“Bexley, Bexley. Our stockings are full and there are presents,” Molly called out in awe.
“Santa really did come,” Lizzie said. “I thought I heard him, but I couldn’t be sure…” She moved forward in a seeming trance.
“Wonder if Santa spoke about meatloaf in her dreams?” Kiernan whispered into Bexley’s ear.
She turned, smiling.
Close.
Too close.
But this time she didn’t back away.
“Bexley, come see,” Molly said.
She obeyed, yet held Kiernan’s gaze an extra beat before turning to the children’s joy.
Not only did the cheerful red bags and card-covered six-pack carriers under each of the three stockings look particularly festive in the kind light from the wagon wheel, but a small, white, awkwardly wrapped package had joined them under the girls’ stockings, along with a similar one beneath Dan’s, plus something wrapped in more of the old cards. A box, not wrapped, but with a squashed and dusty bow sat beneath Bobby’s stocking.
Bexley, Kiernan, Pauline, and Eric exchanged looks that said none of them knew where those additions came from.
There was no time for more, because the girls were hopping from foot to foot in their eagerness to get to their stockings.
Bexley, Kiernan, and Eric took down the stockings with care, then settled on the bedrolls with the kids to hold onto the seams as they were explored. Gramps pulled up two chairs — side by side, Bexley noted — for himself and Pauline.
The girls and Bobby oohed and aahed over each of the small, practical items in their stockings.
“Dine-s’r!” Bobby shouted when the wood form emerged. “Look, Dan, dine-s’r.”
“Pretty cool, huh, squirt.” Dan didn’t even try to hide his grin.
“I have one, too,” Lizzie exulted.
Molly reached deeper and found hers with a huge smile.
The playing cards also fascinated Bobby, who unwrapped the pack from the seasonal envelopes with meticulous attention … then played with the envelopes for several minutes.
“Oh, we’ll have so many things to show the other kids when we get back to school,” Lizzie said.
“Not the candy. I’m eating mine,” Molly declared.
“Not now. Breakfast first,” Bexley said. “Presents after breakfast. We need everybody to help. We need the table set, milk poured, coffee made, things brought out, and we’ll start cooking.”
Perhaps because of hunger pangs from the late start on breakfast, help came from everybody except Bobby, busy taking his cards out of the cardboard box, spreading them all over the floor, and sending some on apparent missions of great import with long explanations to his grandfather.
The French toast was an exorbitant hit with the four Quicks, who said they’d never had the treat before. The lack of maple syrup didn’t bother them in the least, not with strawberry preserves and confectionary sugar atop the crispy, eggy bread slices.
Bexley and Pauline cooked up every piece of bread they’d set aside for French toast the night before, then another fresh loaf — Gramps didn’t even complain, possibly because his mouth was full. In between, they ate the crisped and warmed ham. Kiernan and Eric shuttled back and forth from the kitchen to the bar room with the French toast, until they insisted Bexley and Pauline sit and enjoy the toast of their labor, too.
“That was delicious,” Molly said.
The others mmm’d agreement.
“Presents now, right?”
“Presents,” Bexley agreed. The dishes could wait.
Bobby unwrapped his octopus first and immediately found its shape perfect for being tucked against his heart with one chubby arm around its neck. Pauline’s eyes misted, and even Gramps grinned — an expression visible now that he’d trimmed his beard.
The divided-in-two necklace from Pauline was a huge hit, each girl immediately adding it to her ensemble.
Each hugged her octopus and snowman with huge smiles.
Bobby pulled the bow off the otherwise plain box and put it on his head. With help from Lizzie, he took the top off the box to disclose twenty-six wooden blocks, each with a letter of the alphabet and illustrations of items starting with that letter.
They were in good shape, but old-fashioned.
More looks zipped around, centering on Gramps, but he focused on Bobby, extracting the “J” block from the box, while his sisters poured out explanations of letters, words, and reading.
“When he disappeared last night… Do you think…?” Bexley murmured to Kiernan.
“I do. Those boxes never went back in the attic. This should tell.”
Kiernan nodded toward the two sisters, unwrapping their final presents.
Molly had hers open first. She turned it around in her hands. “It’s like a barrette.”
“It is a barrette, a beautiful pearl barrette,” Pauline said.
“I have one, too,” Lizzie said. “Bexley, will you put it in my hair.”
“Of course, I will. There. The perfect addition.”
After she performed the same service for Molly, Bexley looked around at Gramps.
“What?” Gramps demanded of her with a faint imitation of his usual irascibility.
Pauline tapped his arm. “You know what. You tell them, is there something special…?”
He cleared his throat twice, before saying, “You won’t leave me in peace if I don’t, will you, woman?” That clearly needed no response. He gusted a sigh. “Those barrettes… Your mama wore those barrettes the day she married your Daddy.”
The girls’ eyes widened.
“Mommy’s?”
The soft, unified whisper felt like a fist to Bexley’s heart.
Gramps cleared his throat yet again. “Those blocks were hers, too. Angie and Trudi’s.” He looked at his older grandson. “What about you, boy? You going to open those packages or hatch ’em?”
The first of the two presents under the hubcap tree for Dan turned out to be a shaving kit — Kiernan and Eric had pooled their resources and Pauline contributed a navy blue toiletries bag, transferring her things to a plastic bag.
Dan colored and said a gruff thanks that made him sound remarkably like his grandfather.
“I thought you said you knew nothing about those packages,” Bexley whispered to Kiernan, because he was the closest of the three conspirators.
“Me? Didn’t say a word.” He did that dinna thing again with the word didn’t and Bexley fought a shiver. “Besides, I meant this one he’s opening now.”
The second package looked like a hot dog wrapped in white paper with a scrap of ribbon tied inexpertly around its middle.
The teenager removed the ribbon as if he expected the package to blow up, then slowly unswaddled what was inside.
Aware of intensity behind her, Bexley turned and saw Gramps riveted on his grandson’s motions.
She caught the others’ eyes and shifted hers to Gramps, cluing in all of them to the mini-drama playing out.
With his head still down, Dan said, “It’s… it’s your whittling knife. The one your father…”
Dan looked around at his grandfather, his vulnerability pushing Bexley toward tears the boy would never forgive if he spotted them.
“I got another knife.” Gramps made it a growl, failing to mask the clog in his throat. “You got a good start on your whittlin’. Time this went to another generation. You teach Bobby, when he’s of an age.”
“You’ll teach him.” Dan hesitated an added beat, then said, “Sir.”
“What about us?” Molly demanded.
Dan reached over to rub the top of her head. She tilted away. “Not my hair! Bexley did my hair.”
“He’ll teach you all, squirts.”
Taking that in the spirit it was meant but would never be acknowledged, Molly and Lizzie beamed at him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
After the belated cleanup from breakfast, a lovely, satisfied lull settled over them all. Even the wind and snow see
med to take a break.
Dan and his grandfather started new whittling projects with Pauline watching complacently from a nearby chair. They spread a blanket in front of the stove and the rest of them sat there, playing with Bobby and the blocks until his yawning became contagious.
Bexley knew precisely when Kiernan leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. She held a shhh finger to her lips.
The girls, aglow with the conspiracy of it, took Bobby for a cleanup and to take his nap.
Bexley and Eric chatted quietly about his law practice, her new online endeavor, their mutual friends in Wyoming, their Midwestern childhoods.
When the girls returned, they were chattering excitedly, but dropped their voices abruptly as they came in the room — too soon to catch what they were saying. They went immediately to Pauline, who might have been drifting off, judging by the way she jumped at their touch.
If so, she must have come fully awake when Molly and Lizzie pulled her from her chair and tugged her to the store.
Bexley and Eric exchanged looks — both asking the question, neither having the answer.
“What are they up to?” Eric wondered.
“What’s going on, then?” Kiernan asked, stretching awake.
Bexley looked away from that sight, but said with passable equanimity, “The girls seem to be drawing Pauline into a conspiracy. I suppose it’s a second batch of chocolate chip cookies.”
They had no better idea when Pauline appeared at the entryway and announced, “None of you are to come in the kitchen — or the bedroom.”
“It’s my bedroom,” Gramps automatically complained.
No one — least of all Pauline — appeared to consider that worth a response.
“I’ll need to put the meatloaf in at five,” Bexley said.
“If we’re that long, I’m perfectly capable of putting it in the oven.”
“The bathroom—”
Pauline cut off Kiernan’s protest, delivered with mischief in his eyes. “You have the restrooms out here. No exceptions. Stay out.”
Bexley raised her hands in a combo shrug and surrender. “Okay. I’ll get the table ready then.”
“Need help?”
Eric barely had the words out, before Kiernan said, “I’ll help her.”
“I don’t think I’ll need any help. Thanks, guys.”
“Okay. Then I’m going to stretch out for a few minutes, maybe catch a nap.”
“Good idea, Eric. You can get more of a nap, too, Kiernan.”
“No need. What do you need done?”
“Um. Wipe the table, I guess. I’m going into the store, looking for ideas.”
She spent far more time trolling the aisles of the store than she needed to.
Even after a second circuit of all the aisles to be sure she hadn’t missed anything with potential, she hesitated to return to the warmth of the bar room.
It made no logical sense, but she was feeling even more jumpy and awkward around Kiernan now than at the beginning of this trip.
It had made sense at the start, considering … well, considering. No need to think about the details of that.
But they’d gotten past that. Working together, along with everybody else. All of them getting along like buddies.
Buddies…
His mouth close to hers. Their gazes holding.
His raspy voice telling her to go to bed, echoing with whispers of Come to bed with me.
Maybe not buddies.
But they could be. They would be.
If she could stay away from him for a while. Distance, that was what she needed. Distance and perspective.
Sure, there’d been looks, perhaps moments a wild optimist could interpret a certain way, but that wild optimist would get herself in trouble. Again. After all, the man’s attitude about love bringing sorrow was as good as a proclamation that he had no interest in a relationship. And that was good. Really good. Because it gave her the fact she needed to make the wise decision of staying away from him.
If only she could stay away from him.
Instead of stuck in a blizzard in three rooms.
Three rooms?
Whatever the girls and Pauline were up to had them in two rooms. And the one of those she was in now was about to freeze her nose off.
She squared her shoulders.
She was going back in there and prepare the table for Christmas dinner for those kids. And she would be strictly buddies with Kiernan McCrea. She would.
*
She stepped back. “There.”
“It looks great,” Kiernan said.
“Great’s too strong.” She smiled without meeting his eyes.
She’d done that a lot while they — mostly she — set up the table.
She’d wrangled a sheet from Gramps to use as a tablecloth — not even stepping over Pauline’s boundaries, since it was in a closet in the hallway between the shop and the bedroom. Atop the tablecloth, she fashioned a red runner from red tissue paper she’d found tucked away in the store.
He’d wondered about the purpose of the two white coffee cups from near the coffeemaker she’d brought in. She used them upside down and spread apart on the runner to each support a plate. Atop the raised plates, she’d created vignettes with a green-painted paper tree in the center of each, surrounded by candles from Gramps’ boxes of decorations.
Then, with leftover strips of the tissue paper, she oh-so-carefully tied red bows around white napkins, turning utilitarian into festive at each place around the table.
“I like the ceramic tree on the bar top,” he said.
Her first thought had been to have it on the table, but opted for the bar so it could be plugged in. She’d folded and wrinkled up more old Christmas cards to form a sort of holiday field around the tree. Bits of sparkle on the cards and from the confetti bits Kiernan urged her to save sprinkled atop them reflected the tree’s lights.
Again, she smiled without looking at him. “Thanks.” She tipped her head, considering the table. “I’ll be right back.”
She headed for the store.
He followed.
He’d blown it before by not going with her into the store. Wasn’t going to do that again.
First, opportunities for the two of them to be alone without an entourage were few and far between. Second, she’d been different when she came back from her earlier trip to the store. More distant. All that smiling and not looking.
He wasn’t letting that distance get even worse.
As he passed the store’s cooler, something caught his eye.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
On her second go-round of the store, Bexley left the jerky aisle with a sigh, turned the corner into the candy aisle, and ran into Kiernan’s back.
She rebounded away, nearly losing her balance. Then nearly losing it a second time for an entirely different reason when he grasped her arm.
“Kiernan. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“I’m still searching. Haven’t found what I want yet. Something to put around the bottom of the trees and candles, so they’re not just on a plain plate. But all I see so far is jerky.” That all sounded like nervous babbling to her. Probably sounded worse to him. “The table—?”
“Can wait a bit. I want to talk to you. To tell you… I’ve watched you, Bexley. I’ve watched you make Christmas—”
“We all have. The food, the decorations, the—”
Shaking his head from her first word of protest, he added words now. “None of it would have happened without you. Without your ideas, your vision, your determination to give the kids a Christmas. To give us all a Christmas.”
He stopped shaking his head, his words coming faster.
“And I don’t know exactly how, but it’s opened my eyes. I’ve realized how things went wrong, how I let them go wrong — not only with Felicity, but with other relationships, too.
“I do want what Cahill and Eleanor have, what the Curricks and thei
r friends have. I suppose what my mother and father had or she wouldn’t have mourned so hard for him. But I didn’t go about it right.
“I don’t think it’s what you said last night about my being afraid. Not entirely, anyway. Though watching Mom made me cautious, for certain. To be sure the good would be worth the sorrow if the worst happened.”
She touched his hand. An instinctive gesture of compassion for him, for his family.
Before she could retract her hand, he turned his over, enclosing hers, palm to palm. Then he covered their joined hands with his other, not holding her, but, above and below her, warming her throughout.
“But even more than caution, I thought what Cahill and Eleanor and the others have would come to me pre-made. Like Christmas always has before — arrive in a complete package with little to no effort from me. Come, sit here with me so we can truly talk.”
He used his hold on her hand to draw her down to sit beside him, backs against the shelves.
“Ah,” she said wisely. “Because you were used to women throwing themselves at you and doing all the work, while you were like a Roman emperor, giving thumbs up or—”
He protested, “I wouldn’t say that—”
“—thumbs down. Until along came Felicity.”
“That’s not exactly—” His frown shifted to a rueful smile. “I suppose so.”
“But didn’t she play hard to get?”
“Ah, that was part of my pre-made package. A woman who didn’t ask too much of me, because sometimes she backed off faster than me.”
“Because she was using you, stringing you along to get to Jack?”
“She was. So she never backed off too far, never backed off out of reach. Unlike you.”
She tried to slide her hand from behind his. He held on. “Me? Are you blaming me for—”
“Not blaming a’tall. Explaining that when you did back away, a man expecting a pre-made relationship didn’t know the next step of making one, as I wouldn’t have known how to make a Christmas here.”
“I suppose I did run off,” she acknowledged slowly. “Though it wasn’t because I expected everything to fall in my lap.”
“No, it was because you thought you were done with relationships and I’d just given you another reason for that resolution.”
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