THE MAVERICK'S CHRISTMAS BABY by VICTORIA PADE

Author:VICTORIA PADE, [PADE,, VICTORIA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ROMANCE
Publisher: HARLEQUIN
Published: 2013-11-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

The school Christmas program on Monday evening was funny and endearing and full of foibles. There were heartfelt, off-key Christmas songs—one per grade that advanced from the timid singing of the kindergarteners—who forgot some of the words—to the far more polished sixth graders. There were skits. There was a sixth-grade girl band with an overly loud drummer doing a rendition of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” And the diamond in the crown was the production of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

The students enacted the poem while one of the older girls read it. A kindergartner in a mouse costume pretended to sleep, but couldn’t keep her eyes closed.

A fourth grader played Santa in a costume stuffed with a pillow that was sticking out from under his cottonball-edged red jacket. He was also wearing a beard that was askew in one direction while his hat was off-kilter in the other, and his boots were black galoshes.

The sleigh was a red wagon with cardboard sides resembling Dallas’s bobsleigh—not surprisingly, since Ryder had worked on the scenery and staging. But one of the sides fell off midplay.

The reindeer wore brown construction-paper antlers, with Jake in the lead wearing a red clown nose.

Some license was taken. The father was at the cardboard cutout window, but so was Mama in her kerchief as well as the two children who rose from their visions of sugarplums to witness Santa’s ride.

Robbie was the youngest child of the pajama-clad family, although rather than watching Santa, Robbie scanned the audience for his father and waved when he spotted Dallas and Nina.

In the process of that, Robbie didn’t see it coming when the nightgown-clad mother of the group tripped on her hem and fell into him, causing them to tumble and barely avoid falling off the stage.

Robbie’s loud “Jeez, Janey,” was answered by Janey’s “It’s this dumb nightgown,” interrupting the performance and making the audience laugh.

By the time Mama in her kerchief got back to her feet and Robbie did, too, the narrator had lost her place and reread a few lines before getting to the only other dialogue in the play—Santa calling “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Clapping and cheers and whistles rewarded the performance along with a standing ovation as everyone who had participated in the rest of the program, too, returned to the stage to take their final bows.

Robbie was at the very front, and he dramatically hid one arm behind his back, crossed the other over his stomach and took a very deep bow as if the accolades were all for him.

Then the announcement came that refreshments were being set out at the back of the social hall, the kids got down from the stage to find their families and the mingling began—the portion of the evening that Nina had been dreading.

Dallas’s parents had arrived before Dallas and Nina, and Dallas had urged Nina into the two free seats directly in front of them. Restrained hellos had been exchanged with Nina from there, just moments before the lights were dimmed so no more had had to be said.

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