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bag.
    Katelyn put a soothing hand on her fiancé's
arm and felt the tension subside. Marshall wasn't big on surprises
to say the least. Oh, he was great at pulling pranks with his
brothers… as long as the prank wasn't on him. So when a man that he
didn't know kissed his almost wife and began pulling gifts out of
his bag he got a little nervous. He had a feeling that Santa was
completely harmless, but kissing his wife had to stop.
    "For the big tough sheriff." Santa smiled
and held out a little bag.
    Marshall looked at is as if it would
explode. When nothing happened, he slowly raised his hand and took
the small red bag into his hands. He pulled out the white paper and
almost dropped the small silver whistle.
    "A whistle?" Marshall held it up and looked
at it.
    "Blow it. Or better yet, have your beautiful
fiancé do the honors," Santa smirked.
    Marshall narrowed his eyes at Santa and
Santa's grin just widened. He tentatively placed the whistle on his
lips and blew. There must be something wrong, there was no noise.
He tried again, harder this time. There was a scrape at the front
door and the round knob turned jerkily. A second later a sleek
sable Belgian Malinois with a police vest and a big red bow on his
collar came trotting through the door he had opened and headed
straight to Marshall. He skidded to a stop and sat down, looking up
expectedly at him. Snow melted off his black and brown coat as he
waited for his next command.
    "Sheriff, meet your newest deputy. A
multipurpose Malinois named Marko, straight from Holland. He's
trained in drug detection, tracking, search and rescue, and of
course, police tactics," Santa told him.
    Marshall stared down at the dog's black
muzzle and thumping brown tail. He couldn't form words. They'd
needed a dog to do search and rescue in all the woods surrounding
the area for years. And one that was also trained for drug
detection! They could canvas the whole school in no time. It was
one of the things he wanted to do, raise the $15,000 to get a dog,
but their small community couldn't afford it.
    "How?"
    "Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa has connections with
other good boys all over the world! A trainer will be arriving next
week to stay here for a while and train you to use Marko to the
best of his abilities. Now it’s you're turn Doc." Santa handed her
an envelope. "Think of it as a late wedding gift too."
    Katelyn tore open the Christmas card and
pulled out a picture. She looked at it and saw a picture of the
front of her clinic. It had to be taken recently as the snow had
gotten deeper from the time she had last been there just six hours
ago. She flipped to the next picture and saw the back of the
clinic. But, it wasn't the back of her clinic, was it? Where there
had been a wall was now a large covered area with private dog runs
fenced in.
    "Is this my clinic? How could you have built
a whole indoor/outdoor run system in six hours?" She couldn't look
away from the picture.
    "Santa has his elves. And one little elf
told me you needed more room."
    Katelyn threw her arms around Santa and gave
him a hug. She guessed the growl coming from behind her wasn't the
newest deputy so she pulled back and gave Santa a wink.
    "Watch it Santa. My to-be-son-in-law looks
like he's about to shoot you."
    "Mr. Jacks, I presume. And Mr. & Mrs.
Wyatt! Merry Christmas!
    "Merry Christmas young man," Mrs. Wyatt
laughed, her huge red hat wiggling as she bobbed her head. Katelyn
looked down at Marko and laughed as he kept a close eye on the big
red hat.
    "Santa has something for you too Mr. &
Mrs. Wyatt." He pulled out a present and handed it to Mrs. Wyatt.
Santa watched as she eagerly tore into it like a schoolgirl. She
pushed aside the wrapping paper and smiled as she looked down at
the shadowbox.
    "Young man, thank you. I'll cherish this.
How did you find it?" Mrs. Wyatt lifted up the small sketch of a
huge mansion. An antique silver fork lay in front of it.
    "What is it?" Mr. Jacks asked
impatiently.
    "It's a sketch of my