Caro's Gift (Small-Town Christmas Wishes Book 2)

by Jean C. Gordon

  “I don’t know about the rest of the neighborhood, but she did invite me. I was already volunteering at the Snowflake Homeless Shelter’s community Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Caro placed the turkey platter on the counter and handed him the carving knife. “Can you slice enough turkey for you and some for the turkey salad while I get the mayo, cranberries, and other stuff out?”

  He took the knife. “Sure.” He couldn’t help thinking back to high school, when he would have taken cover if he’d seen her coming toward him with a sharp implement.

  “Gram usually volunteers for the Homeless Center’s dinner, and thought she was this year, too. She said there were jobs she could sit and do.”

  “I believe it,” he said. “I practically had to fight her for the stepping stool.”

  Caro placed several containers on the counter. “I had to put my foot down about the dinner at the shelter, since she was only released from rehab on Wednesday. And a little selfishly, I wanted some time alone with her.” She closed the refrigerator. “You know Gram. Two’s company. A crowd’s better.”

  As he sliced the turkey, he wondered if her granddaughter was the same. Back in high school, she always seemed to be with a group of girls, not that he’d ever sought her out alone. Ruth had complained to him more than once that all her granddaughter did now was work.

  “Does this look like enough for your turkey salad?” he asked.

  “Plenty. Put it on the cutting board so I can dice it.”

  He slid the slices onto the board and went to work carving more, making himself two turkey and stuffing sandwiches, and trying to think of some conversation to fill the silence in the kitchen.

  Caro saved him. “Why don’t you go ahead and get Gram. I’m almost done.” She scooped turkey salad onto two slices of bread.

  “Okay.” She didn’t have to tell him twice. He strode out of the kitchen. His edginess about running out of conversation with Caro was showing him the value of Ruth’s crowd philosophy.

  “Lunch is ready,” he said, offering Ruth a hand up from her seat and holding her walker until she had control of it.

  “Already?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “What do you think of my Caro?”

  Simon swallowed before answering. From his football days, he knew the best defense was a good offense. “Ruth, are you trying to set me up with your granddaughter?”

  “Well, yes I am.”

  Simon laughed and held the kitchen door open for his neighbor.

  “Is it working?”

  “Is what working?” Caro asked placing the sandwich plates on the table.

  “You and Simon,” Ruth said cheerfully.

  “Me and Simon?”

  The pained looked on Caro’s face made him wonder if he could take his sandwiches to go.

  “Grandmother.”

  Ruth elbowed him. “She always calls me grandmother when she’s going to lecture me.”

  “I have absolutely no interest in Simon.”

  Simon’s smile at Ruth’s words faded. He pulled out chairs for Ruth and himself. Caro didn’t have to be so vehement in her answer. What was wrong with him? He was as attractive and personable as the next guy. More so than many, since he worked out with the sports teams he coached. But he and Caro didn’t have much in common. That had to be why he was tongue-tied. Yeah.

  “I’m sorry,” Caro said, her voice conciliatory.

  He nodded his acceptance of her apology. That was better.

  “For my grandmother’s behavior.”

  But not for her insult? He clenched his jaw. What did he care? It wasn’t as if he was attracted to Caro. Much, a voice in his head said. Okay, so she was attractive. He eyed her with a sidelong glance. And she wore jeans and a sweater like other women wore a cocktail dress and heals. Okay, beautiful. The rest didn’t add up to the hype her doting grandmother had given her, though.

  “Let’s sit and have our lunch,” Caro said.

  They took their seats, and Ruth said a quick grace. Simon lifted his sandwich to take a first bite, mulling why he bothered to care what Caro Price thought of him. He hadn’t dated much since his divorce and avoided anything serious. Ruth wouldn’t want Caro to be a holiday fling for him—not that he was the fling type. And, seemingly having as little in common now as they had in high school, they certainly weren’t going to become fast friends.

  His phone pinged in his pocket. Both Caro and Ruth switched their attention from their sandwiches to him. “It’s my calendar reminder, not a text,” he said to excuse his reaching in his pocket for the phone. He had no idea what appointment he’d forgotten. Simon read the screen. It was a late reminder for yesterday to schedule his truck maintenance that he hadn’t turned off after he’d made the appointment.

  “An appointment,” he said, “that I’d forgotten.” It was an appointment reminder, and he had forgotten to turn it off. He stopped himself from squirming in his seat at stretching the truth under Ruth’s kind gaze. “I guess, I’ll have to take a rain check on lunch.”

  “Nonsense,” Ruth said. “Pack up Simon’s sandwiches for him, Caro. And you …” Ruth pinned his gaze with hers, “are welcome to come and have lunch with us another day.”

  Caro was on her feet in a flash, diminishing her grandmother’s words of future welcome. She whisked his plate from the table and carried it to the counter. Simon rose and watched her put his sandwiches in a plastic container.

  “There you go,” Caro said.

  “Thanks.” Simon took the container and left with the feeling he’d been packed off by Caro as efficiently as she’d packed up his sandwiches.

  * * *

  “Caro, you were awfully abrupt with Simon,” her grandmother admonished her when she returned to the table.

  She should feel sorrier. But she’d asked her grandmother not to play matchmaker for her. More than once. Caro dropped into her chair. “Gram, I know you mean well and obviously like Simon. But we’ve been through this before. I’m not looking for a relationship, not planning to marry.”

  Her grandmother patted her hand. “You don’t mean that.”

  Caro clamped her teeth together.

  “I know your mother wasn’t the best example. When your father was killed, something broke in her. She refused to get any help, and still isn’t well.”

  “What if I’m broken just like her?”

  “You’re not. Have you prayed on it?”

  “About getting married? No.”

  Her grandmother chuckled. “No, for direction.”

  Caro shook her head. She hadn’t in a while.

  “Try it, and I’ll try to keep my nose out of that part of your life,” her grandmother said. “Now, what was your meeting at the lawyers’ office about?”

  “Remember when I was in high school and we Bible club members all made secret angel gifts.”

  “Yes, and you made yours out of your babysitting money. I was proud of you and your friends’ generosity.”

  “Well, Charity left each of us $1,500 to make a secret angel gift for this Christmas. If we choose not to, we can return the check to the law office and they will donate it to a charitable organization in Charity’s name.”

  “What a lovely legacy.”

  “It is. The problem I have is that I don’t know anyone in Snowflake who needs that kind of help, and to be honest, no one in Aurora, either. Could you help me?”

  Her grandmother looked pensive. “I suppose I could, but it sounds like Charity wants your gift to come from your heart. Give it some time. You have almost six weeks until Christmas.”

  Yep, fewer than six weeks. “There was a little girl in the This and That shop that I was drawn to.” Caro told her grandmother about Hope and the nativity scene. “The nativity was an antique, with a price of nearly $300, but it didn’t strike me as the kind of gift Charity wanted us to give.”

  “Did Charity give any direction for the gifts?”

  Caro shook her head. “All she said was to make it special. I got the
feeling when I was sitting in the law office listening to Don reading Charity’s letter, that my gift is supposed to make a real difference in someone’s life.”

  “Do the others think the same?”

  “I don’t know. The meeting at the law office took so long that I didn’t stick around and talk with anyone. I didn’t want to leave you alone for too long.”

  “I was fine, as you saw,” her grandmother said.

  Right. Gram was fine, just setting herself up for a fall that would have put her in the hospital again if Simon hadn’t come over. Caro closed her eyes and rubbed the center of her forehead. She should have expressed her thanks to Simon in a better, kinder way.

  “You could call one of the girls,” her grandmother offered.

  “I suppose. But we’re supposed to keep our recipient secret, although we can have someone else help us with the gift.” Caro threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know …”

  “Why don’t you let it go for a while and help me clean up from lunch?” Her grandmother rose from her seat using the table as support.

  “I have a better idea. Why don’t you sit back down and watch me clean up? Unless you rearranged things while I was out, I know where everything I need is and where the dishes go.”

  Her grandmother reached for her walker.

  Caro fleetingly thought about keeping it out of her reach to get her to sit back down, before moving it closer.

  Her grandmother transferred first one, then the other, hand to the walker handles. “I am a little tired. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go rest in my room for a while.”

  “I don’t mind at all.”

  “Good. I was so glad to be home the past few days, that I think I overdid and am feeling it today.”

  “Do you want me to walk you to your room?”

  Her grandmother lifted her right hand from the walker and waved off her help. “What I would like is for you to wake me if I’m not up when that wildlife special I told you I wanted to watch is on.”

  “Sure thing,” Caro said, even though, if her grandmother fell asleep, she was inclined to let her sleep until she woke up naturally. She could always record the program for Gram.

  Caro started the water in the sink, tracking her grandmother’s progress out of the side of her eye. Once her grandmother was out of sight in the dining room, Caro added dish soap to the water and watched the bubbles form, her thoughts drifting to the little girl in the store, Simon, and her grandmother before circling around again. She turned off the water and collected the dishes from the table, her thoughts now bouncing from Simon to her grandmother.

  She put what was left of the turkey in a sealed container and scrubbed the platter as if scrubbing it would also scrub Simon from her mind, which was now stuck on him in the rotation. She should have been more pleasant to him. Just because she was unhappy with work and her life right now didn’t mean she had to make everyone else’s unpleasant. She’d be nicer to Simon the next time she saw him.

  Chapter Two

  Caro hoped she’d made the right decision bringing Gram to help with the preschool class at the Snowflake Chapel Sunday school the next day. She’d tried to convince her to try just service today for a start, but her grandmother had insisted that the preschoolers were too much for the Sunday school teacher to handle on her own. The church community couldn’t have changed so much since Caro had left Snowflake that the teacher couldn’t have gotten someone else to help. She probably had during the time Gram had been in the hospital and rehab center.

  “I’ll let you off here at the front door, park the car, and be with you in a minute.” Caro slowed to a stop, got out, and walked around to the trunk to get her grandmother’s walker.

  “There’s Gabriella Lopez, the preschool class teacher,” her grandmother said, waving to a woman who looked about Caro’s age walking across the parking lot. “I’ll wait and go in with her. We’ll be in the nursery room.”

  “Okay.” Caro parked the car in the side parking lot and walked into the church to the classroom wing.

  “Here you are,” her grandmother said when Caro entered the room. “This is Gabriella Lopez. She married the Lopez boy you went to school with. Gabriella, this is my granddaughter Caroline … Caro.”

  “Nice to meet you, Gabriella.”

  “The same,” Gabriella said.

  “Mrs. Becker. You’re back.”

  A little girl, the little girl from the This and That shop ran into the room and wrapped her arms around Caro’s grandmother’s legs. Caro grabbed her grandmother’s arm to steady her.

  Gabriella disentangled the little girl. “Hope, I know you’re glad to see Mrs. Becker, but you have to be careful. Her leg is still healing. She could fall down and hurt herself.”

  Hope stood back and eyed the walker. “Is that why you have that thing?” She pointed. “So you don’t fall down when you walk?”

  “Yes,” Caro’s grandmother answered.

  “I used to have one of those when I was a baby. Except it was pink and purple. Mommy sold it at the yard sale we had when we had to move out of our house because Daddy didn’t have the money to pay for it anymore. I liked our old house. It wasn’t cold like our new house is.”

  Caro nibbled her bottom lip in thought. A little more information. Was their house old and drafty? Or maybe her mother was struggling to pay the heating bills and keeping the thermostat set low.

  Gabriella put her hand on Hope’s shoulder. “Since you’re the first one here, will you help me put out our lesson papers and crayons?”

  “Sure. But wait. Who are you?” Hope looked up at Caro.

  “This is my granddaughter, Ms. Price,” Caro’s grandmother said.

  “You can call me Caro.”

  “No.” Hope shook her head.

  Caro had no idea what that was about.

  “How about Ms. Caro?”

  “Yep, Ms. Caro. That’s what my mommy would say.”

  “Okay, let’s get the papers passed out. The rest of the kids will be here soon.” Gabriella ushered Hope over to a table in the middle of the room.

  “Gram.” Caro lowered her voice. “That’s the little girl I saw at the store yesterday, the one who wanted the nativity scene.”

  “Of course. I don’t know why I didn’t think of Hope when you told me. She has a brother in seventh grade. He drops her off for Sunday school and picks her up afterwards. Their mother works at the gas station convenience store.”

  “I haven’t seen any clerks at the store that I recognize from school.”

  “No, the family moved here in the fall. At least that’s when Hope started coming to Sunday school.”

  “I see.”

  The rest of the class began arriving. Caro pushed Hope and her family to the back of her mind and enjoyed working with all the children. Hope was the last child to be picked up.

  “See my picture,” the little girl said when her brother appeared in the classroom doorway.

  As in the store, Caro was struck by how familiar the teen looked.

  “Yeah, good,” he said. “Come on. We have to get to the store so Mom can drive us home on her break.”

  Caro watched the two leave. Snowflake wasn’t that large. The family must live outside of town if they couldn’t walk home. She filed that information, along with what Hope had said about her new house, and went into the sanctuary with her grandmother for service. Try as she might to lose herself in the singing and Pastor Callahan’s message, the little red-haired girl kept popping into her mind. Could Hope and her family be the ones she was meant to help with her secret angel gift? She lifted up that question, and her mind cleared. Her answer? Learn more about the family—then decide.

  At the end of service, as she and her grandmother collected their purses, Caro asked, “Are you up to staying for coffee hour? We don’t have to if you’re not up to it.”

  “I can rest all afternoon. With the surgery and the rehab, it’s been weeks since I’ve seen my church friends.”

&nb
sp; Caro took that as a “yes,” and they filed out with the others.

  “Good morning,” Pastor Callahan greeted them when they reached the sanctuary doorway. “It’s so good to see you Caro and to have you back, Ruth.”

  “Thank you. It’s good to be here,” Caro said shaking the pastor’s hand and moving on into the hallway. She waited for her grandmother, who was saying hello to the couple behind her, and they made their way to the fellowship hall. After choosing a brownie and a chocolate chip cookie, Caro waited at the side table where the coffee pot was while one of the coffee hour hostesses for the day refilled the creamer pitcher.

  “If you’ll get me a cup of tea, I’ll go ahead and get us seats. I think I can manage to carry my cookies without dropping them.”

  Caro bit her lip to stop herself from saying she’d carry her grandmother’s plate for her. She’d only be here in Snowflake until the end of December. She needed to let Gram regain her independence—within the doctor’s and physical therapist’s timeline limits.

  “The creamer,” the volunteer said.

  Caro turned back to her and the drink table. “Thanks.” She added creamer and stirred her coffee, got Gram’s tea and then went in search of her. Gram had chosen the farthest away table. Granted, the seats at the far end of the room may have been the only ones available, since they’d been toward the end of the food line. Her gaze went to the person sitting beside Gram and her hands turned clammy. But did Gram have to choose the table Simon was sitting at?

  “Over here,” Gram said, as if Caro hadn’t already spotted her. “Look who I found sitting here all by himself,” she added when Caro reached the table and set her grandmother’s tea in front of her.

  “Hi, Simon.” Caro wiped her hands on her napkin under the table once she was seated.

  “Caro.” His greeting wasn’t quite terse, but it wasn’t warm, either. What did she expect? She’d all but pushed him out the door yesterday. She avoided his gaze and took a bite of her brownie, letting herself savor the rich chocolate flavor to calm whatever it was going on inside her.