Chloe looked down at her feet, feeling the radiant heat of the pine floorboards through her thick wool socks.
She took two steps forward, reached out with her small, chapped hand, and gently touched the rough tweed of Arthur’s sleeve.
Advertisement
“Mr. Arthur?” she whispered, her hazel eyes looking up into his with complete, unclouded innocence.
“Yes, Chloe?”
“Is Santa still coming?”
Arthur Vance knelt down on the polished pine floorboards of Hawthorn Ridge, eye-to-eye with the child whose mother had counted dimes in a diner.
A single tear welled in Arthur’s eye, catching the golden firelight, before he reached out and gently smoothed her honey-colored curls.
“Chloe,” Arthur whispered, his voice rich and deep as the mountain timber. “Santa has the master key to this house. And tomorrow morning… you’re going to see what he left behind.”
The morning sun broke over the limestone bluffs of the Cocalico Creek with that rare, blinding Appalachian clarity that turns frozen pastureland into an infinite mirror of diamonds. It was 7:15 AM on Christmas Day.
