One More for Christmas(80)

“She is.” Ella was only half listening as Tab started firing another series of questions at Gayle.

“Why does that reindeer only have one antler?”

Kirstie turned her head. “They cast their antlers—that means they fall off—every year and then they grow a new set.”

“Does it hurt?”

The questions continued.

“Why does Santa come at night, Nanna? How does he see? Are there lights in the sky?”

“No.” Gayle looked vague. “There are no lights in the sky.”

Ella watched as Brodie chopped down the tree. He and Samantha were laughing together, exchanging a few words here and there as if they had a long-standing, comfortable relationship. Watching them closely, Ella decided it was more than that. Comfort, with edge. There was a chemistry between them that she could feel even from a distance. She’d never seen her sister so relaxed.

“Does the sleigh have headlights?” Tab was determined to solve the mystery.

“No, of course not.”

“Does he carry a flashlight?”

“I—no. Enough questions about Santa now, Tab.”

“But how can he see? What if he has an accident like you did?”

“He isn’t going to have an accident.”

Ella watched as Samantha and Brodie dragged the tree back together. Brodie said something she couldn’t hear, but she saw her sister blush and laugh and realized they were flirting.

When had she ever seen her sister flirt?

“If he can’t see,” Tab said, “then he could have an accident. I don’t want him to have an accident.”

“He won’t!” Her mother’s voice rose.

“But how do you know?”

“Because there is no Santa.” The words exploded out of Gayle. “There is no Santa!”

“No Santa?” Tab looked flummoxed. “You mean he doesn’t come to Scotland?”

“He doesn’t come anywhere. He doesn’t exist.”

Tab’s distressed howls dragged Ella from her fantasy of her sister having a wild love affair.

“Mom!” Appalled, she almost erupted with fury and frustration. Had her mother truly just said that? She was so angry she couldn’t breathe, but she reached for her daughter, scooped her up and tried to calm her. “Stop crying, honey. Stop crying, and we’ll talk.” She couldn’t make herself heard over Tab’s screams, and she winced as a particularly shrill scream connected with her inner ear. She sent her mother a furious look over Tab’s squirming, writhing body.

Just when she’d started to relax. Just when she’d thought that maybe, maybe, her mother had changed and this could possibly work. It was her childhood all over again.

The commotion reached Samantha.

Abandoning Brodie, she hurried back down the track, her feet slipping and sliding on the snow. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? Did she fall? Is she hurt?”

Because Ella was trying to calm Tab, Gayle spoke first.

“She’s fine. Totally fine.”

“She doesn’t sound fine. Why is she crying?”

“Because I told her there was no Santa. She wouldn’t stop asking, and—”

“Stop!” Ella intervened, cradling Tab as her crying intensified. “Stop talking right now.”

Tab howled, inconsolable, her sobs reverberating around the forest until finally the energy left her and she slumped, exhausted, on Ella’s shoulder, her little body still juddering. “Nanna—says there is no—Santa.” She hiccuped her way through the sentence. “He—doesn’t exist.”

Ella met her sister’s appalled gaze for a fleeting second and then Samantha took Tab from her.

“Well, of course there’s a Santa.” Cuddling Tab, she threw their mother a blacker look than the one Ella had already given her. “What Nanna meant was that she hasn’t actually seen him. But just because you haven’t seen something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Tab rubbed her swollen eyes. “So how does he see? Nanna says there are no lights in the sky.”

“There are lights in the sky,” Samantha said, “and I’ve seen them. There are stars, and then the moon—and also the aurora borealis—the northern lights. When we’re back in the warm, I can show you photos on my phone.”

“So you’ve seen him?”

“No, I haven’t seen him. I was always in bed asleep when he came. Which is exactly where you will be.”

Ella relaxed a little, but Tab still wasn’t convinced.

“But how does he get round the whole world in one night?”

“Exactly.” Gayle stood stiff and miserable. “It isn’t mathematically possible.”

“It could be, although some factors remain unconfirmed of course.” Brodie dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a pen and a scrap of paper. He pushed his glasses farther up his nose and then focused on Tab. “The earth rotates—did you know that? It turns. Slowly, so you’d never know.”

Still clinging to Samantha, Tab shook her head and he stooped and picked up a pinecone.

“We’ll pretend this is the earth. This is where we live. And it moves like this—” He turned the pinecone and then handed it to Ella and scribbled on the paper in his palm. “If you do a calculation, taking into account the rotation of the earth, wind direction and—er—” he cleared his throat as he scribbled down a series of complicated equations “—speed and relative weight of the vehicle, in this case a sleigh, it’s possible.”