matter? He knew he’d be gone in a matter of hours.
He set the dish towel on a side table and addressed the North Pole contingent. “I appreciate your hospitality and thank you for letting me get a few things off my chest. But I’ve come to realize that there’s not much hope for someone on the naughty list, is there?”
The Mrs. Claus, who’d given him the stink eye for the naughty internet browser history, softened her expression. “That’s not how it works, dear. You’re not bad, but you’ve made some unfortunate choices.”
“Oh, I’m bad, Mrs. Claus. Ask the judge. I ruined his grandson’s—and my now ex-best friend’s—wedding because I didn’t want anything to change. I didn’t want to lose the only thing that mattered. I was selfish and greedy. A real-life scrooge,” he finished, leaving out how he’d also stomped on the heart of the only woman he’d ever loved.
Loved?
He pictured Bridget’s face, the curve of her neck, the way she could go from angel to vixen in a split second.
He’d loved her from the moment he saw her.
He rubbed his bleary eyes. “I can see why I spilled my guts to you last night. It’s remarkably easy to talk to all of you.”
“Well, we get quite a bit of practice talking to youngsters,” a Mrs. Claus offered.
“And you’re also a chatty drunk,” the short Santa, who’d won fifty bucks off him last night, chimed.
Great! He was not only hitting rock-bottom—he was living out the holiday edition of hitting rock-bottom.
“Scooter, does the name Lawrence Duncan sound familiar?” the judge asked, blessedly shifting gears, but he didn’t know of any Lawrence Duncan.
Or did he? The name had a strange familiarity.
“I don’t think so.”
A quiet Santa who hadn’t swindled him at cards raised his hand. “I’m Lawrence Duncan.”
Soren stared at the man. “You’re one of the Santas I talked to a few days ago when we’d come for the spaghetti dinner. You were fixing the snowcats.”
“That’s right,” the man replied with a twitch of a grin hidden in his white beard.
But there was something else familiar about him. He’d thought it that day as well.
The judge sat back. “Larry’s an old friend from law school. We’d lost touch over the years after we each retired from the bench. I was quite pleased to run into him again, here, in Kringle.”
Soren stared at the Santa judge. “You can be both a judge and a Santa?”
Larry chuckled. “What do you think we did for the rest of the year?”
Soren glanced around the group. “Make toys?” he answered, knowing he sounded like an idiot as Team Ho-Ho-Ho broke out into laughter.
“I never get tired of that response,” the burly Santa crooned, slapping his leg in delight.
“Larry was a judge for the family courts in Manhattan,” the judge offered with a curious glint in his eye.
Soren nodded to this retired judge, Lawrence Duncan, trying to place him. “Okay.”
“You see, Scooter, Larry came to me with a perplexing case many years ago. He was charged with overseeing a very contentious custody battle.”
Larry Duncan nodded. “But this was different from most custody battles I’d presided over. In this case, despite being exorbitantly wealthy, neither parent wanted custody of the shared child.”
Soren froze, unable to move. His heart hammered in his chest as the name Lawrence Duncan clicked into place.
“Larry came to me for advice when it was time for the minor child to go to high school,” the judge continued.
Larry leaned forward. “The parents finally agreed on something. They each advocated for boarding school. I knew that Frank here had a grandson the same age as this minor, so I asked for his advice on possible schools.”
Soren looked from Judge Lawrence Duncan to Judge Franklin Abbott, before his gaze settled on the man who had taught him how to fish. “You suggested that I go to the same school as Tom, didn’t you?”
The judge nodded. “And that you share a dorm room.”
Soren sank back into the couch cushions, unable to believe that there had been those looking after his welfare as a child. Not just Janine for the short time she’d been his nanny, but Judge Lawrence Duncan and Judge Franklin Abbott. A man who knew he’d been unwanted from the start.
He shook his head to clear the stupefied haze. “Why didn’t you ever say anything, Judge? All this time I thought…”
“That you’d just gotten lucky?” the man supplied.
Soren nodded.
“We spoke about the decision. I believe one of your nannies had brought you to meet with me. Do