The Santa Man

Chapter 1

"Don't forget the map. And the list."

Hip, short for Horatio Ignatius Porterman, managed a small smile. When he'd volunteered to make the Christmas Eve deliveries he had no idea loading the truck would turn into such an event. Despite Meg having closed the cafe for three days over the holidays, the parking lot was full.

Stifling a sigh, he took the folded papers Meg gave him and tucked them into his jacket pocket, alongside the ones her husband had handed him just three minutes before.

The brown-haired woman in front of him shot him another cheerful smile. She was eight months pregnant and looked very round and very happy. "We wouldn't want you to get lost."

"Uh, no way. Maybe you'd better get out of the cold and—"

"Hip's right," her husband said, putting a protective arm around Meg's shoulder. "Time to go inside, sweetheart. You've been out here long enough."

"Owen, stop fussing," she grumbled, but she snuggled against him. "Hip, thanks again for doing this."

"No problem, but I'd better—"

"Wait, there's one more bag." His friend and neighbor Sam Hove lifted yet another cardboard box filled with supplies into the backseat.

"I have more baby quilts," Aurora Jones announced as she hurried across the parking lot. She held out a box. "Sorry I'm late. We just finished stitching the bindings on these, so pass them out as needed, all right?"

"Got it."He watched as the silver-haired bartender, newly engaged to his boss, made a place for the box on the backseat. Hip envied Jake. He'd found the woman that matched him, though it had seemed like an odd coupling at first. "Food, toys, quilts."

"Along with music, those are the necessary things in life," Aurora declared. She was serious, he knew, and fervently hoped she wasn't going to produce a bag of harmonicas.

"You're going to need a snack," Lucia Hove said, placing a bright red box on the passenger seat of the truck. Wearing a fuzzy red and green scarf, her nose was pink from the cold. "Cookies."

"And extra sandwiches," Meg added, plopping a large brown paper bag next to box.

"You just fed me breakfast."

"Well, these are just in case."

"Just in case what?"

She shrugged and handed him his thermos." I filled it. Half decaf, half real."

"Thanks." If they didn't stop fussing over him he'd never get this stuff delivered and get back to town before dark. As it was, he was running late and would be lucky to be home in time to help Theo eat the cookies and carrots his cousin's daughter would set out for Santa Claus.

"This is really nice of you," Meg said for about the thirtieth time.

And for about the thirtieth time Hip assured her, "I don't mind." Which was true. He didn't mind making sure that some of the less fortunate folks in the county got a little help from their neighbors on Christmas Eve.

The food and toys would have been distributed by the local deputies last week, if a storm and a bad case of flu hadn't taken down the sheriff's department, prompting the mayor to ask for volunteers.

And Hip, a quiet bachelor with no family commitments or responsibilities, knew he'd surprised everyone on the town council when he'd offered.

No one suspected he just wanted to be gone.