Christmas In The Country

by Muriel Jensen

  He allowed himself a sigh. He’d imagined a low, rambling farmhouse rather than the formality of this three-story structure.

  Whittier beamed. “Imagine how that’s going to look to the camera as it sweeps slowly up the drive. History and country hospitality all warmly wrapped in one pretty package. That’s our Liza.”

  Jeff smiled to himself. Her appeal for him had been far more basic than that, but now that he knew she was married, he would have to concentrate on her skill as the doyenne of country life rather than on those beautifully formed red lips that he could see every time he closed his eyes.

  “We’re a couple of hours early,” Whittier said, frowning as the limo drew closer to the house. “When we got out of that interview so much earlier than I expected, it seemed logical to take the earlier flight. I hope they’re home. Well, no matter. There are worse places to wait than in a warm limo with sherry and a television set.”

  Jeff saw that there were no lights on in the house, at least on this side of it, and the sky threatened snow, making it dark for early afternoon.

  Jeff hoped for a blizzard. So often during his long, hot siege in Beirut he’d dreamed of snow falling on his face, into his mouth, down his collar.

  The limo driver pulled up in front of what appeared to be a coach house that had probably been turned into a garage. Whittier climbed out and went up to the door.

  Jeff got out also, slightly claustrophobic after the long drive with the effusive Whittier. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate enthusiasm in someone, just that his mind was still so cluttered with all the fuss of his homecoming that he longed for a moment alone.

  He walked around the back of the house, where a good half acre of wintry lawn stretched toward more stone wall. A ladder was propped up against an oak tree, and a small man in a big, grubby coat and a stocking cap was cutting something from it. He went to the ladder and tugged on the hem of the coat. “Pardon me,” he said. “I’m looking for…”

  That was as far as he got. It occurred to him later that he should have known better than to startle someone atop a ladder, but he’d thought the man was old, judging by the age and condition of the coat, and that he probably wouldn’t move very fast.

  But he’d been wrong on all counts.

  There’d been a sudden graceful but overbalanced turn, the bounce of a basket off his shoulder as the pruner lost control of it and dropped it, a little scream of alarm, then the coat and what it contained toppled backward into his arms.

  Jeff knew instantly that it was not a man. And it was not old.

  His tight grasp on the body left him with one hand fastened on a round breast, and the other arm wrapped around the soft curve of a female derriere. Shocked brown eyes he recognized instantly looked up at him as Liza De Lane’s hands clung to his shoulders for support.

  For an instant he forgot all the promises he’d made to himself and was tempted to react with a style and stoutheartedness befitting the setting. He had no horse to fling her onto, but he could put her into the limo and drive off with her. And he got the strangest impression, from the softening in her eyes as she seemed to recognize him, that she wouldn’t mind.

  “Jeff? What are you doing? Who is that?” Whittier’s voice came from somewhere behind him.

  Liza looked over his shoulder at her publisher and began to struggle.

  With a grim sense of acceptance, Jeff set her on her feet. She was smaller than he had thought, or maybe it was just the length of the ratty old coat that seemed to shrink her from the lively woman he’d seen on television.

  “Well.” Whittier looked from one to the other with satisfaction. “That’s one way to eliminate small talk. Liza, I’d like you to meet Jeffrey James. Jeff, this is your hostess, Liza De Lane.”

  She pulled off a thick canvas glove and offered him a small, slender hand. “Mr. James,” she said, the formal voice at odds with the look he’d seen in her eyes a moment ago. “You never stop being a hero, do you?”

  He brought her knuckles to his lips. “I had a Southern mother and a military father,” he replied. “I never had a chance. Please call me Jeff.”

  Several people suddenly burst from the back door of the house, a tall man in cords and a flannel shirt in the lead.

  “Liza!” he said, coming to a stop in front of her, his eyes dark with concern, his hands molding her shoulders, tracing down her arms. He seemed surprised to find her sound. “Davey said you fell off the ladder.”

  “I did.” She smiled and indicated Jeff with her bare hand. “But Jeffrey James caught me. Jeff, this is my husband, Bill McBride. Bill, these are our guests, Jeff James, our hero, and Ben Whittier, my boss. Mr. Whittier, my husband, Bill. Boys?”

  Two young towheads came forward. He guessed them to be close to the same age, nine and ten, maybe. They bore a strong resemblance to her.

  “Jeff, Mr. Whittier, these are our boys, Davey—” she tapped the head of the younger one “—and Travis.”

  Travis shook Jeff’s hand, then Davey followed his example.

  “Did you have a gun when you escaped?” Travis asked him, wide-eyed.

  “No,” he replied. “No gun.”

  “A knife?”

  “No.”

  “Nunchakus?”

  Jeff couldn’t resist a laugh, but ruffled the boy’s hair so he wouldn’t think he was laughing at him. “I don’t think anybody really owns nunchakus outside of Chuck Norris movies. No. All I had was a real desire to get out of there.”

  “Trav.” Liza De Lane pulled the boy into her arm. “Jeff’s probably done all the talking he wants to do on that subject to reporters. He’s come here to rest and relax.”

  Travis grinned at him. “So maybe we can talk about it later?”

  Jeff nodded. “Sure.”

  Liza waved a dark, plump, white-aproned woman forward. “This is Dora, our housekeeper.”

  He offered his hand. “Hello, Dora.”

  “And this is my sister, Sherrie Blake, who’ll be helping me get the food together for the show.” Liza gestured a young woman toward her. Sherrie resembled Liza, but her manner seemed quieter, more reserved. In her arms was a baby girl who smiled at him, then hid her face in the woman’s shoulder. “And the coy one is Elizabeth. Betsy, actually.”

  “Hi, Betsy.” Jeff gently poked the baby’s back.

  She turned to him and studied him with grave blue eyes.

  He held his hands out to her. She studied him uncertainly another moment, then reached for him.

  “Well,” Sherrie said in surprise.

  Jeff settled the baby comfortably against him. “I’m pretty good with babies,” he boasted. “I have friends in Beirut who have three little girls. Before I was taken, I saw them a lot.”

  “You have no family missing you for Christmas?”

  He shook his head, adjusted to the fact. “Not a soul. Thank you for inviting me.”

  Ben Whittier rubbed his hands together. “Can we get this man inside and pour something warm down him? And possibly down me, too?”

  “Of course. I’m sorry.” Liza took the baby from Jeff and quickly handed her to the older boy, then hooked an arm in Whittier’s and one in Jeff’s and followed her family and the housekeeper toward the back door of the house. “I have mulled apple cider,” she said. “And a gingerbread just ready to come out of the oven.”

  Bill McBride headed for the limo. “I’ll get your bags. And I’ll bet your driver could use a glass of something hot.”

  Whittier looked startled. “The driver? Oh, yeah. Sure.”

  Jeff followed Liza into the warm, fragrant room and experienced the feeling he’d been waiting for since he’d stepped off an air force plane onto American soil almost a week ago. He was home.

  Not that he’d ever known a home like this one. His parents had been very middle class, always struggling to make ends meet. But they’d been happy, and the kitchen had always smelled of something good.

  He’d lost them both when he was in college, but he’d been so
busy working at night to stay in school that he hadn’t had time to concentrate on his grief or his loneliness.

  But other people’s homes always reminded him of what he was missing. He’d felt it every time he walked into his friend Abdul’s house—the warmth, the energy, the healing serenity that love brought, even under the chaos of a dozen voices talking at once.

  This kitchen was huge and smelled of something spicy—the gingerbread, he guessed. A fire danced in a large fireplace, and the flick of a switch brought light to burnish copper pieces of cookware, the chrome on an old stove, a glass vase filled with roses and…radishes?

  He didn’t know why, but that made him smile.

  The housekeeper went to the oven and pulled the door open, filling the room with an even stronger, more tantalizing aroma.

  Sherrie pulled out a chair for him, handed his jacket to the younger boy, then went to the counter where Liza was taking dishes out of a cupboard.

  A slightly startled liveried limo driver walked into the kitchen, sweeping off his hat to reveal a shiny bald head. Liza’s husband followed him in with a suitcase in each hand and one tucked under his arm.

  Liza turned away from the counter, drew the driver to a chair opposite Jeff and pushed on his shoulder until he sat.

  Jeff and the driver had gotten acquainted while Whittier had stopped in at the Wonder Woman office on their way out of town. He knew the man had two sons at Boston College, and that he’d catered to the traveling whims of the rich and famous his entire life to get them there. His name was Hartman.

  “I don’t usually get invited in,” Hartman said to Jeff under his breath. “I feel like a bull in a china shop.”

  Liza, bringing a tray with steaming mugs on it to the table, overheard him. She put one mug in front of him, one before Mr. Whittier and one in front of Jeff. “No china here, Mr…?”

  “Hartman.”

  “Mr. Hartman. These are pottery, so no need to worry. Gingerbread?”

  “Please.”

  “Whipped cream?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Mr. Whittier?”

  “Yes, please, Liza.”

  “Jeff?”

  Jeff looked up into her eyes and felt the atmosphere around him change. Everything faded from view but her, and it felt as though they were in a vacuum together, breathing each other’s air.

  She’d shed the big coat and cap and looked like a Christmas flower in a roll-necked red sweater and pants. Her hair was loose and full like strands of sunshine, almost straight but curling under at the ends just above her shoulders.

  Her eyes were the color of the spicy cider, and her smile made up for ten long weeks of near despair.

  He let himself absorb the warmth of her until he saw the sudden shift of discomfort in her eyes and realized what he was doing. Though he’d been through hell and a half, she was not a bonus he was entitled to because he’d survived. She was married to another man—and a nice guy, by all indications. He had to remember that.

  “Gingerbread, please,” he said, forcibly pulling himself back from their little bubble of isolation. “But no whipped cream.”

  “Right.” She turned away, a little frown between her eyebrows.

  God. She’d invited him to be her guest, and here he was staring at her and probably making her wonder what kind of lunatic she’d brought into her home.

  With a minimum of fuss everyone was served, including Bill, who’d returned, and the boys, who eyed the rich dark cake greedily.

  While they ate, Whittier talked about the format for the show scheduled to be aired live Christmas Eve. “The crew will arrive in the morning to set up,” he said, “and we’ll go on the air at eight. We’ll introduce your family, then Jeff, then we’ll give a brief tour of your home. After that we’ll show some film we’ll tape that morning of the grounds and the countryside, then we’ll do a brief interview with Jeff, devoting the second half hour entirely to your Christmas dinner.”

  Liza smiled—a little thinly, Jeff thought. She was bouncing the now-fussing baby on her knee. “Sounds good,” she said. “You ready for this, too, Sherrie?”

  “Absolutely,” Sherrie replied.

  The baby stretched her pudgy little hands toward Liza’s hot cider, then screamed when Liza moved the cup out of her reach.

  Liza spooned up a little bit of whipped cream to put to Betsy’s mouth, but the baby pushed it away, her little voice picking up volume.

  Liza, looking harassed, turned to her sister, who seemed to be watching her struggles with the baby with interest.

  Bill walked around the table and reached down for the baby. “Here, Liza. Let me have her so you can talk. I think it’s naptime.”

  Liza handed Betsy up to him. “Thank you, darling,” she said.

  When Bill disappeared, Whittier looked around the warm, cozy room and sighed gustily. “Doesn’t it do your heart good to be here?” he asked. “America’s just going to soak this up. In this time of shaky values, the disintegration of the family, and Christmas so commercialized that ornaments hit the shelf in September, I bet we’ll get a major share of the Christmas Eve audience.”

  It occurred to Jeff that Whittier was making every bit as commercial a venture of this Christmas as all the merchants he scorned, but it didn’t seem politic to point it out.

  Whittier looked across the table to Hartman. “We’ll need you to pick us up about nine-thirty Christmas Eve to take us back to New York. Your agency said that’d be all right.”

  Hartman looked startled for a moment, then nodded. “Of course, Mr. Whittier.”

  “Wait.” Jeff interceded on the driver’s behalf. “He’ll want to be with his family on Christmas Eve, Mr. Whittier.”

  Whittier raised an eyebrow. “So will I.”

  “Then maybe the agency can send someone else. Hartman’s boys are coming home for Christmas for the first time in three years.”

  Whittier blinked at him, as though surprised he knew that. “I like Hartman. He drives me safely, but he gets me everywhere on time.”

  “I imagine Hartman’s family likes him, too, and would want to be with him on Christmas Eve.”

  Whittier looked at Jeff as though he was beginning to wish him back in Lebanon.

  “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll call this afternoon.”

  Jeff intercepted Hartman’s grateful grin from across the table.

  LIZA LED HER GUESTS on a quick tour of the house while Sherrie and Dora cleared away. Upstairs, she ushered her employer into a room Sherrie had decorated with her collection of quilts.

  “Are these the quilts?” Whittier asked. “Edie told me that your column on making and collecting quilts got an enormous response.”

  “Yes, these are the ones I wrote about.” Liza smiled as Whittier walked into the room and ran a hand over a colorful Ohio Star that Sherrie had draped over the footboard. It was nice to know, she thought, that that at least was the truth.

  Liza pointed to the small door off his room. “That closet’s been turned into a bathroom. It isn’t very large, but if you don’t mind having to shower rather than bathe, it has everything you need.”

  Whittier looked around with a satisfied nod. “Great,” he said. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll freshen up, make a few phone calls, maybe rest an hour or so. Then Jeff and I can talk about what to discuss in his interview.”

  Liza turned to Jeff.

  “Works for me,” he said. He went back into the hall where Bill had left their bags lined up against the wall and, picking up the two largest ones, deposited them inside Whittier’s door. “There you go. See you in a couple of hours.”

  “Thank you, Jeff.” And Whittier closed the door on them.

  Liza led Jeff to the next room, which had been decorated in light blue and white. Sherrie had added a red-and-white checked bedspread and a few primitive wooden art touches—a tall colonial soldier in a corner, a small military drum on the dresser and a pine wreath stuck with little American flags on the old
oak armoire door.

  Again she pointed to what had once been a closet. “Same bathroom setup as Mr. Whittier’s. Towels and soap under the sink.”

  Liza watched him walk around the foot of the bed, put down a small brown bag and go to the window. She stayed in the doorway, but let herself study the back of him as he looked out onto the wintry landscape.

  He wore black slacks and a simple black roundneck sweater that she guessed were brand-new. Of course, she thought. Escaping from captivity usually didn’t allow for packing. For that matter, neither did being taken into captivity. She remembered hearing on the news that a French men’s clothing manufacturer had given him a wardrobe in gratitude for his rescue of their countryman. She looked at the small brown bag and wondered where the rest of it was.

  His shoulders were broad under the sweater, his waist slender, his hips lean, but muscled and taut under the stylish cut of the slacks.

  His rich brown hair had been cut since she’d seen him on television, and he was now clean-shaven.

  “This is so much more beautiful than sand,” he said, then turned away from the window to smile at her. “It must be wonderful to live here.”

  His clear blue eyes met hers and for an instant she couldn’t respond. She was going to have to lie, and that was a rotten thing to do to a man who’d just escaped hostile hands, saved the life of a priest, and who’d prevented her from breaking her neck when she fell off the ladder.

  But she had to answer. You do live here sometimes, she rationalized. When you visit Sherrie and the boys, you’re not dead, are you? No. You’re living here.

  Okay. It was a little thin, but still true.

  “I do love it here,” she agreed, evading his gaze by taking a few steps into the room and straightening the drum on the dresser.

  When she looked up at him again, he was watching her, his eyes quiet but apparently interested in the nervous movement of her fingers atop the dresser. Pretending there was a purpose to her fiddling, she opened several drawers to show him they were empty.