A Town Called Christmas [Harlequin Super Romance Series #1455]

"Are you certain we're not at the North Pole?" Michael surveyed the frigid landscape beyond the iceencrusted windows of the rental car. After his deployment to the Persian Gulf earlier that year, he was familiar with loneliness and deprivation, but he'd never been to a place as cold and isolated as this before.The strange new world was nearly colorless. Out of the flannel sky, fat, lazy snowflakes spiraled toward the windshield in random loops and whirls. A frosty two-lane highway stretched away into a frigid forest of bare branches and ragged pines, which were burdened by mantles of heavy snow. Even the sun seemed leached of warmth and color, a tissue-paper disk hidden behind layers of clouds.Michael shivered inside his Navy-issued topcoat. His bleak mood offered no more warmth than the rental car's faulty heater.Christmas in a town called Christmas. The stuff of sugar plum dreams, except he wasn't buying it. There was no magic remaining in Mike's world. "Gotta be the North Pole," he grumbled."Nah." Nicholas York shoved the heating lever up to full blast, hoping to eke out another degree of warmth. The hearty Yooper--a common slang term for a denizen of Michigan's Upper Peninsula--had been Mike's closest friend since flight school in Corpus Christi, right on through to their present assignment in the Blue Knight strike fighter squadron."Not unless our pilot took a wrong turn."Michael grunted. "I didn't like the look of the man." They'd connected in Detroit, flown north in a rinky-dink prop plane, then disembarked at an airport in the middle of nowhere. From there they'd driven over a hundred miles deeper into nowhere. Maybe they had traveled beyond the North Pole."Only because you hate giving up control," Nicky said cheerfully.He had good reason to be cheerful. Nicky was going home for the holidays, to his wife and children. While Mike was glad their leave had come through at the last minute, for the Yorks's sake, he sure wished he had a better plan than extra-wheeling it with someone else's family for the holidays. If Nicky hadn't insisted, Mike might have spent the time off hunkered down with a case of Michelob and a sixty-four-inch football telecast, in an effort to forget that he had no homecoming reunion of his own. Not even one that took place in a frozen wasteland.Mike burrowed deeper into the coat's raised collar. "I'm here, aren't I? Seven days of Christmas in a town called Christmas. Seven days of out-of-control holiday celebration."Nicky gave him a look. An I-know-what's-frosting-your-butt look. "Buck up. There are no Scrooges in a Christmas Christmas.""Yeah, yeah." Ordinarily, Mike was a doer, not a brooder, but he'd had a lousy year. First he'd been Dear Johned, then stranded for the holidays by a mother and stepfather who'd rather cruise Belize than gather around a faux fireplace in their Florida condo. Adding the recent news that his squadron would soon be sent on another tour of the Gulf had put him in an unusually morose mood.He looked out at the barren landscape and said, with heavy sarcasm, "Another fine Navy Day.""Hey, now." Nicky peered eagerly through the windshield, as if there was anything out there except more of the same. "Wait'll you see Shannon and the kids. They'll get you into the Christmas spirit.""Don't worry," Mike said. One good, swift kick in the keister would jar him out of his malaise. "I'll be jolly for them. Ho, ho, ho."While more than a year had passed since Mike had seen Nicky's family, they'd always be tight. There had been many good times, especially during the first years of duty after the men had earned their wings.Mike was the godfather to the Yorks's first son, Charles, known as Skip. And Shannon had fixed Mike up with Denise, so they'd frequently double-dated with the Yorks.At that thought, the fond memories might have turned sour, but Mike wouldn't let them. He focused on Nicky's kids instead. He was looking forAlexander, Carrie is the author of 'A Town Called Christmas [Harlequin Super Romance Series #1455]', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373714551 and ISBN 0373714556.