ISAAC MACALLISTER'S life revolves around building his business and doing his best to give his daughter Sara a strong sense of family. Over the years he's had to learn how to keep their little family together on his own, but this Christmas Isaac is g...
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Isaac pried his eyes open and squinted at the bright light glaring through his window. Uh oh. A quick glance at the alarm clock confirmed that all was not well in the MacAllister household. The power was out. And a look at his phone confirmed that it was long past the time when they should have left for school. It was suspiciously quiet downstairs though, which probably meant there was plenty to clean up by now. He rolled out of bed and set off down the hallway.
Sure enough, Sara's bedroom was empty. The covers looked like they'd been caught in a tornado and crashed back down in a heap. Which in a very real way was exactly what had happened to them.
And that likely wasn't the only spot where this particular tornado had touched down.
He walked downstairs to find her in the middle of the living room floor surrounded by chunks of paper and what looked suspiciously like a bottle of white glue. Which she knew was absolutely not allowed on the living room carpet. He was about to remind her of that when she turned and saw him.
"Daddy!" she cheered. And flung herself into his arms.
He melted. He couldn't help it. It still amazed him that this little creature could have him so thoroughly under her spell. "What are you doing, Short Stuff?"
"I'm making some decorations for our house. We put all the ones we made in the cabin but we need to have some here too. For the party when everyone comes. How else will they know it's Christmas?"
"That sounds like a great idea." He ran a skeptical eye over the mess on the carpet. "What exactly are you making?"
"Angels. But it's hard to get the wings on right."
He had about a million things that needed doing, but half an hour wouldn't make or break the day. She looked awfully small sitting in her pile of angel paper all by herself.
"Can I help?"
The way her face lit up was worth every minute of the time he would spend cleaning up the mess afterwards. So he plunked down on the carpet beside her and set about doing some damage control, while she showed him how to make her interpretation of angels out of paper and glue.
"Okay. We can make angels, but then we'd better make some breakfast." That would give him a good excuse to check on Jenna.
*
She was totally hiding. When Jenna woke up, there was a tray with a muffin and fruit beside her bed, so she hadn't had to face Isaac at breakfast.
Earlier, she had emerged to go to the bathroom, and she'd seen the state of the living room. That much silver glitter could only mean one thing: little-girl Christmas crafts. And that was definitely more than Jenna could face today. Breakfast in bed had been just the right thing.
She hadn't slept very well after the initial painkillers wore off, and had woken in the night grateful to find a glass of water and the bottle of painkillers on the bedside table. Now she was tired, mad at herself for being stupid enough to chase deer tracks off the path, and burning with shame about what she'd said to Isaac while "under the influence." No matter how badly she wanted to see the deer, it had been a pretty dumb move.
