Of course I have one. How can we decorate without a tree?
Let me rephrase that, do you have one that’s less than two decades old?
She didn’t answer.
He looked up at Iris. “We need to make a stop before we head to Maisie’s.”
It was a miracle they arrived at Maisie’s house only a half hour later, especially after their special errand, but it was a few days before Christmas and there hadn’t been much of a selection left.
Maisie’s front door opened and she appeared, wrapping an oversized cardigan around herself to ward off the chill. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, but somehow she looked as sexy now as she had that night in the green dress. She was the kind of woman you wanted to come home to and kiss senseless…which was exactly what he wanted to do. But his little sister was his chaperone, and he couldn’t.
He and Iris got out of the car as Maisie descended the steps, her two dogs following at her heels.
“What is on top of your car?” she asked, her tone a little accusatory.
Now he worried he’d overstepped.
“Surprise!” Iris said, holding out her plate of cookies. “We brought gifts.”
Maisie took the plate and glanced down at the plastic-wrapped cookies. “This will go perfectly with the hot chocolate I have on the stove.” Her gaze shot back to Jack. “But what’s that on top of the car?”
As if she didn’t know. It was every bit a challenge.
“It’s a Christmas tree,” he said. He’d been staring at her, so he shook himself out of his daze and started to untie the ropes. Chaco rushed forward in a burst of speed and started pawing at his pants, eager for a greeting. He stooped over and ruffled her ears. Einstein peed on the tire of his car, then came over and sniffed his hand.
Maisie’s eyes were on the little dog, as if she expected he’d try to nip, but he surprised both of them by licking Jack’s hand and wagging his tail. And when Chaco turned to shower her love on Iris, Einstein stayed put.
“I guess he’s okay with me now that he’s established where I fall on the food chain,” Jack said, patting the dog’s head.
He’d hoped to sneak a smile out of Maisie. Instead, she had a strange look on her face, bewildered almost, but she shook it off. “Don’t try to change the subject. If you felt the need to get a tree, even though I have a perfectly good one, why’d you get that one? That tree’s bigger than your car. It looks like the tree in Christmas Vacation.”
“What’s that?” Iris asked.
Maisie gasped. “Well, I know what we’re watching over your school break.”
Iris gave Jack a questioning look.
“It’s a classic Christmas movie,” he told her with a laugh. “You’ll like it.” Turning to Maisie, he said, “Iris and I always wanted a real tree, but our mother hated them. If we’re going to help decorate on such late notice, we get to pick the tree.”
She laughed. “Okay, but you have to come over and pick up all the dropped pine needles.”
He stopped what he was doing and met her gaze. “Deal.”
Although it wasn’t much of a promise, it felt like it meant something. He wanted it to mean something.
“Do you need help?” Maisie asked. “I may not have arms like tree trunks, but it’s not easy to pick up a hundred-pound dog.”
“No one would ever accuse you of being weak,” Jack said with a grin. “But I can do it. I’d like to do it.” She looked at him for a moment, thinking, then nodded.
He got the ropes untied and pulled the tree off the roof, Maisie, Iris, and the dogs all watching him. After he wrestled it into the house, he carried it over to an empty spot in the corner by the front window.
The others trailed him inside, Chaco lying beside the tree and Einstein sniffing it suspiciously. He lifted one leg slightly, glanced at Maisie, and set it back down.
“I saw that,” Maisie said. “Don’t even think about it.” Turning to Jack, eyes dancing, she said, “Um, slight problem. My fake tree stand, which is indeed from the 1990s, doesn’t have a pan for water.”
“Obviously, you don’t know Jack very well,” Iris said. “He’s Mr. Prepared. The tree stand is in the car.” Then she bounded out the door.
As soon as the door shut, Jack closed the distance between him and Maisie. Before he let himself think it through, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
She didn’t respond at first, probably caught off guard, but it only took a second for her to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him back. With her body pressed against him, his fingers woven in her hair, he felt more alive than he had in…well, since the last time they’d done this. She nipped his bottom lip, and he pulled her closer, needing more. Needing everything.
Except then he heard the car door slam shut outside, and he reluctantly pulled away. Both of them were panting a little. “I’ve been wanting to do that all week.”
Maisie started to say something, her eyes full of lust, but Iris opened the front door.
“The guy at the lot promised this stand would work.”
Maisie shifted her attention to Iris. “You went to a tree lot? Those places are rip-offs.”
“And the trees in front of grocery stores are dry tinder waiting to shoot up in flames,” Jack said. “The only way to get a fresh tree is to chop one down yourself, and since we didn’t have time to go to a tree farm and our neighbor would hate us even more if we chopped her tree down, there were few options.” He leaned his head to the side. “Although I suspect we might have gotten away with it if we’d told her Jezebel was in the branches and refused to come down.”
Maisie laughed and the sound sank deep into his heart.
“Besides,” Iris said, “the lot was raising money for a veterans’ charity.”
“Fine,” Maisie said, rolling her eyes, but her grin let him know she was pleased. “Who am I to mock your gift? Especially when the profits go to a good cause.”
Jack attached the stand and unwrapped the tree, but before he stood it up, he said, “Now just remember, it’s only a few days before Christmas, so there wasn’t much of a selection.”
He lifted the tree, and the branches fell into place, revealing huge bare spots.
“You got me a Charlie Brown Christmas tree,” Maisie said as she broke into laughter.
“We tried our best,” Jack said, fighting his own laughter.
“Everything deserves to be loved,” Iris said. “Even scrawny Christmas trees.”
Jack heard the wistfulness in her voice, and his heart sank. Now he knew why she’d been so adamant it was the one.
Maisie pulled his sister into a sideways hug, keeping a hand on her shoulder. “Spoken like a fundraising chairperson.”
“You hate it?” Iris asked.
“No, just the opposite,” Maisie said with bright, shiny eyes. “I love it. It’s perfect.”
She’d already pulled multiple boxes of Christmas ornaments out of storage and stacked them on the sofa and coffee table. Iris pulled up some Christmas music on her phone, and the three of them began to string lights on the tree and fill it with ornaments. Some of them were handmade, and it was obvious a few had been made by the O’Shea girls when they were young. He felt another pang for Iris, who’d never done such a craft at home, but also for Maisie. For what she’d lost. Another ornament, which he hung, was a framed photo of the O’Shea family. Maisie stood in front with her sisters, their parents behind them. She looked a lot like her mother, but something about her father—the glimmer in his green eyes maybe, or the set of his jaw—reminded him of her too. He wished he could have known the people responsible, in part, for making Maisie the woman she was. He would have liked their approval.
When they finished, they stood back and studied their work.
“It’s the most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen,” Maisie said with tears in her eyes. Chaco yipped as if to say she agreed.
“I like it,” Iris said with a soft smile and tears of her own.
Jack pulled Iris into a hug and kissed her forehead, then turned to Maisie, mouthing thank you.
She nodded, her chin quivering, and everything in him ached to hold her and reassure her that it was okay to move forward and leave the past behind. That she wasn’t losing anything important, because the things that mattered couldn’t be stored in boxes. He dropped his hold on Iris and was about to follow through on his instinct, but Maisie headed into the kitchen. “I think we’ve earned those cookies.”
When he and Iris joined her in the kitchen, she was ladling hot chocolate into mugs and dumping mini marshmallows on top. She handed mugs to both of them, and they all sat at the table, choosing cookies from the plate.
Maisie bit into one and made a hum of pleasure in the back of her throat that had him squirming uncomfortably in his chair. “These are really good,” she said. “I’m gonna need the recipe. The edges of mine always turn brown before the center is cooked.”
“Your butter probably got too soft,” Iris said. “You need to refrigerate the dough before you cut the shapes.”
Maisie’s eyes widened. “How is it you know more about baking than I do?”
Iris snorted. “I watch YouTube videos.”
“Kids these days,” Maisie said, but she grinned from ear to ear.
“What else do you usually do for decorations?” Iris asked. “I saw some stockings in the box.”
Maisie’s smile fell. “Let’s not hang those. I think it’s time to make some new traditions.”
A mischievous look filled Iris’s eyes. “You could put out reindeer food.”
“Do I want to know what that is?” Maisie asked, sounding apprehensive.
“Don’t fall for it,” Jack said. “It’s made of oats and glitter. Iris brought some home from preschool and dumped it all over my car. She was so upset because she thought Santa wouldn’t bring her presents if she didn’t have any. I had to look up the recipe.”
“How old were you?” Maisie asked in wonder. “You must have been in high school.”
“Yeah,” he said, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “A senior.”
“He’s always been there for me,” Iris said, blessing him with a look full of love. Then she turned to Maisie. “He was more of a parent than our mom.”
Jack was shocked to hear his sister admit to his role in her life, not that he was surprised she felt that way. Iris was usually very tight-lipped about their mother with people she hadn’t known for very long. The fact she was opening up to Maisie was a miracle, but it only drove home that Iris considered Maisie to be her friend and thus off-limits to Jack.
What was he going to do about that?
They took their mugs into the living room, and Iris helped Maisie sort through the remaining decorations, deciding what to keep and what to pack back up. Jack could see it was hard for Maisie, but she soldiered on as though she was a woman on a mission to face her future. They ended up hanging garland on the fireplace, and to his surprise, Maisie pulled the five stockings from the box and set them aside, announcing everything else in the box could be thrown out.
Iris, who was fluffing a tattered wreath, looked up, her eyes rounding when she saw the size of the box of discards. But she kept right on working, and when she finished, she hung some leftover ornaments on the wreath and then had Jack hang it on the front door.
“Your house is officially festive,” Iris said.
Maisie released a contented sigh. “Maybe next year I’ll plan far enough ahead so I can put Christmas lights outside.”
Jack glanced up at her. “I’ll be right back.”
He hopped in the car while Iris and Maisie shouted after him. Ignoring them, he headed to the local twenty-four-hour Walmart. A half hour later he pulled into the driveway again, and both Maisie and Iris walked out to greet him. Chaco and Einstein trailed after them, and both dogs rushed him, Einstein going so far as to lick his hand again. Apparently, he’d finally broken through with the dog.
“Where did you go?” Maisie demanded, her hands propped on her hips.
Grinning, he held up the two Walmart bags. “Again, the pickings were slim, so this will have to do.”
Maisie herded the dogs back into the house, and he unpacked the boxes of netted lights and tossed them over the bushes in front of her house. He was relieved he’d remembered correctly that she had seven plants. Once the netted lights were in place, he linked them all together and connected them to the extension cord he’d bought. Iris and Maisie stood in the front yard while he crouched next to the outlet.
“This deserves a countdown,” Maisie said. “Five, four.”
Iris joined in.
“Three, two, one.”
Jack plugged in the cord and…nothing.
Maisie laughed. “Are you sure the lights work?”
He shot her a dark look, then laughed. After he checked the plugs, he realized one of them hadn’t been pushed in all the way. They had another countdown, shouting the last numbers, and when they got to one, Jack plugged in the last cord and the bushes burst into light.
He hurried toward Maisie and Iris, then turned to look at the bushes. While they were lit up in white lights, it looked like a half-assed effort compared to the bare two-story house.
“Well, it’s not the house from Christmas Vacation,” Maisie said in a teasing tone.
“I’ll do better next year,” he said, frowning as he studied the house. He knew she was stretching out of her comfort zone, and he really wanted to make it special.
“Jack,” Maisie said, her voice tight.
He glanced down at her.
“It’s better than I could have imagined.”
He smiled even though his heart ached to pull her into his arms. He was about to say Iris be damned, but then he saw his sister watching him with narrowed eyes, as though she was trying to look deep into his soul.
So instead he grasped Maisie’s hand and held on tight. It would have to do for now.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Einstein apparently had a thing for Jack now. The only other man he did anything but tolerate was River. Maisie couldn’t help but think it was a sign, even as her mind bemoaned the use of the word “sign” for anything other than a street directive. But she strived to, above all things, be honest with herself, and last night, standing outside with Iris and Jack in front of seven glowing bushes, her heart had felt full in a way she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
“They would have liked him,” she’d found herself saying to Mary and Molly this morning when she’d video-called them to show off the house.
“The important thing is you like him,” Molly had said. “And that he has arms that could sail a thousand ships.”
“I’m happy for you,” Mary added. There were tears in her eyes, or at least it had looked like it. “The house is beautiful. I wish we were there.”
And if that wasn’t a Christmas miracle, Maisie didn’t know what was.
“Remember,” Molly had said to her before signing off. “Take down all the details you can this weekend. Record people if at all possible. This epic cluster of a gathering needs to be preserved for posterity. Future anthropologists will study it.”
Maybe she was right. It certainly wasn’t going well so far. She’d met the Buchanan crew over at Beau’s old house so Adalia could drive them all to their destination—the Biltmore Estate—in Finn’s Range Rover. The brewery tour didn’t kick off until later in the afternoon, but the bachelorette party had begun early, so Finn had invited all of the guys, including Tyrion, over to his house to watch River’s favorite movie. It was unclear whether Prescott was coming as well, although for the well-being of both Jack and River, she hoped the answer was a solid no. River had called her earlier in the morning, his voice a little panicked, to talk about Prescott again. She’d reminded him of what she’d said before—Georgie loved him, Prescott was a bully, and he had nothing to worry about. Besides, she would be there for most of it.
“Talk to Jack,” she’d suggested to River.
“You two have more in common than you’d think.”
For a moment, she’d had a strange sliver of doubt. Hadn’t it occurred to her in the beginning that Jack was a little too like River for comfort? But the feeling faded quickly, replaced by an ironclad certainty. Sure, they had some things in common, but they were hardly the same person. Jack’s battles had been his own. Plus, he fit her in a way River never had—if River had seemed like the perfect match for her high school self, Jack was a better counterpart to the woman she’d become.
“Huh,” River had said. “I hadn’t realized you were such good friends.”
“We’ve become close,” she said, leaving it at that. Because it was the only way she knew how to describe what they were becoming to each other.
“Want to tell me about it?” he asked softly.
“Maybe later,” she said. “Let’s get through this first.”
Because it certainly felt like something to “get through.” The round of introductions had gone stiffly, with Victoria sniffing and saying something about being at a disadvantage since she had to remember so many names, when everyone else only had to remember one. Which was pretty amusing, really, given she’d met Dottie before—no one forgot Dottie—and she presumably knew what both of Lee’s sisters were called.
“What kind of bachelorette party starts at three in the afternoon?” Iris bemoaned. “It’s not like Georgie’s eighty.”
“No, that would be me,” Dottie said with a sparkle in her eyes. “And parties that start early can very well become parties that end late.”
“Let’s hope not,” Victoria said. Giving Dottie a speculative look, she added, “Maybe I’ll join you and Prescott for dinner. I’m sure he’d welcome a friendly face.”
“No, no. Adalia has planned a long evening of fun for you. I wouldn’t think to ruin it with such serious talk.”
Which only made Victoria look more desperate to know what the meeting was about. Not that the rest of them felt any differently.
At least the geriatric start time had ensured Dottie could be there for the bachelorette party. Her dinner with Prescott didn’t kick off until seven. Apparently, they were going to an Ethiopian restaurant downtown, a fact that suggested Dottie really did have some dirt on him. Because from what Maisie had heard about the man, he likely didn’t have an adventurous palate.
Getting Lucky (Asheville Brewing Book 3) Page 20