A Christian Christmas (Book #1 Andersen Brothers series) Read online

  A Christian Christmas

  By

  Pat Simmons

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  *****

  Published by:

  Pat Simmons

  Her Dress

  Copyright © 2011 by Pat Simmons

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  A Christian Christmas (a novella)

  BY

  PAT SIMMONS

  Other eBooks include:

  HER Dress (novella)

  If I Should Die Before I Wake (testimony)

  Guilty by Association

  The Guilt Trip

  Free from Guilt

  The Acquittal

  Love at Work (Book I of Making Love Work Series novellas)

  Words of Love (Book II of Making Love Work Series novellas)

  A Mother’s Love (Book III of Making Love Work Series novellas)

  This is a work of fiction. References to real events, organizations, and places are used in a fictional context. Any resemblances to actual people, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  To read more books by this author, please visit www.patsimmons.net.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ©2012 by Pat Simmons

  COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL @2012

  Chapter 1

  Joyce “Joy” Knight juggled her purchases as she moved forward in the checkout line in Kohl’s department store. Armed with her coupons and cash, Joy had gotten everything on her list plus a few extras. Hopefully, the small toys she snagged for Christmas gifts wouldn’t put that much of a dent into her grocery money. I should have started Christmas shopping earlier in the year instead of waiting until November, she thought. Her credit card was deemed untouchable by the balance inching toward the max.

  Her small shopping cart seemed like a bottomless pit as she placed training pants, clothes, shoes, housewares and the few toys on the conveyor belt. The clerk scanned each purchase with ease, but Joy began to worry as she watched the cash register display. She had mentally calculated her total. Something was wrong. They had to honor the advertised specials, didn’t they?

  “That will be one-hundred twenty-seven dollars and thirteen cents,” the young cashier stated as she stretched the plastic bag with the last of three stuffed animals.

  No. There was no way I could be off twenty-one dollars with tax. No way. Joy dared a glance over her shoulder and groaned. She hated when a patron held other customers in line hostage for petty stuff. Cringing, Joy exhaled because she was about to become that culprit. If she didn’t question a few prices, then the cashier would have to start removing some of her purchases.

  Leaning closer to the woman with an ad insert, Joy pointed to the display listing the cost of the items. “Excuse me, the training pants are on sale and so are those two sweaters. Will you check please? Otherwise, I don’t have enough for everything.”

  A look of uncertainty crossed the cashier’s face. The young woman reached for the intercom phone to page for help. That’s when the snickers, huffs, and insults rippled behind her. Plastering a smile on her face, Joy turned to apologize. A bulky older man, with more wrinkles lining his forehead than she wanted to count, stared her down. Leaving well enough alone, Joy faced the cashier again.

  “Just a moment, madam, my supervisor is coming to assist me.” The cashier paused and lowered her voice. “It’s my first day.”

  Great. Joy exhaled slowly, keeping a smile in place.

  “Oh, come on, lady.” A complaint down the line led the chorus of copycats.

  “She knew she didn’t have enough money when she got that stuff,” a woman with a mannish voice snapped.

  Joy took a deep breath, so as not to respond. After all, she was a professional, a mature adult—and a woman who was out of money.

  “Can you call for backup or open another lane?” a man yelled, then mumbled some choice words that stung Joy’s ears.

  It wasn’t worth the humiliation. “Just take off some items to reduce my total to one-hundred and six dollars, including tax. Start with the toys.” Joy just wanted to get out the store. I definitely will survive.

  ***

  Towering over most of the customers ahead of him in line, Christian Andersen was offended himself at the insults hurled at the lady at the checkout. The vulgarity and lack of patience was unwarranted. He had noticed the pretty lady earlier roaming the aisles. The heels, fitted suit and her demeanor hinted she had just left work. She never made eye contact with him as she gnawed on her lips comparing merchandise.

  Now, he felt embarrassed for her, especially when a woman attacked her uppity attire. He happened to like women in black. Christian had had enough. It was time for him to be part of the solution.

  “Pardon me, excuse me,” Christian said as he made his way to the front, digging in his back jeans pocket for his wallet. “Here, let the lady keep everything.” He handed the cashier a fifty-dollar bill. Dismissing the damsel in distress’s protests, he reclaimed his spot in the back of the line.

  An elderly woman, wearing a worn dark wool coat and a colorful scarf, tilted her chin to meet his eyes. She gave him an awestruck look. “You’re a secret Santa.”

  Shaking his head, Christian smiled. At six-two he towered over the woman by a good foot. “No, I’m a Christian and it’s no secret.”

  “Humph,” Christian heard someone grunt. Immediately, he scanned the line for the offender. Muscular, fit and sometimes bearing a cocky attitude for the right reason, Christian had no problem asking the person to repeat himself, but the line began to move speedily after that. When Christian put his three items on the counter, the clerk smiled at him. “That was nice of you.”

  Christian shrugged. His generosity was never about him. God was the one who made it possible for him and his family to have the wealth they possessed. Taking his receipt and bag, he strolled out to the parking lot.

  He didn’t expect to see his damsel in distress still wrestling with her purchases. He slowly approached her. The woman was actually rearranging things in her SUV to make room for her bags. “Need any help?”

  She twirled around, seemingly ready to bite off his head. “Having a bad day” was smacked on her gorgeous face, then she relaxed. “No thank you. I’ve got this, unlike my earlier situation back there.” She pointed to the store. “You didn’t have to do that, Mr.…?”

  Drawn into her magnetic brown eyes, her words were slow to register. He was a goner when he took in her jet-black hair and black suit—definitely his type. “Oh, I’m Christian Andersen.”

  She repeated his name and nodded. “I’m Joyce Knight, but friends call me Joy…ah, I wasn’t short fifty dollars.”

  Joy. He smiled. The beautiful woman was really a joy to admire. “Friends call me Christian. Don’t worry about it. Consider it a gift for your frustration. Evidently, their computers weren’t updated with the correct prices.”

  “Well, I was so embarrassed in there. In my twenty-seven years, that has never happened to me before. I’m pretty good at math, and I was sure I had enough funds.” Joy’s eyes teared. “Thank you again. I guess I’d better go. I still have to get to the grocery store.”

  Taking charge, Christian grabbed the las
t bags from her cart. When he was about to load them in her vehicle, he noted the reason for her dilemma. Although it was spacious, space was at a premium with two car seats and a booster taking up space.

  As if she could read his thoughts, Joy saved him the trouble of asking. “I have four children at home.”

  “Then you’re short one seat,” he teased as he checked her ring finger under the hood of his lashes.

  “Bethani’s ten, so she sits up front with me.”

  Christian deducted ten from twenty-seven and concluded that Joy had become a mother at a young age. Then he took the liberty to remove two packages of Pampers from a bag. He noted they were Push-Ups training pants. Okay, she definitely didn’t have an infant.

  As he strategically placed one on the floor and another between the car seats, he berated the man who would leave this jewel of a woman to fend for herself and children. If Christian wasn’t a Christian now, he would be calling the father all kind of names. The loser gave men a bad name.

  Joy’s laugh embodied a musical scale. He liked the sound as he looked over his shoulder, finished with his task. Her face glowed with pure amusement.

  “I was going to do that next.” She chuckled.

  Standing to his full height, Joy stood just under his clean-shaven chin in her heels. “Sure you were.” He laughed with her as he folded his arms.

  “Should I follow you to the grocery store?” he flirted.

  She blushed. “No. I’ve made a list and I’ll check it twice. I may not have someone as kind as you there for backup.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the money. You may need an extra truck to get your groceries home.”

  “Stop it.” Joy scrunched her nose, which he noticed was turning red. The temperature had dropped. Although he was enjoying their chat, he probably should let her go and get home to her children.

  Backing away, Christian grabbed the empty cart to return it to a holding station. “Joy Knight, it was a pleasure rescuing you. May the Lord watch between me and thee while we’re absent, one from another, in Jesus’ name. Amen,” he said, quoting Genesis 31:49, the scripture that his pastor oftentimes used as a benediction.

  He waved good-bye when he really wanted to follow her and find out her whole story, but he had just prayed the prayer to watch over her until they met again. “Lord, make a way for me to see her again.”

  Chapter 2

  As Christian crossed the parking lot, Joy admired his swagger, then shivered, not from the wind, but from the warmth Christian seemed to take with him. Shaking her head, Joy climbed into her Buick Enclave. “That was the oddest encounter I’ve ever had with a stranger.”

  Looking into her rearview mirror, Joy grinned as she spied an opening Christian had left for her to see to back up. Christian Andersen was amazingly handsome—tall; a deep, rich brown skin tone; and a well-trimmed mustache. He looked comfortable in his jeans, turtleneck and jacket. Joy smirked. As he checked her ring finger, she couldn’t believe she did the same to him. Why? She wasn’t interested, neither had time to entertain romantic thoughts.

  The man didn’t blink when she mentioned four children. Was he deaf? What man wouldn’t? She wouldn’t trade any of them for the world. Joy didn’t need a man to keep her warm at night. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for her to wake to find one or two kids sprawled across her bed. Motherhood had never been so fulfilling…and heartbreaking.

  Five minutes later, she turned into the grocery store’s parking lot. Joy reached for her purse and got out, hurrying into Schnucks—a local chain of family-owned grocers. On a mission, she marched down the produce and fruit aisles, then cereal, meats, and food for Bethani’s lunch. A few times, she looked over her shoulder, hoping to see Christian again. After three peeps she gave up, disappointed.

  It took Joy less than thirty minutes before she was ready to check out. What if she didn’t have enough money again? Would Christian come to her rescue a third time in one day? Joy wasn’t about to chance it by getting something that wasn’t on her list. Once she was at her SUV, Joy wasn’t as meticulous as Christian, stuffing the bags in the seats, on the floor and even putting one in her lap.

  Fifteen minutes later, Joy pulled into the driveway of her two-story four-bedroom home. As soon as the garage door went up, Bethani stuck her head out the kitchen door and waved.

  Waving back, Joy smiled and parked. Bethani headed her way. “Hi, Auntie!”

  Accepting her niece’s hug, she kissed the top of Bethani’s head. “Hey, sweetie. I have a lot of bags, some groceries, and…” She paused and looked over Bethani’s shoulder. “I picked up some small toys for the little ones from Santa Claus.”

  “Aunt Joy, there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”

  She wished the ten-year-old would enjoy being a child instead of trying to be a grownup. “Yeah…right.”

  More than anything, Joy wanted her niece to have a happy childhood, despite this being the second Christmas without Bethani’s mother and Joy’s older sister. At only thirty-two, Regina Starr had died of breast cancer, leaving behind two grieving daughters, a baby boy, a devastated sister, her only niece and an uncaring husband.

  A faithful Christian until the end, Regina had instilled in Bethani that the purpose of Christmas was to celebrate God’s greatest gift: salvation. Joy, along with the majority of the people in the world, viewed Christmas as a holiday for children—period—and nothing more.

  The pair unloaded the car quickly before Bethani’s two siblings, four-year-old Darla and two-year-old Shane came storming through the house, along with Joy’s only child, Jada, who had just turned three. At times, Joy thought she was running a daycare, because they all lived with her.

  While Regina lay dying, her husband, Langston, spent more time away, stating he couldn’t watch her die. Neither could she, but as Regina’s only sibling, Joy was determined to be there until her sister took her last breath, and she was. It wasn’t long after Regina was buried, that Langston had remarried. His children weren’t part of his life’s restructuring plan, so Joy had filed to become the children’s legal guardian before her brother-in-law returned from his honeymoon.

  Her widowed neighbor had been a godsend when Joy took on the added responsibility as the children’s caregiver. Mrs. Thomas was there at a moment’s notice when Joy needed her just as Christian had stepped in earlier. She pushed that encounter aside.

  “Yay. Strawberry ice cream,” Bethani said, pulling it out the bag. She hugged the carton as if it were the pair of ballerina slippers she wanted, then frowned. “It’s not the end of the month.”

  She didn’t want her niece to have to keep track of her financial woes. Bethani understood Joy’s budget only allowed for treats at the end of the month when she received her bonuses. Although Joy earned a comfortable salary as a top sales rep at a radio station, feeding four children seemed to put her under the poverty level.

  The children’s father had practically cut off all communication thanks to his new wife. Joyce tried to reason with him to do the right thing, to no avail. Then she had to contend with her ex, Steven, who never uttered a word about marriage or expressed a desire to be a father to Jada.

  With no additional source of income, Joy wondered if this might be the year she would become a regular fixture at the food pantries.

  “Consider it a gift from a kind stranger who made sure I had the money to buy it.” Christian’s handsome face flashed in Joy’s mind—again.

  Bethani’s eyes widened. “He was probably an angel,” she said excitedly.

  “Sweetie, he was a flesh-and-blood man,” she said, amused. A cute one at that. “Believe me, he was no angel.”

  “You never know, Auntie. The Bible says we entertain strangers unaware.”

  Chapter 3

  A week before Thanksgiving

  Not a day had passed without Joy’s bright eyes and engaging smile invading Christian’s mind. There was something alluring about her besides her beauty and confidence. Pride ha
dn’t kept her from accepting his generosity at face value; neither did she act as if she was entitled to strangers helping her. Extraordinary indeed.

  So she had four children. If that was a scare tactic to push him away, Joy failed, especially in the absence of a wedding band.

  If only Christian could see her again and ask her about her circumstances. He didn’t play games when he was attracted to a woman, and Christian couldn’t ever recall having an instant attraction like what he experienced when he looked into Joy’s beautiful brown eyes. He snickered. Couples met in all kind of places, including grocery stores, parking lots, and churches. It would make an interesting tale if something permanent developed between them.

  Christian could have followed her to the grocery store under the pretense that she might need him, but that would have been extreme and a case of stalking. If Christian desired something, he would just pray about it—period. Still, while waiting for an answer, Christian had returned to that same store a couple of times in hopes of catching another glimpse of Joy Knight.

  No one could ever say his family lacked determination. He planned to do another visit before the end of the day. Christian blinked at the mention of his name.

  “Hello?” His older brother, Nathan, snapped his fingers before Christian eyes. Their youngest brother, David, stared with amusement. Christian had been busted again daydreaming in a morning meeting.

  Christian looked from one to the other. There was hint of resemblance among them only in height and build. As far as facial features, Nathan, the oldest at thirty-five was dark, bald, and sported a thick beard; the middle son at thirty-three, Christian was clean-shaven except for a thin trimmed mustache; and their baby brother, David was endowed with the lightest skin tone, had a fresh haircut and favored a goatee. He was thirty.

  All Ivy League graduates, the three Andersen brothers successfully ran Andersen Inventors, Investors and Consultants, LLC. It was one of five thriving subsidiaries under the umbrella of Andersen & Associates, an investment company started by their grandfather in the 1950s. Kaplan Andersen knew how to turn a dollar into five bucks, then he would invest the profits. That philosophy made Kaplan and the next generations that followed wealthy.