty-four.

Do I still need to wear this disguise that makes me look a decade older? Probably not. I’ve been out of the field too long to be remembered. But I wear it everywhere except the office because covert instincts never really die, either. Especially since my current job is all about disguising operatives. And because the other club members wouldn’t recognize me without it.

About twenty civilians have gathered for tonight’s activity, which is impressive! When my physical therapy tech, Mackenzie , first told me over a year ago about her Outside the Bubble club, I came to one of the first meetings. There were only four of us.

For the record, I’m not here to get out of my bubble. My comfort zone is large enough that no activity we’ve done has made me step out of it. I’m here because living the bachelor life for so many years is rather lonely. I need people in my bubble. And the ones here are interesting.

Mackenzie welcomes us in a quiet voice. Then she says, “ Are you ready for our special Christmassy Outside the Bubble club activity?”

Everyone enthusiastically whispers, “ Yeah !” but not too loudly because we are in the library, and not only is there a Quiet , please sign five feet away, but there’s also a librarian who could hold her own in a battle of severe expressions against the receptionist at the Clandestine Services Agency (and she’s trained to scare people off).

Mackenzie grins at everyone’s exuberant (yet muted) enthusiasm. “ Okay , we’ve got six captains who are going to lead six service projects. You’ll hear about your project from your captain.” She puts the first two groups together, then says, “ Our third captain is Reese , and the project is putting up Christmas lights. In that group, let’s have… Hammy and Charlie .”

So I get to team up with Charlie , one of my favorite people on earth, and Charlie’s roommate, Reese , who always wears fun glasses and at least one honey, bee, or honeycomb-shaped piece of jewelry.

I grin as Charlie bounds over to me with her own grin. I’ve never had kids of my own, but my best friend, Rick , had six. He invited me into their lives from the start as “ Uncle Abe .” But since Rick died five years ago, I’ve been more of a stand-in dad for the youngest Lancaster , Charlie . She’s a full-grown woman now, and an amazing tech operative and handler at the CSA .

“ Did you bring enough warm clothes for working outside?” I ask her. Stand -in dad and all—it’s my job to ask.

“ Yep ! Reese gave me advance warning about being outside. What about you? Will you be able to keep that balding head of yours warm?”

It’s a good-natured ribbing. “ Of course. ‘ Be prepared’ has been my motto since I was a squeaky-voiced new Boy Scout .” Plus , I have my own hair to keep me warm under the cap of balding hair I’m wearing.

It’s fun to have people impressed at all I can do “at my age” (especially as a highly-trained ex-operative), but I wish that six years ago when I moved to Cipher Springs and decided on a disguise, I hadn’t chosen to appear a decade older. At least I chose a name that’s a nickname of mine. I am Abraham at work and Hammy in town, so if someone knows me by both—like Charlie —and accidentally calls me the wrong name, it’s not suspicious.

Once the three of us are in Reese’s compact SUV and are pulling out of the parking lot, Reese tells us about our assignment. “ So , my parents got divorced about a year ago. Well , it was a long time coming before that— Oh , sorry!” she calls out to the car she just cut off. “ I didn’t see you!—but my dad officially moved out two days after Christmas . Anyway , my mom lives in a neighborhood where everyone has Christmas lights. It’s her favorite thing, and she loves having them on her own house.”

Reese takes a left turn like she doesn’t know that one typically applies the brake a bit around corners, and we all lean to one side of the car.

“ The small business who usually put up the lights closed. My mom’s been super busy at work, and calling to schedule someone else slipped her mind. By the time she did, everyone was booked. Ooo —look at their lights!” Reese points at a house we’re passing, and apparently, the steering wheel is connected to her eyes because we drift toward it. Until a car coming from the opposite direction honks, prompting her to get back into our lane.

“ I would do it, but heights and I get along about as well as cats and vacuum cleaners. My mom won’t ask my brother because he lives ninety minutes away and has an eight-month-old baby. But I know it really matters to her. So when Mackenzie announced she needed service project ideas, I suggested putting up my mom’s lights because it’s perfect! Plus , she’s out of town for business so we can surprise her.”

“ That worked well,” I say. What will also work well: arriving at Reese’s mom’s house in one piece. Reese has come to the last few Outside the Bubble activities, and from what I know of her, she’s fun, thoughtful, and organized. I never guessed she was such a chaotic driver.

I only feel like my life is in the hands of a blindfolded carnival bumper car driver once more (when she slides on a patch of ice at an intersection) before she screeches to a stop in front of a good-looking home. It’s fully dark outside, but from the porch and street lights, I can see the roof has several gables that will look nice with lights. There are about six inches of snow on the ground, so I can’t see yard details, but I can tell there are shrubs near the home in one section and the rest is pretty clear.

Reese leads us inside her mom’s garage, turns on the lights, shuts the door, and shows us where the boxes of Christmas lights are stored in the rafters. Three ladders are leaning against a wall, so I choose an A -frame one and set it up under the rafters.

I climb up, grab a box, and hand it down to Charlie . As I’m reaching for the second box, Reese says in a shaky voice, “ Are you sure you’re okay up there? You’re up so high!”

I hand a second box to Charlie . “ I’m fine. I’ve jumped out of airplanes dozens of times. Heights don’t scare me.” People in town don’t know I’ve been a field operative, of course, but I don’t hide that I’ve lived an adventurous life.

“ Just … don’t fall,” Reese says. “ I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I’m not going to get hurt. I may be in my fifties now, but I’ve been highly trained and I stay active. I grab the third box and hand it down.

“ Yeah ,” Charlie adds, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “ Because Mackenzie won’t be happy if you need more physical therapy.”

As I climb down, I say, “ Mackenzie loves when I show up at her work.” The injuries she treated were leftover from escapades in my earlier years—like an explosion that threw me through a third-story window before I landed on a car below, getting tangled in a helicopter’s external ladder when a gust of wind caused the chopper to swerve and knock me into a pole, and from tumbling out of a moving train. Not from standing five feet up on a ladder.

We open the boxes to take stock of what we’ve got, and Charlie holds up a small container. “ Are these all the clips we’ve got to attach the lights to the roof?”

We search again, and then Reese sighs. “ I guess so. They’ll have some at the hardware store, right? It’s not far— I’ll go buy more.”

Charlie and I share a glance, and I see she’s just as concerned about Reese’s inattention to the road as I am. So she says, “ I’ll join you.”

“ Okay , then,” Reese says, “it looks like we are going to the hardware store! Do you want to come, too, Hammy ?”

I’d like to limit my time spent in a vehicle driven by Reese , and I’m more than ready to begin this project. I tell them I’ll get started with the one box of clips we’ve got, give them a wave, and say, “ Good luck, have fun, and don’t die!” With Reese’s driving, I mean the last part of the sentiment more than usual.

I’m at the top of a flat extension ladder I’ve leaned against the house, starting to hang the second string of lights, when a compact SUV pulls into the driveway. With Reese’s driving, I shouldn’t be surprised they’re back so quickly. But I glance over and see that it’s not Reese’s vehicle.

Oh , no. That means it’s likely her mom. This is Reese’s surprise, and she isn’t even here to see her mom’s reaction. I need to hide so I don’t spoil everything.

I haven’t turned the Christmas lights on, so at least they aren’t lighting me up. But if this woman hasn’t already seen me, she will when she walks into her house. Instead of taking the time to climb down the ladder, I press my feet against its sides and walk it to the right so both the ladder and I can hide in the shadow of the streetlight where the house juts out.

When the vehicle’s door opens, I hold perfectly still, barely breathing, since eyes are drawn to movement, hoping she won’t look in my direction as she heads inside.

Then , I hear a woman say, “ What do you think you’re doing?”

Her voice is sharp, and I look down to see a woman traipsing through the snow toward me. She’s wearing a pencil skirt and heels, keys in one hand, a leash in the other that’s attached to a black and white Boston Terrier who’s looking far too excited about walking across the snow. The woman is probably in her early fifties, thin, fit, and dressed nicely. And I see that my attempts to hide have made me appear very guilty. A mistake I know better than to make.

Before I can open my mouth to explain, she’s almost to me, fists on her hips, eyes narrowed like I’m a thief in the night, and says, “ Why are you climbing to my roof?”

Her puppy, sensing either tension or excitement, seems determined to join the action and races forward, yanking the leash from the woman’s hand. It’s not a big dog but it’s an enthusiastic one, and it’s headed straight for my ladder.

The string of lights I’ve just started putting up is wrapped once around my arm so the weight of the part still coiled on the snow below won’t pull the other end from the two clips I’ve already secured it in. I attempt to get free of the lights so I can better respond to the threat to remaining in my precarious position that’s coming at me in the form of a black-and-white powerhouse fur ball, but the puppy pounces into my ladder too quickly.

Before I know it, my ladder is wobbling, the woman is yelling, “ Spark , no,” and the dog is grabbing the string of lights, which pulls my arm and makes me completely lose my balance.

I fall onto the shrubs below that cushion me a bit before I tumble off them and onto the snow, right on top of the Christmas lights, the fall knocking the air out of me. The other end of the lights breaks free from the two clips at the edge of the roof, and the string trails behind, landing on top of me.

Okay , falling from ten feet up a ladder as a fifty-four-year-old is definitely different from falling as a twenty-something.

The woman shrieks as the puppy dives into the mess of lights, dancing all over me and the lights. It barks like it caught a fugitive. I’m on my back in the snow and tangled in the lights, the Boston Terrier is now tangled in the lights, and the woman—who must feel the need to either stop the Grinch here to steal Christmas or join the fray to save her dog—has slipped onto her rear and is also tangled in the lights.

I push up onto my elbows. The woman and I are trying to get free from the strings of lights but the puppy is soaking in every bit of fun from this game of lights-and-new-people, and the only thing we’re accomplishing is to make the lights tighten around us. The leash that’s tangled in the mix isn’t helping, either.

The dog must decide that “new people to play with” is the better part of the game, and it gets right on top of my chest to lick my entire face.

The woman is searching her coat pockets. “ Where’s my phone? I’m calling the police.” I’m trying to lift the pup off me long enough to sit and get free of the lights, but it keeps jumping back onto me like I’m the best part of this new game. The woman stops trying to find her phone and says, “ Hey , Siri . Call nine-one-one on speaker.” Then she says to her dog, “ Spark ! Stop . Licking . The . Burglar !”

“ I’m not a burglar!” I say as a muffled-in-a-coat-pocket voice says, “ Nine -one-one, what’s your emergency?”

Hearing the operator’s voice helps the woman find her phone and she pulls it from a pocket. “ I’m trapped in front of my house with a burglar! Send help quickly!” She tries to pull the puppy off me but the strands of lights hold her back. She gives the 9-1-1 operator her address, the dispatcher says they have an officer nearby, and then the woman narrows her eyes at me. “ Nice try, but just saying you aren’t a burglar isn’t getting you out of this. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

I can tell she’s got a good amount of adrenaline coursing through her by her dilated pupils, fast breathing, and tense muscles. So I say, “ I’m not the Grinch , ” in a calm voice, hoping a different tone and phrasing will work better—a trick I learned in the field. “ I’m Santa’s elf.”

This does get her to stop fighting against the lights long enough to look at me and say, “ You’re what ?”

“ I’m not here to steal Christmas — I’m here to…bring Christmas cheer.” I give her a sheepish grin, hoping she buys my story, and Spark puts its own exclamation mark on my declaration by giving me a long lick up my cheek.

She studies me in the glow of the porch light like she’s judging my trustworthiness. I watch her emotions change as her eyes shift from the tangled mess of lights we’re in to the ladder that has fallen, to the one string of lights running along her roof I already installed. Since they’re not on, they’re difficult to see in the dim light unless you’re really looking. Then , she gasps.

I’m also noticing how beautiful that face of hers is. Her blond and whitish-gray hair is pulled into a loose bun, and I realize how beautiful it is, too. Now that she seems to accept I’m not a thief, I can tell that she’s viewing me differently, too. There’s a charge of electricity between us that surprises and thrills me. Some sparks are definitely flying, and I’m not referring to the dog.

Then , suddenly, instead of the woman’s hair being bathed in the warm glow of the porch light, it’s lit with flashing blue and red. The 9-1-1 operator wasn’t kidding when she said they had someone nearby.