Carolina Christmas Kiss: A Vixens In Love Novella

by Bailey Peters

“You got it, sis. We’ll do it for mom.”

  Randy closed his laptop and put it on the ground before covering himself up with a blanket and turning toward the wall. Even strong and silent types got tired.

  “Maybe we give him the day off?” I said, motioning toward the couch.

  Amy and Jody nodded.

  I gave up on waiting for the power company to answer and burrowed down into my bedding, falling asleep to the rhythm of everyone else’s breathing as it became slow and steady, chests rising and falling in the dark.

  21

  By noon, Rice Family Barbeque was the most popular place in town. After Jessup put me through a quick and dirty version of the safety and sanitation training he gave his employees, he put me to work beside him in the kitchen. After a social media blast and a few texts, families were rolling in with everything from bratwurst to hocks of ham. Jessup manned the ovens and the fryer while I took charge of anything that could be pan-cooked or heated on the griddle.

  We stole smiles from one another while we bustled back and forth, trying to manage multiple projects at once without burning anything. Every other minute, I felt like I was calling out, “Right behind you!” or he was warning me, “To your right!” It was sweaty and hectic, but the morning flew by before I realized any time had passed at all.

  “Is it always like this?” I asked.

  “We’d be rich if it was. Today I feel more like I’m on a Food Network cooking special than I do like I’m working at the family’s restaurant.”

  When the local Baptist minister came in, he seemed almost apologetic. “Since Christmas Eve is tomorrow, I had a whole turkey that was dethawing in my refrigerator. I don’t want to take advantage and ask you to cook it up for me, but if you do, I’m happy to share it with anyone in the area that needs a meal.”

  Jessup responded without hesitation. “You got it. You’re the first to come in with a turkey, but probably not the last. I’ll do one at a time. If there’s not room for everyone’s in the ovens by the time we close shop for the day, I can store them in the walk-in cooler.”

  In the living room, Amy chatted with guests and kept notes about what belonged to who. She also played DJ, pulling up everyone’s favorite Christmas classics to play on the speakers while people waited for their food. Jessup didn’t want her in the kitchen around the popping grease and abundance of hot surfaces.

  At the first lull in traffic, Randy joined us in the kitchen.

  “I was able to drive here. The sun is bright enough and the temperature just high enough that the snow and ice are turning to slush. I figured I’d lend a hand here for a while so you two could have a break and then run a quick Christmas errand in Henderson before it gets dark and everything freezes over again.”

  Randy dug a meat thermometer out of one of the drawers and slid on an oven mitt. In no time, he was poking and prodding the meats to assess what was done and what wasn’t.

  Jessup and I washed and dried our hands together at the industrial sink. When we were done, he led me into the cooler.

  “What’s your pleasure? Pasta salad? Regular salad? I could cook you up some barbeque?”

  “A bowl of pasta salad, please. As good as all that meat smells, I think I should probably carb up if I’m going to keep up this morning’s momentum.”

  “Good call.”

  While Jessup pondered his options, my phone rang. I dug it out of my pocket. It was Andrew’s mother’s cell phone number.

  “Need to take that?” Jessup asked.

  I rejected the call and shook my head.

  Seconds later, it was ringing again. A sense of dread crept through me. She wouldn’t call at all, and certainly not twice, if something wasn’t wrong. My first thought was that something had happened to Grandma Faircloth for real this time.

  “What’s wrong?” I answered, skipping past the small talk.

  “I need your help.” The words came out in between barely controlled sobs. “Andrew is in the hospital and with all the snow on the road, it’s going to be a while until his father and I can get to him. Since you’re closer, we thought maybe—”

  “Mrs. Faircloth, I’m not in Wilmington. I’m in Norlina.”

  “That’s why I’m calling, dear. He saw on Facebook that you were stuck in Warren County. I tried to stop him, but he insisted on going to get you so he could bring you back home in time for Christmas. He was about thirty minutes away from Norlina when he lost control of his vehicle.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned against one of the shelves in the cooler.

  “I had no idea. What hospital is he in?”

  “The one in Henderson. I hate to ask you to put yourself in danger to get to him, but I don’t want my boy to be alone when he wakes up.”

  “What do you mean, when he wakes up?”

  “When they found him, he was unconscious. The only reason they called me at all was because they found his cell phone at the crash site.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to keep control of my voice and my emotions. “My tires are bald. If I tried to drive, you’d be visiting two of us in the hospital.”

  Jessup searched my face for a moment before taking the phone out of my hand. It seemed that he’d heard both sides of the conversation. “I’m here with Jody in Norlina. My brother is headed to Henderson this afternoon. He’ll take her.”

  Jessup pushed the door to the cooler open and pulled me back into the kitchen where he wrapped me in another of the full body embraces I’d come to cherish, this time smoothing my hair down over and over with his hand. I was shaking, but it wasn’t from the cold of the cooler. It was from shock and guilt.

  “I didn’t even post anything about being here,” I said, raking my hands through my hair. “I don’t know how he could have known where I was to pull something stupid like this.”

  Jessup pulled his phone from his pocket and navigated to my Facebook profile. Once the page was pulled up, he handed it to me.

  Shania had tagged me in a post from the night before. In the picture, she and the other Vixens were wearing matching hot pink pajamas and posing together in front of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree at the Sugar Shack. Having a great night with my gals but it isn’t the same with Jody snowed in half a state away in Norlina! Hoping either Santa or teleportation will help her surprise us by showing up at my front door!

  “Social media strikes again,” I muttered.

  Jessup had me plunk down at an empty table and brought me a sampler with a bit of everything that could be quickly warmed up from the cooler. I picked at the food and ate as much as I could stomach given my sudden loss of appetite. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

  Ten minutes later, Jessup was back with my coat and mittens. “Randy’s agreed to take you to the hospital. Do you want him to pick you up after he finishes his errand, or do you want to spend the night there?”

  Answering him required me to make a decision, which didn’t seem like something I was prepared to do. “Can I play it by ear?”

  “Of course. Let’s get you bundled up,” he said. I stood, feeling a little like a puppet being pulled by strings, and let him help me with me with my coat.

  I was on autopilot as I trudged behind Randy through the parking lot and hoisted myself up into his monster truck. When Randy put it into gear and pulled away, I threw a glance back at the restaurant. Jessup and Amy waved at me from where they stood inside the front door. I lifted a hand but found that my attempt at a smile came out more like a grimace.

  “I have all-season tires, but we’re going to have to take it slow and steady to get there in one piece.”

  “Thanks for the lift. I hate having to ask you to do this.”

  “You didn’t. Jessup did. Anyway, I was headed in that direction regardless.”

  I nodded and leaned my head against the cool pane of the passenger-side window.

  After a prolonged period of silence, Randy turned on the radio. Tricia Yearwood sang “The Christmas Song” while he fiddled with the toothpick ha
nging out of his mouth. Apparently, he was trying to give up cigarettes before he deployed and having something else in his mouth where a cigarette would usually be helped to calm his nerves.

  I wished I had something to calm mine.

  “What’s your errand in Henderson?”

  Randy cut his eyes away from the road and gave me a look that told me to mind my own business. When he didn’t answer me, I couldn’t help but ask the follow up question I knew that I shouldn’t.

  “Why don’t you like me?”

  Randy took the ramp onto the highway but didn’t accelerate his speed. The only other folks in sight were truckers, likely struggling through the black ice and poor road conditions to make their holiday deadlines.

  “If you want to know, I’m going to go drop off a Christmas gift. My ex lives in the city.”

  I felt compelled to visit Andrew in his time of need, no question, but I couldn’t imagine giving him a gift. That felt like it would undo all the boundaries I’d carefully constructed. Being civil but not encouraging was a difficult balancing act.

  “Is it a nice gift, or does me riding along with you make me an accomplice to some kind of crime of passion?”

  Randy sighed. “A nice gift. Caitlin and I had been together for a little over a year when mom died. Things felt like they were getting serious, so I’d started looking at engagement rings. When I took over the barbeque place and Amy’s care, it got harder and harder to make time for her. In the beginning, she said she understood. When she realized after a few months that managing alone time wasn’t going to get any easier, she cut me loose. She was used to weekend getaways and being showered with attention. I couldn’t blame her for being disappointed when she stopped being my first priority.”

  Not knowing how to respond to a moment of vulnerability from a man like Randy, I just made a sympathetic sound.

  “The gift is a necklace I got her for her birthday right before she called to break up with me. Couldn’t bring myself to return the damn thing. I guess I thought this would be one last chance to let her know I’m still thinking about her before it’s time for me to leave.”

  Without taking his eyes off the road, he popped the top of his center console, reached in, and grabbed a rectangular gift box. Then he handed it to me. When I opened the lid, I found a delicate silver chain that held a small sapphire heart. It was beautiful. I studied Randy’s profile and tried to imagine him picking out something so fragile and feminine but could not.

  “I hope everything goes the way you’re hoping it will.” After carefully running my finger over the chain, and taking a closer look at the gemstone, I slid the cover back on the box and put it back where it came from.

  He shook his head. “At this point, life has taught me not to expect much of anything. If I’ve been a jerk, it’s just because I’m afraid what happened to me is going to happen to Jessup. I figured that if I scared you away early on, he wouldn’t go and get attached.”

  “Your brother is tough. He can handle himself.”

  Randy let out a dark laugh. “Yeah. That’s what I would have said about myself a while back. Then I let a sweet little kindergarten teacher rip my heart out with her bare hands.”

  “I have no intention of hurting Jessup.”

  “Then why am I driving you to visit your ex-boyfriend when you could be spending the day with my brother?” There was something wicked in the smile he gave me, a gotcha lighting up behind his eyes.

  I sank as far down in my seat as the seat belt would allow. “If you heard the way his mother was crying, begging for me to be there when he woke up, you’d be there, too.”

  When Randy didn’t respond and looked no less smug, I decided to speak a language he’d understand. “He was in a car accident. Something I think you’d be sympathetic to.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, voice gruff.

  From there out, we rode in silence.

  22

  Randy dropped me off at the entrance. Everyone’s skin seemed to be a sickly yellow under the buzzing yellow of the fluorescent lights. Hospitals always made me uneasy and itchy, like I was trapped in a horror movie where the second I walked through the door something insidious would be waiting on the other side to crawl and slither all over me. I shuddered involuntarily and told myself to get a grip.

  I felt a bit better when I was greeted by a friendly woman about my age at the reception desk.

  “I’m here to see Andrew Faircloth. I’m not family, but his parents won’t be able to get here for a while and they’ve added me to the list. I’m Jody Daniels.”

  She nodded, typing something into the computer. “He’s in ICU. Honey, you’re going to want to take the elevator from the lobby to the fourth floor. When you get there, hang a right. Room 412 is right around the corner.”

  She yanked a tear sheet map from a pad of them and drew a big red circle around Andrew’s room number. I couldn’t tell if it was a procedure she had to follow for everyone or if I just looked particularly helpless. I certainly felt it.

  I grabbed the map and thanked her, only stopping along the way to text Andrew’s mother and let her know that I was there. She made me promise to keep her abreast of any changes in his condition.

  I paused inside his doorway. A tattooed nurse with gauged ears and a buzz cut was bent over him, talking in a soothing voice while she took his vitals and updated his chart. She looked a little like the angel of death wearing a pair of light blue scrubs but had a small, heavenly voice I wouldn’t have expected. I couldn’t think of a single time I’d met someone in a helping profession that happened to be gothic.

  She smiled warmly when noticed me. “Are you the girlfriend? I was told you’d be coming.”

  It didn’t seem like an appropriate time to correct her. “Has he woken up yet?”

  “Signs point to a lot of mental activity, but he hasn’t stirred physically. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did sometime later today or this afternoon.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “We generally encourage loved ones to interact with the patients. Hold his hand. Talk to him. Tell him a funny story. This guy looks like he has a sense of humor.”

  I felt like that was her polite way of saying he looked like Shaggy from Scooby Doo based on the unkempt hair and slacker outfit, but I didn’t say so. I just did my best to return her smile and nodded.

  When she left, pulling the door behind her, I sat down on the chair next to him and scooted it close enough that I could hold easily hold his hand. I was only following instructions.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d held his hand in the hospital.

  “Remember when we were in middle school and you got that skateboard that had pictures of flames covering the deck? You thought you were hot shit. We found the biggest hill in the neighborhood and you told the other kids you could fly down it, no problem. When you turned back at the bottom of the hill to give us the thumbs up because you’d made it to the end, you went over a grate in the parking lot. When the front wheel got caught in it, it sent you flying face first into the curb. You were a bloody mess. When our friend and I carried you to your front door, your mother screamed like we’d brought her a zombie. She thought you were broken beyond repair then and she was wrong. After a quick trip to the hospital and some stitching up, you were fine. You’ve got to prove her wrong again,” I said, pushing a stray lock of hair out of Andrew’s face.

  I wasn’t sure what else to say, so I played the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on my phone. “You’ve always been a nerd. I want you to think of this as a battle. You’re there, in your head, fighting off the darkness. The battle is epic. You can have whatever weapon you want— maybe one of those broadswords you spent hours sketching as a kid. Maybe it’s it even inscribed with some kind of magical incantation. The harder you fight, the easier it is for you to wake up.”

  The mental exhaustion and frustration I’d been fighting back since getting his mother’s call crashed through me. With Randy gone, there was
no one watching that I needed to convince that everything was okay.

  I was fighting my own battle.

  “It’s probably not fair for me to say this when I know you can’t answer me, but I’m going to say it anyway. If you don’t wake up soon, I’m going to be angry at you. So angry. I told you not to pursue me. I told you that you couldn’t win me back. You watch all these movies that have taught you that with the right amount of heroics, the guy can get the girl. What’s wrong can be right again. That might work in fantasy, but it doesn’t work in our world.

  “In our world, you broke my heart. I tried to move on. You came back before I was ready to see you again. Without expecting it, I met someone else. I was on my way to considering a happily ever after that looked very different than the one I thought I’d experience with you. I was having a good day, safe and in a place where I wasn’t in need of saving, and you decided to come after me unprompted, knowing it could result in something like this,” I cried, truly looking for the first time at all the wires and contraptions he was tethered to.

  “You can’t win my heart back, but you can break it again. You can break it by not waking up. I need you to give me a sign to show you understand.”

  I wasn’t sure, but I thought I felt a slight pressure from his hand against mine. In my compromised state, I couldn’t tell if it was the sign I’d demanded or simple wishful thinking. Either way, it was enough to make me text Jessup. If it’s alright by you, I think I’ll stay here at the hospital tonight. The nurse said she thinks there’s a good chance Andrew might wake up. I’ll find a way to get back to you tomorrow.

  I moved to the recliner in the room and extended it back. If I was going to be worth a damn, I needed a moment of rest.

  23

  Back at the house, Randy watched Lethal Weapon while I decorated a gingerbread house with Amy. We split a carton of eggnog and passed it around the room like heathens, not bothering with cups. There was a second carton we’d open and spike with Southern Comfort once Amy was asleep. The power was back on and the Christmas tree was sparkling with icicle lights and tinsel, but I was feeling anything but festive.