“And you had.” Tart words, but she didn’t try to withdraw her hand.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I am, too. Too bad we couldn’t have talked then like we are now.”
“Wouldn’t’ve done a bit of good.” Her head snapped back at his cheerful pessimism. “We were neither of us ready for it.”
“So, we should be grateful for being snowbound and missing Christmas with our families because we’re past the awkwardness after last summer’s, uh… after last summer and now we can be friends?”
“Friends.”
She was not reading anything into that tone. Far, far too dangerous.
In a low, certain voice, he said, “I am over her, you know.”
And she wasn’t reading anything into his segueing from their being friends to his saying he was over Felicity. Talk about dangerous. No, she’d not read anything into tone or transitions.
“I believe you,” she said slowly. “But sometimes the effects linger after the person—”
“What about your snooty ex, the eejit? Aren’t you—?”
“I was. We’ve both let those crappy people haunt us. Why? Crazy. Letting them butt into our lives still when they were otherwise firmly in our pasts.” She slanted him a quick look, then away. “Past time we shake off any vestiges of them influencing our lives.”
“Good plan.” He twisted away from her, reaching into his far pocket, and in the process resting their hand sandwich on her thigh, the weight and warmth sparking a deeper warmth.
He twisted back, facing her now, holding something over her head.
She tipped back to get a look at it. Green. At least greenish. “What is that?”
“Mistletoe.”
“Mistletoe? I don’t think— It’s not mistletoe. Is that lettuce?”
“Mistletoe,” he said firmly.
Then he kissed her.
Firmly and oh-so-wonderfully.
His mouth — the feel of him, the taste of him — was like coming home.
She wanted to give herself up to the sensation, to the moment … to him.
But she’d done that once before.
She pulled back.
“Wha— Why did you do that?”
“Shaking off the last vestiges. And because I’ve been wanting to for five months and more.”
He kissed her again. Not even pretending she could resist, she kissed him back.
He released her hand. She used the freedom to touch his hair, his neck, on the way to winding her arm around him. And he certainly had other things to do with his hands.
“Bexley! Kiernan! Where are you?”
She pulled back with a gasp at Molly’s call.
“Just a minute.” She stood. “I’ll be right there, Molly.”
“Wait.” Kiernan grabbed her hand. “A solution to your quest.”
She looked down at him. His grin didn’t entirely hide a frustration that caused a ker-thump in her chest.
He drew out a package of M&Ms from a nearby shelf. “If you use the red and green ones…”
“Yes. That’s great.” Back in practical mode — what had he called it? Making Christmas? — she added, “But make it Skittles. That way it’s not Molly’s initial or anyone else’s. Get all the packages.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Kiernan held the bulk of the small candy packages, with Bexley carrying the overflow. “We have another little project and the meatloaf—”
“Is in the oven,” Pauline said. “Now, put down whatever that is and sit down. You and Kiernan. Molly and Lizzie have something to say to you all.”
Kiernan unloaded the packets atop the bar.
They took the two open chairs in a semicircle centered on the wood stove.
“Since you’re too old for Santa, we wanted to give you some things, too,” Lizzie said. “Things you missed from being here.”
Molly stepped forward and put a paper towel-wrapped lump in Kiernan’s hands.
He drew in a long breath appreciatively, calling attention to the fragrant warmth emanating from the lump.
“It’s Irish soda bread,” she said.
“I can smell that. It’s marvelous. Thank you, girls.” One side of his mouth lifted. “And Pauline.”
“They did all the work.”
“She told us what to do,” Lizzie said. “There weren’t as many ingredients as the cookies. No chocolate chips at all.”
Pauline, suddenly the object of looks from all the adults, said, “Yes, I used my phone to find a recipe. Had to stand on the ladder in that back room, but I did it. And it’s already fully recharged, so I didn’t risk a thing.”
Molly, ignoring that side issue, took a box with a perky bow to Eric.
He grinned at the sight of the box, but did a good job of delighted surprise when he got the ribbon off and announced, “My favorite cookies.”
“They’re store bought,” Lizzie confessed. “Not like the chocolate chip cookies.”
“Those are my second-favorite cookies,” he assured her solemnly.
“Pauline made a batch while we were making the bread, so there are more of those, too. And she gave us these to give to you so you’d have your favorite ones,” Molly said. “See? It says that place you mentioned.”
“Andersonville. But how…?” he asked Pauline.
“Had them shipped out and planned to give them to you before I left for Chicago, but with the storm and you insisting on driving me…”
Eric thanked the girls, then kissed Pauline on the cheek with a hard hug.
Molly regained her role as master of ceremonies. “It’s past Christmas Eve, but we’re going to sing a song for Bexley.”
Their two voices rose in a sweet rendition of The First Noel.
Even the storm seemed to appreciate it, hushing completely.
At the end, Bexley applauded enthusiastically and hugged them each. “That was wonderful, girls.”
Lizzie said, “Next time, you all can sing with us. Like Bexley’s family does.”
Molly brought them back the point. “Next is Pauline. We can’t go to church at midnight, because that’s past, too—”
“And we can’t go anywhere anyhow,” Lizzie inserted.
“—so we said a prayer for your husband who died, along with Mommy, last night. We think they might be spending Christmas together.”
Pauline swallowed, then smiled. “That’s a very good thought. I believe they are.”
“We didn’t know about Gramps. See, we didn’t get anything for Bobby or Dan or Daddy, but they’re family, so maybe that’s okay? Since Gramps is our grandfather and that makes him family, we thought that would be okay. But we didn’t really know him before this, so then that’s not like family. So we made more soda bread for him — us and Pauline — because his grandmother was Irish, like Kiernan.”
She gestured for her sister to get on the other side of Gramps’ chair, then Lizzie handed him the loaf.
“Well. Ah. That’s—”
Molly ruthlessly cut through his attempts to speak. “And for the family part, we’re adding this.”
The girls threw their arms around him from each side, kissing him on his cheeks, which burned bright red.
Bobby, seeing the lovefest, used Gramps’ red sweater as a handhold and climbed up into his lap, kissing him on the nose.
“I’m not doing that,” Dan declared, his voice’s register jumping high.
“Da— darned right you’re not.”
But Gramps looked up at his grandson and winked. The boy grinned back.
*
Never had meatloaf been so festive.
Dan didn’t betray the presence of spinach and ate enough to please any cook.
Kiernan insisted his Irish soda bread be part of the meal, too, and Gramps followed suit. With the salad made from deconstructed sandwiches, butter-drowned boxed potatoes, black and green olives rounding out the meal, everyone was sated.
Until the cookies came out and they found room for more.
The second batch of chocolate chips, supplemented by Eric’s special Swedish cookies, created a feast.
Gramps even voluntarily brought out his brandy for small toasts by the grownups.
They stoked the fire and sat around the table, passing the cookies, eating the Skittles not used in the decorations, and singing Christmas songs.
When Kiernan joined Lizzie and Molly on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Bexley’s mouth fell open. He had a wonderful voice. Warm and emotional and true.
With a glint in her eyes, Pauline suggested O Holy Night next. She, Bexley, and Eric started with Kiernan, but quickly dropped out, leaving him to complete it solo.
They all sat silent a beat as the last note faded.
“Wow.” Molly’s single word conveyed everyone’s reaction.
“Why didn’t you tell us you could sing like that?” Pauline’s voice skidded toward scolding, but she wiped at her eyes, so no one was fooled.
“My brother Cahill’s the musician in the family. He sang at Val and Jack’s wedding, you know.”
He looked at Bexley, somehow making those simple words string a connection between them that, again, ker-thumped her heart.
Ah, yes, because it had to do with far more than words.
Aware of Pauline looking from Kiernan to her, Bexley dropped her gaze, grateful he filled in the silence.
“I provide harmony now and then. Now, if we had Cahill here, especially with his guitar, he’d not let us waste all this time before the next song.”
“What do you want to sing next, Kiernan?” Lizzie asked.
“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
He led them on an up-tempo version of that carol that segued into song after song. Occasionally lyrics received a new twist because no one remembered the precise words, but the spirit came through.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
December 26
Even the littles slept in the next morning.
As Bexley enjoyed the luxury of waking without a mental list of to-dos and how-tos scrolling through her brain, she abruptly recognized the quiet from outside. Perhaps the abated wind contributed to all sleeping so well.
As they roused, one by one, they were as slow-going as bears coming out of hibernation, though distinctly more cheerful.
Heading for the bar room for a coffee cup they’d missed washing last night, Bexley encountered Kiernan in the back aisle of the store.
There was nothing cold about his eyes now.
In fact, they were hot enough to make her feel oddly shy. “Morning.”
“Good morning.” He looked behind him, then circled her arm and drew her down the side aisle and back to where they’d been yesterday, amid the candy. “Bexley. You’re wrong.”
With her mind still occupied by Christmas, she looked around, but the depleted supplies of candy didn’t tell her much. “What? Did we miss something—?”
“Yes.” He turned her toward him, cupping her face in his palms. “Or nearly. We’ve nearly missed each other.”
“But—”
“C’mere.” He drew her down to sit beside him on the floor, tight against his side, his arms around her. “What you’re wrong about is me. I’m over Felicity. I want you to be sure of it. Not a doubt. I was in July, too. Or the first sight of you wouldn’t have… But I was too busy tripping over my own feet to see straight. When we were together, that was the truth.”
Kiernan kissed her ear, then moved his head farther back, until she felt his mouth at the back of her neck, his warmth caught between the raised collar of her top and her nape. He kissed and kissed and kissed. She shivered with the sensation, all along her skin. He opened his mouth over the spot and she felt the scrape of his teeth in a gentle stroke of a bite. Then he sucked the spot. And the shivers dove deep into her core, shuddering there in pleasure.
They kissed. Slow. Exploring. Combustible.
She felt the tangible proof of his desire against her as he drew her onto his lap.
Footsteps jolted them apart, Bexley abruptly sitting next to Kiernan, instead of mostly on him.
Lizzie peered around the corner of the shelves at them. “There you are.”
If they had to be interrupted, Bexley was grateful their interrupter wasn’t one of the adults or Dan, none of whom would have missed the atmosphere or their positions.
“Pauline says you need to come in the bar room now.”
Kiernan groaned low. “Two for two — matched set of tormenters.”
“Okay, Lizzie, I’m coming right now. Kiernan’s, uh, going to stay here a second.” She bit the inside of her cheeks to stop a giggle.
“Yes, I am,” he muttered.
“But he has to help set the table and Pauline says you’re cooking the breakfast because you’re the only one who knows how the pieces go together. He has to come.”
“He will,” Bexley said. “You have to be patient.”
“I am patient.” Lizzie’s affront echoed in her voice. “Molly’s the one who’s not patient.”
“It’s a good thing you’re the one who came for Kiernan, then, isn’t it?”
Bexley started to stand.
Kiernan held onto her arm, keeping her half-bent toward him. He looked up into her face. “When we’re alone.”
She returned the promise. “Yes. When we’re alone.”
*
Pauline organized breakfast preparations, with Bexley’s job to cook the main dish in the skillet. “And nothing more. The rest of us will handle everything else. Many hands make light work.”
As Bexley and Pauline left the bar room, heading toward the kitchen, the older woman said, “What is that sound?”
“It sounds like… It is. It’s a plow. Passing by on the highway. I can see the top of it.”
“Plow?” Pauline turned her head back to the bar room, announcing. “There’s a plow.”
“P’ow! P’ow!” Bobby enthused.
The others piled to the store windows and door, Dan holding up Bobby so he could see between the signs. Kiernan and Bexley hung back, exchanging a look.
Was he also wondering if what happened between them here could survive outside this cocoon?
They heard the plow several more times as they ate the spicy breakfast Bexley created from shredded sandwich beef, salsa, eggs, bread crumbles, and more spices. She’d made extra, hoping it would hold everyone until dinner, because the lunch makings were sparse.
Returning to the bar room after cleaning up, Bexley heard a closer scraping sound. She almost didn’t tell the others. But it wouldn’t have delayed the inevitable by much.
Again, they all went to the store.
“Shoveling us out,” Gramps said.
The same trooper from three days ago, finished a narrow path to the store’s door.
Gramps opened the door. “Stamp your boots, don’t track that snow in here.”
“Same old Gramps. You’ll never—” The trooper’s mouth stayed open a second. “Well, I’ll be. You cleaned up nice, Gramps.”
“He looks like Santa, doesn’t he?” Molly asked, slipping one hand into her grandfather’s.
The trooper looked from that hand to Gramps to the rest of them ranged behind him, then back to Molly. “He does.”
“Would you like breakfast?” Pauline asked.
“Breakfast?” His gaze flickered toward the shelves.
“A real breakfast,” she amended. “Our Bexley is an imaginative cook, among other talents. Molly, will you run and get the breakfast? Lizzie, get the trooper a place-setting and, Dan, will you pour him a cup of hot coffee, please.”
In short order, the trooper was seated at the table, with reheated Tex-Mex scramble on his plate and a steaming cup of coffee at hand. Instead of eating, though, he stared around the bar room.
“Haven’t seen this place look this good since…” He glanced toward Gramps, then veered away, clearly knowing better than to step into Winnie territory. “Haven’t ever seen it this festive. How’d your propane hold out?”<
br />
“Have plenty.”
“Plenty? What?” Pauline demanded of Gramps. “You insisted we bring in that firewood for heat and spread out showers and not do laundry to make sure we didn’t run out of propane.”
“Not so we didn’t run out. So I won’t run out before the next delivery. Rather use up that firewood. Shame we couldn’t have used up what was in the shed, too. But I’ll put that back out front when we have a melt and it’ll sell.”
“You— You—”
“What? You got no cause to complain. You like having us all together. Seems to me you all had a fine time.”
Before Pauline could recover, Molly said, “We did.”
“We had Christmas,” Lizzie confided to the trooper.
“I see that. Looks like a real nice Christmas, too.”
“Santa came,” Molly added. “He found us here. Not Gramps, even though he looks like him now, but the real Santa.”
“Let the trooper eat, girls,” Pauline instructed. “And then we can ask our questions.”
After he cleaned the plate, he told them the eastbound Interstate was open, while westbound should be passable in a few hours. The short stretch of highway to the entrance ramp was passable. And the plow was coming back to open the way to the gas pump so locals could access it as they dug out.
That meant when they could clear their cars, they could be on their way.
“Oh.” Molly and Lizzie sighed out harmonized disappointment in the syllable. “You’re all leaving.”
Kiernan, standing behind them, put an affectionate hand on each girl’s shoulder.
“You won’t be here all that much longer either, girls.” The trooper took in both girls, Dan, and Gramps with his look. “Hall Quick contacted our office. He kept trying to get through to you, Gramps, but your landline’s down. If you’d get a cell phone like everyone else… Anyway, he made it to Dakota — the fool — sold his cattle by pushing ahead of the storm, then got stuck when he tried to turn back. Though it doesn’t sound like he had as nice a time of it as you folks. Where he’s at is still closed, but he should be able to head back tomorrow and pick you all up to go home.”
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