Sandy’s wish, if anyone had asked, would be that Anderson hadn’t caught the flu so he could play Santa as planned. She’d tried to get a last-minute replacement, oh how she’d tried. But Jax Cullen, Lucky Harbor’s mayor, was master of ceremonies of the parade. Ford Walker and resident hottie had taken his new fiancée to Palm Springs for a holiday getaway. Sandy’s third and final choice, Sheriff Sawyer Thompson, was going to be on duty at the parade, handling crowd control.

There was no one else to ask, which panicked Sandy. No one but her… She took her roll of town clerk very seriously, but this… this was going over and above the call of duty. Yet all she could think of was the kids of Lucky Harbor, and how disappointed they’d be without Santa. Dammit. She sighed and took one last look at herself. She did actually look a little bit like Santa, albeit a very short one.

“You, Sandy Jansen,” she told her reflection. “Are a sucker.”

The biggest. And she had a broken heart to prove it. With a sigh, she reached around behind her to unzip the Santa costume, but the zipper wouldn’t budge. She tried again. And then again. “Really?” she said to the room in general, most specifically to her karma. “Are you kidding me?”

Karma wasn’t listening. The zipper was stuck.

“Dammit,” she said, and tried again to no avail. “Well, isn’t this just perfect.” With an eye roll, she snatched up her purse and her keys and headed out into the night, hoping a neighbor was still up. But if anyone so much as smiled at this I Love Lucy predicament, Sandy was going to smack them. “Christmas,” she muttered, but it wasn’t annoyance she felt so much as bone-deep sadness.