All They Want for Christmas

by M. K. Stelmack

  “I always used to hate that I looked so different from you and Krista. Nobody ever believed I was your sister. I hated that they were right.”

  “They never were right in all the important ways.” Mara said quietly.

  Beautiful, beautiful Mara who could make others feel whole, even when she was falling apart. Bridget tucked the throw tighter around them. “How about we talk about your plans for this place? And how you will help all of us who need our heads and hearts put back together.”

  “You are tired,” Mara said. “We should just go back to the house.”

  “We will,” Bridget said, “but for a bit, let me be your sister.”

  Mara relaxed down against her. “That I can do.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JACK SAGGED IN RELIEF against the door frame at the sight of Mara and Bridget asleep in an oversize, red leather armchair in the upstairs unit. He’d come down the stairs at the house in the dark, chilly morning to an absent Bridget and a sofa bed that hadn’t been used. Mara had left the previous evening to measure floor space at her unit and said she’d catch a ride home with Bridget. Except the SUV was missing, and after a stealth check in the upstairs bedroom, so was Mara.

  Cold pricked his face as he’d run to the restaurant—would he always be running after her?—but his tension eased at the sight of the SUV. But she wasn’t in the kitchen and Mano had no idea where she was. A light over the back stairs had been his only clue.

  Yes, he’d felt anxious about the whereabouts of his cousin, but nothing compared to the piercing fear for Bridget. Eyes closed, Bridget looked so tired. For once her hands were still—she was holding Mara. Her hair was loose and soft along the angles of her cheek and jaw. He gently swept back dark strands. She stirred, and stirred again when he unzipped his jacket and laid it over her.

  He thought she might waken but she brushed her cheek against the fleece of his collar and snuggled in.

  That settled it. He would run the breakfast shift himself. If she could do it on her own, so could he. Starting in the New Year, he’d cover more of the morning shifts, so she could sleep in. He kicked himself for not insisting he handle today when he knew she was pulling extra hours last night.

  “Where’s Bridget?” Marlene asked as he poured her coffee.

  “Good to see you, too,” Jack said. “Bridget’s having a well-deserved sleep-in.”

  “Have you thought about taking her on a vacation?” Mel asked from the table over. “We’re leaving right after the holidays, but you can take our RV when we’re back mid-February.”

  “Not everyone thinks RV travel constitutes a holiday,” Daphne said. As proof, Marlene, parked with coffee and a heaping plate, raised her hand.

  Mel shook his head at Marlene. “Not everyone knows how to have a good time.”

  Jack was not about to let any opportunity to sneak away with Bridge slip by. “I think if we could get any distance out of Spirit Lake that would be a good time.”

  “We’re not leaving until after New Year’s. Take it to the mountains. It’s all winterized. You’d just need to pay for the gas. Take the girls, too. Sleeps six.”

  That might actually work. The four of them, like a regular family, on a getaway of no schedules and feeding only themselves. To give Bridget what she gave her customers, and the town’s needy. “Might mean shutting the restaurant for a day or two,” Jack mused.

  “We’ll manage,” Daphne said. “We could do breakfast in bed.” She gave Mel a knowing smile.

  He brightened. “We could do that tomorrow.”

  Jack left them to make eyes at each other. Something he wished he could do with Bridget more often. Half his brain went on autopilot as he worked the tables, while he ran mental computations and logistics.

  It was past eight thirty when Bridget and Mara dragged themselves downstairs, groggy and apologetic.

  “No worries,” Jack said. “Deidre’s got the girls. Go home, shower, change.” He snagged Bridget’s arm as she was about to exit through the back door. “And I have an idea.”

  She opened her mouth and he laid a finger on it. “When you get back. I haven’t worked out the budget yet.”

  Her dark eyes rounded. “Jack, we can’t—”

  He gave her a gentle push. “Later.”

  When the only customers were the midmorning coffee crowd, Bridget returned. His laptop open on the bar counter, Jack could smell the coconut and vanilla from her shower soaps. “You smell good enough to eat.”

  “Please refrain.” She scanned the customers. “Did you do the rounds?”

  Jack wasn’t one to cater to this lot. Mostly seniors, they sat on their single cup of coffee spread over long conversations about farm equipment, golf, the government in Ottawa, the oil field and the grandkids. “They’re good.”

  Bridget picked up the coffeepot. “These are Penny’s people. Be glad they still come,” she quietly reminded him and set out to refill cups.

  His mother’s people. No, he still had trouble picturing Penny as that. Here, Bridget couldn’t stand to call her adopted mother “Mom” as a sign of respect, while he couldn’t stand to think of Penny as “Mom”—that was reserved for the woman he’d lost when he was thirteen.

  Penny was like a long-lost distant relative who’d unexpectedly bequeathed him her wealth. And her debt.

  And in a way, Bridget.

  She came back behind the counter. “What’s this big idea of yours?”

  “How about we go on a cheap holiday?”

  She shoved the coffeepot back onto the stand. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “If I am, it’s because we’re stressed to the gills. Penny, the restaurant, the girls, Christmas, the crates, bills—we deserve a break. Mel offered his RV to us. We could go on a one-or two-day trip to the mountains after Christmas. You, me, the girls. It would mostly be the cost of gas, which okay, given his behemoth, might be a mortgage payment. But let’s see if we can make it happen. Make some good memories.”

  “You can’t, we can’t.” She looked all wild-eyed again. “Who will cover the restaurant?”

  “We’ll close it down.”

  “We can’t afford to close it down.”

  “Maybe we can with a little luck and planning. That was what I was doing when you came in. Figuring things out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out. Even if we had extra money, we can’t waste it on a vacation, even to the mountains. Every cent matters.”

  She sounded panicked, out of proportion to what he was suggesting. “I’m not spending it. I’m checking to see if we can.”

  “Now’s not a good time. Not with—” She clamped her mouth shut.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She went to the back.

  Nothing was ever nothing. He left the customers to fend for themselves. This crowd wouldn’t give a cent more, but neither would they leave a cent less.

  He caught up with her prepping her counter for rolling out minicinnis. Mano had already gone home from his early morning shift.

  “Out with it.”

  “If I tell you, will you leave off about the vacation?”

  “No, but I will promise to take it into consideration.”

  Bridget cinched her apron around her waist so hard, he could feel the pinch on his own waist. “It’s Mara.” Her breath hitched. “She’s going blind faster than we thought.”

  He gathered her into a hug. He expected her to resist, but instead she sank against him and clamped her arms around his waist.

  “She spoke to her specialist and it’s accelerating fast.” Her words were muffled against his shoulder.

  “How fast?”

  “She thinks she might be legally blind in five years.”

  He hadn’t realized how advanced Mara’s condition was. Even Sofia’s roof stunt he’d chalked up to his own stupidity,
despite Mara’s profuse apologies. “That’s...tough.”

  “She told me last night, and we got to talking and then we fell asleep.”

  “It’s a good thing she’s staying here, then. We’ll be here to help her.”

  Bridget pulled back in his arms and touched his cheek. “That’s what I told her.”

  Her soft voice, the glide of her fingers... He couldn’t resist a quick kiss. The feel of her warm lips made him even more determined. “A few days away—you, me, the girls—won’t change anything and will probably give us more energy to deal with problems when we get back.”

  She pulled his hands from her waist. “If just the four of us go somewhere, it’ll look to everyone... It’ll look to the girls as if we’re a family.”

  “But you said you loved them.”

  She switched on the sink taps and began washing her hands. “I do, but that doesn’t mean that I want to be their mom.”

  “Because it would mean marrying me.”

  “Jack, we’ve gone on one date.”

  “One, recently. Countless, over the course of our entire relationship.”

  “My point being is that outside of that one very nice outing, it’s like we’re married. We share kids. We share a house. We share a work life. It’s as if Auntie Penny’s will essentially married us without our consent.”

  “You know,” Jack said, “I was just thinking along the same lines, but more that she gave you to me, without either of us consenting.”

  Bridget dried her hands and thunked dough to the counter. “You figure she gave me to you, no wedding necessary?”

  Jack was so confused. “You don’t want to go on a trip with me because it’ll look as if we’re married but you’re annoyed with your aunt because she left out a wedding.”

  Bridget set to kneading the living daylights out of the dough. “You want to go on a trip as if we’re already together. Which we aren’t.”

  “I’d love if just the two of us went off together, but right now that’s hardly fair to the girls, is it?”

  Bridget gave the dough a few vicious pinches. “That’s the whole point. It wouldn’t be fair to them. And it’s not fair to take me along and raise their expectations.”

  “You’re worried that they’ll want you to be their mom.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I would be thrilled if you become their mom, Bridge. I also think there is something more going on in your head than you’re telling me. You don’t want to go, I get that, but not for the reasons you’re giving me because they don’t make a whole lot of sense.” She opened her mouth to protest. “But since this whole trip thing is stressing you out, we’ll drop it. For now.”

  “What do you mean ‘for now’?”

  He had another idea, not worth bringing up in her state of mind. He released her. “I’ll let you make up another batch of minicinnis while I check orders.” At the doors, he paused and casually said, “So...our second date is Sunday, right?”

  She didn’t bother to look up. “Sure. Sunday.”

  He liked to think that by the end of their second date, she’d have a whole different take on their “marriage.”

  * * *

  FRIDAY WAS THE last day of school orders. Jack and Bridget stood with a mic in the elementary gymnasium, the entire student population seated before them on the floor in grade-ascending lines, with teachers and parents taking up the perimeter in chairs on three sides.

  Jack had located the girls. Sofia was in the front row with her kindergarten class and had waved as if flagging them down on a busy highway. Isabella had granted them a single wave. Pretty good for her.

  Jack had been before crowds three times larger during his overseas events and ten times noisier. Bridget clearly hadn’t. The mic in her hand trembled, and her smile, usually so laid-back and friendly, was strained. “I want to thank—”

  Her voice cracked. The mic slipped in her grasp and he reached out to grab it—or her, as the case may be. Her eye caught his motion, and he whispered, “You okay? You want me to take over?” She shook her head, drew in a breath deep enough to vibrate through the mic and pushed on.

  “I want to thank Ms. Lever for coming up with the idea and taking the lead on this. And all the teachers for supporting the students.” Her voice carried across the high and open space, strong and clear. Good job, Bridge. “And, of course, the students who spread the word so fast and made the Cinna-Bun Run for Crates such an amazing success. Give yourselves a big hand!”

  The auditorium broke into jubilant, self-congratulatory noise. As the clapping died down, she said, “There’s one more person I need to thank.” She turned to him, tucking a strand of hair, almost shyly, behind her ear. “That’s my partner, Jack Holdstrom. We couldn’t have possibly filled the orders we have so far without his help. I couldn’t do any of this without you. Thank you, Jack.”

  Looking for any excuse to make noise, the kids broke into applause again. All he could see was Bridget, her eyes soft and hopeful on his. She’d called him a partner. Told the public that they were in this together.

  And the way she’d said it...with that dip and pause on his name—that spoke of an intimacy far beyond the warp and woof of running a business together.

  If it hadn’t been for the audience, he would’ve kissed her. He confined himself to a wave of thanks to the kids, and they responded with another round of clapping and foot-stomping. He felt like a fraud. He had helped for his sake, to clear his name, for Bridget’s sake, for the sake of the publicity it gave the restaurant, not for the benefit of the community. He never wanted to see icing sugar again.

  “Would you like to join me in announcing the winners?” Bridget asked him into the mic.

  Now who was the con artist? She wanted to unload her public-speaking duties, and how could he refuse now?

  Through his plastered smile he whispered, “Only if you kiss me tonight.”

  She thrust the mic at him. He raised his eyebrows. She gave him the stink eye and a single, sharp nod. He took the mic.

  Sofia jumped to her feet. “That’s my Jack-pa!” she said. Repeatedly. To her teacher, her classmates, the row seated behind her. Publicly claiming him as her father. He looked at Bridge to see if she’d heard, and her wide, congratulatory smile told him that it had happened for real.

  He was a father on more than paper. He took the mic and lifted his voice. “Who likes Bridget’s minicinnis?”

  Applause.

  “Who loves Bridget’s minicinnis?” Unleashed, the students made even more noise.

  As for Bridget, had she not just announced that he was her partner? In business and...yes, more. Life was...good, better than it had been in a dozen years.

  Bridget whispered, “Jack, you need me to take over?”

  Her smile was teasing. Brat. He said, “And the runners-up are...”

  As he handed out minicinnis and gift certificates for Bridgie Buns, Jack felt strangely exhilarated. It was the high from Sofia’s new name for him and it was the high from a successful campaign that stood to pay off a debt to the community. And it was the high from knowing that Bridget had told a crowd that she couldn’t do without him.

  Yeah, he planned to make their kiss tonight the best ever.

  * * *

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT the restaurant, Bridget inspected the bar counter in the light of day, rubbed at a smear until the light caught on the mahogany. Three stools down, Isabella wrapped a Christmas napkin around the knife and fork, just the way Bridget had explained. She tightened it with a band and then over top, she set a second decorative band in Christmas colors that read Happy Holidays. She took about ten times longer than Bridget would’ve, but it was perfect. Isabella had high standards. Unfortunately, she expected everyone else to follow them, as well.

  “Jack-pa
and Sofia are out longer than I thought they’d be,” Bridget said. Bridget liked Sofia’s name for Jack so much, she inserted it into every possible conversation. Isabella had so far held out.

  “Christmas shopping for me is easy,” Isabella said. “I told them what I want and where to go. They take too long.”

  “Yes, they are taking too long,” Bridget said, correcting Isabella’s English as she went. “She is probably showing Jack-pa all the things she wants.”

  “I told her not to make him give money,” Isabella said. “He does not like to give money.”

  “Jack-pa thinks of you and Sofia differently than he does other people,” Bridget clarified. “He likes to spend money on you and Sofia.”

  “He adopted us,” Isabella said. “He said the law makes him give money to take care of us. He told us.”

  How was a girl who’d only known a few phrases in English a month ago, suddenly able to form an argument in English that left Bridget fumbling for the right words?

  “Did Jack-pa tell you that I was adopted, like you and Sofia?”

  “Are you from Venezuela?”

  “No, I was adopted here in Canada.”

  “Did your parents...? Did they...?”

  “Sort of. I never knew my dad. I don’t know if he is alive or not. And I was told years ago that my mother had died.” From an overdose. “I hadn’t seen her since I was six. She had problems of her own that were so big she couldn’t take care of herself, much less me.”

  Bridget hoped Isabella wouldn’t pry any further because explaining addictions to a child was way beyond her. It demanded Mara’s skill set. “My point is I thought that my adopted mom and dad, and even my auntie Penny, were nice to me because they had to be. But they weren’t, and it’s the same for you. Jack-pa told you that because he wants you to know your rights and not his obligations.”

  “What’s the difference?” She said, banding another fork and knife with the precision of a bomb specialist. At this rate, they’d never open for the service tonight. Mano and his crew were already banging and clanging away in the back.